When it comes to the world of venture-backed startups, some issues are universal and some are highly dependent on where the startups and their backers are located.
It’s something we talked about this week in London when TechCrunch picked it up StrictlyVC a series of more intimate, more investor-focused events down the road. Sitting down with Saul Klein, the famous founder of LocalGlobe, and Raluca Ragab, managing director at growth-stage outfit Eurazeo, we discussed how similar—and different—the US business market is right. now compared to Europe.
Certainly, European startups and VCs have a lot to enjoy these days. (The latest Paris-based AI company to announce major funding comes to mind.) The continent also faces obvious challenges, including its proximity to two ongoing wars and a continued lack of late-stage capital.
What the two markets have in common is a great lack of expenses, which is less than ideal considering how much money VCs have been pouring into startups in recent years (money their limited partners would like to see back!).
Below are excerpts from the opening of our conversation with Klein and Ragab, which have been extensively edited. You can also watch the entire sit-down below. (Our next StrictlyVC event takes place on the evening of Tuesday, June 11 in Washington, DC, where we’ll be joined by FTC Chair Lina Khan, celebrity investor Steve Case, the co-founders of Humane AI, in one of their first appearances on stage. and former OpenAI board member Helen Toner — hope to see some of you there.)
There is so much to be excited about locally, especially when it comes to artificial intelligence. What is most exciting for you right now?
SC: First of all, thanks for coming here. mean [it’s been] four or five years since TechCrunch did an event in London. So welcome. What excites us all: [from where we’re seated, in the King’s Cross district]I can look at his lunch Crick Institute, which is the Broad Institute of Europe. If you’re interested in computational biology, it’s literally there. If I go three minutes to the left, I’ll bump into the global headquarters of Alphabet’s AI business, DeepMind, and I’ll also come to the people who created AlphaFold [the AI program developed by DeepMind].
We have four of the best universities in the world here. We’re also literally in the heart of this five-hour train ride we call New Palo Alto [encompassing Paris, Dublin, Brussels, Amsterdam and other entrepreneurial hot spots].
RR: The question that is often asked as to what Europe has to offer over the US And I think we now have an advantage in three big sectors or areas: security and privacy, sustainability and deep technology. This is because universities have been investing in IT degrees for a long time and we have one and a half times more STEM graduates in Europe than in the US
I have to ask: What is going on in terms of the Israel-Hamas war and Russia’s war in Ukraine? As an American, it is hard to understand how close these conflicts really are to these hot spots.
SC: Way to start with the easy stuff! The first was softball, and now you are [getting down to business].
It’s hard to know the business impact, based on the press I’ve read from California …
SC: We both had – and have – significant exposure and engagement with the Israeli startup scene. Raluca was one of the first investors [the autonomous driving company] Mobileye when it was [previously a managing director] with Goldman [Sachs]. But I would say October 9th [when Hamas attacked Israel]when we looked at our portfolio and the exposure that our portfolio had to either founders in Israel and Israeli founders outside of Israel, like in Barcelona or New York or London, the number of people working for them [was] about 90 founders and about 5,000 or 6,000 people.
What was incredible is that even though a third of their staff were on reserve duty, these companies just kept delivering and growing. Capital continues to flow into Israel, not only from domestic investors, but also from international investors. I think there are 65 cities in Europe or EMEA that have produced a unicorn. But the two cities that have produced more than 100 are London and Tel Aviv.
RR: From a business perspective, there is minimal impact. The ecosystem is incredibly rich and is actually way ahead of Europe. They create globally facing companies 10 years ahead of Europe. Where there might be an impact—and I think we should all be watching—is if this conflict spills over into the domestic politics of each country and brings more right-wing or left-wing governments to power. You see this impact in the Netherlands. You see what happened in Slovakia [where a populist with populist sympathies toward the Kremlin was elected prime minister for the third time in October]. So I think we just have to see how that plays out domestically. This conflict has a less direct impact on business.
However, it does not put a strain on relationships. In the US, investors really can’t talk about it.
RR: No. No. We are much better able to engage in sensitive discussions in Europe…
… rather than crazy Americans. Fair enough. Another issue specific to Europe is the lack of late-stage capital, a problem that has been going on for years. One investor called it a case of “the missing zero” in a chat with the FT last year.
SC: More than one zero is missing. Look, the half-full view is the Bay Area — Silicon Valley, Palo Alto. The ecosystem there is 53 years old and our ecosystem is maybe 20 years old. So arguably, being on par with the Bay Area [with regard to early-stage dealmaking] it means we’re moving pretty fast — like, catching up.
When you get to Series B and Series C stage rounds with $100 million plus, we are [funding just a quarter] of these deals, compared to the Bay Area, which is pathetic. If you just look at the UK, there is a $35 billion gap between the Bay Area and the UK. We are basically where the Bay Area was in 2014. There is a lot of activity on the policy side that the governments in the UK and France in Brussels are [focused on] but at the end of the day, none of this is solved by politics. Solves with a big [regional] companies for people to invest in.
However, you have dodged many bullets. if you think about all the money wasted by some companies investing in these $100 million rounds… maybe it’s not so terrible?
SC: I think what Silicon Valley really understands and we haven’t yet is that a lot of the capital that you use in the late stage, you can write off, [because] if you’re in the companies that end up combining at scale, you can have 20,000 times public market returns. So I think we still have a lot to learn from the Bay Area.
RR: I think there is something to be said for what you said. Because we have this [capital] In fact, European companies just have to deal with being more flexible, and I think the European market has lower volatility as a result. It doesn’t overheat and overheat as much on the way up and you know, on the way down, it’s symmetrical. In fact, when you look at the risk reward, it’s actually a better market because you never end up with this massive oversupply of capital.
More below …
