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Dictionary & Taxonomy

Dictionary

Industries

See the industries and their definitions

Note: A company can be tagged with a maximum of two industries. This happens when none of the industries is suitable for the selected companies (these are generally rare cases). Sub-industries provide an additional layer of classification.

Energy

Startups working towards transitioning to sustainable energy, making our energy consumption more green and more efficient, solutions for recycling and handling waste.
From energy-efficient buildings to AI-powered smart meters to enterprise-grade solutions for solar and wind power, renewable energies and storage are a few examples.

Sub-industry	Description
Clean Energy	Reduces carbon dioxide emissions through significant energy efficiency improvements, the sustainable use of resources, or environmental protection activities. Renewable energies such as wind, solar, hydro-power or geothermal are examples. Example: Scatec Solar
Energy Efficiency	Using less energy to provide the same level of energy: energy-saving technologies, smart grid, energy-efficient buildings. Example: Tado
Oil & Gas	Oil refining technologies, pipe monitoring systems, oil & gas transport tech or software. Example: Crusoe Energy Systems
Energy Providers	Startups providing energy, such as electricity or gas. Example: Lumos
Waste Solution	Process of treating solid wastes and offers a variety of solutions for recycling items that don't belong to trash. Solutions for sustainable waste disposal. Example: Greyparrot
Water	Water treatment, water waste, producing industrial water, filtration technologies, water monitoring, and irrigation. Example: Sallinova
Energy Storage	Technologies meant to capture energy to store it for later use, such as batteries, electric storage devices, hydrogen. Example: Northvolt

Fashion

Technology that enables a fashion experience when you wear it or interact with it

Sub-industry	Description
Apparel	Clothing technology. It can involve the manufacturing, materials - innovations that have been developed and used. New fibres or virtual reality fitting for example. Example: Vinted
Luxury	New luxury fashion items, VR & AR luxury experiences. Example: Farfetch
Accessories	Accessories such as glasses, sunglasses, jewellery, connected accessories. Example: Ace & Tate
Footwear	Footwear (Shoes) incorporating smart textiles, smart tech, wearable tech. Example: Allbirds

Fintech

Fintech is the intersection between finance and technology. The following categorization is constantly evolving to keep up with the sector evolution. ABN AMRO Ventures, our main partner for Fintech and a leading Fintech CVC also contributed to this taxonomy. This taxonomy is also reflected on the fintech platform.

The fintech industry in Dealroom is broken down into the 8 sub-industries below:

Sub-industry	Description	Example
Payments	Startups developing solutions to improve the way financial transactions are settled, and how money is transferred between two parties.	Klarna, Transferwise, Checkout
Banking	Startups developing solutions, and/or digitising the activities, services and products of traditional banks.	Revolut, Nubank, Mambu
Crypto and Defi	Startups developing solutions for the use and exchange cryptocurrencies or financial startups using cryptocurrencies as a core feature in their business.	Coinbase, Ripple, Chainanalysis
Wealth Management	Startups developing solutions assisting in investment decision-making or providing a way to invest in assets, stocks, securities and other assets.	Robinhood, Scalable capital, Raisin
Mortgages & Lending	Startups developing solutions enabling digital lending (loans, lending platforms), providing online mortgage brokerage services, providing finance for individuals and businesses.	Zopa, Lendinvest, Monedo
Insurance	Insurtech is the intersection between insurance and technology. It includeds startups providing insurance services with digital-first and innovative models, or helping insurers, agents and brokers increase the efficiency of their processes	Lemonade, Alan, wefox
Financial Management Solutions	Solutions such as software and algorithms helping companies and consumers better manage their financial operations and processes. Eg: accounting software, billing software.	Taxfix, Spendesk, Linxo
RegTech	Solutions to comply with regulatory requirements in financial services, from customer identification (KYC), anti-money laundering, fraud detection and compliance & reporting.	Fourthline, Complyadvantage, Cappitech

Curated landscapes and lists

The easiest way to navigate curated content such as landscapes and lists is to use the curated content panel. Below is an overview of the content featured:

Impact & Sustainability
Payments
Banking
Crypto & Defi
Wealth Management
Mortgages & Lending
Insurance
Financial Management Solutions
Regtech

Impact & sustainability:

Fintech for good: fintech and software startups working on impact. From green finance such as impact investing platforms, sustainable pensions and green banking to carbon tracking & offsetting, climate intelligence & climate risk analytics and ESG data providers.
Closing the gender gap in finance: startups helping women access and feel more confident about financial services, from banking to investing, credit and education.
Blockchain and crypto for climate: blockchain and crypto startups helping to fight climate change and bridge the gap between our financial system and nature, from climate DAOs to nature tokenization and blockchain for carbon credit traceability.

