Although small in size, Austria is a country with a big influence on the European economy. Its startup and VC ecosystem is booming, placing 23rd in the global Startup Blink ranking with fintech, hardware & IoT and software listed as the most promising industries, gaining the attention of top investors. It’s worth mentioning that Austria is also home to 6 unicorn companies - Bitpanda, Copa Data, GoStudent, Loxone, Tricentis and TTTech Auto, with many so-called ‘soonicorn’ companies developing rapidly and scaling internationally, proving how effective startups originally headquartered in Austra can be on a global scale. Austrian companies are also becoming increasingly more diverse and more conscious, as according to the Austrian Startup Monitor in 2021, 34% of the Austrian startups were driven by Green Impact principles and 35% of them had at least one female founder. Moreover, many prominent VC firms and investment funds are based in Austria, with leading SpeedInvest being one of them. Having said that, the Austrian ecosystem is definitely worth looking into, and so are its early-stage companies, characterized by their high growth potential and implementation of leading-edge solutions.
So without further ado, let’s explore promising early-stage (most of them still pre-Series A) startups from Austria.
Coinpanion
Coinpanion is a cryptocurrency fintech startup, founded in 2019 in Vienna, with the aim to make the crypto world more accessible and transparent to all kinds of investors. It specializes in providing smart portfolios based on cryptocurrencies, sparing its customers the need to operate on individual cryptos and offering a secure entry point into this complex market. The company ensures a continuous optimization of the portfolios, and data-driven fundamental crypto analysis as well as an effective risk management system. In April 2022 the company raised a seed round, bringing its valuation to €5.5M.
Inoqo
Inoqo is a SaaS digital platform, set up in 2020 in Vienna. It streamlines publicly available and private data into an AI-driven algorithm that measures the impact of F&B (food and beverages) products on the environment. As a result, other companies can quickly and affordably assess how aligned their products are with sustainability principles as well as optimize their ingredients and production processes, based on the recommendations generated by Inoqo. Moreover, customers can better understand the environmental and social impact of familiar grocery products and align their purchasing decisions to real environmental priorities or social values. In April 2021 Inoqo raised its seed round of €2M.
Return On Art
Return On Art is an art marketplace platform founded in 2019 in Vienna, which unites the most important stakeholders of the art market - artists, curators, and collectors. It leverages technology to allow art collectors directly access expert-curated art with the ability to resell their already existing works. Its mission is to support talented artists all over the world and revive the idea of collecting art - cultivating an ongoing interest for all generations. Return on Art also provides its customers with free art advisory services. In October 2022 the company secured a seed funding round of €600K.
506
506 is a startup founded in 2020 in Linz. It is a data science and AI-based cloud customer intelligence platform, specializing in marketing. It pioneers privacy-compliant analysis, visualization, and activation of digital visitor and customer data, helping enterprises transform their already existing marketing data into a sustainable success. The platform allows its customers to visualize their entire customer journey - from unknown users to existing customers, and segment their base into very specific target groups (GDPR compliant). The recent funding round raised by the company was a seed capital of €1M in February 2022.
XUND
XUND is a B2B health tech company founded in 2018 in Vienna, which enables healthcare companies to digitize patient interactions and translate data into actionable insights. Its AI-powered technology analyses millions of medical publications and medical databases to supply healthcare providers with symptom and risk assessment, helping navigate patients to the best point of care. XUND API, a certified medical device, is their flagship product aimed to offer patients this initial assessment and guide them forward. It is used by market-leading insurance, pharma, and digital health companies. In September 2022 the company raised €6M in a seed round with the goal to expand to new European and US markets.
Corplife
Corplife is a Klosterneuburg-based SaaS company, founded in 2015 that offers a comprehensive platform for employee benefits. Their goal is to improve employee retention, motivation, and loyalty through two core services - a fringe benefits platform and subsidized lunch tickets. The platform provides a wide range of local offers, trips as well as access to a variety of shops. Moreover, as a part of the corplife Lunch, employees are granted a tax-free digital lunch ticket in the form of an app, redeemable everywhere in Austria. In June 2022 corplife raised a €900K in seed round.
Revo Foods
Revo Foods is a Vienna-based startup operating in the food tech market, specializing in the production of plant-based alternatives to seafood products. Their first product, Revo Salmon was released in November 2021 and since then they have been steadily developing their offer, fueled by a grant received from the FFG Austrian Research Promotion Agency. Their plans for the company’s development in the upcoming years include advancing their 3D Food Printing technology and implementing new structuring tools to produce large-scale wholecut seafood products made from plants. They also began to collaborate with academic institutions, looking into energy-efficient new texturization methods for plant proteins.
Trality
Trality is yet another startup on the list headquartered in Vienna. It is an investment platform with the mission to bring automated investing towards everyone on the market - not only professional traders and financial institutions. Their solution is powered by AI-based bots that manage investments and allow the platform’s customers to either automate their own strategies or mirror the moves of the market-beating trading bots. The company has raised its last financing round at a pre-seed stage in August 2021.
Involve.me
Involve.me is a Vienna-based SaaS startup founded in 2019 with the aim to reimagine online interactions and user engagement. Its platform is focused on digital marketers & e-commerce, specializing in growth tools for online customer engagement through a white-label interactive funnel. I also allows its customers to create interactive content at every point in the funnel. The software behind the company is a no-code content builder for embeddable or standalone online quizzes, online surveys, web calculators, online forms, product configurators, and payment pages.
Froots
Froots is a wealth management fintech startup, set up in 2020 in Vienna with the aim to allow as many people as possible to build long-term wealth and make investing more accessible, easy and understandable for everybody. Froots allows its customers to open investment accounts and uses a data-based approach to tailor the chosen investment portfolios to their individual needs and long-term goals, while diversifying and automating the processes. In March 2022 Froots raised a seed round of €2,5M.
