Fundraising is the single most-cited bottleneck for early-stage European founders, named as the top struggle by nearly 60% of respondents in Slush's 2025 Startup Struggle survey. Attending Slush is strongly associated with closing that gap.
Attendees raise institutional capital at 3.5× the rate of comparable European peers: 26.4% against 7.5%. The figure is drawn from 2,108 first-time attendees in the 2022, 2023, and 2024 cohorts, benchmarked against 229,866 European peers matched on founding year, country, and growth stage. The premium holds in every cohort and every region tested.
The mix of starting positions explains the headline. The 2,108 attendees split nearly evenly into companies with no institutional capital at attendance (1,009, or 48%) and those already backed (1,099, or 52%). That balance is unusual: in the European benchmark, 89% of companies are bootstrapped. Among bootstrapped attendees, the post-event VC rate is 17%, against 5.6% for bootstrapped peers, a 3.1× premium. Among already-backed attendees, the follow-on rate is 35% against 23.2%.
The aggregate 3.5× exceeds either subgroup multiple because Slush draws disproportionately from already-backed companies, who post higher fundraising rates in both populations. Both numbers are accurate; the 3.1× is the figure that speaks most directly to bootstrapped founders.
The premium is broad. It holds in every cohort, every European region, and every industry cluster measured. Early-stage companies outperform peers at 3.5×; breakout-stage companies at 1.8×. The association is positive across every segment analyzed.
It is not only frequency that shifts; deal size moves too. Among companies that raised post-event, the median Slush round was roughly twice the size of a comparable peer round. Measured on funded companies only, the figure should be read alongside the rate, not instead of it.
Attendees are 7.0× more likely than matched European peers to be backed by a top-0.1% global VC (ranked by Dealroom's global investor index; see Methodology). The headline fundraising premium is 3.5×. The fund-quality premium is twice that. Slush companies are not just raising more often; they are raising from better funds, at a proportionally higher rate than the fundraising premium alone would predict.
| Fund tier (Dealroom global rank) | Slush | Peers | Premium |
|---|---|---|---|
| Top 0.1% | 5.60% | 0.80% | 7.00× |
| Top 1% | 17.30% | 2.80% | 6.10× |
| Top 2.5% | 24.30% | 4.20% | 5.80× |
| Top 10% | 36.00% | 7.10% | 5.10× |
The premium widens as the tier narrows. A uniform lift across the ecosystem would produce flat ratios; instead, the ratio climbs from 5.1× at the top decile to 7.0× at the top 0.1%. The Slush cohort is not randomly distributed across the VC quality spectrum; it is concentrated toward the upper end of it.
Cross-border reach moves in step. European attendees are 5× more likely than peers to have a US investor on the cap table: 22.2% against 4.5%. The pattern runs the other way too. Roughly 135 US-domiciled companies attended over the study period, tracked separately from the 2,108-company analysis; 37% of them picked up a European investor, against 4.6% of US peers, an 8× gap. The direction of causality cannot be settled from this data alone.
Post-event acquisition rates anchor the timing precisely: each round dates after first attendance, and each investor is new to the cap table. On that basis, 28.9% of attendees added a new investor; 7.0% added a US investor; 12.2% added a top-10% global VC; and 4.4% added a top-1% global VC.
Raising capital is not the only thing the cohort does faster. The premium shows up in stage progression, team growth, and non-dilutive funding, and it does so across all three cohorts.
Attendees advance at least one funding stage at 2.5× the rate of peers. 13.7% of the cohort moved up at least one stage (bootstrapped to seed, seed to early VC, early to growth) against 5.4% of peers. The graduation premium is widest at the bootstrapped layer: 3.7× in the 2022 cohort, which has three full years of post-event data and is the most mature reference point. The 2023 and 2024 cohorts show higher apparent premiums (4.2× and 5.7×), but shorter observation windows depress their benchmark comparisons; the figures are expected to converge as the data matures. In every cohort, the multiple narrows as the starting stage rises. The pattern mirrors the fundraising premium: the lift is largest where the starting position is lowest.