Payments

Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL): startups and companies which offer this new payment method for consumers, and businesses, allowing them to pay for the purchase in instalments without charging interest.
A tag “BNPL” also exists, which tracks only the players mainly focused on providing these solutions and can be used to compute stats such as funding received.
A deep dive into BNPL is also available on the Dealroom blog.
Payment orchestration: payment Orchestration focuses on abstracting the complexity of managing and integrating with multiple PSPs and VAS. This is done by focusing on smart routing to improve transaction success and sales conversion, instead of focusing on processing or collecting.
A tag “payment orchestration” also exists to track the startups.
A deep dive into payment orchestration is also available on the Dealroom blog.
Alternative payments in Europe: alternative payments such as digital wallets, account-to-account (A2A) payments with open banking and BNPL are becoming some of the preferred payment methods for consumers. Furthermore, crypto, stablecoins and CBDCs are coming to the game.
A deep dive into alternative payments is also available on the Dealroom blog.

Banking

Global challenger banks: fintech startups offering digital banking services in competition with traditional banks. A tag “challenger bank” also exists.
Open Banking: open banking startups allow third-party financial service providers open access to consumer banking, transactions, and other financial data. Several use cases arise from this, such as A2A payments, credit scoring, financial planning, etc. A tag open banking also exists.
Financial education for kids & teens: startups working to improve the financial knowledge of kids and teens.

Crypto and Defi

For more details visit the Crypto, web 3, metaverse and blockchain page.

Wealth Management

Stock trading platforms: fintech startups offering trading platforms for retail investors to trade stocks and ETFs with low/no fees. A tag “neo brokers trading” also exists.
Democratizing venture capital: startups allowing retail and accredited investors to access private market investment opportunities such as startups, with approaches ranging from selections of VC funds to crowdfunding, pre-IPO investing and secondaries and blockchain digital securities. A tag “investing in startups” also exists. The topic is more broadly part of the “alternative investments” sector.

Mortgages & Lending

Revenue-based financing: startups providing revenue-based financing as an alternative to traditional debt or equity financing. A tag “revenue based financing” also exists. A deep dive into Revenue-based financing is also available on the Dealroom blog.
Embedded lending: Embedded lending allows any company to access a vast and secure infrastructure for lending, and immediately start financing its customers. A tag “embedded lending” also exists. A deep dive into embedded lending is also available on the Dealroom blog.
Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL): startups and companies which offer this new payment method for consumers, and businesses, allowing them to pay for the purchase in instalments without charging interest.
A tag “BNPL” also exists, which tracks only the players mainly focused on providing these solutions and can be used to compute stats such as funding received.
A deep dive into BNPL is also available on the Dealroom blog.

Insurance
Curated content for insurtech can be more widely accessed through the dedicated insurtech platform.

Financial Management Solutions

Corporate expense management: startups reinventing expense management processes for companies, bringing them from mostly manual to digital-first. A key segment is digital-first corporate card startups such as Brex, Ramp, Pleo, Jeeves and many others.
The tag “spend management”, tracks more generally fintech startups focus on the management of companies spending. A deep dive into the topic is also available on the Dealroom blog.
On-demand pay: startups are offering on-demand pay, flexible earned wage access (FEWA) and salary on-demand. On-demand pay for workers provides an alternative to payday lending, overdrafts, and credit cards, which all carry higher fees – and it could be a solution to combat financial stressors on employees.
A tag “on demand pay” also exists, which tracks only the players mainly focused on providing these solutions and can be used to compute stats such as funding received.

