Finding a business advisor
used to be about who you knew.
That changed.
Remote work removed geography as a barrier. A market that barely existed a decade ago now works for any European growth company — regardless of sector, stage, or target market.
In 2015, more than half of European companies looking for a business advisor got zero responses. In 2025, only 1 in 108 searches went unanswered. A functioning market now exists — and companies are using it to expand to multiple European markets simultaneously, at a fraction of the cost of local hires.
Based on 806 advisor searches and 9,225 applications on Boardio, 2015–2026. Methodology ↓
Section 01 — Formation of the market
Advisory used to be a privilege
of the well-connected. Remote work
changed that.
Before 2020, advisory relationships were mostly local and built through personal networks. COVID made remote collaboration normal overnight — and a market that barely functioned suddenly did. The data shows three distinct eras.
Average applications per advisor search — 2015 to 2025
Remote work permanently changed the advisor market
Before 2020, most advisory relationships were local or at least in-person. COVID normalised working with people you've never met face-to-face — and the advisor market reflected this immediately. Applications per search more than doubled between 2019 and 2021, as advisors in Germany began applying for Swedish companies, US operators for Nordic scale-ups. This structural shift is permanent. Advisor and company geography matter far less than they did — and they will matter even less in the future.
A Belgian cosmetics brand. A former Estée Lauder and Pfizer executive. They would never have found each other.
Aspilon Cosmetics is building a category-defining brand for people with visible skin differences — and needed a senior finance and commercial advisor to help them accelerate growth, sharpen strategic execution, and scale across channels.
Their search on Boardio surfaced Miguel Cascon: 25+ years of global finance leadership across The Estée Lauder Companies and Pfizer, with deep experience steering high-stakes transformations and building precision-focused operating models. He joined Aspilon's board of advisors.
Aspilon is based in Belgium. Miguel operates globally. Their paths would never have crossed through traditional networks or local industry events. A marketplace made this match possible.
"Thrilled to welcome Miguel to our board of advisors. Miguel brings exactly the strategic and commercial depth we need as we accelerate into our next phase of growth."
Aspilon Cosmetics — Advisor AnnouncementThe Estée Lauder Companies · Pfizer
Steered high-stakes transformations, owned P&Ls, and built precision-focused operating models across pharma, retail, and DTC.
Company and advisor connected across borders — a match traditional local networks couldn't have made
Section 02 — Why companies use advisors
The primary reason: to access
markets and networks they
can't reach on their own
Companies already have their local network — their own connections, accelerator mentors, industry events. What they lack is the right person with deep relationships in Germany, the UK, or the US. The data is unambiguous: advisor searches are overwhelmingly an international market access tool.
Advisors are the shortcut to markets that take years to build yourself
A Nordic B2B software company expanding into Germany doesn't have five years to build relationships with enterprise buyers in Munich and Frankfurt. The right advisor already has those relationships — and can open doors that would otherwise take years to unlock through cold outreach and conferences.
This is why 85% of advisor searches in 2025 specified a foreign target market, up from 41% a decade ago. The advisor market and the international expansion market are, for most European scale-ups, the same market.
Companies are now expanding to multiple European markets at the same time — not one after another
The fastest-growing target market in the data is not Germany, the UK, or the US. It's "Europe (broad)" — searches that don't name a single country but target the whole continent. This grew from 3% of searches in 2015–2019 to 28% in 2023–2025.
This reflects a structural change in how scale-ups think about expansion. Hiring a local sales team in Germany, then another in France, then another in the UK is slow and expensive. Working with advisors in each market simultaneously is fast and flexible — you can run parallel expansion tracks without parallel headcount costs. Companies have started doing exactly this, and the data shows it.
Section 03 — What roles companies search for
Board roles attract 74% more
applications than the average search
Market entry and GTM advisors are the most frequently searched profile. But when companies post board and governance roles, the response is exceptional — nearly double the platform average. The best board-level talent has no shortage of opportunities to choose from.
| Advisor role | Share of searches | Avg applications | vs platform avg |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Board / Chair / Independent Director
|
15% | 23.5 | +74% |
|
Fundraising / Investor door-opener
|
25% | 16.1 | +19% |
|
Market Entry / GTM / Door-opener
|
40% | 13.5 | Platform avg |
|
Sector / Technical Expert
|
3% | 12.1 | −10% |
Four searches with the highest applicant volume — all time
Section 04 — Which industries use advisors most
AI/SaaS companies are the most active.
Cleantech is the fastest growing.
Each bar shows the sector's share of searches in 2024 (grey) versus 2025 (red). AI/SaaS companies now represent 43% of all advisor searches. Cleantech more than doubled in a single year — driven by energy transition mandates and sustainability investment.
Note: sectors are not mutually exclusive — some searches span multiple categories. YoY comparison uses full calendar years 2024 and 2025.
Section 05 — Patterns & outlook
What the data suggests
about where the market is heading
Four structural patterns from the decade — and what they imply for the next two to three years.