Team growth follows the same pattern. 61% of attendees with measurable headcount data grew their teams in the observation window, against 49% of peers, a 1.2× premium. The signal is directional: Dealroom employee data is available for roughly 70% of companies in the population, and the comparison rests on the subset with non-zero values at both endpoints.
Non-dilutive funding compounds the picture. 24% of attendees received a grant or support-program allocation post-event, against 7% of peers, a 3.4× premium. Grants are tracked separately from VC to avoid conflating dilutive and non-dilutive capital. For deep tech, climate, and research-intensive companies, non-dilutive funding typically runs alongside equity, not in place of it.
Slush is designed to offer early-stage founders the opportunity for life-changing connections and inspiration, to show that the world's best can be, and is being, built from Europe. The Slush Impact Report is the first indication of the impact Slush can have on a startup's trajectory.
Slush 2026 takes place in Helsinki this November. Applications for the next cohort are open at slush.org. The data suggests the flight is worth taking.
The analysis covers 2,108 European companies that attended Slush for the first time in 2022, 2023, or 2024, founded 2016 or later and pre-Series B at first attendance. The benchmark is 229,866 Dealroom-tracked European companies of the same vintage and stage, matched on founding year, country, and growth stage. For Slush companies, the observation window opens the day after first attendance; for benchmark peers, it covers the equivalent post-2022 period.
The 2,108 companies are drawn from a paid-ticket universe of 4,501 unique companies across Europe and the US over the 2022–2025 events (de-duplicated to first attendance year per company). Europe-only, 2022–2024 cohorts, founded 2016 or later, and pre-Series B filters reduce that universe to the analysis population.
The 2025 cohort is excluded. Six months of post-event data is not enough to register the rounds that will eventually appear; the measured rate is artificially low. The 2025 cohort enters the analysis in the 2027 edition.
The study is observational, not causal. Matching controls for founding year, geography, and growth stage. It cannot control for the ambition, network, or fundraising-readiness of companies that choose to attend. The premium reflects a combination of who attends and what attending does; the data cannot separate the two.
The statistics below describe the 4,501 unique companies that held a paid ticket to Slush in 2022–2025 (EU and US). The 2,108-company analysis population is a subset: Europe-only, first-time attendees in 2022–2024, founded 2016 or later, and pre-Series B at first attendance.
| Stage | n | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Bootstrapped / No prior VC | 1,009 | 47.9% |
| Seed / Angel | ~630 | ~29.9% |
| Early VC | ~469 | ~22.2% |
| Cohort | Median age | n |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 2.0 yrs | 1,076 |
| 2023 | 2.0 yrs | 864 |
| 2024 | 2.0 yrs | 868 |
| 70.6% were 0–3 years old | ||
| Industry | Share |
|---|---|
| Enterprise SW | 13.2% |
| Fintech | 9.1% |
| AI | 7.1% |
| Health | 7.0% |
| Climate | 4.9% |
| Country | Share |
|---|---|
| Finland | 28.6% |
| Germany | 14.1% |
| United Kingdom | 13.2% |
| Sweden | 9.5% |
| Estonia | 4.2% |
| Method | Share | Count |
|---|---|---|
| Exact name | 64.5% | 2,904 |
| Website domain | 10.6% | 478 |
| Dealroom URL slug | 0.8% | 37 |
| Fuzzy confirmed | 0.6% | 26 |
| No match | 23.2% | 1,044 |
VC rounds counted: Seed, Angel, Early VC, Series A–H, Growth Equity VC, Late VC, Convertible, Private Placement VC. Grants and support programs are excluded from VC counts and tracked separately. Acquisitions, IPOs, debt, spinouts, and post-IPO rounds are excluded from both.
Funding stage hierarchy (Dealroom classification, used throughout the report and graduation heatmaps):
Bootstrapped / No prior VC—no institutional VC round on record at the time of first Slush attendance. This is a point-in-time classification: a company that raises a Seed round after attending is still counted as bootstrapped at attendance.
Seed / Angel—at least one Seed or Angel round on record at time of first attendance; no Early VC or later stage round yet. The graduation heatmap tracks how many of these companies subsequently reach Early VC.
