From sustainability to security, these Forbes 30 Under 30 entrepreneurs are finding unique ways to preserve the natural environment and digital safety.
By Iain Martin, Tom Brewster and Rashi Shrivastava
As a lawyer and legal advisor, Nadia Khadim knows how difficult it is for businesses to become data compliant and implement cybersecurity measures required by law. Now, through her Netherlands-based startup Naq Cyber, she helps small and medium-sized businesses, those “who traditionally had been forgotten about by the cybersecurity industry,” become digitally safe with her startup’s subscription-based security products and services. The 29-year-old entrepreneur, who was placed into foster care at the age of 14, is today the CEO of a $5.5 million startup.
GUERIN BLASK FOR FORBES
Khadim is one of the tech entrepreneurs honored on this year’s Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe list, an annual list of entrepreneurs under the age of 30 who are driving impact, both societal and financial. This year’s list includes several founders who are building businesses while also finding new ways to protect the planet and those who live on it.
Privacy and online protection is a key focus for several listees beyond Khadim. Tamas Kadar, 29, and Bence Jendruszak, 28, are the cofounders of Budapest-based SEON, which has monitored online transactions for more than 5,000 merchants to help them prevent payments-related fraud by spotting fake accounts and tracking IP addresses for criminal behavior. The company brought in $12 million in 2022. Kaarel Kotkas, 28, founded identity-verification platform Veriff in 2015. In eight years Kotkas has built the Estonia-based startup into a unicorn, valued at $1.5 billion, with clients in sectors ranging from fintech to healthcare. At Quantum Dice, Wenmiao Yu, 25, Ramy Shelbaya, 29, and George Dunlop, 26, are making sure random numbers, which are a key element of encryption, are genuinely and truly random through their quantum random number generators. The startup, born out of Oxford University’s quantum optics laboratory, has raised a total of $5.8 million.
While some founders are making businesses safe and sound, others are trying to help businesses and individuals be more mindful of the environment. Twenty-nine-year-old Konstantin Wilk is the cofounder of German bootstrapped company Aqon Pure, which made $10 million in 2022 selling its eco-friendly, energy-efficient water treatment system to residential buildings and plumbing companies. Patrick Reich, 27, is the cofounder of Bonnet, an EV charging app with a network of 200,000 public charging points that drivers can access to power up their electric vehicles. Bonnet clocked $3 million in revenue in 2022 and plans to do $12 million in 2023. The company’s mission is to tackle climate change by making sustainable transportation easy for all. Felix Harteneck, 29, cofounder of Inplanet, is helping businesses remove carbon in the atmosphere through a process called rock weathering, where carbon dioxide is held beneath the soil through silicates (minerals containing silicon and oxygen).
This year’s list features 11 women and 14 entrepreneurs of color. Listees are building their businesses across different parts of Europe such as France, Austria, Estonia, Belgium and Hungary.
Female entrepreneurs on the list are using technologies such as face recognition, cloud software and artificial intelligence. Ahana Banerjee, 24, is the CEO and founder of a $15 million skincare app called Clear, which lets its 9,000 users track progress of their skincare routines through selfie analysis and share them with medical professionals while also letting them buy and review cosmetic products. Ruxandra Pui, 28, cofounded veterinary-focused Digitail, which includes a cloud-based booking and management platform used by 700 pet clinics and a pet parent app that currently stores health data for 1.4 million pets. And artist-turned-entrepreneur Marion Carré, 27, is helping museums and art galleries build chatbots and digital experiences. Based in Paris, Ask Mona claims to have worked with the Louis Vitton Foundation and Rome’s Colosseum.
Each year, we receive hundreds of online submissions for the list that Forbes staff sort through and send to our judges. An aggregate of the judges scores is used to compile the final list. This year the list was judged by Jessica Schultz, a Stockholm-based partner at early stage venture fund Northzone Ventures; Linnéa Kornehed Flack, Under 30 alumna and cofounder of an autonomous electric trucking company Einride; Ismail Ahmed, founder of $5 billion money transferring app Zepz; and Oliver Lewis, cofounder of Rebellion Defense, which makes software for military missions in the U.K. and the U.S.
This year’s list was edited by Senior Writer Thomas Brewster, Europe News Editor Iain Martin, and Reporter Rashi Shrivastava. For a link to our complete Technology list, click here, and for full 30 Under 30 Europe coverage, click here.
