Tag Archives: venture capital

Investors & Entrepreneurs: Breakdowns in Communication

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This post was originally published at The Kernel, an excellent deep-dive blog on the start-up scene. Think The Economist for technology.

Not being able to make it to a meeting for lack of cash in your pocket – not enough even for the bus – is a level of financial and emotional trauma that most people in business never experience. Well, good for them.

In the two decades since my first forays into entrepreneurship, aged 14 with an Atari ST fanzine, followed by an ill-fated satirical magazine called TIT (think Viz meets Private Eye), I’ve found myself entirely brassic more than once.

A desire for financial security is not a good character trait in those wanting to be entrepreneurs. Consequently, perhaps, most people have not chosen to create and run a start-up. By “create a start-up” I mean having an idea and starting from scratch, on your own, with no capital.

Most institutional technology investors have never run a start-up. That lack of experience at the coal-face of business is the root cause of many a problem between company founders and their investors. This is my subject this month.

GHOST FUNDS

Financial acumen should surely be a given for venture capitalists, although writing this sentence feels peculiar when tech venture is today one of the worst performing asset classes in Europe. Europe’s venture capital firms are being spurned by their limited partners, and most are unable to raise new funds. Many European firms have disappeared from the market, or are running as ghosts of their former selves.

Looking at the numbers, European IPOs from venture investments yield returns similar to the US, but European trade exits for tech start-ups underperform compared to our transatlantic cousins. The reasons are complex. A 2008 reportattributed the overall performance gap between Europe and North America to a segment of “poorly performing companies”, but this generalisation gives few tangible clues.

The first thing is to recognise that even in the birthplace of venture capital, the United States, all is not perfect if you pull back the curtain. CNN Money summed up the US venture industry last year by saying: “It’s no longer a market of four tiers; it is the rarefied best and then the rest”.

But while early stage investment in Europe for tech start-ups is more plentiful than it ever has been, by most metrics the Old World lags behind the US, in both scale and success. In short, European tech venture performance continues to be a source of embarrassment.

Sadly, I can’t offer you a silver bullet. I’m no expert on the intricacies of the finance and investment industry. But let’s focus on the things that a VC can control. How can we help tip the European tech investment needle in the right direction? Ignoring a founder’s usual bark of wanting fairer deal terms, greater capital deployment and higher valuations, the most obvious target is a greater focus and understanding of what Sequoia calls “human capital”.

Many European tech investors lag behind the best of the US venture community in recognising how valuable a dedicated start-up founder can be, even if that individual might not be the perfect chief executive when a company scales.

This disdain for the entrepreneur can extend to an under-incentivisation of the start-up team as well (though that too can be the fault of the founder). Not many European start-ups have option pools of 20 per cent or over, but that is pretty normal in California.

One UK VC I worked with persuaded all non-execs and employees to sign away the rights to their options at investment, promising to re-instate them from a new pool. Unsurprisingly, none of the options ever re-appeared. Such behaviour is not only unethical, but naive in terms of motivating staff and creating good karma between investors and the senior management team. It does little for your reputation and deal-flow either.

It is true, of course, that the fabled West Coast has plenty of horror stories about “evil” or incompetent investors too, which leaves one counselling first time start-up entrepreneurs to view their new-found VC friends with suspicion from day one. Hardly ideal.

Maybe I’m now the one being naive, but this is not the most expedient way to create the next billion dollar start-up. Let’s face it: it is the few which feed the many in the venture capital model.

One big reason a chasm can form between founders and their investment overlords is practical: like the tragically blinkered army commanders of World War One, VCs often seem to carry arrogance and a sense of entitlement into the board room, consequently making poor strategic decisions, or, equally inappropriately, insisting on bad operational ones. Thankfully it just costs thousands of pounds, instead of thousands of lives.

Too many VCs I meet lack experience and wisdom forged in the trenches of the business battlefield. It is not surprising, then, that the experience of not having enough money for the bus would be an anathema to most venture firm associates, principals or partners.

It is also unrealistic to expect them to understand the pressures entailed in running a tech start-up or being a small business owner. Many VCs have not even run a team or a led a department in their (often all-too-brief) previous careers, let alone convinced a flock of disciples to follow them into the abyss and create something from nothing by starting their own business.

OUTSIDE THE COMFORT ZONE

Worse still, a career in banking, trading, consulting, distress capital or another process-driven corporate environment, with their clear hierarchical ladders and ample support infrastructure, often seems to give the VC misplaced sense of superiority.

