
Berlin is now in a position to usurp London as the startup capital of Europe - scarletknight
http://www.geektime.com/2016/06/27/berlin-is-now-in-a-position-to-usurp-london-as-the-startup-capital-of-europe/
======
nabla9
In the meantime while Nordics are home to just 3% of Europe’s population, it
has created more than 50% of Europe’s Billion Dollar exits since 2005.

If there is startup capital in Europe, it's Stockholm.

[https://medium.com/creandum-family/the-nordics-in-context-
th...](https://medium.com/creandum-family/the-nordics-in-context-the-creandum-
exits-report-c4b285157b13)

~~~
harryf
Part of that is mobile games companies like Supercell with Clash of the Clans
-
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercell_(video_game_company)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercell_\(video_game_company\))
... Hay Day, Angry Birds and others. Basically out of the ashes of Nokia, a
bunch of mobile gaming companies has sprung up and to some extent are
dominating the industry -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Video_game_companies_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Video_game_companies_of_Finland)
\- more at [https://techcrunch.com/2016/02/10/from-nokias-snake-game-
to-...](https://techcrunch.com/2016/02/10/from-nokias-snake-game-to-supercell-
finlands-gaming-industry-is-serious-business/) \- apparently they generate 1.8
Billion in total

~~~
speeder
It is not just a nokia thing.

Also from Nordic countries:

1\. Linux 2\. Irc 3\. Demoscene 4\. DICE

~~~
lgieron
5\. Skype (AFAIK).

~~~
MagnumOpus
Eesti can into Nordic?

~~~
dogma1138
Estonia is as "nordic" as Finland.

~~~
fulafel
Don't know about that[1] but Skype founders were Swedish & Danish and Estonia
is close by.

[1] "consist of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden"
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_countries](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_countries)

~~~
dogma1138
Finnish is not a Nordic language, while Estonian is a Finnic language.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnic_languages](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnic_languages)
Ethically Finland is a Baltic nation rather than a Nordic one, It's also was
never a part of the 3 monarchies of Scandinavia until the more modern use of
Scandinavia for tourism.

Hence my reply to "Does Estonia count as a Nordic state" question :)

~~~
fulafel
Geographic/country classification, languages and genetic roots all mesh
differently in this case. Languagewise the Baltic countries apart from Estonia
have Slavic majority languages. Biologically Finnish genetic makeup comes from
a mix of Sami, Swedish & ugric peoples and is quite diverse [1] but does have
a lot of overlap with Estonians. Culturally Finland differs due to having
avoided Soviet occupation.

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finns#Genetics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finns#Genetics)

~~~
dogma1138
Your argument is sadly still not clear to me. Some one asked is Estonia a
nordic country, I said that in my book it as much as one as Finland because
those 2 countries share an ethnic bound that is probably stronger than what
Finland shares with Denmark.

~~~
type0
This has nothing to do with ethnic similarity between ests and fins. The only
reason why Finland is considered nordic is that it still has swedish speaking
population and it is second official language. Estonian swedes left because of
WW2. Linus as you might know is from Finland but speaks swedish.

------
corford
I think Berlin will benefit from brexit but I'm more interested in watching
Dublin. Seems to me it should do very well: big tech companies already there,
attractive corp tax rates, cheap and easy to incorporate a company (AFAIK?),
similar legal concepts and biz regs as the UK, similar banking environment,
cheaper rents, everyone speaks english, there are local VCs and presumably
London VCs would also find it very easy/familiar to invest.

The one thing the UK still has going for it is SEIS/EIS but there's nothing
preventing other countries copying this (e.g. Portugal is about to introduce
something similar to SEIS).

~~~
cylinder
Dublin will be corporate/enterprise IT and Berlin will be more consumer.

~~~
dmix
I don't know of many big startups coming out of Dublin. Having many big corp
HQs (who are there for tax sheltering and lower income workers) doesn't
translate to a lively entrepreneurial scene.

