Europe's ten: five sold, five listed

The five that went public did it in four different venues. Adyen went out on Euronext Amsterdam in 2018, Zalando and Delivery Hero on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in 2014 and 2017, Wise direct-listed on the London Stock Exchange in 2021, and Spotify direct-listed on the NYSE in 2018. Two of the five were direct listings rather than IPOs, which means the shares started trading without the company selling new ones to raise money.

Every one of the five sales went to a buyer from outside Europe. eBay bought Skype and then Microsoft bought it again, Microsoft bought Mojang for $2.5 billion in cash, SoftBank took majority control of Supercell before selling on to Tencent, AOL bought Bebo, and Adobe bought Fotolia. Skype and Supercell each carry two dates and two amounts on this list because each was sold twice.

Then there is Bebo. Michael Birch sold it to AOL for $850 million in cash in March 2008. AOL sold it on to Criterion Capital Partners in 2010 for under $10 million, Bebo filed for bankruptcy in 2013, and Birch bought his own company back that July for $1 million.