European Union (EU) healthcare systems are under financial and pandemic related pressure and will face further challenges not only due to a lack of medical workers and an ageing population. Technical innovation is seen as one of the ways to diffuse this ticking time bomb. Where innovation initiatives on corporate and governmental levels have in part failed, startups have the chance to be a grass-roots source for healthcare innovation in the future. This thesis explores the landscape of EU-based high performing healthcare startups. I try to answer the question: What types of EU-based healthcare startups are successful?In this thesis academic literature is examined for appropriate information on EU healthcare and healthcare innovation. Additionally, Crunchbase was utilized to identify one hundred high performing healthcare startups. Based on available academic literature I propose a new categorisation framework for healthcare innovation and use this framework to analyse the sample of one hundred high performing EU-based healthcare startups. The Crunchbase rank and funding amount were additionally used to quantitively analyse the sample.The results indicate that successful innovators in healthcare software mainly target consumers potentially due to lower entry barriers. Additionally, I find data supporting previous notions that pharmaceuticals use startups to outsource R&D activities. This coincides with relatively vast amounts of funding for some of these startups. Software innovations targeting medical care providers also see relatively high funding amounts potentially due to higher entry barriers. This research provides a better understanding of the landscape of high performing healthcare startups in the EU. Researchers and practitioners may use the new healthcare innovation categorization framework when analysing healthcare startups. Additionally, this work provides helpful insights on the stakeholders in healthcare, the state of healthcare innovation in the EU, and the landscape of innovative healthcare startups especially regarding funding.