“Success” in the financial sector is not to be derided, but the nitty-gritty of having to do everything yourself, on a shoe string, in a team of just two or three, with no money, while trying to persuade often intransigent investors to give you money, is a unique stress which is life-swallowing and not something you can understand from reading about.

And most people from a corporate environment simply don’t get it.

There are exceptions. Some of those exceptions are people I am happy to count as friends and respected acquaintances. These are people who understand, from real-world experience, what it takes to nurture a product or service from birth through difficult puberty to proud maturity – or premature death.

These people are the future of the European venture industry and if you are looking for money, I’d recommend seeking out this rare breed.

But the problems inherent to the European VC-entrepreneur relationship remain threefold. First, VCs often don’t even realise that their understanding of a technology or market is lacking.

Second, the entrepreneur-VC conversation is often at odds when it comes to aspects of managing the business or comprehending operational challenges.

Third, the worth of a founder in a start-up is often underestimated, causing at best ill-feeling and declining motivation, or, at worst, if the founder is removed, a large opportunity cost for the business and ultimately the fund itself.

Most entrepreneurs are pragmatic enough to recognise their failings, and will take on board sensible business suggestions, which are backed up with tangible facts or defensible experience. It is, after all, part of the start-up mantra to iterate, to discover what works. That, by definition, requires an acceptance of failure and the need for improvement.

As we’ve established, the problem is many VCs neither have this experience nor this working philosophy. Yet often they lecture start-ups on what their product should look like, or meddle too deeply in the operations of the business.

EMOTIONAL ATTACHMENTS

A shiny new VC associate once said to me “You entrepreneurs are all so emotional.” It was not meant as a compliment.

You have little choice but to operate somewhat emotionally when you are a start-up entrepreneur. Where would the endless energy to persevere come from otherwise? If you made decisions entirely logically, you would pack up immediately and do something with a greater statistical chance of success.

And this statement suggests not just thinly-disguised contempt, but demonstrates perfectly a lack of empathy and understanding about what it takes to run a start-up company. For this VC, as for many, his is simply a job. A secure, well-paid step upward on the career ladder.

This ignorance is the same reason TV shows like “Back To The Floor” and “Boss Undercover” make such good television: the chief executive often has no comprehension of the day-to-day challenges facing his or her workers, the people who actually make things happen.

Morgan Stanley and McKinsey have the resources and departmental staff to support whatever you need to do to perform your role. In contrast, as a founder, you are the organisation: you are the department for everything.

On the bright side, having left a venture firm to create their own start-up, more than one VC has told me: “I had no idea how incredibly hard this is … it is 100 times harder than I imagined.”

If they ever return to the venture world, those students of experience will, I’m sure, be infinitely more successful than other investors who have no practical grasp of start-up challenges.

An experienced European VC said to me: “I think it is impossible for a venture guy who invests early not to have real operating experience. Even if it’s two years working for someone else’s start-up (most great VCs weren’t phenomenal company builders) you need to know the struggle it is to build something.

“I also think people need to know what it takes to grow something large, it’s a whole set of new lessons in scaling that again you just have to live through. This you can partially pick up from the board perspective but you need real experience to give you good perspective. I think guys in the US get this. Guys in Europe don’t. If you just count up the number of [VC] partners in the US who have operating experience you’ll see it.”

A lack of hands on, real-world experience is the biggest problem facing VCs and tech entrepreneurs, especially in Europe.

VETTING YOUR BACKERS

As an entrepreneur, what can you do? Well choose those VCs who have the hands-on business experience. And get drunk with them before you sign the deal. No, seriously. You’re getting married. You’d never marry a girl or guy you’d not got wasted with, would you?

Find out what makes them tick, what they’ve done in their lives. What have they learned in business? How have they failed? Discuss other start-ups, especially ones which have gone through difficult times. Discuss how they would handle a divorce.

My unnamed European VC says “Venture people are financiers, so we have to think and act like investors, meaning financial capital. But we’re also company builders, which makes a good 50-75% of our job about people … it’s a tough thing to understand if you’re not used to dealing with it.”

