Two billion euros: That’s how much Forto is already worth, according to investors. The However, the freight startup already achieved unicorn status in 2021 and thus five years after foundation. Wefox took a similar amount of timeto gain unicorn status. N26 and Celonis also quickly became billionaires. What also connects the companies: Their former employees have founded numerous start-ups themselves, some with high million valuations as well.
In the US, this is called “mafia” in reference to the structures in organized crime. A popular example of these startup mafias is PayPal: Former employees of the payment service provider have themselves created extremely successful startups such as Tesla, Linkedin or Palantir.
In the case of Forto, the companies founded by alumni are still on a smaller level. However, Forto itself (at that time still under the name Freighthub) was only founded in 2016, Paypal in 1998. Currently, around 750 employees work for the Berlin start-up – which arranges orders for the worldwide transport of containers to transport companies. In this overview you can see which people left the company to build their own startup and whether they were successful: