Chinese-Founder Startups in Europe: Database & Ranking

A collection of startups and products where "the founders include people of Chinese heritage and the company is headquartered in Europe," tagged with funding round, amount, and a blurb, ranked by publicly disclosed funding. This page explains the ranking and the inclusion criteria; the interactive, filterable ranking lives on the "🚀 Product Launch" section homepage.

TL;DR

• The launch edition includes 5 companies, all verified through direct research, including one unicorn (GetYourGuide — co-founder Tao Tao, from Beijing) and one voice-AI company that has raised over $200M (PolyAI, Cambridge-born);

• Inclusion criteria: at least one founder (including co-founders) of Chinese/Chinese-heritage background + HQ in Europe + publicly reported and verifiable;

• This database is not an ethnicity curiosity list: only company-level, publicly reported information is included; self-nominations are welcome at any time (inclusion is free);

• Ranking is by publicly disclosed funding, keeping each report's original currency figures; interactive filtering (country/sector/round) is on the section homepage.

The list (ranked by disclosed funding)

Inclusion criteria & method

• Included: HQ in Europe + at least one co-founder of Chinese/Chinese-heritage background (mainland, Hong Kong/Macau/Taiwan, and first-generation immigrants; per public reporting) + verifiable public coverage;

• Excluded: European branches/subsidiaries of China-headquartered companies (e.g., the European offices of cross-border e-commerce firms);

• Funding amounts: keep each report's original currency (no €/$/£ conversion when totaling); for ranking, converted to euros at approximate exchange rates;

• Verification standard: at least two independent sources per company (official + media/database); details that cannot be fully confirmed are tagged (to be verified).

An ongoing collection mechanism (this list will grow)

• Version 1 is a "seed collection": the 5 most publicly visible companies. Far more are hidden among Chinese-founded teams with no English-language coverage — which is precisely this database's own readership;

• Self-nominations/referrals: submit via the email template on the section homepage (company name + one-line description + funding info + links); inclusion in the next edition after manual verification;

• Tracking sources: Sifted's China topic page (sifted.eu/countries/china), EU-Startups, Maddyness, 36Kr Global (36氪出海), and more;

• On immigrant-founder backgrounds in the UK: research by The Entrepreneurs Network shows that 39% of high-growth UK startups have at least one immigrant co-founder (Sifted coverage).

English edition draft · Data as of 2026-09-20 · Source: Europe Startup Playbook (Chinese edition)