Do the following exercise: take the top 20 firms in the US. Look at the partners’ bios. Look at how many:

  • started a company
  • worked at a start-up
  • were execs of a start-up (VP or higher)
  • sold or took a start-up public
  • worked at a tech co
  • were execs of a tech co (VP or higher)
  • hold engineering degrees
  • have MBAs
  • worked in banking
  • worked in consulting

Then repeat that process with the top seven firms in Europe. The whole exercise should take you less than an hour. The resulting disparity is shocking.

If you are limited partner, you can help the European tech ecosystem (and your own return), you should only give your money to a fund if the team is entrepreneur-heavy.

Because, unlike regular businesses, start-ups are defined by a set of unknowns. They are not straightforward enterprises. It is usually a messy, pivoting, imperfect machine, run by one or more impassioned individuals who have sacrificed a regular life for the promised land of thenextbigthing.com.

But there could be a significant improvement for the success rate of European tech funds, and the start-ups they invest in, if venture firms simply hired more people with real, tangible hands-on experience, rather than the the cookie-cutter, MBA-toting ex-finance guys they favour.

Just look at career politicians for another example of what happens when people make decisions about things they have no real-world experience of.

The Myth Of Silicon Valley

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Recently the on-going discussion of London versus the Valley has got a higher profile again thanks to articles like this and the fact European VC’s still seem unable to evolve let alone revolve: Even Fred Destin say’s European VC’s need revolution not evolution. Here here to that.

While the average London start-up’s dilemna* is should I go to Silicon Valley or stay in Silicon Roundabout? (which I touched upon last week) and takes the mind share of the European tech-elite, I don’t think the Americans give two hoots. Why would they? Silicon Valley is where it’s at, right?

What did catch their attention was Hermione Way’s post “The Problem With Silicon Valley Is Itself“ on The Next Web, which prompted a response from Robert Scoble on Google+, both worth reading by the way.

Has Silicon Valley Lost It’s Way?

Loosely, Hermione complains that The Valley no longer truly innovates and it is full of fluff. Robert says it is still the only place really changing the world and no-one else does in the same way or to the same extent.

Naturally as I’m writing a retort, I must have a different view: I think they’re both wrong; but there is an element of truth in both claims.

With a long history of game changing technologies and innovation, has Silicon Valley had it's day?

With Silicon Valley, it’s the iceberg problem. You only see the tip of what’s going on underneath. Even I have grown tired at times of the sometime obsessions (and many say poor journalism) of platforms like Techcrunch; but you have to be realistic about what they represent. They are not trying to be the BBC or a broadsheet. They are for mass market consumption by the geeks, the early adopters, the DiggNation kids and Appleheads. At this they excel.

As a tabloid Techcrunch will write what sells impressions – they are not representative of the depth of Silicon Valley.

The problem is surely that inevitably, like the general news on TV and in most tabloids, it skews to easily consumed, often banal, content. The lowest common denominator.

The masses are selfish; they don’t care about new window material technology for the Empire State Building, they care about Big Mac $1 Burgers, Foursquare checkins, saving 50% via Groupon on their next t-bone steak. They care about themselves (see: Facebook, Google+, Flickr ..they are all about your ego, about your life).

This is why Techcrunch.com doesn’t shout about the other low level technologies (or indeed publish much about things outside of the USA) and instead you get 3 posts a week for 9 months straight about a company like Foursquare. Well, good for Foursquare. Gaming location, the system and MG all in one go!

Of course, I’m simplifying the argument, but one has to, to make a salient point.

These publishers publish that stuff because people consume it. They don’t care about a new silicon chip design, even if it does save lives or save money. It’s too abstract for most people. 

The Myth Of Silicon Valley

So let’s look back for a moment. Why is Silicon Valley (and it’s venture capital ecosystem) Silicon Valley?  Actually, it has a far longer history of entrepreneurship than most other centres of technology.

Silicon Valley started growing toward it’s present day nearly 100 years ago. During the war, the government funded innovation for large military and cold-war driven contracts with radio related technology, radar and later, other electronic warfare.

This graph is NOT true. Silicon Valley grew gradually since the war, it's taken decades. Click for more information and Steve Blanks excellent -and accurate- history.

Frederick Terman from Stanford played a pivotal role in the 40′s and 50′s pushing students out of education encouraging them (instead of doing PhD’s or masters) to start-up innovative technology firms to serve the country and defend against the Nazis and then the perceived Communist threat.

The 60′s brought transistors, the 70′s microchips, then Microsoft, Apple and the other leviathons we all know today. At the end of the 70′s deregulation in the investment markets enabled Venture Capital to begin in earnest.

