Hjalmar Winbladh, a partner at EQT Ventures, on why European tech entrepreneurs should embrace failure.
Over the last few decades, Europe has established itself as a hotbed of bold innovation and exceptional talent. Spotify’s IPO, Supercell, Adyen, Skype, Farfetch and TransferWise are just some of the European success stories that spring to mind, it’s clear that Europe doesn’t lack entrepreneurship – and it never has. Moreover, European entrepreneurs are often leading the pack when it comes to innovation; Britain specifically is globally renowned for its AI innovations, as seen with Google’s acquisition of DeepMind. However, to stand on their own two feet, European entrepreneurs need to think bigger; they must have the stamina and ambition to build a global champion.
The reason why Europe hasn’t produced as many stand-alone global tech powerhouses as the US can be explained partly by funding issues. While early-stage capital has been abundant enough, the same couldn’t be said for later-stage until recently. Compared with the US, our startups have often struggled to access the capital needed to grow from bright ideas into proven businesses with revenues and profits. A consequence was that many companies were forced to sell too early, move to Silicon Valley to access deeper pools of VC funding and better market opportunities, or they simply ran out of capital and collapsed....