The zero-application rate fell from 55% in 2015 to 1% in 2025. This is not just growth — it's maturation. Companies now know how to write a brief that attracts advisors. Advisors monitor platforms actively. The market is beginning to function like a real talent marketplace, with both supply and demand becoming more structured and predictable.
The 2020–2021 inflection is structural, not cyclical. Companies that began working with remote advisors during COVID have not reverted. A Stockholm scale-up working with a German advisor they've never met is now entirely normal. Advisor and company geography matters far less than it did a decade ago — and will matter even less going forward.
Market entry searches grew from 8% to 28% of all searches over the decade. But the more revealing trend is within that growth: searches targeting "European expansion" broadly — without naming a single country — grew from 3% to 28% of all searches. Companies are no longer picking one market, proving it, then moving to the next. They're running advisors across Germany, the UK, and the Nordics in parallel. This is only possible because advisors are fundamentally different from local hires — you can have three market-entry advisors in three countries for less than the cost of one full-time commercial manager in one.
The highest-engagement searches share one characteristic: they are specific — about the target market, the required network, the expected outcome. The era of vague advisory requests is over. Companies that write specific briefs receive more applications, better applications, and make faster decisions. The data is clear on this.
Using advisors to grow and expand internationally
will become a standard part of every scale-up's playbook
Demand will continue growing. The decade trend is unambiguous — more searches, more applications, less friction. As advisory becomes standard practice, first-time buyers will accelerate the market further. We expect search volume to continue growing 15–25% annually.
AI/SaaS and Cleantech will dominate. Both sectors showed accelerating search volume in 2025. The energy transition and AI adoption wave are creating advisor demand that will run for years, not quarters.
Germany will remain the #1 target market. DACH searches grew 14 percentage points over the decade and show no sign of slowing. Germany's position as Europe's largest B2B economy makes it the must-win market for any serious European scale-up.
Multi-market expansion will become the default strategy. The shift from single-country to broad European searches is accelerating. As the cost and risk of parallel expansion falls — because advisors replace local hires in each market — running simultaneous market entries will stop being unusual and become standard. Companies that master multi-market advisory coordination will expand faster than those still running sequential country-by-country strategies.
Board and governance roles will become more competitive. As companies professionalise ahead of Series A and B rounds, demand for independent directors and board chairs will intensify. The best-networked candidates are already receiving multiple approaches.
Advisor supply will tighten relative to demand. Companies that move fast, write specific briefs, and offer performance-linked compensation will win the advisors that others don't. Speed and specificity will matter more each year.
Using advisors to enter new markets and grow internationally is now standard practice in 2026. European growth companies are doing this systematically — not as a one-off, but as a repeatable part of how they expand. The question is no longer whether to use advisors — it's how to find the right ones.
Write specific briefs. Name the target market, the specific network you need, and the outcome you expect in the first 90 days. Vague briefs get half the applications of specific ones.
Don't limit yourself geographically. The best advisor for your DACH expansion may be based in Stockholm or London. Remote advisory is permanent — use the full global pool.
Board and fundraising briefs attract the strongest response — 74% above the platform average. If governance or capital is the immediate need, prioritise those searches.
Board and governance demand has never been higher. Independent director and chair roles are the most competitive category on the platform — and still growing. If you have board experience, this is the moment to make it visible.
Germany-focused GTM is the decade's biggest growth area. Advisors with active DACH networks and enterprise buyer relationships are in the highest demand. Demand for this profile is at an all-time high.
Sector depth plus network access is the winning combination. The highest-application searches specify both: a sector expert who also has the right buyer or investor relationships. Generalists are increasingly at a disadvantage.
AI/SaaS and Cleantech offer the most deal flow. Both sectors are growing in search volume. If your background spans either, this is where advisory opportunity is concentrated.
Methodology
How this report
was compiled
Data source: Anonymised analysis of 806 advisor-seeking briefs and 9,225 advisor applications on Boardio between February 2015 and April 2026. All company names, founder names, and identifying details have been removed from aggregate data. The dataset represents all searches and applications posted on the platform during this period — not a sample.
Application counts: All application figures reflect real advisor responses received on the platform — advisors who actively applied to a specific search brief. They do not include unsolicited outreach or expressions of general interest.
Sector classification: Searches were classified into sectors based on keyword analysis of brief titles and company descriptions. Some searches span multiple sectors. The 2024 vs 2025 comparison uses a priority-based classification to reduce double-counting.
Geography classification: Target market mentions were identified through keyword analysis of brief text. A search may mention multiple target markets. Percentages reflect the share of searches mentioning each geography.
Year-over-year comparisons: All full-year comparisons use complete calendar years (January–December). 2026 data (January–April 2026, 27 searches) is excluded from YoY comparisons due to incomplete year and recency bias — recent searches have had less time to accumulate applications.
Era definitions: Three eras were identified based on natural breaks in the average applications per search metric: Early market (2015–2019, avg 2.5), Growth phase (2020–2022, avg 8.7), Maturity (2023–2025, avg 13.5).
Contact: Boardio (boardio.com) — [email protected]
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