London, Berlin, Amsterdam nor Tel Aviv has had any of this history. A few cycles of Silicon Valley computer and internet boom later and there are:

  • 100′s and 100′s of VC’s thus a huge pot of money
  • A tech ecosystem which is bigger than anywhere
  • There is a bubble cycle of hype driving investment and belief in the next big thing
  • and a lack of understanding of the outside world (actually sometimes useful when building a company which every normal person says nobody will ever use: see Twitter).

Add to this a huge early adopter crowd which can test-bake the next crazy Twitteresque idea to see if it’s real – all 2 years in advance of the rest of the western world being ready to use it – and you have a compelling place to create some seriously game changing products and services.

These advantages are why we in Europe are behind with consumer internet, why we don’t have a Google, a Cisco and now with mobile phone software it is the valley where innovation is getting funded in way which will give the start-ups longevity to get their new services right. It’s why Facebook and Google grew in the Valley.

I feel innovation in Silicon Valley – both whether hardcore tech or social media – is alive and well. Hermione should have cause to be worried about her native land though, for the same reasons she moved to Silicon Valley rather than continue in Silicon Roundabout or move to Silicon Alle or Silicon Valley! (do keep up ;-)

European Unadventure Capital

The history and experience in the Valley, also contribute to why European Venture Capital is behind and why our ecosystem is behind. We simply don’t have it.

Had visionaries in Cambridge (and government people in charge of technical innovation) pushed harder during the first dot com boom to make Silicon Fen more than a running joke, then Cambridge England might have had a 10 years start on Silicon Roundabout.

Cambridge was and is about the right size to become a town all about tech. It remains an important centre for science and biotech, but it is no centre for internet start-ups and with the growth of Old Sreet never will be.

The rooftops of Cambridge, including Kings College Chapel. More Fen than Silicon.

I started a localized web portal in Cambridge (wanting to scale to 140 towns and cities) in 1998, but couldn’t get funding. Arguably a lack of vision from investors -rightly or wrongly- prevented access to capital. I pivoted to B2B and a web development company which I later exited.

It’s a hugely wasted opportunity; possibly contributed to by the all suffocating Cambridge University which essentially controls the city and most certainly because of a lack of available investment capital for start-ups.

There’s something going on though, as New York is hardly a small city yet seems to be catching up with it’s Boston neighbour, touting Silicon Alley.

Cities like London and New York are almost too diverse, with lots of other history and other industries, meaning “Tech” will never be elevated to the focus which San Francisco and Silicon Valley enjoys. 

Small means focused.

Where else would you be able to start Square and have tech-savvy iPad owning shop keepers and cafe owners clammer for the service with open arms? Once it’s proven, bug fixed and entrenched in Palo Alto and San Francisco, where everyone carries an iPhone, they’ll raise another 1/2 billions dollars and take over the world.

Old Street is more than a "hotspot", it's burgeoning; but without follow on finance and better skills in the VC community, start-ups are being left as start-ups.

So Silicon Valley Is The Centre Of World Innovation?

In essence I agree with Robert Scoble that the depth of innovation is SV is astounding; however he is wrong to say world changing technologies don’t come from elsewhere.

That ARM processor in nearly every mobile phone you’ve touched in the last 2 years? That’s from Cambridge, England (my home town in fact).

The computer? invented in England.

The jet engine? England (and if our government had funded it to the extent the US government funded innovation in Silicon Valley, WW2 would have been a lot shorter!) 

OK so you see where this is going… 

For me problem with the UK and Europe compared to America and Silicon Valley, is we’re not good at scaling.

Sure, the financial industry seems to do it just fine – raping and pilleging it’s way literally to the top of the global finance world; but taking good technologies and funding them, patiently nurturing them, growing them, having faith in them and their young founders, to become truly global players seems to be something in the UK and Europe we’re not very good at.

THAT is the big question.

The question is not why can’t we innovate, for we don’t lack of innovation. The question is why are we unable to scale our innovations rapidly to become the global market leader?

Back in Europe, where the history comes from… 

One problem  in London and Europe for technology innovation to scale (aside from these), is certainly finance.

This is grossly ironic, given London’s pre-eminence London is the world’s global financial capital, with New York in second place and Hong Kong in third.

