Wired UK – September 2019

ALL PHOTOGRAPHY: DAN BURN-FORTI – ALL ILLUSTRATION: NICK D BURTON

We’re delighted to bring you our eighth annual

guide to the 100 European startups that those in our

network judge to be the champions of the future.

Over the years it’s proved an authoritative arbiter

of what has become a vibrant ecosystem that has

produced ground-breaking companies going on

to succeed on the global stage.

One area, however, where European tech has a

poor record is diversity and inclusion. According to

the 2018 State of European Tech report, of all funds

raised by European VC-backed companies in 2018,

93 per cent went to all-male founding teams. While

the seeds of today’s thriving European tech industry

were planted a decade ago, we can’t wait that long

to drive real change in an industry that can only

benefit from opening up to people from different

demographic, experiential or cognitive categories.

At Slush 2018, I was fortunate to be involved

with the launch of Diversity & Inclusion in

Tech, authored by Atomico’s Niklas Zennström

and Francesca Warner, the CEO at Diversity VC.

What’s important about this document is that it’s

a step-by-step guide to ensuring that everyone is

able to thrive in the startup ecosystem. The tech

industry talks a lot about scaling and execution:

this is one area where it really needs to commit

to disrupting business as usual. Greg Williams

Sharmadean Reid

MBE, founder

of Beautystack

EDITOR’S LETTER

070

Europe’s

100

Hottest

Startups

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