It’s mildly diverting when some say that Europe is still a slow place for technology startups, then pat us on the head and tell us that every day, in every way, we’re getting better and better. But it’s more interesting when people who really are at the heart of the European business pull all the threads together and come up with some cogent arguments.
Max Bleyleben of Kennet Partners, a London-based growth equity investor in technology companies in Europe and the US, has posted a great argument that European tech investing is “coming of age”. Indeed, he says Index Capital’s Giuseppe Zocco “has a thesis that there is a crop of sucessful VC-backed startups in Europe that would normally sell out early, but could in fact become global market leaders given the right backing.” It’s important that Index Ventures have closed their €400m growth equity fund. And there are new funds now from Carlyle, Fidelity Ventures and Wellington among others. He says “this is the strongest sign yet that European tech investing is coming of age.”
“European tech companies of the past 5 years - like MySQL, Cramer Systems, Cartesis, Qliktech, FRSGLobal, Smartstream, DocMorris, Trema, Ion Trading have proven that it’s possible to build financially and operationally successful market leaders from Europe. Now, less than 15 years after venture capital set root in Europe, we have specialised investor capital available for each stage of a company’s development: seed (eg Samwer brothers, Howzat - [and I would add Seedcamp] ) - startup & expansion (Spark, Amadeus, Advent, Sofinnova, Iris, et al) - growth equity (Kennet, Index) - buyout (HgCapital, General Atlantic, Hellman & Friedman). This maturation of the industry is good news for European entrepreneurs, and for the European economies that benefit from their successes.”
Well said. Now, of course, cynics might argue there are still too few Web 2.0 or Mobile 2.0 companies coming out of Europe - however, right now it’s really the formation of the building blocks for investment that is the important point here.
The upcoming Plugg Conference on March 19th in Brussels (which has a Startup Rally) as well as LIFT in Geneva (Feb 6-8), which features a Venture Night will hopefully be able to showcase Europe’s best. And let’s not forget LeWeb3 at the end of the year, or Picnic, Ariadne Investor Forum, TechTour, FOWA London, NMK, Second Chance Tuesday, MiniBar, Chinwag, 3GSM, Thinking Digital, The Next Web, Being Digital/MashupDemo, IT@Cork, xCellerate, TechLudd, Sicilia 2.0, Webstart Croatia, Web 2.0 Berlin, DLD (See Michael’s coverage), the OpenCoffee meetups, all the various European Barcamp/VentureCamp events… the list of events and connections being made across Europe, old and new, goes on.
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Most links in a post ever?
Europe does get patronised though - about time us guys not in the US of A get some credit.
My eyes! Can’t see the post for the links.
Seriously though, it is a bit hard to read.
Jesus, that’s a fair amount of links.
Thanks for the write-up! Seems i’m stilling missing some of the conferences. And ofcourse Open Coffee and MiniBar should be on the list too!
Wow, now we have an oversized logo of the European Union?!
Ooooookaaaaay…
Mike, please provide the names of venture capitalists who can fund start-ups, in South Asia. South Asia includes India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh.
Michael, I start liking you more already! I agree that Europe’s startup scene finally seems to be maturing and fund strategies like the one from Index reflect this.
To your point about Web2.0 startups, I do believe that in Europe the focus is more on early revenue generation and less about reaching critical mass ASAP. As co-founder of Bragster, we recently presented at the European Tech Tour in Geneva and most Web2.0 companies were in the mobile space or focusing on revenues early on. As a startup it is always a trade-off between these two strategies and recent stories like WAYN provide for a nice case-study. Jerome and his company were profitable from day one, but true growth (and hence international recognition) only came when they opened up their platform and got rid of the subscription model.
Anyway, watch out you US of A guys!
btw - Sjors… you missed the MiniBar link in this most linked post ever
The Russian tech investing is coming of age too.
