Europe is not an entrepreneurial desert. The UK is an oasis.

http://thebln.com/2010/05/europe-is-not-an-entrepreneurial-desert-the-uk-is-an-oasis/

by marklittlewood • 16 years ago

22 12 16 years ago

sophacles• 16 years ago

This article is not wort reading strictly by the title alone. If Europe is not a desert, how can the UK be an oasis? Pretty much by definition the UK being the oasis extends and strengthens the desert metaphor.

marklittlewood2• 16 years ago

My bad. I meant it to read that Europe is not a desert but the UK is definitely an oasis. It was a sort of paradoxical play on words that went a but wrong... Oops.

keefe• 16 years ago

maybe...

While Europe is not an entrepreneurial desert, UK is still an oasis.

I dunno it strikes me as too clever by half, why not just go trollin' with the UK is an entrepreneurial oasis in the European desert (or something). Probably gets more clicks.

david9272• 16 years ago

Angel investment in the US: 16 billion Euro

Angel investment in the EU: 200 million Euro

50% of that was in the UK

olliesaunders2• 16 years ago

Please provide source.

david9272• 16 years ago

Twitter :-)

http://twitpic.com/1riij4

iamcalledrob• 16 years ago

Maybe the culture in Europe is to avoid building a business structure that requires angel investment?

anamax• 16 years ago

Fair enough. Let's look at the number of employed people in the EU and the US over time. IIRC, the US has a better first derivative. (The US has fewer people, so the total number workers in the EU may be larger.)

Of course, one can have biz that don't require employees. And maybe one or both can't find employees for the biz that they have/want.

nellboy• 16 years ago

while avoiding to make this a U.S. vs Europe thing, I'd be more interested in seeing other metrics (such as exit figures) rather than using that as the defining factor.

Clearly the U.S. is a world leader here, and always has been. But Europe is a large market, and a different type of consumer culture which needs to be catered for.

There are some impressive services operating in Europe right now. I was in Berlin recently, where there is a very large startup culture. I visited Europe's largest online gaming company, and was very impressed by their operation, and of course Soundcloud, the world's biggest music sharing service is also based in Berlin. Let's not forget that spotify and last.fm are also europe based, both excellent services. There seems to be a large amount of startups in Germany and Scandinavia as well as the UK. And, on a personal level, the Irish government is offering quite a good deal of aid and support to startups here, with a few success stories emerging.

True, we're not on the same level as the americans, but it is foolish to dismiss Europe.

marklittlewood2• 16 years ago

Angel statistics are ridiculously hard to source accurately as most angels are either fairly private or lie about what they have invested in) i.e. they don't crow about their disastrous investments and bug up the ones that are successful.

However, interesting anecdotal reports of a fair amount of angel money becoming available in France as French laws encourage angels activity through tax breaks. As France is part of the EU, and by law any such tax breaks have to be extended to French investments in any EU country, where has been a significant flood of French money into the UK in past year. (i.e. UK is seen as being a good place to invest in startups due to combination of tax regime (could change soon), proximity to markets, ease of movement into US, amount of seasoned entrepreneurs, support networks etc.

olliesaunders2• 16 years ago

Also read: Still best to be in North America. I lived in Toronto for a year, I live close to London now, I know where I'd rather be.

nraynaud• 16 years ago

it's shouting: "English speaking people understanding english speaking people only" in my head ...

Europe is not an entrepreneurial desert. The UK is an oasis.

Related Stories