For example, just north of Toronto is a small suburban city called Markham
which calls itself the "high-tech capital of Canada" but the only notable
thing about the area is the countless glass office towers of multi-national
tech companies who built their Canadian HQ there. But the Toronto startup
scene is entirely downtown, far from Markham. Or in Waterloo near the
university there. I've even not heard of any events taking place up in Markham
either, it's just not part of the community in any significant way.

The kind of people who go to work at IBM and AMD don't often leave to create
companies nor do the CEOs participate in the startup communities very much.
They're people who usually live in the suburbs with families and are happy
working 9-5. Nothing wrong with that but the distinction between high-tech
corps and startup scenes are often confused as homogeneous entities by
outsiders.

------
rwallace
Shouldn't we hope that something does? By all accounts, the house price
situation in London has become bad enough that it's wiping out the middle
class, which is very bad news; the rise of the middle class was a key factor
in enabling the transition from feudal society to modern civilization.

But while I'm here, I'll throw in a shameless plug: Dublin is still in the EU,
and is an English-speaking capital city with modern infrastructure, a skilled
workforce, a pleasant climate and low corporate taxes.

~~~
lgieron
> a pleasant climate

I've heard that washing your car in Ireland is a non-issue; the climate takes
care of that.

~~~
paublyrne
The regularity and amount of rainfall in Ireland is greatly exaggerated. The
west of the country certainly is a good deal wetter than the east, facing the
Atlantic. This list ranks Ireland 80th in terms of rainfall, below Switzerland
the UK, Japan, and New Zealand.

[http://www.nationmaster.com/country-
info/stats/Geography/Ave...](http://www.nationmaster.com/country-
info/stats/Geography/Average-rainfall-in-depth/Mm-per-year)

------
auganov
Europe never had a proper startup capital, or more accurately never did well
at startups in general. It's not unlikely that there will just be less
investment, nobody has to win.

Given the very small numbers, every European country [1] has a lot of
potential to multiply their startup output. I doubt any trade deals or policy
changes are going to bring it about. Not happening without major cultural
change IMO. One might as well say that UK just 'bought' itself the ticket to
make some major changes (tho I'm not betting my money on it either).

Just look at Israel, that tiny 8 million country consistently tops most
European countries in terms of absolute funding. [0]

[0] [http://www.slideshare.net/gdibner/europe-
israel-4-q14-deals-...](http://www.slideshare.net/gdibner/europe-
israel-4-q14-deals-done-review) [1] maybe with exception of Sweden, it seems
to pull of good numbers sometimes (given the small population), but doesn't
seem consistent

~~~
huac
I kinda agree with a 'cultural' factor - Europeans are often more risk-averse
than Americans or Israeli's, and starting a startup is definitely risky!

I'm not sure how the Nordic countries get around that though. A stronger
social safety net is probably negatively correlated with risk-aversion.

~~~
bllguo
I think you mean more risk-averse?

~~~
huac
fixed :)

------
urlwolf
I have been in Berlin for 8 years and would not change it for London at all.
In data science at least there's far more action here. More interesting
technologies (Flink), people taking more technological risk and reaping the
benefits.

~~~
TorKlingberg
How much German do you need to speak in the Berlin startup community?

~~~
johnomarkid
I've lived in Berlin for 3 years and have never had to use German to interact
with people in the startup community. Since a high number of startup
founders/employees are from other european countries, it's more practical to
use English as the language of business.

~~~
Xylakant
There's places in Berlin where you actually can only order in english.

------
HalfwayToDice
I think this article is completely wrong.

The things that make London attractive to startups will stay the same. Not
being in the EU won't change that.

Additionally, it talks about UK attitudes to immigration, but London is
completely separate from the rest of the UK in terms of these sort of things.

Expect a lot of very silly things to be written about UK/EU over the coming
months.

~~~
div
The point the article is trying to make wrt immigration is that when the UK
leaves the EU, it will also leave the free movement of workers zone, making it
harder to attract immigrants, regardless of how London feels about them.

~~~
HalfwayToDice
Immigration system for skilled workers is not going to change. If the UK
actually does leave the EU, they'll replace EU rules of skilled immigration
with something similar.

