Eligibility criteria
A startup, for Uback, is a non-listed company, born independent, funded with equity by outside investors, that has not been entirely bought.
Uback ranks companies whose capital is still open: investors can still come in, and minority shareholders can still find a buyer. That remains true when a group or a fund has taken control, as long as minority shareholders remain. A listed company already has its market. A company that has been entirely bought, or was created by a group, is not, or no longer, a startup. Every criterion below follows from that principle.
The five criteria
| Criterion | How it applies |
|---|---|
| 1. Non-listed | No shares listed on any stock exchange, including growth markets (Euronext Growth, AIM, KOSDAQ…) and listings through a SPAC. Listed companies are shown separately, as benchmarks, and are never ranked. |
| 2. Funded by outside investors | At least $1M raised in total, including at least one equity round from outside investors. A grant is not a funding round; debt alone is not enough; nor is a fund buying out the founders’ shares. The same threshold applies in every country. |
| 3. Born independent, not entirely bought | The company was founded by entrepreneurs, not created by a group. A group, a private equity fund or a state may have taken control of it, provided outside minority shareholders (funds, business angels, founders) remain on the cap table: it is then ranked with the mention “Controlled by”. Not eligible: a company bought entirely or almost entirely; a company created by the group that controls it (subsidiary, division, joint venture). A company that has been entirely bought does not become eligible again, even if it later brings in new investors. A signed acquisition counts as done, even before it closes. |
| 4. In business | A company that has closed, is in liquidation or is in insolvency proceedings is not ranked. |
| 5. Alive on the cap table | At least one equity transaction in the last ten years: a funding round, a secondary sale, or a stake passing from one fund to another. A company with no transaction for ten years is no longer a startup in Uback’s sense. |
Our rules
These criteria are Uback’s own. Other definitions of a startup exist, and this one can be debated. It is public, and the same for every company, in every country and every segment.
Cap tables are rarely public. Uback therefore judges on the public information available, and can be wrong. Any company can request a correction, with supporting documents. A company cannot ask to be removed from a ranking: only an eligibility criterion can take it out.
What happens to a company that is not eligible
- On a country page, it appears under “Not ranked”, with its reason and source.
- On a segment page, it is named in the paragraph that sets the scope of the segment.
- A listed company may be shown as a listed benchmark.
- Its past positions remain in the history.
Eligible does not mean ranked
The ranking keeps the eligible companies the AI models can value, up to the number of places in the ranking. The other known eligible companies appear in the Radar, sorted by date of last funding round. See the method.
Scope
- Tech or innovative startup: the scope is defined by the public sector taxonomy, which evolves. Each company belongs to one sector and one segment only; a company with several activities and no main one (a conglomerate) is not ranked.
- Country of operations: a company is ranked in the country of its operations, whatever its legal seat. Locally founded companies run from abroad appear in “Born here, based elsewhere”.
- Countries covered: they are chosen by an algorithm, not by Uback (see the FAQ). China has no country ranking (why).