As an entrepreneur ‘on the ground’ in Europe, I can see the startup industry mature and blossom before my eyes. We have huge VCs who participate in the local scene and organise OpenCoffee events (Index for example). The number of entrepreneurs and startup conferences grows each day. I think the only people who are critical about the European startup scene probably live outside Europe. Of course, its all relative - no one will argue that silicon valley is the best place to be if you’re starting up. But if you happen to be outside the valley, as long as you have a solid idea and can execute, your chances are just as good.
Good news. I think Wim has a good point about aiming for early revenue or getting critical mass. Lets go Europe.
Spain is not different. ‘Evento Blog España’, the bigger blogger and web entrepeneur conference in Spain and maybe the second most important in Europe (+600 participants last year)
do not miss European Ecommerce Conference http://www.eec-conference.com
Thanks for the LinkLove. Some people say that Europeans are less likely to ‘network’ as Americans do and that explains why there isn’t a strong community here like in SF. I hope stuff like OpenCoffee will help Europe to get together. That, and our blog of course…
“cynics might argue there are still too few Web 2.0 or Mobile 2.0 companies coming out of Europe”
Cynics might argue there are way too many Web 2.0 companies coming out of America.
#7 I agree with you.
btw.: Tomorrow is a Prague OpenCoffe if anybody is interrested
Ai and the future of the communities in the world and the real powers in the world are separated todabia. Loa making reference to Arabs and Latinos
Good post Mike. If you’re reading this and you are a European start-up who believes they have something valuable to say to the rest of the community, please do drop us a line at Carsonified.com as we’re at the early planning stages for FOWA London 07.
Great post, great information. One page summary for networking. Please continue to write about Europe…
We organize Web 2.0 Czech meeting in Prague tomorrow .. http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=7656546900. So something is going on
I think Europe will be a tech hub comparable to Silicon Valley, or even better. Just need to give it time. Could really speed things up with a couple of BIG winners that stay in Europe instead of go to America. That is so old school, guys.
Mike,
Europe and the EU are as different as America and the USA. Europe is a continent and not a country or a political organization. Europe does not have a flag, but the EU has. Using an (outdated) EU flag as symbol for Europe in your post might be visually appealing, but is plain wrong. E.g. Switzerland and Norway are part of Europe, but not of the EU, while Martinique and the Falkland Islands are part of the EU, but not Europe.
There are quite a lot more VCs and networks than you listed in Europe, but yours is an excellent starting point. One event that really has changed the landscape is the European TechTour (www.techtour.com).
Christoph - As it happens I know the difference between the EU and Europe as a continent of many different states. Unfortunately at the time I wrote the post I could not think of an image to represent Europe other than the EU flag, and as you point out it would be nice to have something which visually represented the wider Europe, especially the ‘New Europe’ of former Eastern Bloc states.
The only flag that represents 47 member states is the one of the Council of Europe (an organization that is complete different from the EU).
http://www.coe.int/T/E/Com/Abo.....blemes.asp)
Nah, ‘Europe’ is acceptable shorthand for the EU nowadays, just as ‘America’ is acceptable shorthand for the USA.
Anyway, the European flag *is* the flag of the Council of Europe. It was adopted by the European Parliament later on.
Tom,
Europe as shorthand for the EU? EU is the perfect shorthand for EU. No need to pretend to be more than than the EU actually is. Those who use Europe as shorthand for everything European also tend to have huge problems understanding the difference between a continent and European political organizations.
With all the links, Mike has missed the Web.Start conference in Zagreb — http://webstart.ini.hr
Southeast Europe also has been growing up — we got a Seedcamp winner (Zemanta), some success stories developed abroad (Simpy, Todoist) and even some successful startups growing from here (activeCollab, Xclaim).
it is suprising that there are not more web 2.0 startups here in europe, considering the highly skilled IT workforce…many internet stalwarts have setup european hubs in Dublin, perhaps if these individuals took a stab at putting their own ideas on the market we would see this landscape changing