• Tribe Capital has spent years creating a statistical model to identify the world's best seed investors.
• The model underpins Insider's European Seed 50 and Seed 10 lists.

Tribe Capital invests on the premise that product market fit exists and can be measured. As such, we've adopted data science into all facets of our investing.

A few years ago, to augment our network building and deal flow partnerships at the seed level, we began measuring top seed investors in the US and Canada. We developed a proprietary algorithm using Crunchbase and PitchBook data to analyze an investor's performance in about 25 areas. The model combines these factors to predict an investor's likelihood of continued, consistent success.

We sought to find seed investors with a track record of investments that do the following:

• Performed well as indicated by initial public offerings or exits meaningfully above liquidation preference, meaning returns were achieved because the companies became more valuable, not because they raised a lot of money.

• Showed early signs of future success because their portfolios have cured well at the early stage, but have not yet exited.

• Tended to reach growth stage as indicated by Series B and follow-up rounds.

• Had well-rounded success, showing well across all attributes we measured even if they didn't have a single strength.

This year, we've decided to extend this model to the European markets.

The European and UK Seed Ecosystem

The venture capital ecosystem in Europe and the UK is still establishing itself when compared with its US counterpart. Funding to European startups surged to $116 billion in 2021 but was still less than half the $330 billion raised by startups in North America, according to Crunchbase data.

Indeed, the same discrepancy can be found among active investors that have made 5 or more investments in the past decade. In the US we identified a pool of around 4,800 such investors while Europe is home to around 2,600.

Acknowledging the earlier stages of the European ecosystem, we decided to modify our algorithm to include investors with a smaller number of investments.

This allowed us to better capture investors showing early signs of success, but have not had the chance to build out a long, time-tested track record. We also decided to shorten the list to the top 50, where our confidence remains strong on the statistical significance of these investors' outlier performances.

As the ecosystem matures and investments see more outcomes in the following years, we expect this uncertainty to lower and the list to expand and include more rising stars that we see today in the ecosystem.

Diversity in Europe and the UK

We analyzed investors that came from 43 different countries, of which 13% weren't native to the region: there were a few solo venture capitalists and angel investors domiciled globally that made the list.

Through our analysis, we found that some foreign investors were able to beat the local's advantage and still command a strong track record despite their geographical distance.

When it comes to gender diversity, Europe is similar to the US. Our statistics show that 9.9% of venture partners in the region identify as female.

Nonetheless, we're seeing an encouraging emergence of female seed investors in the venture community, and so we've created the Europe Seed 10 list to highlight them.

Given the activity we see in the market today with more women entering the industry, we expect female representation to improve over time.

Because historical track records will be a couple of years behind today's diversity composition, many of the rising stars of diverse backgrounds we see today simply don't yet have a long enough track record from enough deals, with data that could be validated, to be in contention for the broader list.

Looking Forward

Though we've put together a list today on who we believe are the top 50 seed investors in Europe, by no means do we think the rankings will remain static.

Quite the contrary, the fast-growing venture capital ecosystem in Europe and the UK will bring competition and movement among the ranks larger than what we've seen prior in the US.

Our data shows that the region's eligible candidate pool grew 17% and total dollars invested at the seed stage grew by 73% in the past year alone. As existing investors on the list have shorter track records on average, the growth in investor population and investments is expected to bring greater variance in individuals' placement in the future.

We remain excited to see how the next year will unfold, and who will be next to rise to the top of the list.

Francis Zhan is an investor at Tribe Capital who innovates with data science and analytics to improve investment outcomes for Tribe and their broader partners.

Jake Ellowitz is a partner at Tribe Capital and the data scientist who pioneered Tribe's mathematical models for the startup and venture capital industries.