Fourteen years ago, Amazon announced S3, an early service offered by Amazon’s new cloud business, AWS. It directly targeted developers. Companies targeting developers and their infrastructure have become some of the most valuable in the world as exemplified by the APX wave amongst others.

Today, I am happy to announce that we have led the Series A in Vercel. We believe Vercel can do for the 11 million frontend developers what AWS accomplished for backend developers.

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For developers today, the frontend is more important than ever. Customers expect rich, lightning-fast applications on the web as they’ve come to expect from mobile apps. But frontend app frameworks and infrastructure to provide that experience have lagged. Vercel is dedicated to providing that tooling for frontend devs.

There are only so many opportunities to back a dominant platform framework. Vercel is built on the success of its open source framework Next.js, used by more than 300,000 developers today. Next.js already helps power the frontend experience at some of the most highly-trafficked websites in the world: AT&T, British Airways, GitHub, Hilton, Hulu, National Geographic, Nike, Red Bull, Ticketmaster, Twitch, Uber, Zillow, and more.

The Vercel team has a decade-long track record of creating amazing things that make developers more productive including MooTools and Socket.io. With Vercel, they are building a beautiful and seamless way to create rich frontend applications. They are driving a big shift in the industry and the ultimate winners, besides developers, will be end users and content creators.

-- Dan Levine

Europe and Israel’s startup founder factories

Former employees of European and Israeli unicorns are founding the next wave of startups as the region’s flywheel of talent continues to spin. Join us as we explore trends from the emergent companies, and examine the journey from unicorn employee to tech founder. Download the report below.

Download the latest founder factories report

At a glance

1,451

The number of tech-enabled startups founded by former employees of 248 European and Israeli unicorns

59%

The percentage of these new startups that have already gone on to secure private funding

55%

More than half of companies built by former employees were founded in the same city as the unicorn, resulting in thriving tech hubs developing in cities where unicorns have been created

Insights

“

The European and Israeli tech ecosystem continues to be a powerhouse of innovation and ambition. Despite a difficult macroeconomic climate, we're seeing a surge in entrepreneurial talent, particularly in sectors such as fintech and AI. Our data shows a striking trend: nearly 1,500 startups sprouted from the roots of European and Israeli unicorn companies, once again demonstrating that they continue to be thriving founder factories. This region is not just launching startups; it's creating seasoned founders equipped with deep industry insights and, in the current environment, the experience to build enduring and resilient businesses that can achieve sustainable growth.”

Harry Nelis, Partner at Accel

2023 Key takeaways

While Spotify, Delivery Hero, Zalando and Criteo continue to top the list, producing 151 tech-enabled startups between them, a new wave of founder factories is on the rise
Fintech unicorns dominate the top 10 as Revolut, Klarna, N26 and Wise rank fifth, sixth, seventh and ninth respectively
35% of tech startups to spring out of fintech unicorns were also in fintech

Click here to read more takeaways and insights from the 2023 report

Our Series A in Vorlon: Detect and Remediate API Security Threats

Our investment in Sprinto: Turning Compliance into a Driver of Growth for Businesses

Our Seed Investment in Val Town: Making Programming Accessible, Collaborative, and Fun

At a glance

1,451

59%

55%