The 34 coolest tech CEOs in Europe

February 01, 2017

The 34 coolest tech CEOs in Europe

Clue CEO Ida Tin

Europe's tech clusters in London, Berlin, Paris, and elsewhere, host thousands of fast-growing technology startups.

And if you look solely at "unicorn" startups that are worth $1 billion (£803 million) or more, they're even starting to rival Silicon Valley.

We ranked the 34 coolest startup CEOs in Europe, taking into account the founders' personal careers, as well as how innovative their companies are.

We've decided to use a broad definition of "startup" for this list, in line with VC Paul Graham's definition as pretty much any fast-growing company. So we've got companies that range in size from a handful of people all the way up to companies that are on the verge of going public.

We also decided not to include Israeli startups on this list. You can see our ranking of tech startups in Israel here.

Additional reporting by Shona Ghosh, Hannah Roberts, and Lara O'Reilly.

34. Sean Murray, CEO of Hello Games

Sean Murray is the CEO of Hello Games, the small British game development studio that created "No Man’s Sky" — one of the biggest (and most controversial) games of 2016.

Hello Games used to be known for its "Joe Danger" series which let people play as a stuntman on a motorbike, pulling off stunts and tricks. But Murray had an ambition to build something much bigger.

"No Man's Sky" lets players explore a vast universe that was created by an algorithm. Its scale has impressed everyone from Kanye West to Elon Musk. But not everyone was a fan. The game caused outrage online after it failed to live up to many of Murray's promises. Cut features included planetary physics, rivers, and large spaceships.

Country: UK

33. Pietari Päivänen, CEO of Future Fly

The younger sister of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Arielle Zuckerberg, was an early investor in this Finland-based startup, which has so far raised $2.5 million (£2 million) in seed funding.

Set up by a team of former game designers, including CEO and cofounder Pietari Päivänen, Future Fly is best known for its gamified chat app Rawr which lets its users create 3D-animated avatars.

Country: Finland

32. Mariusz Gralewski, CEO of DocPlanner

DocPlanner is a service that lets users find doctors and book appointments. It was founded by Mariusz Gralewski, a former University of Warsaw computer science student, who serves as its CEO today.

In June 2016, the Polish startup acquired and merged with Spanish rival Doctoralia, and raised $20 million (£16 million) in a Series C funding round.

Country: Poland

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