Regtech

AML (anti money laundering): startups providing tech-first solutions for banks and fintechs to comply with financial regulation on anti-money laundering regulation.
A tag “anti money laundering” also exists to track all the players in the sector.

Food

FoodTech is an ecosystem made of all the agrifood entrepreneurs and startups (from production to distribution) innovating on the products, distribution, marketing or business model.

Sub-industry	Description
Logistics & Delivery	Startups answering the delivery challenges in the food industry, with home delivery of groceries, restaurant meals or meals prepared in their own kitchens. Example: Meal Kits, delivery marketplaces, discovery boxes, restaurant delivery, delivery robots
In-Store Retail & Restaurant Tech	Startups reinventing the restaurant industry. It means improving the management of restaurants and institutional catering, connecting customers and businesses directly to local chefs for catering and new experiences. Startups developing solutions for the food retail industry, from the digitalisation of the supply chain to a better in-store shopper experience. Example: reservation platforms, food service management. catering, restaurant software
Innovative Food	Startups developing new food products answering the need for more transparency, health and environmental concerns. Products range from market innovations to radical disruptions using revolutionary ingredients. Example: alternative protein, future foods, meal substitutes, packaging, product innovation, drinks
AgriTech	Startups disrupting agriculture. They come up with solutions to improve farming output and quality using drones, sensors and farm management software. AgTech is also about new farm products, next-generation farms and urban farming. Example: farm management software, drones & robots, urban and novel farms, agriculture marketplaces, ag-biotech
Kitchen & Cooking Tech	Startups developing new generation of appliances or cookware. They provide more technology, new distribution channels or more personalisation. Example: cooking robots

Gaming

Startups involved in the development, marketing, and monetisation of games (video games, online games, board games…)

Sub-industry	Description
eSports	Startups in the electronic sports sphere, where a multiplayer video game is played competitively for spectators, typically by professional gamers. Example: ESL
Mobile Gaming	Startups involved in the development, marketing, and monetisation of mobile games (iOS and Android games). Example: Zynga
Console & PC Gaming	Startups involved in the development, marketing, and monetisation of video games. Example: Krafton
Board Games	Startups involved in the development, marketing, and monetisation of board games. Example: Cards against humanity
Betting & Gambling	Startups involved in the development, marketing, and monetisation of online betting & gambling games. Example: PokerStars

Health

Health Tech, or digital health, uses technology (databases, applications, mobiles, wearables) to improve the delivery, payment, and/or consumption of care, with the ability to increase the development and commercialisation of medicinal products

Sub-industry	Description
Medical Devices	Startups developing devices or instruments with the purpose of preventing, monitoring, alleviating or treating diseases and handicaps. Also the investigation, replacement or modification of the anatomy or of a physiological process. And the control of conception.
Health Platform	Startups developing digital health platforms with the aim of improving health management for both patients and service providers.
Biotechnology	Startups developing health solutions involving the use of living cells and cell materials for the purpose of bettering the health of humans.
Pharmaceutical	Startups developing and discovering new drugs.

Marketing

Marketing technology (also known as MarTech) describes any number of systems and tools that help marketers better engage with potential and existing customers.

Sub-industry	Description
AdTech	Advertising Technology (adtech) is defined as different types of analytics and digital tools used in the context of advertising. Example: Marin Software
CRM & Sales	Startups developing tools and software for managing relationships and interactions with customers and potential customers. Example: Pipedrive
E-commerce Solutions	Startups developing products and services that help a company conduct business electronically (its e-commerce business). Example: Mirakl
Marketing Analytics	Startups developing tools and software to help companies derive insights and analytics from their marketing activities. To understand how their customers interact for example. Example: 6sense

Media
Media technology is any hardware, software, or tool that is used to compose, create, produce, deliver and manage media including audio, video, images, information, interactive media, video games, virtual reality, and augmented reality environments.

