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European venture increasingly favours hi-risk, hi-return investments

Posted by mobile phone:
This is from the latest Go4Venture report (no link because I’m on my Blackberry);

*The market is increasingly driven by larger deals, with 22 transactions of more than EUR 20mn in 2007, compared to 15 in 2006 and 2005, and only 5 in 2004. This reflects European VCs growing taste for high risk/high reward transactions, which is closer to the behavior of their Silicon Valley brethren.

In my opinion we are moving in the right direction. Adopting a home-run mentality is the best way forward.

Posted on February 24th, 2008 under From mobile. RSS 2.0 feed. Leave a response, or trackback.

Viewing 3 Comments

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    Always nice to hear encouraging words when you're on the entrepreneurial side. However I recently had a chat with a London VC whose point of view I much respect and he basically said one 'scary' thing. Discussing about the market need my start up is addressing his point of view was that the market is definitely hot but it's not yet clear which solution of the problem will prove to be right, therefore getting VC funding won't be easy because everybody is waiting for somebody else to take the first move (note, we're talking around £1M mark, not tens of millions).
    Well, to me this doesn't sound very much like a daring behaviour. I know this should be put more into context but I'd very appreciate your honest reality check about all these nice words being said lately in the UK VC scene.

    Best,
    Fabio
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    • v
    Hi Fabio,

    In a situation like yours you need to find a VC who strongly believes that your solution of the problem will win out. Trying to think about how we would look at your situation I can see us making an investment if the supporting partner stood up and said there are a number of potential solutions in the market, but this one WILL WIN because of X, Y and Z. If the support for your solution was more equivocal it would be difficult.

    As individuals making investments we need to feel sure, whilst acknowledging that we might be wrong.

    Hope that helps.

    best,
    Nic
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    Fair enough Nic.

    By definition a problem with many possible solutions (unproven if it wasn't enough) is a minefield and uncertainty reigns (otherwise why being 'scared' to invest?).
    Therefore it turns to be a sales pitch more than everything else... Clearly I'm a bit exaggerating, however it's nice to know your point of view so that we will be able to tailor our pitch considering this added complexity as well.

    Fabio
 

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