Joanna Pruszynska-Witkowska’s Post

The French government is spearheading a renewed push to integrate the European Union's fragmented capital markets to revive the bloc's flourishing startup ecosystem and reduce their dependence on U.S. venture capital funds. Complicated local regulations and oversight have prevented the EU from developing deep, unified capital markets on par with the U.S. This forces promising European startups to inevitably turn to U.S. VCs and IPO markets as they scale, representing a missed wealth creation opportunity for the bloc. French officials argue that reviving the long-stalled EU capital markets union must be a top priority. This would harmonize financial rules and oversight across the 27-nation bloc, providing startups access to larger pools of integrated risk capital. While the majority of the nations are on board, at least in principle, several governments remain reluctant to cede regulatory control of their financial markets. Another proposed solution involves getting public sector investors, such as the European Investment Bank (EIB), more involved in riskier startup bets.

Angel investors play a pivotal role in Europe's startup ecosystem, with over 40,000 actively contributing to the growth of innovative companies, according to Janne Jormalainen, president of EBAN - European Business Angel Network. While this number lags behind the US, it is steadily increasing each year. A significant trend is the shift towards syndicates and funds, which allows angels to diversify their portfolios and reduce risk. 📌 EBAN 2022 Statistics: ▪ Leading Countries: UK, followed by Germany and France. ▪ Top Sectors: Fintech and B2B SaaS. ▪ Emerging Focus: AI and defense tech. 📌 Challenges: ▪ Lack of Unified Market: Different investing rules and tax systems across countries. ▪ Untapped Capital: Pension and life insurance funds could significantly transform the economy if redirected into startups. Reflecting on this, it’s clear that the business angel community is not only growing but becoming increasingly professional and strategic in its investments. Yet, for this momentum to truly benefit Europe’s economy, there is a pressing need for tax incentives and harmonized regulations that encourage more investment. Unlocking even a fraction of Europe’s dormant capital could drive substantial economic development and innovation. This insight was shared by Zosia Wanat, senior reporter at Sifted.

These are a few important reasons (in the order specified) why EU does not produce world dominating startups that scale unlike in US. 1. Sparse VC / investor ecosystem that is ready to push money at much earlier pre-seed stage to help startups get the initial capital. 2. Fragmented markets with various EU countries with their own small markets, cultures, languages, beauracracy, laws. Lack of scale due to lack of a single market to focus on due to fragmented markets. 3. Conservative academics without much entrepreneurial ambitions who are happy in their research academic bubbles. 4. Socialist culture in many EU countries where citizens are supported with various safety nets and hence lack fire in belly especially at the student level due to easy access to social infrastructure and an easy life. 5. Abundance money in US companies from VCs who are ready to buy EU counterparts once they are moderately successful, due to struggles of EU companies to scale or raise money beyond a point. 6. Government policies / regulations / taxes that can affect the outcomes scale of a company in long term. #europe #eu #regulation #startup #entrepreneur #investors

📊 Free M&A calculator 📊 More M&As across Africa's innovation ecosystem is a good thing. It means more consolidation - almost like we're preparing for the next phase. To do those well though, we'll need to improve on the standard templates, documents & cap tables we use to be able to model consolidations of holding companies, operating subsidiaries and respecting local laws across Africa. Raise will continue shipping some free resources, and around M&A's, this is the first of them. We're shipping a *FREE* M&A calculator for African startups, download it here for free: https://lnkd.in/dnSJuxP9 There's a lot of improvements we're thinking to it (currency, local competition law integrations, etc), so this is just a start. We aren't quite like the famous Andrew Gazdecki and acquire.com - but we'll keep doing our best to raise Africa. For the love of startups. @getraise 

Why is it that Europe (UK included) is so far behind the VC investment curve when compared to the USA and China. What is the reason: Are Europeans less entrepreneurial? Is it culturally wrong to be entrepreneurial here? Are the markets too small? Do we lack talent? We all know that the answer to all of these is no! So what is happening here? Could have something to do with governments and taxation? Most importantly - what can we do about it?