The UK is a knowledge economy, it will always be open to skilled immigrants.
Yet people _actually believe_ that the UK will close down all immigration.
It's absurd.

~~~
germanier
I could hop on the next plane to London and legally start working today. If
they restrict freedom of movement at all that is going to fall and replaced by
some process to obtain work authorization (how else could they distinguish
between "skilled" and "unskilled" workers?). If that system looks in any way
similiar to the one non-EU citizens have to go through today I wouldn't call
that change insignificant. Having to do a financial striptease and waiting
some time for the application to be processed (possibly even having to renew
that a few times) instead of showing your ID card to HR _is_ going to stop
some people from working there.

And I don't want to start talking about other things, such as access to social
security and cross-border cooperation thereof, automatic recognition of
degrees and certifications, harmonized banking makes it easy to transfer to
your home country, being able to quit a job without needing to have a new one
lined-up, and so on. All that is now part of the negotiations.

~~~
Symbiote
> I could hop on the next plane to London and legally start working today.

That's exactly the point, and something I don't think many British people
realise. (I don't think Americans etc realise it either, but I don't expect
them to.)

Moving to work in a different EU country requires what I'd guess is a similar
amount of paperwork as moving between US states.

\- Register your address with the local government (which may lead to an id
card, tax registration etc) \- Update your driving license, if applicable \-
Tell the old country you'll stop paying tax there (may lead to a tax refund)

These are the same kinds of processes as are used when a child is born, a
teenager gets a first job, or an adult moves house. Nothing requires
permission, nothing can be refused.

Additionally, there are agreements for things like state healthcare, pensions
and out-of-work benefits.

If the UK raises barriers, then London will be less appealing for other
European citizens.

~~~
Xylakant
> nothing can be refused

This is a very crucial point that a lot of people fail to grasp. With the EU
laws as backing, we moved from "this is easily granted unless you fill in the
wrong paper" to "this can't be denied and you don't even have to ask." which
is a complete turnaround in the power balance. Employing a person from the EU
requires that I notify the relevant authorities, moving within the EU requires
me to merely notify the right parties. There's no applying for a permit.
Having a polish partner is much less stressful, because she can't be thrown
out, no matter what, no need for a residence permit, no travel documents.

------
PopsiclePete
Silicon Valley is ...nice...in certain areas...but overall, I don't like the
US way of planning living areas - seems like that unless you have a _lot_
money, you'll be living in some endless suburban sprawl and commuting 90
minutes to work in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

I know pay in Berlin _must_ be lower compared to that in the Valley, but
what's life in Berlin like if you're in software?

How's the job situation, relative pay, quality of life? Does anyone regret
living there? How are the locals treating you?

I have an EU passport and already speak a little bit of German, if that
matters....

~~~
piva00
Berlin is a really cheap city by European standards for developed countries, I
live in Stockholm and just went two weekends straight to Berlin (I really love
the city), basically if you work with software you're well off.

Food, drinks, entertainment, everything is cheap, your salary will be around
€50~55k/year, that means you'll probably get close to €3k/month after taxes,
rent is raising but it's still cheap for an European capital (between
€700~1.2k depending on what you are looking for) and probably around €150 for
utilities (maybe a little less, I'm basing on the numbers a friend who's
moving there has been telling me).

Plenty of job openings, every day I check them and there are tons of new
openings on LinkedIn, SO Careers, Landing.jobs, etc.

Overall seems to be a great city to live if you like urban gritty cities, I
personally love it and plan to move there next year if possible.

Probably you can regret it if you are looking for a calm city to live in,
Berlin is very alive and kicking all the time, the Germans I know from Berlin
are among the friendliest people I've know in my life (and I'm Brazilian).

And knowing German seems to help a lot, the locals mostly know English but
they can be a bit shy to speak it all the time so when you eventually end up
with a bunch of Germans they'll be speaking German between them.

Please, if someone see any misinformation correct me as I'm very interested to
know better.

------
robert_foss
Was London at any point the startup capital of Europe?

