What Counts As A Startup? 

Final week, skilled networking platform LinkedIn unveiled its “High Startups” lists for 2025, certainly one of which showcased probably the most promising and fastest-growing ventures in London.

Nevertheless, this yr’s lineup raised just a few eyebrows on the platform. Some customers flocked to the feedback to argue that the businesses on LinkedIn’s listing will not be true  “startups”, however already seasoned enterprises within the business.

Whether or not an organization qualifies as a startup or not is dependent upon who you ask — and that’s precisely why LinkedIn’s newest listing sparked a lot debate. So what makes a startup in 2025?

What are LinkedIn’s High Startups lists?

Yearly since 2017, LinkedIn has launched a number of “High Startups” lists, providing an annual rating of rising corporations which are disrupting industries, rising quickly, and attracting high expertise.

Every listing makes use of actual information from the platform — masking metrics comparable to worker development, jobseeker curiosity, and engagement — to rank the fastest-growing and most promising companies on the platform.

For London, this yr’s listing featured distinguished names throughout totally different industries, together with ElevenLabs, Allica Financial institution, Connectd, Swap, and Fuse Vitality.

The general UK listing additionally named a number of Startups 100 Index alumni as rising stars, together with this yr’s winner Lottie, in addition to Sona and MAGIC AI.

Critics say LinkedIn’s “startups” are too large to depend

LinkedIn’s methodology for its 2025 listing measures startups based mostly on 4 pillars — employment development, engagement, job curiosity, and attraction of high expertise.

Apparently, this judging course of seems to outline probably the most profitable startups as corporations which are rising and hiring rapidly. 

However critics argue that, by favouring corporations which have invested closely in expertise acquisition, this implies the platform is that includes listees which are well-established corporations — not startups.

“A startup is lower than 10 workers and simply getting funding. These are medium-sized companies,” one consumer wrote. “LinkedIn doesn’t appear to know what startups actually are.”

One other founder and CEO commented: “These are established corporations within the tech sector. Not startups. Congrats to all of them, however I believe the choice course of tips missed the mark.”

What defines a Startup in 2025?

Many people may assume we all know what the typical startup enterprise ought to seem like. However there aren’t any particular guidelines for what defines a startup, and even for when it formally turns into a longtime restricted firm.

Consultants level to elements comparable to an early-stage marketing strategy, a small workforce, and nonetheless growing a product-market match as issues that make up a startup. In the meantime, Digest Professional cites different elements, together with an absence of development imaginative and prescient and an absent firm tradition.

Some commenters are on the identical web page, with one defining the time period as an organization “typically underneath 10 individuals, navigating the primary rounds of funding, and shaping its identification”. 

By this considering, the commenters appear to be arguing that the businesses featured on LinkedIn’s listing are as an alternative scale-ups. Scale-ups will be described as ventures which have moved past the startup section to realize speedy development in each income and headcount.

Within the Startups 100 Index, we have now our personal standards to outline eligibility. Leaning towards the early-stage nature of startups, our entrants should merely have shaped within the final 5 years, which might sometimes end in spin-outs and scale-ups making the listing. 

Clearly, “startup” isn’t a one-size-fits-all label. Whereas age, measurement, and funding stage give some steerage, quite a lot of it comes all the way down to perspective. And if an organization nonetheless feels it’s discovering its ft, it’s maybe as much as its leaders, not outsiders, to determine whether or not it’s ‘fully-fledged’.