The Visionaries Creating A New Digitalized Europe

The 30 Under 30 Technology honorees offer a vision of not only what Europe is, but what it has the potential to become.

In a year filled with major challenges for Europe, most notably the Russian invasion of Ukraine resulting in the ongoing war between the two largest countries on the continent, there’s a group of individuals whose vision, tenacity and technological know-how serve as a ray of hope for building a more sustainable, economically developed and digitally advanced society.

The 2022 Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe Technology honorees have earned their place on the coveted list thanks to a wide array of entrepreneurial endeavors, ranging from payroll processing firms and DevOps automation platforms to neurotechnology startups and even mobile apps for Christian prayers.

The face of this year’s list is native Galician (an autonomous community in western Spain) Ignacio Moreno Pubul, 28, cofounder and vice president of platform at fintech firm Capchase. The NYC- and Madrid-based company, which aims to give startup founders alternatives to financing by diluting their ownership, announced an $80 million Series B funding round in March of this year. To date, it has raised nearly $550 million total in a mix of equity funding and debt financing.

Joining him on the list is ex-football player Jonas Bøgh Larsen, 29, cofounder and CEO of Danish enterprise payroll processing firm Pento, which has raised $53 million from the likes of Tiger Global and General Catalyst.

Among the most interesting founder stories is that of Ed Beccle, the 23-year-old Thiel Fellow who cofounded and serves as CEO of mobile app for Christian prayers and daily worship Glorify. Since its inception, it has gained four million subscribers and raised $84 million from investors like a16z, SoftBank LATAM, Kris Jenner, Michael Ovitz, Michael Bublé and more.

Lillian Breidenbach and Charlotte Kufus, bother 29, cofounded female-led Legal OS, a platform that allows lawyers to automate lawyer-client relationships without having to code, and have raised over $9 million from investors including Gradient Ventures, Google’s AI-focused venture fund.

The list also features an ex-R&D team lead in the elite Unit 81 intelligence unit of the Israel Defense Forces. Alon Gubkin, 25, cofounded Aporia, an end-to-end solution that enables data science and machine learning teams to instantly gain transparency and explainability for their ML models in production, and has raised $30 million.

Though historically largely focused on founders, the Technology list occasionally honors a particularly outstanding non-founder, and such is the case with Alan Chang, chief revenue officer at fintech behemoth Revolut, which has raised over $1.7 billion to date. Since joining as the company’s fifth employee, the 28-year-old has held numerous key operational positions at Revolut, starting from operations analyst to head of operations, vice president and senior vice president.

The country with most citizens honored on this year’s list is United Kingdom with 12, followed by Germany with seven and Italy with five. Other countries with representatives on the list include Switzerland with three, Israel, Denmark, Russia and Netherlands with two, and Spain, Romania, Ireland, Bulgaria, Ukraine and Sri Lanka (though not European by birth, the honoree works in Finland) with one.

The youngest honorees on this year’s list are 23-year-olds Beccle, the aforementioned cofounder of Glorify, and former Red Bull-sponsored sailor Morgan Wirtz from Brussels, who cofounded and serves as a CEO of money app Rise. Since starting the company two years ago, he’s raised a $1.9 million seed round and gathered a team of 20 experts to build a bank for teenagers, helping them with their spending and savings.