Revealed: Europe’s top up-and-coming start-ups

Social ideas dominate a list of Europe’s top 10 up-and-coming start-ups, including a “social sound platform” and an app to help users find like-minded people while out and about.

 

The list was written by Joel Brown, founder of US-based website Addicted2Success. According to Brown, these start-ups “will be the driving force supporting the region’s financial upturn”.

 

Here’s a look at the top five:

 

1. SoundCloud – Berlin, Germany

 

SoundCloud, founded in 2007 by Alex Ljung, describes itself as the world’s leading social sound platform, where anyone can create sounds and share them everywhere.

 

Recording and uploading sounds to SoundCloud lets people easily share them privately with their friends or publicly to blogs, sites and social networks.

 

SoundCloud can be accessed anywhere using the official iPhone and Android apps, as well as hundreds of creation and sharing apps built on the SoundCloud platform. 

 

2. Tradeshift – Copenhagen, Denmark

 

Tradeshift, a platform for business interactions, was founded in 2009 by Christian Lanng, Mikkel Hippe Brun and Gert Sylvest.

 

It helps smaller companies run more efficiently by “harnessing the power of their network” to create new value from old processes.

 

With offices in Copenhagen, San Francisco and London, Tradeshift is currently used by more than 150,000 businesses in 190 countries.

 

3. iZettle – Stockholm, Sweden

 

iZettle, a social payments company, was founded in 2010 by serial entrepreneurs Jacob de Geer and Magnus Nilsson.

 

It creates services for person-to-person and business-to-consumer commerce. The first service includes an app and a mini chip card reader that lets users take secure card payments anywhere, anytime.

 

The service is now available to individuals and small businesses across Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Germany and the United Kingdom.

 

4. LikeOurselves – London, UK

 

LikeOurselves, founded by Pardeep Kullar and Steve Lai, invites people to be part of a London-based network using “double opt-in”.

“Choose a group you’d like to grow a network in and add yourself anywhere on the map… Next to each person in every place is the unique double opt-in ‘hi’ button,” the company says on its website.

 

“When you click ‘hi’ on someone, they are notified… They see nothing unless they also click ‘hi’ to you. It means you can click ‘hi’ to anyone without hesitation.”

 

5. HouseTrip – Lisbon, Portugal

 

HouseTrip was founded in 2009 by Arnaud Bertrand and Junjun Chen, who met while studying hospitality management at the Ecole Hôtelière de Lausanne in Switzerland.

 

The HouseTrip concept was born as a result of a mutual love of staying in holiday rentals while travelling. Arnaud and Junjun built their website and launched it in January 2010.

 

Thousands of owners added their rentals during that year, and close to 20,000 guests stayed in these properties, writing reviews that were positive in more than 90% of cases.