Early VC—Dealroom's designation for the first institutional lead round, roughly equivalent to a Series A. Covers round types labeled Early VC and Series A in Dealroom. The bootstrapped heatmap panel counts any qualifying VC round (including Seed) as graduation; the Seed/Angel panel uses only Early VC and Series A as the graduation event.
Growth / Late VC—Series B and above, including Growth Equity VC and Late VC round types. Companies already at this stage at first attendance are excluded from the graduation heatmaps but included in all other analyses.
Investor tier ranking (Dealroom power law)—Dealroom assigns a global rank to approximately 40,000 investors based on deal activity, portfolio quality, and exits. For each company, the analysis uses the best rank: the rank of its single highest-ranked investor across all qualifying post-attendance rounds. Tier thresholds are defined as percentages of this ranked universe:
Approximately 24.5% of Dealroom-tracked investors hold a power-law rank. Companies whose cap tables contain only unranked investors are excluded from tier comparisons; their fundraising activity is captured in the overall backing rate but not attributed to any tier.
Dealroom coverage is stronger in Western Europe. That dampens both Slush and benchmark figures in Central and Eastern Europe.
Investor enrichment data is partial. AUM covers 6.5% of investors; the power-law rank covers the top 40,000 funds globally (about 24.5% of tracked investors).
Survivorship bias applies to both sides. Dealroom under-represents failed companies, which may inflate absolute fundraising rates on both sides but should not materially affect the ratios.
Stage-graduation time anchors differ between cohorts and benchmark. For Slush companies, quarters are measured from November 1 of the attendance year: Q4 for the 2022 cohort reaches November 2023; Q4 for the 2023 cohort reaches November 2024. The benchmark is a single pool anchored to November 1, 2022; every benchmark company's Q1–Q12 starts there, regardless of when it was founded or last raised. A 2023 or 2024 Slush row and the benchmark row therefore cover different calendar windows. The design measures relative pace, not performance within a shared calendar period.
This is the first edition of a longitudinal study. The 2022 cohort has three full years of post-event data; the 2023 and 2024 cohorts will show higher rates as the data matures. The 2025 cohort enters the analysis in the 2027 edition.
Population counts for every number, chart, and comparison in this report.
| Group | n | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Slush companies (analysis population) | 2,108 | European companies · first attendance 2022, 2023, or 2024 · founded 2016 or later · pre-Series B at time of first attendance |
| European benchmark | 229,866 | Dealroom-tracked European companies matched to the Slush population on founding year, country, and growth stage |
| Paid-ticket universe (all years, EU + US) | 4,501 | Unique companies with paid tickets across 2022–2025 events, de-duplicated to first attendance year per company; before applying Europe-only, 2016+ founding, and pre-Series B filters |
| Cohort | Slush n | Benchmark n | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 809 | 227,758 | Observation window opens 1 Nov 2022 · up to 3 years of post-event data available · benchmark is the same shared pool for all three cohorts |
| 2023 | 667 | 227,758 | Observation window opens 1 Nov 2023 · up to 2 years of post-event data available |
| 2024 | 632 | 227,758 | Observation window opens 1 Nov 2024 · up to 1 year of post-event data available |
| Chart / metric | Slush n | Benchmark n | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Overall post-event VC rate (26.40% vs 7.50%) | 2,108 | 229,866 | % that raised at least one qualifying VC round after first attendance; round types: Seed, Angel, Early VC, Series A–H, Growth Equity VC, Late VC, Convertible, Private Placement VC; grants and debt excluded |
| Bootstrapped at attendance (17.00% vs 5.60%) | 1,009 | 204,925 | No institutional VC round on record before first Slush attendance; same round-type scope as overall rate |
