This article was taken from the September 2012 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
How can you predict which of today's fast-growth startups will be the breakthrough businesses of tomorrow?
Will London,
Berlin or Barcelona emerge as Europe's leading competitor to Silicon Valley -- or do Tel Aviv, Paris or Stockholm have a higher chance of making a long-term global impact?
These are questions that occupy us at Wired, where we spend our days meeting emerging stars in the software, design, product and media worlds. So when we came to plan this special guide to the 100 most exciting European startups in 2012, we made some ground rules. First, we were out to identify the companies large and small that we felt were heading places and which our readers ought to know about. Not necessarily the biggest, most profitable or best-known businesses -- but those that our networks of local friends, entrepreneurs, investors and commentators consider "hot" right now. Second, we were looking for strong local ecosystems where clusters of startups were starting to make an international mark. After an intense period of research, we decided that Europe's most significant clusters were in London, Berlin, Istanbul, Paris, Tel Aviv, <a href="/{localLink:18700}" title="Moscow">Moscow</a>, Stockholm, Barcelona, Helsinki and <a href="/{localLink:18696}" title="Amsterdam">Amsterdam</a>.
Were we right? We'll have to wait and see. But who wouldn't agree that the talent, ambition and execution set out in these pages is Europe's greatest, most exciting hope for an economic renaissance?
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