The discussion of the problems with European VC’s, the lack of Googlesque companies and whether a start-up should start, or move, to The Valley, is a persistent topic in the London tech scene. The UK versus US funding debate is always threatening to popup on tech conference panels; to some extent for good reason but it also becomes boring and negative, though I entirely understand why the conversation needs to be had.

The ecosystem in London is less developed and the VC’s (with a few exceptions) are guilty of much of what Nic Halstead (and many more behind closed doors) will tell you: tech venture capital in London is run by financiers. This, is a problem; may be our biggest problem in Europe.

It perhaps underlies other knock-on effects, which is a lack of understanding of early stage capital requirements, what it really takes, to run and scale an internet business and being risk averse.

Read it and weep. I don't agree with the crazy $1 billion invested in the likes of Groupon, but you can't make butter with a toothpick. My own last start-up was expected to compete with our US counterparts of one fifth of the funding. The numbers seem pretty clear.

With little hands on experience, many European VC’s treat a start-up like an investment on the stock-market. Short termist, they undervalue Founders, don’t understand -or invest in- bold long term visions and they often under-capitalise (largely for all the reasons I’ve just listed). Facts seem to back this up (see graph above).

It is also claimed that European venture capitalists more commonly have a background in finance, while US venture capitalists tend to be scientists and ex-entrepreneurs. The implication is that the lack of scientific expertise among European VCs means they are less able to identify investments with high potential, than their counterparts in the US.

Bottazzi, Da Rin and Hellman (2004) undertook a survey of European VC and noted:

‘What may come as a surprise is that less than a third (of VC partners) actually has a science or engineering education.’

Half of all partners in their survey have some professional experience in the financial sector with ~40% having corporate sector experience. The recent European Investment Fund report by Roger Kelly, says that:

“Hege, Palomino and Schweinbacher (2009) observe that US VCs are often more specialized, and note that there is evidence that US venture capitalists are more sophisticated than their European counterparts, which contributes to the explanation for the difference in performance”

So Everything Is European VC’s Fault? Obviously not. I just personally feel it is the biggest single issue.

Entrepreneurs also have to up their game; pitches from many European founders are frankly terrible. Poorly delivered, unfocused product and ill-thought out business case. Both entrepreneur’s and employees need a more “can-do” attitude, to network better and think bigger.  I’m not saying it’s easy, it’s not. I’ve been there many times and made many mistakes myself.

Some people say local culture doesn’t always help, that it’s not fashionable in many countries to be an entrepreneur or want to make millions. I’m not so sure this is an issue – doens’t seem to phase the stockbrokers.

The size issue probably doesn’t help; tax systems, incentives and finance rules are not consistent for VC across Europe – but then again the Finance industry has managed certainly in London (to disastrous results in 2008!) so why not tech VC?

European early stage VC is laughably low compared to the US, in European VC's efforts to invest in later stage supposedly "safer" companies. All capital, little venture.

What to be done?

As an ecosystem, as a government and as a Venture Capital community, we should then now focus more on how to scale our businesses and fund the existing innovation from the many good entrepreneurs, encouraging a drive for global domination and find a way to teach European venture capitalists how to be more entrepreneurial and visionary, rather than only get more people to start a tech-business, without the proper mid and late stage finance, skills and infrastructure in place.

* Seems to be a world or argument raging about dilemna or dilemma. OED says Dilemma, but then why does the Times write dilemna? I’m sure I was taught dilemna, but the odds seem to be on the side of dilemma.

More reading on European VC’s:

Should I Stay Or Should I Go?

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So if European Venture Capital is a bit f***ed in Europe, because:

  • there is too little choice/competition
  • many can’t raise a further fund
  • most don’t have hands on experience of product, the industry or running a team let alone their own start-up; most have a finance background
  • U.S. VC’s understand start-ups, product and vision in a way U.K./European VC’s do not
  • Performance of the European tech VC sector has been abominable

…should you even bother?

Should you not up sticks to the yellow brick road of The Valley and San Francisco, or stay in Europe with the losers? Some people who’ve already left for the west coast would say follow up-sticks and follow them there.

London or San Francisco: Something I’m Asked Every Week

The conundrum of supporting your home ecosystem or heading for the promised land, is also evident from the start-ups I advise. On nearly every occasion, during the first or second mentoring meeting the question arises:

 “Do you think we should go to the U.S?”.

For many consumer orientated start-ups the answer is: “Yes, go”.

