International approach l Current VC market l Our initiative for EVCT
However, one of the two VC's raw materials besides funding is basically "brain-power" and in this matter Europe is, in various ways, at the forefront in many fields across several geographical clusters.
Especially from a non European perspective and despite harsh economic context, Europe remains the densest zone in "power-brain" in the world, but also an area with sane, widely shared, well established and structured business practices, great economic infrastructures and socially stable economies.
In such a structural context, it will be a lot of other great European success stories such as Business Object, Soitec, Skype, MySQL, VistaPrint, Kelkoo... meaning great profit perspectives ahead for many entrepreneurs and investors.
We observe a certain form of inefficiency in the fact that France and the UK still concentrate today more than 50% of VC investments in Europe while they represent roughly and only 20% of the population. There are historical and cultural reasons. In Europe, VC business developed first in the UK after the WWII (3i), a business practise imported from the US. Then in France in the late 70's early 80's (Sofinnova, Apax), after observing Microsoft and Apple's incorporation and fast growth and how within that fast-growing Silicon valley eco-system VC was developing.
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