According to the state of European tech report, European tech firms managed to raise a record-breaking US$23 billion in 2018.
Key Points:
- Investments to see a broad range of $50 million to $200 million figures in the European tech companies
- Acc. to CERN, science and technology convergence to strengthen the link between European STEM and start-ups.
- “Europe has caught us on North America’s head start” quotes Tom Wehmeier
Have you ever wondered the size of Europe’s tech ecosystem? As of 2018 end, it was US $240 Billion which is 17% of the global tech market share. And guess what? These numbers are only increasing with every passing year. While the continent is giving rise to more and more promising technological companies, the two most promising among them namely Sweden’s Spotify and Germany’s Zalando shares a combined market value of US $42 billion, according to data from GP Bullhound. According of Mark Boggett, the year 2019 will see a broad range of $50 million to $200 million investments into the European tech companies particularly in the space tech industry.
At a macro-level, Europe’s software industry is growing 5x faster than the overall European economy. The other drivers of industry include effective mobilization of deep pool of talents. The tech industry is evolving with healthy increase in professional developers and talented executives moving into tech from other sectors. The interesting fact is that the pool of developers is growing fastest outside those countries that attracts more investments. Countries like, Turkey, Spain and Russia have been deepening the most rapidly. Europe’s research community is larger than U.S and china. Acc. to CERN, one of the research
community members, as science and technology converge further there is a huge
scope to strengthen the link between European STEM and start-ups.
However, not all in great within the ecosystem. In terms of the U.S market, Europe is still considered as a second mover in terms of building start-ups and the approach they use in building them. It calls for taking initiatives proactively. There are complexities involved with the inclusion of women also as reports in 2018 shows that 46% of women faced discrimination in the tech industry. Also, 93% of the total capital investments and 85% of all the deals went to all-male founding team. Maybe, Nordic and Scandinavian countries can be an example for the inclusion, diversity and equality in the tech industry.
One of the solutions can be balancing and increasing the funding by family offices and high-net worth individual. If only their allocations are shifted from tradition industries to game-changing technology, it can democratize access to the spoils of European tech. In the next decade, Europe will enjoy rewards of continuous success from the seeds planted a decade ago. In the words of Tom Wehmeier, “Given that 21 European companies have been founded and scaled to billion-dollar-plus valuations with the support of venture capital since 2010 alone, we are confident that Europe has caught up on North America’s head start”.
Lastly, with the given status quo of the European market, there are a lot of small but rapidly scaling start-ups and companies that are entering the market. These companies are not just expanding online but have also taken the retail route to spread across Europe. To name a few, Royole corporation (world’s 1st foldable phone from China), Elicto ( Smart home cleaner from NY) and many others.
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