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Alibaba acquires Berlin-based data Artisans for $103M

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Re: Alibaba acquires Berlin-based data Artisans for $103M

#31

Post by fastbeef »

tormeh wrote: post #22
jamesblonde wrote: post #3

What is it about European Enterprise Data software companies that they never make it past this stage without either being bought up or moving to the States? MySQL, JBoss, Elastic. The list is much longer.

EU capital markets are underdeveloped compared to those in the US. European banks are too small, and mostly national. More importantly, the marketplaces are too small and too national. European stock exchanges are a joke compared to NASDAQ and NYSE. There's also the small detail of pension funds generally being forbidden from investing in stocks. That's the money that's fuelling SV, if my impression is correct. This…

"There's also the small detail of pension funds generally being forbidden from investing in stocks."

Could you provide more info? All my Swedish pensions savings, both private and goverment, are basically stocks-only funds.

Re: Alibaba acquires Berlin-based data Artisans for $103M

#32

Post by jamisteven »

ajaxaddicted wrote: post #21
locklock wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can certainly buy a nice house in Berlin for it though!

Why would someone do that though. You can buy a much nicer house in Spain

Living in Zurich, and think this very thing daily.

Re: Alibaba acquires Berlin-based data Artisans for $103M

#33

Post by ionised »

tormeh wrote: post #22
jamesblonde wrote: post #3

What is it about European Enterprise Data software companies that they never make it past this stage without either being bought up or moving to the States? MySQL, JBoss, Elastic. The list is much longer.

EU capital markets are underdeveloped compared to those in the US. European banks are too small, and mostly national. More importantly, the marketplaces are too small and too national. European stock exchanges are a joke compared to NASDAQ and NYSE. There's also the small detail of pension funds generally being forbidden from investing in stocks. That's the money that's fuelling SV, if my impression is correct. This…

None of this seems correct.

Europe has more than a few multi-national, global banks.

Also, my own pension is invested in the stock market. That's the norm for employer-provided pensions.

Re: Alibaba acquires Berlin-based data Artisans for $103M

#34

Post by l5870uoo9y »

lawrenceyan wrote: post #7

I wonder what it would take to create the set of conditions for another "Silicon Valley / SF Bay Area" to appear in Europe. It seems like inevitably, any tech companies that are successful always end up getting bought out and leave to the U.S. instead of staying. What are the primary issues? Lack of VC funding, culture, government policy? On the surface, it doesn't seem like there's anything particularly lacking, at…

If you look at how China managed to build up an impressive tech sector the conclusion is clear: protectionism, else Europe will keep being sold off and lose its best talent to large companies abroad. This is the missing piece, not all these arbitrary number crunching or ill-informed cultural studies. Indeed looking at history many European countries have build up large innovative industrial and scientific sectors.

Naturally, if Europe starts to protect its tech sector the US will react aggressively and it will have major political repercussions. It is nonetheless necessary.

Re: Alibaba acquires Berlin-based data Artisans for $103M

#35

Post by oblio »

rapsey wrote: post #4
jamesblonde wrote: post #3

What is it about European Enterprise Data software companies that they never make it past this stage without either being bought up or moving to the States? MySQL, JBoss, Elastic. The list is much longer.

The funding options in Europe are abysmal compared to US or even UK. EU response to this is various EU funding programs that are mostly throwing money away for little to no benefit. At least in the tech sector.

> EU response to this is various EU funding programs that are mostly throwing money away for little to no benefit.

You're framing this as if it's the EU's job. It isn't.

The only way the EU could compete if it would become a federal state, similar to the US. Right now the EU, despite being a single market in many respects is far from being a true digital single market.

Individual states are actively fighting against this because they would have give up bits of their sovereignty (controlling tax levels, such as VAT, commercial legislation, etc.).

You can't both have your cake (a huge single market able to funnel huge amounts of money into your desired investments) and eat it (keep total control of your country's finances).

Re: Alibaba acquires Berlin-based data Artisans for $103M

#37

Post by wastedhours »

lawrenceyan wrote: post #7

I wonder what it would take to create the set of conditions for another "Silicon Valley / SF Bay Area" to appear in Europe. It seems like inevitably, any tech companies that are successful always end up getting bought out and leave to the U.S. instead of staying. What are the primary issues? Lack of VC funding, culture, government policy? On the surface, it doesn't seem like there's anything particularly lacking, at…

> On the surface, it doesn't seem like there's anything particularly lacking, at least from my superficial understanding as an American viewing in from the outside.

My personal opinion is that, whilst we (still, just...) live in a "single market", Europe isn't a "market" just by itself.

Sure, you can do business cross-borders quite easily, but there's not the same critical mass of language, culture, business environment, and confidence as there is in the States. The US is a bunch of loosely connected areas that at least have language, currency, and to a lesser degree, culture that permeates them.

The differences between the UK and France when launching a product are substantial - and whilst it's technically "easy" (a bit of i18n here, a Stripe GBP-EUR transaction there), unpicking user needs and behaviours across language barriers can be hard.

If you incubate a product in SV, you can roll that out to the rest of the US with only slight changes in approach. If you incubate a product in Portugal, you have your work to cut out from the get-go to reach more than just 10m people.

My stretch is that it encourages companies to try and "dominate" their home market rather than trying to do the harder thing and spread - that slows the hockey-stick as you try and wring the last few dollars out of a mature environment and makes investment outcomes less tasty.

Combine all of that with a generalised point about Europeans being less "work-driven" and so probably a less % of people trying.

Re: Alibaba acquires Berlin-based data Artisans for $103M

#38

Post by vesinisa »

tormeh wrote: post #22
jamesblonde wrote: post #3

What is it about European Enterprise Data software companies that they never make it past this stage without either being bought up or moving to the States? MySQL, JBoss, Elastic. The list is much longer.

EU capital markets are underdeveloped compared to those in the US. European banks are too small, and mostly national. More importantly, the marketplaces are too small and too national. European stock exchanges are a joke compared to NASDAQ and NYSE. There's also the small detail of pension funds generally being forbidden from investing in stocks. That's the money that's fuelling SV, if my impression is correct. This…

> There's also the small detail of pension funds generally being forbidden from investing in stocks.

As someone who has worked for a Finnish start-up financed by a pension fund, you are mistaken on this one.

Re: Alibaba acquires Berlin-based data Artisans for $103M

#39

Post by thecleaner »

jamesblonde wrote: post #29
thecleaner wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose a look east policy will make sense here atleast for the VC funding. Language barrier problem is honestly an opportunith but also a stupid problem to have. I dont understand why atleast language of business is not English throughout the EU (for sectors besides IT). For example, quite a lot of businesses in China use English. Same is the case for most of south east Asia and also India.

The language of business in the EU is now English. At least in IT, it's all English.

I guess then in IT its probably VC funding thats causing problems.

Re: Alibaba acquires Berlin-based data Artisans for $103M

#40

Post by oblio »

lawrenceyan wrote: post #24
Rainymood wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's attitude and sheer luck. People in the US seem to take more risk, this leads to huge rewards (start-ups) but also leads to an insane amount of inequality in wealth. I have never seen more in-your-face wealth inequality than in America (and yes, I've been to China and Asia in general quite often). Then a second component is the sheer amount of people trying their luck. Imagine that winning in a startup is like to…

Doesn't the European Union have around 500 million people though in it's population? America is only like 325 million people I think.

Those 500 million are on average quite a bit poorer than the average American (regarding disposable income and therefore the willingness to risk a long period of 0 income to start a business). Especially in the Eastern part. Mississippi (!) has higher GDP per capita than most EU countries.
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