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by devdimi 2723 days ago
There are lot of reasons:

-Europe is fragmented market. It is not given that German software will be gladly accepted and used in France, Italy or UK and vice versa. There are barriers there that does not exist in the US.

-The capital market and the stock market are not as developed as in USA in terms of market participants and available funds. Going public is unlikely event. If it happens, it would not get a lot of publicity and it would not raise as much money. Some European companies prefer to go public in the US.

-There is public mistrust about big software companies. Many people are afraid that big software companies will steal and abuse their personal data.

-There is also mistrust about venture capital and generally big finance institutions that they somehow "control" the economy, exploit small family businesses, and just make money on mistreating normal people.

I know that some of this sounds ridiculous, but it is true for astonishing number of people in Germany, France, Austria, and Italy. UK is a little better, but they mistrust everything about the rest of Europe.

2 comments

> Many people are afraid that big software companies will steal and abuse their personal data

Cant say they are wrong. But its also a business concern for enterprise companies everywhere - US or EU so you cant really say this is an issue here. More of a requirement.

>exploit small family businesses, and just make money on mistreating normal people.

Most of the people who think so are being very stupid.

> Most of the people who think so are being very stupid.

VCs make a profit by selling startups to big corporations or big investors via IPO. Most startups have negative cash flow and make negative profits by the time they are acquired by a corporation or investors. This means that VCs make a profit by creating negative value. Most VC-funded startups with a successful exit never become profitable. Those few startups that do manage to IPO and eventually become profitable are usually those who happen to have a monopoly over some industry; in other words, they are only profitable because consumers have no other alternatives to choose from; so they get to set the price. Believing that VCs create negative value is not stupid. Not seeing that it might be the case is what's stupid.

I see what you mean. But the actual point was about exploiting family businesses and mistreating people. I am not sure what it has to do with your negative value argument.
Sure. I did not want to discuss if it is right or wrong. I just wanted to state some widespread beliefs that are hostile for tech startups.
Could you give example of Europe based tech companies that went public in US?
For instance Sequans Communications is a french company listed on NYSE as SQNS. It is not listed in France or anywhere else in Europe.
Spotify (based in Stockholm)
Criteo is another one.
Another, more recent example, is Farfetch (FTCH). European startup that went public on NYSE
Elastic