Maybe it was the banking capital of Europe, but that time is over now.

~~~
nailer
In terms of funding, yes. It's also the fintech capital of the world.

Regarding being the banking capital: it's been two business days. You might be
jumping the gun just a little. ;-)

~~~
onion2k
_Regarding being the banking Ng capital: it 's been two business days. You
might be jumping the gun just a little._

I strongly suspect the UK won't be able to continue any passporting[1]
arrangements because it would _greatly_ benefit Germany's financial sector if
foreign banks had to establish a European presence to trade within the EU.
That is an existential threat to London's finance industry. Obviously it
depends on trade negotiations with the EU as the UK leaves, but really, what
benefit is there to the EU to let it continue the way it is? Why would they
want the UK to carry on as it is now?

[1] [https://www.eba.europa.eu/regulation-and-
policy/passporting-...](https://www.eba.europa.eu/regulation-and-
policy/passporting-and-supervision-of-branches)

~~~
Symbiote
I think the point was, it's not even clear if the UK _will_ leave the EU.

The referendum result was 52-48, with some people regretting their decision
since they only meant it as a protest against the current government. Others
are furious that the things they thought they voted for (money for healthcare,
much reduced immigration) have already been backtraced upon by politicians.

We live in interesting times.

(I'm British and live in Denmark, so I have a clear bias in this.)

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
It's not clear that anyone knows what will happen.

Historically the EU plays hardball with dissenters. The leavers are gambling
that our trading relationships are essential to the EU - but unfortunately
they really aren't. So it's unwise to expect anything too conciliatory from
Brussels.

What is clear is that if the UK does leave it will have spent the last forty
years building up the City as the key European/World financial center, and
then thrown away that advantage through the actions of a small clique of
overly ambitious and utterly dishonest politicians.

And if you take away the City, no one in power has any idea at all how to
build a 21st century economy - never mind a 20th century economy, or even a
19th century economy.

While the rest of Europe will be developing new startups, England will be
playing with its union jack and wondering if maybe it should build a big navy
again.

------
794CD01
The "startup capital of Europe"? Is that like being the soccer capital of
America?

~~~
nailer
> Is that like being the soccer capital of America?

Like Brazil? Yes, it is.

~~~
rbanffy
There are about 7 big reasons not to brag about it.

~~~
erikb
You mean the other reasons why Germany is interesting for competitive people?

------
p4wnc6
This was shared earlier: <
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11983154](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11983154)
>

I'll repeat the comment I gave there:

>I don't view Berlin as a viable replacement as a top start-up hub because
wages in Berlin are simply ludicrously low.

>With Google's investment in the Zurich office, and the much, much more
internationally competitive wages you can earn in Switzerland, I think Zurich
could be better positioned.

>There's certainly no reason to believe that specifically an EU city would be
the next to take off. And in most other ways, the Swiss job market is just
much more competitive.

>I'm also depressed by the article using a picture of an anti-human violently
wide open co-working space as a stereotype of a thriving start-up culture.
Nothing says _you 're being totally taken advantage of_ like a wide open floor
plan.

~~~
hocuspocus
I'd love to see the tech landscape in Zürich grow but there are a few
problems:

\- Sponsoring non-EU immigrants has become extremely difficult in Swizterland.

\- Google trounces the competition by a margin that is completely out of reach
for European start-ups.

\- Switzerland itself is a very small market. The cash-flow of your typical
SaaS start-up is going to be mostly in € or $ with all the associated burdens
and risks.

Also it's funny you mention Amsterdam since from what I've seen, wages are
even lower than in Berlin, which is insane given the higher CoL.

~~~
peterbraden
The Swiss tax system also cripples startups in Zürich

~~~
hocuspocus
True, but they're working on that (I think?), and you can always put your HQ
in Zug :D

~~~
peterbraden
Does that solve the taxation based on market cap thing?

------
bobthechef
This will hopefully trigger a Central European response (in part caused by
stemming emigration). Germany pays into the coffers of the EU in order to
basically pay for access to cheap labor from the East and to keep borders open
to push its products without suffering tariffs. The result is that Germany
experiences a net benefit but at the cost of draining the East of labor it
needs to rebuild after the Cold War and stamping out competition in those
countries by flooding the market with its products, thus stifling the growth
of the economic base in those countries (turning a country like Poland into a
giant German service center isn't creating an economic base, it's economic
colonialism). This way, Germany maintains dependence and superiority. The only
solution for that region is to form the Intermarium to counteract German and
Russian dominance in the region. It's an old idea that sadly didn't have the
opportunity to be implemented, but perhaps its time has come.