| Already VC-backed at attendance (35.00% vs 23.20%) | 1,099 | 24,941 | At least one VC round on record before first Slush attendance; same round-type scope |
| 2022 cohort rate (32.80% vs 7.20%) | 809 | 227,758 | % raised within the 2022 cohort's observation window; benchmark uses the same shared pool observed from Nov 2022 |
| 2023 cohort rate (26.80% vs 4.90%) | 667 | 227,758 | % raised within the 2023 cohort's observation window; benchmark observed from Nov 2022 (see methodology caveat) |
| 2024 cohort rate (17.90% vs 2.80%) | 632 | 227,758 | % raised within the 2024 cohort's observation window; benchmark observed from Nov 2022 (see methodology caveat) |
| Median round size, funded companies only ($3.8M vs $1.8M) | 557 | 17,163 | Restricted to companies with at least one qualifying post-event VC round; round size as reported in Dealroom at time of extraction |
| Chart / metric | Slush backed n | Benchmark backed n | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Top 0.1% fund (5.60% vs 0.80% · 7.00×) | 118 | 1,817 | At least one investor with Dealroom global rank ≤ 40 on post-event cap table; rank covers ~40,000 funds globally |
| Top 1% fund (17.30% vs 2.80% · 6.10×) | 364 | 6,408 | At least one investor with Dealroom global rank ≤ 400 |
| Top 2.5% fund (24.30% vs 4.20% · 5.80×) | 512 | 9,535 | At least one investor with Dealroom global rank ≤ 1,000 |
| Top 10% fund (36.00% vs 7.10% · 5.10×) | 759 | 16,200 | At least one investor with Dealroom global rank ≤ 4,000 |
| Post-event investor acquisition | Slush n (rate) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Any new investor (28.90%) | 2,108 | Investor must be new to the company's cap table and the qualifying round must be dated after first Slush attendance; all investor types included |
| New Top 10% VC (12.20%) | 2,108 | Investor new to cap table; Dealroom global rank ≤ 4,000 (Top 10% of ~40,000 ranked investors) |
| New Top 1% VC (4.40%) | 2,108 | Investor new to cap table; Dealroom global rank ≤ 400 (Top 1% of ~40,000 ranked investors) |
| New US investor (7.00%) | 2,108 | Investor new to cap table; investor headquartered in the United States |
| New international (non-European) VC (10.3%) | 2,108 | Investor new to cap table; investor headquartered outside Europe (includes US, Asia, other) |
| Cross-border investor reach | Slush n | Benchmark n | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| European company with US investor (22.20% vs 4.50%) | 469 | 10,177 | n = companies with this investor configuration; rate = n ÷ total population (Slush 2,108 · Benchmark 229,866); investor geography from Dealroom headquarters field |
| US company with European investor (37.00% vs 4.60%) | 50 | 8,580 | Restricted to US-domiciled companies only; Slush denominator is the ~135 US-domiciled companies in the ticket universe; benchmark denominator is Dealroom's global US company dataset (~185,800 companies), not the 229,866 European benchmark used elsewhere |
| Chart / metric | Slush n | Benchmark n | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stage graduation, any transition (13.70% vs 5.40%) | 2,108 | 229,866 | % that advanced at least one funding stage after first attendance; counted transitions: bootstrapped→seed, seed→early VC, early VC→growth/late; must occur post-event |
| Headcount growth (61.10% vs 49.40%) | 910 | 30,952 | Restricted to companies with non-zero employee counts recorded in Dealroom at both the start and end of the observation window; measures net positive headcount change over that period |
| Grant / support-program received (23.80% vs 7.10%) | 2,108 | 229,866 | At least one government grant, public program, or accelerator allocation recorded post-event; excludes VC equity rounds and debt; tracked separately to avoid conflating dilutive and non-dilutive capital |
| Cohort | Slush n | Benchmark n | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 360 | 204,925 | Companies with no prior VC at first Slush attendance; graduated = first qualifying VC round post-event; quarters counted from 1 Nov 2022; benchmark is full bootstrapped pool anchored to Nov 2022 |
| 2023 | 323 | 204,925 | Same scope; quarters counted from 1 Nov 2023; benchmark anchored to Nov 2022 (calendar windows differ; see methodology caveat) |