Arkeon
Arkeon Bio is a biotechnology company, founded in 2021 in Tulln, with the aim to use revolutionary technology and regenerate the planet through the creation of alternative protein ingredients made with the help of CO2. They specialize in capturing carbon dioxide from industry (greenhouse gases already existing in the atmosphere) and then converting these inorganic gases into organic food - it is a substitute way of producing protein-based foods, without exploiting the natural resources of the planet. Their revolutionary products are carbon negative and contain all 20 amino acids that humans need to live. The last seed funding round (March 2022) was dedicated to the development of their CO2-harnessing technology.
FINABRO
FINABRO is a digital platform created with a mission to support its customers in achieving financial stability through pension planning and sustainable investments as well as advisory services. Their goal is to build Europe's leading retirement plan distribution platform. They are currently offering services for private customers, willing to take ownership of their retirement perspectives and invest their wealth in sustainable funds as well as for employers, managing pension plans for their employees. In February 2022 Finabro raised its seed funding round of €5M.
ready2order
ready2order is Vienna-based mobile and platform-independent POS system, that operates in German and Austrian markets. The company was created with the aim to address all financial areas in the operational activities of small and medium enterprises and eliminate administrative overhead for entrepreneurs by providing a digital cash-register application. Ever since its inception in 2015, ready2order has developed a platform with numerous functions such as an intuitive POS system, customer and inventory management, intelligent evaluations and mobile payments, characterized by its flexibility and adaptability to all industries - from retail to gastronomy.
Tubics
Tubics is a SaaS platform, founded in 2017 in Vienna, that uses data-driven tools in Video Marketing. It specializes in amplifying branded content on YouTube - focusing on every part of the process, from sharing insights on producing relevant video content to optimizing reach, views, and watch time. They help their customers with video ideation, conducting research, sharing suggestions on keywords, SEO recommendations, the cut-rate, and much more. In June 2022 the company secured €1.4M in seed funding to further develop its software tools.
Orderlion
Orderlion is a food supply chain platform, that helps suppliers and wholesalers to digitize their key business processes and efficiently connect with customers along the entirety of their supply chains. Ever since the company’s inception in Vienna in 2018, it has been developing swiftly, operating in the F&B and Horeca sectors and digitizing the customer relationships between suppliers of beverages and fresh goods and restaurateurs, through their automated software solutions. In November 2022 Orderlion raised a seed funding round of $4M.
a:head bio
a:head bio is a biotechnology company, founded in 2019 and headquartered in Vienna. Its core mission is to develop new therapeutical drugs for the treatment of brain disorders, based on human cerebral organoids. This approach to drug discovery is revolutionary as it captures the essential aspects of human embryonic brain development such as brain patterning and allows for its generation from human stem cells in vitro. a:head’s strength lies in the fusion of cutting-edge science, gene editing, state-of-the-art 3D culture technology, and AI-driven digital biology. The company has so far raised about €4.5M in seed funding rounds.
Sola Diagnostics
Sola Diagnostics is yet another health tech company on the list, founded in 2020 in Zams. Its goal is cancer prevention by the means of epigenetic-based risk prediction. The startup developed a product under the name WID-Test-Sola, that is committed to supporting the translation of promising science in cancer prevention into marketable products, by licensing to manufacturers and distributors worldwide, benefiting the patients and society. In March 2022 Sola Diagnostic raised €1,355M in a seed round.
JENTIS
JENTIS is a SaaS tool for server-side tracking and protecting the customers' data, developed in 2020 in Vienna. The startup's founding team created this solution, in response to the faulty mechanisms of data-tracking, privacy shield, GDPR compliance, and data privacy, to set a new industry-wide standard in data protection and pseudonymization. Their customers can efficiently collect user data in a GDPR-compliant manner, overcoming hurdles such as adblockers, deleted cookies, and more. In May 2022, Jentis raised €3,3M in a seed round.
Hello Bello
Hello Bello is a Pet Tech company, founded in Vienna in 2019 with the mission to create the best food satisfying the nutritional needs of dogs. It is a subscription service, providing its customers with freshly cooked human-grade food in the form of personalized meals, free of any by-products. The recipes are made of natural sources like millet and seaweed, instead of heavy use of supplements, which makes it easier for the dog to absorb and get true nutritional benefits.
GLEAM
GLEAM has been active on the market since 2013, operating with the mission to transform the urban movement by becoming car-independent and reducing CO2 emissions. The founder of GLEAM noticed that the Viennese market lacks an ideal bike for faster urban delivery and decided to fill in this gap and build the bike himself - at first creating prototypes and later perfecting the technology, securing investors and venture builders. Now, GLEAM develops, produces, and sells electric, modular and light Cargo Bikes to LastMile logistics companies in Europe. In February 2022 the startup secured €875K of funding in a seed round to expand its portfolio of higher-speed bikes.
Want to discover more interesting startups from other countries? Check out the list below. Top Startups from:
- Belgium
- Bulgaria
- Croatia
- Czech Republic
- Denmark
- Estonia
- France
- Finland
- Germany
- Greece
- Hungary
- Italy
- Latvia
- Lithuania
- Luxembourg
- Netherlands
- Norway
- Poland
- Romania
- Serbia
- Slovakia
- Slovenia
- Sweden
- Türkiye
- United Kingdom
- Western Balkans
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Top Western Balkan Startups To Watch (by Valerie Stupnikova, Vestbee)
15 Most Interesting Startups From Croatia Worth Your Attention (by Mateusz Walczyk, Startup Analyst, Vestbee)