Sub-industry	Description
Content production	Startups that develop tools, physical or digital products or a platform that allows, facilitates, enable users to create and share content of various type: writing, images, music, videos. Example: GoPro
Publishing	Startups which product or platform is about the distribution of free or paid content - text, images, music, information - such as a newsletter, self-publishing, book reviews. Example: Substack
Social Media	Startups which product or platform is about the creation and sharing of various form of content - text, images, music - in one or more virtual communities. Example: Twitter
Streaming	Startups that develop a streaming product of platform. In this form of media, content - video, music, audio - is constantly delivered to the end-user while being delivered by a providor. Streaming is so used to described a type of medium. Live-streaming is when this content is delivered in real-time. Example: Quibi

Real Estate

Real Estate tech or PropTech (property technology) is the use of information technology to help individuals and companies research, buy, sell and manage real estate.

Sub-industry	Description
Mortgages & Lending	These subsets of Real Estate startups provide financial services specifically tailored towards the real estate market. These solutions will then be focused on mortgages, for example. Importantly, there might be an overlap with FinTech startups. Example: Assetz Capital
Workspaces	Workspace refers to premises (either private or public), provided to help new businesses to establish themselves. These typically provide not only physical space and utilities but also administrative services and links to support and finance organizations, as well as peer support among the tenants. In Dealroom, a “Workspace” doesn’t take equity from its tenants, whereas an “Accelerator” does. Example: WeWork
Search, Buy & Rent	These types of startups are generally platforms that facilitate the discovery, purchase or rent of homes/rooms. Often those companies function on a marketplace-based model, and their revenue is generated with commissions. Example: HousingAnywhere
Construction	These startups provide solutions that facilitate the construction/surveying of real estate properties. Example: Civdrone
Real Estate Software	These startups provide a software-based solution to make the management and overview of facilities easier and more efficient. Another interesting example is about companies that provide energy efficiency solutions for ‘smart buildings’, these, too, can provide software specific for the real estate market. Example: SMS Assist
Real Estates Services	These companies provide services around the real estate world that cannot be categorized under the aforementioned categories. For example, these could include tailored customer service and interior design solutions. Example: Happy Wait

Insurtech*

Insurtech is the intersection between insurance and technology. Insurtech needs to have a predominant part of the company's business strictly related to insurance.

Divided by value chain	Description
Reinsurance	These startups focus on optimizing reinsurance processes or acting as a bridge between reinsurers and insurers/insurtechs. For instance, acting as risk transfer marketplaces. Example: Nayms
Product & price	These startups help insurance companies optimize the definition of their products and its pricing, often enhancing the role of actuarial in the insurance industry. Example: Akur8
Underwriting	The process in which the insurance companies evaluate the risk profiles of the customer and decide if to establish a contract with them and what the level of risk of the client is. Example: Concirrus
Claim	The process which goes from the notification of a loss from the client to the analysis of its validity and entity of the damage and its internal workflow processing. Startups in this field offer either workflow management solutions for claims handling or solutions based on IoT, computer vision, satellite imagery etc to assess the claim remotely and automatically. Example: Omni:us
Distribution and brokerage	Startups with this tag offer either solutions to improve the distribution process for insurers, or act as marketplaces, comparator websites and brokers selling policies themselves. Example: Xempus
MGA	Managing General Agent or Managing General Underwriter (MGA/MGU) are startups that do not have an insurance carrier license, so are not insurers, but establish partnerships with insurers/insurtechs who are licensed and give them the permission to carry the risk. So MGAs act in front of the customer as full insurers while not being it. Example: Bought by Many
Challenger insurance	Challenger insurance refers to the insurtech startups which have a license and are so independent to create products and underwrite risk for clients. Example: Lemonade
Full-stack insurance	Insurtechs, who like the challengers, have a license and cover the whole value chain but do not sell directly to customers or businesses but provide insurance as a service (IaaS) and white-label solutions to other players which then offer the insurance service. Example: Element Insurance

Divided by sector (L&H)	Description
Health insurance	This insurance segment covers medical expenses and increasingly include additional services such as digital platforms (telemedicine and other services) and digital health engaging and rewarding for a healthy lifestyle. Example: Alan
Life insurance	An insurance segment that provides a financial payout in case of death, or critical illness and in some cases, to allow beloved to sustain living expenses in case of tragedies. Sometimes mixed with pension insurance and savings products. Example: Bestow
Pension insurance	This insurance segment provides savings products with a certain guaranteed return. Example: Vantik

