November 27, 2006
Europe’s loss
Right now, US venture capitalists are raising as much new cash in a month as the entire European VC industry is attracting in a year.
That’s partly because, as these latest figures suggest, the amount of new money finding its way into VC coffers in Europe has dropped by more than 40 per cent so far this year. On the other side of the Atlantic investment is up nearly 20 per cent (figures here.)
Much of the money flowing into the US is coming from European investors. Some of it is even finding its way back into business ideas that were hatched in the Old World. Only, American VCs like to keep their promising young companies near to hand, and many budding European entrepreneurs seem only too happy to up sticks and head to greener pastures.
Case in point: Nicky Morris, whose 3B was the only British company to be showcased at the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco earlier this month. She used the trip to sound out local investors, and found they were keen to draw her company over to California. Shifting part of 3B’s operations to the US was certainly a possibility, she said.
