chilling in cannes
i'm a nerd. i've been in my hotel writing for most of the afternoon/ evening instead of attending an interactive TV awards gala in cannes. but i had a headache, a load of emails to return, and i wanted to write my businessweek column while london was still fresh in my head. speaking of- thanks to mike at techcrunch UK for the shout out! anyone i missed in the foggy city, don't worry i'll be back!! anyone coming to *my* foggy city in late-april, i'll likely see you at an event or two.
speaking of the country i'm now in: i was looking through some european funding stats for my businessweek column and it seems france had a banner 2007-- with more than $1 billion in investments from U.S. VCs. that definitely conflicts a lot of the stuff i heard this week about the relative lack of startup excitement in paris and berlin-- even compared to eastern europe (which i believe mike has written about as well).
my guess is a couple big one-off deals. either that, or french deals are being done mostly by outside investors, while European deals are increasingly being done by local firms (accel and others count as local, i believe, since they are separate funds from US counterparts) leaving U.S. firms less to cherry pick. anyone in Europe have more thoughts on what's up here?
Comments
You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.
The comments to this entry are closed.
New Book
An unforgettable portrait of the emerging world's entrepreneurial dynamos Brilliant, Crazy, Cocky is the story about that top 1% of people who do more to change their worlds through greed and ambition than politicians, NGOs and nonprofits ever can. This new breed of self-starter is taking local turmoil and turning it into opportunities, making millions, creating thousands of jobs and changing the face of modern entrepreneurship at the same time. To tell this story, Lacy spent forty weeks traveling through Asia, South America and Africa hunting down the most impressive up-and-comers the developed world has never heard of....yet.
Buy it from these sellers
Sarah Lacy is an award-winning reporter who has covered high-growth entrepreneurship for fifteen years. Based in Silicon Valley where she's a senior editor at TechCrunch, Lacy travels the world looking for great entrepreneurs.
Updates
Sarah's Latest on TechCrunch
On the Blog
- Africa
- Argentina
- Blogkeeping
- Books
- Brazil
- Brilliant, Crazy, Cocky
- China
- Food and Drink
- India
- Indonesia
- International Travel Tips
- Israel
- Media
- Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good
- Silicon Valley
- Singapore
- TechCrunch
- the always controversial sarah lacy
- Travel
- venture capital
Not so sure about France, but the startup scene next door here in Switzerland is vibrant. While the VC numbers might not yet be up there, the excitement and buzz at the grassroots level amongst entrepreneurs is definitely skyrocketing. Surprised to hear about a lack of excitement in France. Of course, it helps to have VC firms like Index Ventures right here in Geneva.
You should definitely come chill here on the banks of Lake Geneva - maybe not as sexy as Cannes, but lots of interesting startups to cover and some beautiful sights!
Posted by: Shafqat | April 08, 2008 at 03:14 PM