------
mhomde
I think Berlin and Stockholm are two of the front runners of being "Startup
Capital" (whatever that is suppose to mean), having lived in both I can offer
some reflections, IMHO of course.

Stockholm is pretty great when it comes to technical and investment maturity.
We blew through and did all the stupid dotcom stuff in late 90's, while some
have been repeated many successful entrepreneurs learned from that time.
Internet access has been really good leading to a lot of good technical
talent. It's a beautiful city that want's to be "international" and overall
things are very polished. Sweden's also has a track record of producing a few
gigantic hits such as Spotify, Soundcloud, Klarna, Skype, Minecraft etc etc.

On the downside the housing situation is insane and everyone has borrowed to
the hilt trying to keep up with the ever increasing prices. You can't get hold
of an apartment without buying. It's also a pretty expensive place to live. It
get's pretty dark & pissy in the winters but summer's are great. I used say
that living in Stockholm is 9 months of wondering why the hell you live here
and three months where you get the answer.

Berlin in contrast feels like something very unique in Europe and Germany.
It's like melting pot of different countries and not quite grown up mentality.
Housing is still relatively accessible and affordable, there's even rental
contracts to be had. Food and drink is overall cheaper. The startup spirit in
Berlin still felt a bit naive when I was there, like a first wave city, but
it's big and enthusiastic. However they seem to struggle to product big hits
outside of their own country. Maybe the difference between Sweden and Germany
is that Sweden is so little we have to go international, and also we're more
anglofied. Big companies generally haven't been so big on Berlin since they
don't have an international airport, leaving the city wide open for everyone
else. On the downside Berlin is a bit meh when it comes to scenery and nature.

Outside the tech scene the English in Berlin is pretty bad and some look down
at any not speaking German. Swedes grow up with English and most love every
opportunity to use it.

I think there's a good bet Berlin will start to dominate as a "Silicon Valley
of Europe", if nothing else because there's a vacuum there that can be filled,
and it will become even more international than german. Even Swedes look at
Berlin simply because it's cheaper and more accessible. It also has a bit
bigger scene when it comes to small "startuppy" kinda ventures while Stockholm
dominates on the more serious ones.

Working as an employee seems to suck in Berlin because everyone is looking for
a job and job's pay poorly. But if you work for yourself and/or with
investment money that doesn't matter and you're in a good position to leverage
that money.

------
lalibrew
This is crazy. What is not crazy is the new site that just started, that
offers lessons of the English language via Skype. For more information go to
[https://adapt.nd.edu/members/3044/blog/2015/12/learn-
english...](https://adapt.nd.edu/members/3044/blog/2015/12/learn-english-by-
skype-with-the-best-tutors-on-reply)

------
cm3
As a developer I'd wish companies would treat Europe more like United States
of Europe and generally accept remote positions in order to have a broader
pool of talent and allow employees to economically make the most out of their
salary.

I don't want startup capitals, I want an adjustment of mindsets that goes with
the rest of the tech advancements.

I've had interviews for already internationally distributed teams where the HR
manager insisted on having me full-time onsite without a good argument.

------
jomamaxx
I doubt this.

Brexit has really no direct consequence on startups.

With housing prices down and no worries about EU legislation, London would be
a great place.

The only outstanding issue would be how the new EU worker visa program would
work.

Neither London nor Berlin were huge on startups, this won't materially change
anything.

------
_pmf_
Feel free to enjoy our 40000 - 50000 EUR salaries (I'm not saying whether this
is bad or good, it's just something to be aware of; don't expect any SV
silliness regarding salary here).

~~~
dkersten
Salaries will be lower, but so will cost of living.

------
erikb
Now in a position? Ask Londoners and they will tell you that Berlin has
already won that battle. The thing is that Berlin is already expected to be on
the downturn, actually.

------
mavsman
Fairly certain this is not the proper usage of the word "usurp".

