

European Startups Raise Highest Quarterly VC Financing Since 2001 - spountzy
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/07/28/european-startups-raise-highest-quarterly-vc-financing-since-2001/

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un_publishable
"Activity was strongest in the U.K., where companies raised 28% of the total
amount in the second quarter, followed by France with 19% and Germany with
15%."

How long until Berlin startups can expect reguler SV-level exits? The city is
amazing and there's a lot of positivity, but venture capital needs to be there
as well.

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mmaldacker
People have been expecting Berlin to have huge growth economically, in
population, real estate value, etc since the fall of the wall. This has not
happened yet (at least, not at the rate that was expected). I doubt it will
happen with startups.

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jacquesm
Berlin as a city is doing just fine and compared to just after the wall came
down the difference is nothing short of amazing. The amount of money pumped in
to the city shows up everywhere, infrastructure and public transport, the
quality of the houses and apartments, the number of businesses and so on. This
is not correlated at all with start-ups, which simply relates the the size of
the home market (to a first approximation, Germany, Switzerland and Austria)
and the ability to subsequently expand internationally (which is actually
quite hard). I was in Kreuzberg (Berlin neighbourhood) this week and I could
barely recognize it compared to what I remembered.

Compared to other former east block cities Berlin had of course a head start
(half of it was already western), even so the progress is strong. By
comparison, London today and London 2 decades ago are not that far apart,
whereas Berlin today and Berlin 2 decades ago are worlds apart.

As the spoils from Berlin percolate out through the surrounding countryside
Berlin will achieve yet another growth phase, what took 50 years to destroy
will not be fixed overnight but you can surely rely on Germany to be able to
fix such things as fast and thoroughly as possible.

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mmaldacker
Berlin has a debt of over 60 billion euros, with an annual budget of 20
billion, 5.5 of which comes from the other laenders. This is huge, the other
laenders have complained multiple times that they need to cut costs. Its GDP
is 80 billion, compared to frankfurt (70 billion) or munich (60 billion) it's
nothing as its a much bigger city. Berlin doesn't have a financial sector or
any major industry really. Population has stayed (more or less) the same for
the last 60 years.

Yes Berlin looks amazing considering ww2 & cold war, but is nowhere near the
major european capital it should be.

Also, London today from London 2 decades ago is very different, a simple
example is canary wharf that didn't have a single sky scraper 23 years ago.

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jacquesm
Sure, but neither Frankfurt nor Munich had as much backlog as Berlin. Not even
close. I remember counting 50 construction cranes in Berlin at some point in
the early 90's. The rate at which stuff was being fixed was nothing short of
incredible. And that's work-in-progress, it will take 100's of billions before
you could even begin to call it complete.

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diggan
How about the asian market? Is there any similar comparison but with the asian
world included?

