According to the first ranking of Estonian technology companies, compiled by Prudentia Advisory, Siena Secondary Fund and the Estonian Founders Society, the total value of Estonia’s 25 most valuable tech firms is almost €21 billion and the three biggest of them are Wise, Bolt and Pipedrive.
The ranking that, going forward, will be compiled once a year, will keep an eye on the growth of the values of the technology companies established by Estonian founders, also taking into account the potential growth in the future. The aim is to provide a comparable assessment of the value of companies at a specific point in time and based on a similar methodology.
“In cooperation with Nasdaq Tallinn, we have for several years been compiling the TOP101.ee ranking of Estonia’s most valuable companies. The most recent TOP101.ee was won by Eesti Energia that was valued at €1.6 billion based on 2019 results. When the shares of Wise were listed this summer, Wise was estimated to be worth almost €10 billion,” Indrek Uudeküll, a partner of Prudentia Advisory that leads the compilation of the ranking, said in a statement.
“The reason is that technology companies are usually excluded from classical rankings compiled on the method of comparable multiples because they do not have historical profit figures.”
According to Rando Rannus, a partner at Siena Secondary Fund that specialises in secondary market investments in technology companies, it was high time to compile the ranking because 2021 has been a breakthrough year for the whole sector.
The market cap of the top 25 tech companies close to twice of the state budget
“The listing of Wise and the sale of Pipedrive has been topped by a massive influx of capital – Estonia is approaching this year’s magical €1 billion mark raised by its startups – which is more than 3% of the Estonian GDP, just to put into context,” Rannus said.
“Moreover, the market cap of the top 25 technology companies in Estonia is close to being roughly twice of the Estonian state budget and this sector deserves public attention and positive attitude.”
The ranking only includes technology companies that are defined similarly to the approach of the Founders’ Association’s start-ups, ie fast-growing technology companies that have at least one Estonian founder or are registered in Estonia and the company’s head office or at least 20% of employees are in Estonia.
The basis of the valuation is publicly available financial information and additional insights provided by the companies themselves based on the last available funding round. If the company is listed, the market cap as of 31.07.2021 is used as a value.
Cover: Bolt’s electric scooters in Paris. Photo by Bolt.
