The Globalization of Venture Capital Investing
1–10 of 27 posts
Re: The Globalization of Venture Capital Investing
#2Seems that zoom has really changed the geographic reach of VC investing.
Re: The Globalization of Venture Capital Investing
#3Seems that zoom has really changed the geographic reach of VC investing.
It doesn’t seem to have changed where the investors are located. Which means there is still probably an advantage from locating a startup at a investment hub simply because there is more chance of meeting someone who knows someone.
Re: The Globalization of Venture Capital Investing
#4Zoom and the pandemic have had an effect here, but so has the success of companies not based in the US. Atlassian, Canva, SafetyCulture (to name a few) in Australia has not only helped grow the local VC ecosystem, but also made US VCs recognize that Australia punches above it's weight.
VCs new they had to make investments in Asia and South America as they saw more successes come out of those regions.
Technology is global, so VCs can't afford not to be.
However, I believe most of these VCs still expect companies to be set-up as Delaware Corps. Anybody have any insight on that?
Re: The Globalization of Venture Capital Investing
#5> It seems to me that about half of our “new deal activity” right now is happening outside of the US. And very little of it is in western Europe where most of our non-US investing has been for the last decade.
I always thought the problem with European startups was lack of a VC critical mass and risk taking ethos. So I thought the globalization of VC would help, but this sounds like it’s bleaker than ever.
Is it the absurd bureaucracies? Taxes? Red tape? Europeans are a super-smart bunch but their devs make far less and they lack any superstar tech giants. Makes no sense.
Re: The Globalization of Venture Capital Investing
#6> It seems to me that about half of our “new deal activity” right now is happening outside of the US. And very little of it is in western Europe where most of our non-US investing has been for the last decade. I always thought the problem with European startups was lack of a VC critical mass and risk taking ethos. So I thought the globalization of VC would help, but this sounds like it’s bleaker than ever. Is it the…
> but their devs make far less and they lack any superstar tech giants
These two are related. You can’t have high salaries without a competitive market full of money sloshing around.
A company making $300k/employee can never pay as much as a company making $1mm/employee. Even if it wants to.
I wonder how much brain drain the EU tech scene experiences by people working for US tech companies. Either remotely, via local offices, or plain old moving to USA.
Re: The Globalization of Venture Capital Investing
#7Zoom and the pandemic have had an effect here, but so has the success of companies not based in the US. Atlassian, Canva, SafetyCulture (to name a few) in Australia has not only helped grow the local VC ecosystem, but also made US VCs recognize that Australia punches above it's weight. VCs new they had to make investments in Asia and South America as they saw more successes come out of those regions. Technology is gl…
Atlassian was bootstrapped for about a decade. It was profitable, had more than 200 employees, and was turning about $60 million in revenue before taking outside funding. It was far more late stage than the vast fraction of companies.
Re: The Globalization of Venture Capital Investing
#8Zoom and the pandemic have had an effect here, but so has the success of companies not based in the US. Atlassian, Canva, SafetyCulture (to name a few) in Australia has not only helped grow the local VC ecosystem, but also made US VCs recognize that Australia punches above it's weight. VCs new they had to make investments in Asia and South America as they saw more successes come out of those regions. Technology is gl…
> However, I believe most of these VCs still expect companies to be set-up as Delaware Corps. Anybody have any insight on that?
If you are taking money from US investors, being a Delaware C-Corp is what they are used to deal with and what they are comfortable with.
If you are selling internationally, a US setup might make lots of sense.
Re: The Globalization of Venture Capital Investing
#9> It seems to me that about half of our “new deal activity” right now is happening outside of the US. And very little of it is in western Europe where most of our non-US investing has been for the last decade. I always thought the problem with European startups was lack of a VC critical mass and risk taking ethos. So I thought the globalization of VC would help, but this sounds like it’s bleaker than ever. Is it the…
> I always thought the problem with European startups was lack of a VC critical mass and risk taking ethos. So I thought the globalization of VC would help, but this sounds like it’s bleaker than ever.
Europe only makes 10% of the world population, and the EU population is a bit over the half of that. I don't have the numbers, but I'm confident the EU gets more per capita.
> Is it the absurd bureaucracies? Taxes? Red tape?
All of that plus Europe is quite developed. VC wants a high return and under-developed emerging countries can give more for your buck.
Re: The Globalization of Venture Capital Investing
#10> It seems to me that about half of our “new deal activity” right now is happening outside of the US. And very little of it is in western Europe where most of our non-US investing has been for the last decade. I always thought the problem with European startups was lack of a VC critical mass and risk taking ethos. So I thought the globalization of VC would help, but this sounds like it’s bleaker than ever. Is it the…
The European market is not a single market like the US - that's a big disadvantage when you're growing a company. It's a quasi-single market (and only for about 20 years at that). You still have to take lots of different national regulations into account, as well as the language barriers and very different cultures from country to country. The US is still the largest, single, free market - and that's what attracts entrepreneurs (and VCs).