Week #11 posting on EU affairs, VCs, Finance, mindsets. the future of work and the state of the world 🌍 #keepithakaalwaysinyourmind Quote of the week: “If you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else #Tonimorrison #Seacabó ⚠️If there’s nothing else you do this week, listen to the podcast interviewing my favourites Adam Grant 👇 #thefutureofwork EU ⚡️Call for Tender Preparatory Action on European Start-ups 2.0 Closing: 25 September 2023 The 🇪🇺European Commission has opened a call for proposals for provision of services - development of data-driven reports & event organisation - relating to Europe’s startup economy. The time limit for receipt of tenders is 25/09/2023. More details here👇 https://lnkd.in/eQwhca5B #startups 🌟 Calling all #female #innovators! 🌟    🚀announce the Female-led Category upcoming Innovation Radar Summit in Lisbon on November 13!    📅 Applications are open until August 31, and we can't wait to witness the power of female-led innovation firsthand: https://lnkd.in/drHn2kW6  #FemaleFounders ⚡️Dissemination and exploitation of research results https://lnkd.in/e74aFkqa ⚡️European Commission State of the Union 2023 Date 13 September 2023 https://lnkd.in/e-TKYtPd Articles 🗞️ China’s chip tool imports jump ahead of western restrictions 🗞️Beijing Hopes larger Brics will turn the world upside down 🤔 https://lnkd.in/ewmuy3rK Financial Times Podcasts 💯EU VC - don’t miss the episode What the SEC’s Private Fund overhauls means for Europe? EUVC Owen is an economist by education and heart, and has worked at a similar regulatory commission as the SEC in the U.S. in the beginning of his career whereafter he made the change into VC first investing in impact in the US and then later joining Expond Capital in Luxembourg to now finally have arrived at Teklas Ventures he invests in automation, robotics, and automotive, as well as broader industry 4.0, energy, and decarbonization. The U.S. SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission), which regulates the country's financial markets, just changed the game for private equity, hedge fund, private credit, and venture capital funds registered in the U.S. Yesterday, SEC Chairman Gary Gensler announced the commission Enhances the Regulation of Private Fund Advisers, a set of rules originally proposed in February 2022. And Europe would never be “out-regulated”, so… https://lnkd.in/eC2KuttR ⚠️In Good company Nicolai Tamger with Adam Grant Give & Take, - A MUST to listen !! https://lnkd.in/ezQkZkEb How can you be generous without being taken advantage of? Why is it so difficult to change your mind? And what will the future of work look like? Adam Grant, arguably the world's most influential management thinker, joins us to discuss these questions and more. The production team on this episode were PLAN-B’s Nikolai Ovenberg and Niklas Figenschau Johansen. Background research was done by Sigurd Brekke.

France aims to unify the European Union's fragmented capital markets to scale up funding for its burgeoning startup sector, moving away from reliance on U.S. venture capital, according to ministers, CEOs, and investors. Europe's financial markets, constrained by diverse local regulations, have remained nationally focused, hindering the development of deep capital markets comparable to those in the United States. For French and other EU startups, this fragmentation means turning to U.S. venture capital for growth due to the lack of significant domestic investors. Matthieu Rouif | Louis Dussart Read the full news article at:https://lnkd.in/gXUXg7RS CXOtv news | Techplus Media | Techplus Media Group  Kalpana Singhal | ANUJ SINGHAL | Naveen Singhal #CXOTVDailyNews / #CXOTVnews #EUCapitalMarkets #StartupFunding #VentureCapital #EuropeanUnion #TechInnovation #FinanceReform #StartupEcosystem #VivaTech2024 #EuropeanInvestment #TechFunding #EUCommission #FinancialRegulation #InvestmentOpportunities #CapitalMarketsUnion

France champions EU capital market unification to empower startups with local funding and harness European innovation. Discover France's plan for financial harmonization and growth.

About a year ago I had the opportunity to invest in Reiterate, an Estonia based company building AI to automatically detect invoicing/payment errors for fintech & banks. A truly amazing company with great product & team. Through this investment & by getting to know the founders, I got exposed to the Estonian tech ecosystem. As a country with a population of only 1.3M they managed to create 10 unicorns (Pipedrive, Veriff, Glia,..), with many many more in the making. They are the #1 country in Europe in terms of Unicorns per capita and are on track to have 30% of their GDP coming from tech export. And the WEF calls them the most entrepreneurial country in the world. It all started with Skype (yes, Skype is built in Estonia), that inspired a new generation of Estonian entrepreneurs to create the next big company. And together with the emerging ecosystem, the government went all-in supporting their digital entrepreneurs with tax programs, startup visas, huge investment in tech education, e-services, etc. The list goes on and on. They don't give a bunch of subsidies to their tech companies, they just enabled them to start a company, hire people, raise money and run their business without barriers. Next to that the Estonian ecosystem really embraces the 'paying it forward' idea. Helping each-other is a moral duty, even if it is your competitor. You need a large group of people 'who have done it' and are willing to give back to their community to create a flourishing ecosystem. Estonia is a small country with no/little natural resources and it's people as its biggest asset. An emerging ecosystem that got supercharged by entrepreneurs who want to pay it forward and a government that did the right thing. They believe in the future. That's where it starts. Looks like we have some work to do here in Belgium. I don't see any reason why we should not have a similar ambition, with similar results.