Moving the industry forward: the role of technology innovators
« Necessity is the mother of invention« and going on the findings of our sixth Tyto Tech 500, there is a genuine need for technology to help people and businesses cope with the challenges of today. Entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, both of which play key roles in creating companies and bringing new ideas to life, feature in much larger numbers in our pan-European Tyto Tech 500 this year, the ranking of the 500 most influential individuals in tech across Europe’s three biggest economies: United Kingdom, Germany, and France.
Innovating the way out of a downturn
The challenges of the last couple of years have seen the importance of technology come to light. The pandemic, which forced everyday life, including work, school, healthcare, fitness, banking and entertainment, to go almost entirely online, saw a huge rise in digital applications and new technologies that enabled us to try and carry on as normal. More recently, the cost-of-living crisis, geopolitical tensions and economic uncertainty are giving rise to the need for cost saving technologies to keep track of spending and secure technology, including cybersecurity to protect digital assets from cybercrime. Invention and innovation drive economies and we believe this is why entrepreneurs and venture capitalists are gaining influence on the technology scene.
Entrepreneurs: huge growth at the top
Entrepreneurs and VCs have grown significantly this year in the Tyto Tech 500. There are 16 more entrepreneurs (+146% vs 2021) and seven more venture capitalists (+88% vs 2021) in the pan-European Tyto Tech 500, making these the two categories with the largest increase in number of influencers in this selection of top 500 individuals across all countries.
If we look at the 1,500 individuals featured in the three top 500 lists, that is across the UK, Germany and France, we can see that entrepreneurs have grown among the most influential and are now the third biggest influencer type with 122 influencers (8% of all the 2022 Tyto Tech 500 influencers). Entrepreneurs come in third place after Business Leaders (877 or 58% of the total) and journalists (288 or 19% of all the 2022 Tech 500 influencers).
If we continue to look specifically at those 1,500 individuals featured in the three top 500 lists , we can see that entrepreneurs have slightly less influence this year (from 127 to 122, a modest decrease of 4%). But while there are fewer entrepreneurs in absolute numbers in our rankings, the number of entrepreneurs at the top of our pan European rankings have seen impressive growth.
VCs rise in influence across tech sectors
If we look at the technology sectors in which these professional categories predominate, the largest presence of venture capitalists is in the General tech sector (20 of the total number of influencers are included in this tech sector). This is mainly due to most venture capitalists being influential in more than one specific area of technology. The rest of the tech sectors have a much smaller presence of venture capitalists. As for entrepreneurs, the presence in tech sectors is a little more equal. Entrepreneurs are drawn from the EnterpriseTech category (with 24 influencers in total), with FinTech (13) and ConsumerTech (12) not far behind.
We predict that as we seek to tackle the compounded issues affecting the world right now, from economic uncertainty, the conflict in Ukraine, cybersecurity and climate change, entrepreneurs and VCs will continue to rise in influence on technology and wider business issues. And hopefully investment in technology will not only improve lives and make economies stronger but help us recover from the spate of worldwide troubles that we are currently facing.
Top Entrepreneurs and VCs in the Tyto Tech 500
Top personalities in these categories in the Tech 500 include venture capitalist Carsten Maschmeyer (4th in the pan-European ranking and 1st in Germany), founder and owner of the Maschmeyer Group; venture capitalist and finance specialist Max Keiser 69th in the pan-European ranking); French entrepreneur and politician Mounir Mahjoubi (79th); entrepreneur and founder of Delivery Hero Niklas Östberg (81st); and UK venture capitalist and ex-WPP founder Martin Sorrell (99th).
Top 10 Entrepreneurs
- Mounir Mahjoubi (FR)
- Niklas Östberg – Delivery Hero (DE)
- Gunter Dueck – Omnisophie (DE)
- Nicolas Meunier – talent.io (FR)
- Pascal Gauthier – Ledger (FR)
- Guillaume Lacroix – Brut. (FR)
- Jonathan Cherki – Contentsquare (FR)
- Daniel Seidel – LiveEO (DE)
- Benoît Fabre – papernest (FR)
- Lucie Basch – Too Good To Go (FR)
Top 10 VCs
- Carsten Maschmeyer – Maschmeyer Group (DE)
- Max Keiser – Heisenberg Capital (UK)
- Martin Sorrell – S4 Capital (UK)
- Florian Heinemann – Project A Ventures (DE)
- Faisal Butt – Pi Labs (UK)
- Mike Lynch – Invoke Capital (UK)
- Christian Miele – German Startups Association (DE)
- Brent Hoberman – Founders Forum (UK)
- Azeem Azhar – Exponential View (UK)
- Mark Schmitz – Equaition (DE)
Want to know who are the biggest tech influencers in the UK, Germany and France? Download the full 2022 Tyto Tech 500 report here.