| 2024 | 326 | 204,925 | Same scope; quarters counted from 1 Nov 2024; benchmark anchored to Nov 2022 (calendar windows differ; see methodology caveat) |
| Cohort | Slush n | Benchmark n | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 418 | ~21,309 | Companies at Seed or Angel stage at first Slush attendance; graduated = first Early VC or Series A round post-event; quarters counted from 1 Nov 2022; benchmark n back-calculated from quarterly rates |
| 2023 | 299 | ~21,309 | Same scope; quarters counted from 1 Nov 2023; benchmark uses same pool anchored to Nov 2022 |
| 2024 | 274 | ~21,309 | Same scope; quarters counted from 1 Nov 2024; benchmark uses same pool anchored to Nov 2022 |
| Match method | n | % of universe | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Exact company name | 2,904 | 64.5% | Company name in Slush ticket data matches Dealroom name exactly (case-normalised) |
| Website domain | 478 | 10.6% | Domain extracted from Slush-supplied website field matched against Dealroom website field |
| Dealroom URL | 37 | 0.8% | Slush ticket data contained an explicit Dealroom profile URL |
| Fuzzy name (confirmed) | 26 | 0.6% | High-similarity fuzzy match, manually reviewed and confirmed |
| No match | 1,044 | 23.2% | No Dealroom record found; these companies are excluded from all benchmark comparisons |
| Filter step | Remaining n | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Paid-ticket universe (all years, EU + US) | 4,501 | Unique companies with paid tickets at Slush 2022, 2023, 2024, or 2025 · de-duplicated so each company appears once at earliest attendance |
| After Dealroom match | 3,457 | 76.8% match rate · 1,044 companies could not be matched to a Dealroom profile and are excluded from all benchmark analysis |
| Europe-only filter | ~3,320 | Companies headquartered outside Europe (primarily US) removed · ~135 US-domiciled companies excluded; they appear separately in cross-border investor analysis |
| Founding year ≥ 2016 | ~2,980 | Companies founded before 2016 excluded to ensure a comparable benchmark pool; older companies are over-represented in the matched European universe |
| Pre-Series B at first attendance | ~2,780 | Companies already at Series B or later stage at their first Slush attendance excluded; included in all other analyses but removed from stage-progression comparisons |
| 2022–2024 cohorts only (exclude 2025) | 2,108 | 2025 cohort excluded due to insufficient post-event observation window (~6 months); enters the analysis in the 2027 edition |
| Country | Slush n | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Finland | 544 | 25.8% |
| Germany | 342 | 16.2% |
| United Kingdom | 281 | 13.3% |
| Sweden | 212 | 10.1% |
| Estonia | 102 | 4.8% |
| Norway | 100 | 4.7% |
| Netherlands | 73 | 3.5% |
| Switzerland | 60 | 2.8% |
| Denmark | 57 | 2.7% |
| France | 53 | 2.5% |
| Austria | 40 | 1.9% |
| Belgium | 33 | 1.6% |
| Italy | 32 | 1.5% |
| Lithuania | 27 | 1.3% |
| Spain | 26 | 1.2% |
| Other (23 countries) | 126 | 6.0% |
| Stage at first Slush attendance | Slush n | Share | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| No prior VC (Bootstrapped) | 1,009 | 47.9% | No institutional VC round recorded before first attendance; point-in-time classification |
| Seed / Angel | ~630 | ~29.9% | At least one Seed or Angel round on record; no Early VC or later stage round yet |
| Early VC / Series A | ~416 | ~19.7% | At least one Early VC or Series A round on record at attendance |
| Series B+ (breakout) | ~53 | ~2.5% | Included in fundraising rate and investor quality analysis; excluded from graduation heatmaps |
| Dataset | Extracted | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Dealroom company data (funding rounds, stage, geography, headcount) | 23 Apr 2025 | Full European company export; includes all round types and dates up to extraction date |
| Dealroom investor data (global rank, AUM, geography) | 6 May 2026 | Investor-level export used to construct power-law tier assignments; ~40,000 investors with a rank |
| Slush ticket data (attendance year, company name, website) | Provided by Slush | Paid-ticket records for 2022–2025 events; de-duplicated to first attendance year per company |