Venture Capital in Europe, Many Big Investment Opportunities Remain
Europe, the Eurozone in particular is not on anybody’s list of top markets to invest in at the moment. Growth is sluggish in many countries. There also seems to be little hope for the resolution of Greece’s endless problems. Not only this, but the fear of a Euro breakup looms over us. Europe is still home to some of the best startup opportunities around. For example, two of the world’s biggest startups come from Europe. They include Spotify, the music streaming service which has sent ripples throughout the music streaming business, and threatening the dominance of Apple’s iTunes. Klarna, the Swedish online payments company is valued at over USD 2 billion, and Algomi the London based social network for bond trading.
The venture capital market is still growing. For example, only recently, one of the largest venture capital funds in Europe was set up. It is worth over EUR 350 million, or USD 398 million. It was set up by Klaus Hommels, a German serial venture capitalist based in Zurich, Switzerland. Most of the money will be for European startups, but many will also be for American tech companies. This is in tune with his successful history, having taken out shares in current tech giants such as Facebook, and Airbnb. This is twice the size of his previous fund, which he opened in 2013. Such confidence is certainly not unfounded.
He is confident for a reason. This is because he believes that technology has become an integral part of the modern person’s life. For this reason, he is also willing to invest in companies with high valuations because, he can work to accelerate their growth. He is not the only one to have poured in money into the European venture capital market. So many startups are now worth over USD 1 billion. In Europe, funding rates are over 60% higher than they were last year. Given that the American market is so much larger, it is clear that potential for growth is there. It only needs to be tapped. You can be the one to do so.