Cyber insurance	Covers damages from cyber attacks, mostly for businesses. It sees many cybersecurity specialists establishing a partnership with insurtech/insurers. Example: Coalition
Product	Insurance segments covering product warranties, strongly related to e-commerce and retail. Example: Extend
Commercial	Includes insurance covers such as General Liability, Workers' Compensation, Professional Liability, Commercial Auto, Tools & Equipment for businesses (especially SMEs, freelancers, contractors, entrepreneurs). Example: Tapoly
Travel	Composed of either product more related to P&C lines such as flight delay and luggage damages/loss and related to L&H such as medical coverage during travel abroad. Example: Koala insurance
Pet	Insurance products for pet ownership and can include veterinarian and health coverage as well as liability insurance. Example: Pawlicy Advisor

Transportation

Startups developing solutions, software, tools and machines used to solve problems or improve conditions with respect to the movement of people and goods

Sub-industry	Description
Mobility	Startups developing transportation solutions getting people from point A to point B. This includes ride hailing, ride sharing, public transport and micromobility. Example: Uber, Via, BlaBlaCar, Mobike
Search, Buy & Rent	Marketplaces and other solutions to enable and facilitate new and used vehicle purchasing, vehicle rental and leasing, as well financing. Example: Auto1Group, Cinch, Openlending, Drivy
Maintenance	Solutions to improve maintenance and aftermarket for vehicles including platforms to connect users to networks of repair dealers, claim estimation for insurance, B2B solutions and marketplaces for parts. Example: Fixico, Snapsheet, CassTime, Carzone
Navigation & Mapping	Startups developing solutions to track vehicles, provide navigation and mapping. This includes navigation apps, telematics providers, platforms for mobility data sharing, logistics tracking. Example: Cambridge Mobile Telematics, Waze, Wejo, Shippeo
Autonomous & Sensor Tech	Startups developing solutions for autonomous driving or to enhance other vehicle sensing capabilities. This included autonomous driving vehicles, software and sensors and V2X. Example: Waymo, Horizon Robotics, Luminar, AutoTalks
Vehicle Production	Startups producing or developing solutions for vehicle production, as well as vehicle parts such as motors, chassis. Example: Rivian, Joby Aviation, REE automotive, Infinitum Electric
Logistics & Delivery	Startups developing solutions for the transportation of goods, the packaging of products for storage and shipment involving both internal and external distribution networks. Example: Flexport, Glovo, Forto

Other industries:

Jobs Recruitment
Startups developing solutions, services & software designed to improve the recruitment process within a business or for individuals seeking a job.

Home Living
Startups developing products and services improving the comfort of homes. It includes home automation or domotics, smart home tech, garden tech, connected devices to be used inside the home.

Telecom
Startups developing solutions aiming at disrupting the telecommunications industry: startups offering mobile plans, internet subscriptions, better communication services.

Education
Startups developing solutions, software and tools designed to enhance teacher-led learning in classrooms and improve students' education outcomes.

Enterprise Software
Startups developing computer software designed to satisfy the needs of an organisation rather than individual users.

Robotics
Startups dealing with the design, construction, operation, and use of robots, as well as computer systems for their control, sensory feedback, and information processing.

Dating
Startups developing apps, solutions and technology for the dating industry (Tinder, online dating, facilitating people to meet with a potential partner).

Event Tech
Startups developing solutions and technologies helping you plan, manage and organise data when putting on an event (conference, wedding, party, etc).

Semiconductors
Startups developing innovative semiconductors (chips), working on processors, chips for sensors, chips for the automotive sector, AI chips, IoT chips, data centre chips.

Wellness Beauty
Startups providing consumers with products and services designed to improve mental and physical wellbeing

Startups using technology to make better shampoos, makeup accessories, perfume and beauty products in general.

Kids
Startups developing products, solutions and tech for children or to help parents with their children

Music
Startups developing products, solutions and tech-related to music, streaming music, musical instruments, musical equipment, discovering music, music apps, music creation.

Hosting
Startups developing solutions for housing, serving, and maintaining files and data online or offline.

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