If there was any doubt that Searchland were shaking up the Proptech sector, we’ve made it official by ranking in Notion Capital’s Cloud Challengers Top 100.

The league table, which identifies the very best early-stage business software start-ups in Europe, has placed Searchland in 31st place.

What does being part of the Cloud Challengers Top 100 mean for startups?

Comprising 100 business software companies, the list brings together start-ups that Notion Capital believe have what it takes to challenge the established order and go on to become major success stories in the European ecosystem.

What sets a Top 100 company apart?

‍At the core of this report lie three key factors - founders, funding, and product. According to Notion Capital, these elements offer valuable insights into future success, particularly for young companies like ours. Within this framework things like the adoption of AI, competitors and challengers, outlook for 2024 and employee dynamics.

So, let's see how Searchland fits into the picture:

Founders: Our leadership is grounded in the expertise of our four hands-on founders. Each brings a wealth of experience from successful ventures, along with specialised skills in computer engineering, AI, data science, property development, and marketing.

Funding: We secured £2.3 million in seed funding from Fuel Ventures.

‍Product: Our platform continually evolves with innovative features, AI tools, and datasets. We outpace established competitors in introducing updates while enhancing user experience for a more intuitive and accessible product.

What does the report reveal about the state of tech startups in 2024?

Characteristics of the top 100 companies:

Out of all 100 finalist the majority come from the UK (26%), France (24%), and Germany (23%). However, there's been a notable decline in UK representation compared to previous years.

These companies work across various sectors, with sustainability (15%), developer tools AND infrastructure (12%), and fintech (12%) being the most common.

Talent & founders:

2023 was a challenging year for founders and their teams, with nearly 250,000 tech professionals losing their jobs - remarkably, 92 companies in the cohort grew their net headcount over the past year.

In terms of the makeup of the founding team - 18% of companies have solo founders, while 29% have two founders. The most common founding team size is three (36%), followed by teams with four or more founders (17%).

Investment:

Most companies are operating at seed stage, and in total have raised just over $300m to date.

On average, companies in the top 100 have raised $3.2 million, which compares favourably to the UK SaaS seed average of $562k (for companies that are venture backed).

Founder insights:

In 2023, 39% of respondents identified 'product development' as their greatest achievement, underscoring the early-stage nature of the top 100. 'Building a scalable GTM motion' and 'revenue growth' tied for second place at 23%.

Mitchell, Founder and CEO said, “Being listed in the Cloud Challengers Top 100 is a huge achievement for Searchland, and we are really humbled to be recognised for the work we are doing to challenge the market and empower property professionals with the most intuitive technology possible. And while we’re striving to accelerate the growth of our business, we’ll continue to hold onto our start-up ideals of warp-speed development delivery, data excellence and ceaseless innovation.”

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