However it depends on the start-up and be under no illusion: The Valley is no answer for a crappy product, poor team or flawed vision.

To all, I say that in Europe:

  • valuations will be lower
  • exit opportunities possibly fewer
  • then there is size of home market of the U.S., it’s vast (Europe is fragmented)
  • in Europe there is a lack of concentration of early adopters and “ambassadors” for your crazy new consumer service, compared to the west coast
  • American users in general are more ready to try new things & promote new services than European users
  • lack of product expertise with European/UK staff
  • potentially a lack of entrepreneurial spirit amongst start-up employees
  • lower appreciation / valuing of the share options you dish out
  • a social (and industry) stigma against failure
  • all the VC problems discussed above (for many consumer facing start-ups, without a revenue stream today, VC funding is highly unlikely indeed in Europe)
  • you’ll likely be under-capitalised and be expected to do more, with less (not always a bad thing, but not a good way to compete with US competitors)
  • at best the under-current of strategy and discussion (and at worse the entire focus) of your investors will always be on revenue before user numbers and product

There are up sides though working in Europe though:

  • cheaper engineering labour in Europe (even in London; would you believe it, it’s true!)
  • being closer to customers if you’re B2B
  • you can be a be a bigger fish in a smaller pond
  • potentially you can also start here in stealth mode being “under the radar” to get going if you have an original idea
  • target markets Silicon Valley does not (e.g. Yelp took YEARS to move outside of the US, losing out to Qype and others)
  • being OUTSIDE the bubble can sometimes help – the valley can be a distraction with it’s geekfest parties and all-consuming check-in-latest-buzz-word shenanigans
  • arguably easier (and cheaper) to set up a UK Ltd Company and do the paperwork for your first year’s trading than in the USA with a Delaware corporation
  • generous government grants – most pretty easy to get and many match like for like funding on angel rounds
  • a focus on revenue (yes, this can be a good thing too)

In addition, there is a growing list of incubators and start-up programs in the UK and Europe. Seedcamp remains prevelent and there are new VC’s like Hoxton Ventures and angels such as Stefan Glaenzer who promise pubicly to operate more intelligently, in a more informed, fairer manner which supports the entrepreneur and their vision.

The next 12 months will certainly be interesting – and despite the frustrations I’m optimistic about the future for Silicon Roundabout in London.

The real challenge for Europe is improving the support VC’s give start-ups and the way they approach deals. The second is getting rid of the social stigma of failure or conversely, wanting to earn zillions of pounds or euros!

In short, we (Europe and the UK) need to learn to scale start-ups.

That all said, having spent nudging 30% of my time there the last 3 years, when I do another start-up, it will probably be from the Valley.

Don’t feel bad though, most of America’s TV is our fault. At least we’re good at exporting something.

*** STOP PRESS ***

A VC recently posted on the ICE List suggesting that the lack of revolutionary investment in high-risk ideas has been the pressure from LP’s on VC’s to be conservative.

This pressure -she argues- has in the past caused a lack of risk taking on visionary projects. i.e. those longs shots ahead of the curve (Twitters, Facebooks).  I’m not sure if there is a real case for that as a reason.

These types of projects, as an entrepreneur repeatedly too early to market and who has failed to get VC’s to even understand where the market is headed, is a topic close to my heart.

Perhaps of course for those ventures it was my sales pitch, but -naturally- I would argue many VCs simply don’t understand enough about the market they invest in to understand a 5 or 10 year horizon, nor will put their proverbial balls on the line to risk investing in such a roll of the dice.

I would suggest these grand consumer projects (and certainly those which offer up no revenue until great mass is achieved) have never been embraced -let alone liked- by European VC’s. I see no past evidence of the inverse being true and I also can’t see how that is ever going to change.
I’ve become sadly resolved that we’d be better to work on improving the way EU VC invests in those sectors which already attract funding today; i.e. SaaS, enterprise, B2B and maybe consumer which has an immediate biz model & revenue stream (although these are still usually under-capitalised compared to US counterparts with whom they compete).
There is plenty of work to do around valuations, terms, knowledge and conduct; while being realistic about the appetite to build a next gen Twitter. I simply don’t think any EU VCs are hungry to do that.
I think that we (Europe) can give up on having the next Facebook, or more exactly, the thing which looks nothing like Facebook because it’s some AR LBS NFC MOSOSO which changes again the way the masses communicate, share, live work or play
…but I’d love someone to prove me wrong.