European Startups Raise Highest Quarterly VC Financing Since 2001

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/07/28/european-startups-raise-highest-quarterly-vc-financing-since-2001/

by spountzy • 12 years ago

26 10 12 years ago

blogs.wsj.com

"Activity was strongest in the U.K., where companies raised 28% of the total amount in the second quarter, followed by France with 19% and Germany with 15%."

How long until Berlin startups can expect reguler SV-level exits? The city is amazing and there's a lot of positivity, but venture capital needs to be there as well.

jacquesm4• 12 years ago

How long until Berlin startups can expect reguler SV-level exits?

At a guess, never. There will be the occasional outlier (see recent big acquisition) but the advantages of having a 300M plus people mostly unified market with associated economies of scale can simply not be beat.

That's ok though, 'enough' is enough.

mmaldacker2• 12 years ago

People have been expecting Berlin to have huge growth economically, in population, real estate value, etc since the fall of the wall. This has not happened yet (at least, not at the rate that was expected). I doubt it will happen with startups.

jacquesm4• 12 years ago

Berlin as a city is doing just fine and compared to just after the wall came down the difference is nothing short of amazing. The amount of money pumped in to the city shows up everywhere, infrastructure and public transport, the quality of the houses and apartments, the number of businesses and so on. This is not correlated at all with start-ups, which simply relates the the size of the home market (to a first approximation, Germany, Switzerland and Austria) and the ability to subsequently expand internationally (which is actually quite hard). I was in Kreuzberg (Berlin neighbourhood) this week and I could barely recognize it compared to what I remembered.

Compared to other former east block cities Berlin had of course a head start (half of it was already western), even so the progress is strong. By comparison, London today and London 2 decades ago are not that far apart, whereas Berlin today and Berlin 2 decades ago are worlds apart.

As the spoils from Berlin percolate out through the surrounding countryside Berlin will achieve yet another growth phase, what took 50 years to destroy will not be fixed overnight but you can surely rely on Germany to be able to fix such things as fast and thoroughly as possible.

diggan• 12 years ago

How about the asian market? Is there any similar comparison but with the asian world included?

European Startups Raise Highest Quarterly VC Financing Since 2001

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