E-commerce and retail startup ecosystem size in Europe 2021-2022, by country

The United Kingdom harbored Europe's largest e-commerce and retail startup ecosystem in December 2022, as over 700 such startups were registered there. France ranked second, with 270 e-commerce and retail startup companies, overtaking neighboring Germany, where less than 250 such firms were based. Just a year before, Germany was home to the continent's second-largest e-commerce and retail startup ecosystem.

Startup funding in Germany

In Germany, e-commerce ranked only sixth on the list of industries with the most financial investments in startups in 2022, behind sectors such as health, energy, and software and analytics. Nonetheless, as of May 2022, the country was home to four of the leading business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce startups in all of Europe in terms of total funding.

European unicorns

Private tech companies valued at one billion U.S. dollars or more are commonly known as unicorns. In April 2021, the e-commerce industry accounted for over seven percent of all unicorns in Europe. Analyzed together, the market valuation of all e-commerce companies granted ‘unicorn’ status in the continent was just over six billion dollars.