From left: Indrek Uudeküll, a partner at Prudentia Tallinn, and Riine Heinsalu, Product Manager at Wise (photo: Prudentia Tallinn)

Press release / 30 September 2026

TopTech Rankings 2026: Brand-new unicorn Blackwall emerges as a surprise entry among Estonia’s most valuable technology companies

Wise (valued at 11 billion euros) topped this year’s TopTech ranking of Estonia’s most valuable technology companies. Bolt came second (€7 billion) and Veriff third (€1.8 billion), but the biggest surprise in the ranking is the cyber security firm Blackwall, which has emerged as a new unicorn (5th place, valued at €1 billion). The ranking was compiled by M&A advisory firm Prudentia Tallinn and the Siena Secondary Fund, which focuses on secondary market investments in technology companies.

According to Indrek Uudeküll, a partner at Prudentia Tallinn and the driving force behind the ranking, Blackwall won this year’s TopTech special award for the biggest climber, with its valuation rising by approximately 368 per cent over the year from 221 million to 1.03 billion euros, and its ranking improving from ninth to fifth place. Blackwall provides security infrastructure: the company’s GateKeeper solution filters out malicious traffic before it reaches the client’s applications. According to Uudeküll, Blackwall is an example of how, when evaluating a technology company, one must consider the product, the sales channel and the economic benefit created for the customer all at once.

The combined value of Estonia’s 30 most valuable technology companies has actually fallen slightly compared with the previous year (26.4 billion euros versus 27.7 billion euros). Wise is valued at 10.98 billion euros this year and Bolt at 7.09 billion euros – together they account for 68.3 per cent of the TOP 30’s value, but the combined value of these two companies has fallen by approximately 15 per cent over the year. The top five account for 84.6 per cent of the total value in the table, meaning that a revaluation of just a few large companies has a significant impact on the overall result. According to Uudeküll, TopTech 2026 highlights both a slowdown in the growth of existing leaders and the emergence of new, strong companies. “Estonia’s next challenge is to create conditions in which such companies not only want to start up here, but also to grow into large enterprises,” he added.

According to Wise’s Product Manager Riine Heinsalu, Estonia continues to be an excellent growth hub for global companies like Wise. “Estonia has a very strong entrepreneurial culture, and the products built and developed here benefit millions of people worldwide: at Wise, we help nearly 19 million people and businesses from Japan to Brazil save nearly 2.8 billion euros a year when moving and managing money internationally. That includes customers here at home too: 21% of Estonian businesses are active Wise customers,” said Heinsalu.

In summary, the AI, cyber and defence sectors are dominating this year’s ranking. Veriff and Montonio are marked as ‘new’ in the 2026 ranking, but in reality their data was simply not available during the last couple of years.

The defence technology sector is represented in the TOP 30 by seven companies with a combined value of 1.07 billion euros – in terms of the number of companies, this is the largest sector in the ranking. Hevi Optronics, KrattWorks and Ark Robotics have joined Frankenburg Technologies, Threodi, Milrem and DefSecIntel. Frankenburg’s valuation rose by 89 per cent (€283 million), Threodi’s by 45 per cent (€245 million) and Milrem’s by 27 per cent (€177 million). DefSecIntel’s valuation, however, fell by 47 per cent to approximately €101 million.

The combined value of the four companies classified as B2B SaaS in the table fell by 32.4 per cent. The biggest impact came from Pipedrive, but Toggle’s value also fell (by 37 per cent), whilst Scoro grew by five per cent. In the fintech sector, Wallester stood out, with its value rising by 46 per cent to 139 million euros. The value of software developers Nortal and Helmes increased by 7.4 per cent and 1.4 per cent respectively.

According to Rando Rannus, a partner at Siena Secondary Fund – one of the organisers of TopTech – a defining feature of today’s Estonian tech scene is that the current generation of founders in their twenties are the first to have never built anything without artificial intelligence. “There are early signs that we’re starting to see young teams similar to Zobi – which has already made it onto the list – emerge, and hopefully they’ll account for a larger share of TopTech in the coming years. They don’t ask how many people are needed, but how few. A new person is only hired when the machine can no longer cope. This is a completely different mindset to the ‘grow at any cost’ approach of 2021,” he noted.

According to Rannus, a generation of companies is currently emerging from Estonia which, with five to fifteen people and a couple of million, are achieving what previously required fifty people and tens of millions. These young entrepreneurs are being advised – and, increasingly, funded – by the previous generation of Estonian founders themselves. The people who built Bolt and Wise are sharing advice on how to scale up and, where necessary, are also putting the first cheque on the table for the next generation.

According to Rando Rannus, another key factor in their success is that companies reach a stage of real business operation before they even need significant capital. “If every euro goes further, the founders retain a larger stake, investors benefit from a simpler ownership structure, and the ecosystem gains more mature companies in the coming years. And their first employees and angel investors are, in turn, the next ones to put their money into circulation. Estonia’s start-up DNA – substance, resilience, and never giving up – remains intact,” he noted.

The TopTech ranking, compiled once a year, helps to provide a clearer picture of and understanding of the potential of Estonian technology companies and their contribution to the local economy. To compile the ranking, a comparative assessment of the companies’ value is carried out at a specific point in time using a specific methodology. View the Estonia 2026 TopTech ranking here: https://www.toptech.ee/  

TopTech ranking methodology:  

The ranking includes fast-growing technology companies that have at least one Estonian founder, or are registered in Estonia AND have their head office in Estonia, or at least 20 per cent of their workforce is based in Estonia.  

The assessment is based on publicly available data and information provided by the companies themselves. Equity value is assessed, as, given the nature of the sector (low debt-to-equity ratio), the company’s value and its equity value are, in most cases, of a similar magnitude.

The value of equity is calculated as follows:

• If the company is listed (including on alternative investment platforms or as tokens on a cryptocurrency platform), the market capitalisation as at 31 August 2026 is used as the value;
• If the company has raised funds within the last 12 months, the value is calculated on the basis of the most recent funding round;
• If the company has been sold to a financial investor within the last 12 months, the sale price of the company is used as the value;
• If none of the above applies, but the company has an investor who has assessed its fair value and this assessment is available from public sources, the investor’s valuation is used as the basis for calculating the value;
• If none of the above applies, but the company has submitted its financial data to the compilers of TopTech or this data is available from public sources, a turnover-based market multiple is used. The benchmark comprises companies operating in the same sector that are listed on a stock exchange or have raised capital within the last 12 months;
• If the company’s financial data is not available to the TopTech compilers and more than 12 months have elapsed since the last funding round or sale to a financial investor, the company’s value is reflected at the level of the year preceding the valuation year;
• If the company’s financial data is not available to the TopTech compilers and more than 24 months have elapsed since the company’s most recent funding round or sale to a financial investor, the company is not included in the valuation.

The valuation was carried out by Prudentia in collaboration with Siena Secondary Fund. Sources used: Crunchbase, Infopank, Mergermarket, StartupEstonia.

Further information:

Indrek Uudeküll, partner at Prudentia Tallinn; email: indrek.uudekyll@prudentia.ee

Rando Rannus, partner at Siena Secondary Fund; email: rando.rannus@siena.ee