This article was first posted on the Economist. Read it here.

Europe has become a more fertile place for technology companies. But its tech industries still have to show they can burst through old constraints

MENTION the name of a big European technology firm in Silicon Valley and chances are the reaction will be a mixture of pity and disparagement. SAP, the German software heavyweight? Past its prime. Finland’s Nokia, the world’s biggest maker of handsets? Missed the boat on smart-phones. Ericsson, of Sweden, the leading vendor of gear for mobile networks? Clobbered by the Chinese.

Turn the conversation to start-ups, though, and ears prick up. When will Spotify, a popular London-based online music service, be available in America? Why did Playfish, whose online games attract tens of millions, sell out to Electronic Arts, an American giant? And what will happen to Skype, whose software handles nearly 10% of international telephone calls, after its divorce from eBay, an online auctioneer?

Californians’ interest is most piqued by a French company, vente-privee.com, the pioneer of “private flash sales”: members—and members only—can pounce when told they have a few days to buy this Prada bag or that Dior perfume at a discount of up to 70%. This year the firm’s revenues are expected to reach €850m ($1 billion), a quarter more than the previous year. It already has dozens of imitators. Even Silicon Valley entrepreneurs have been heard saying they would like to do something “like vente-privee”. In the tech heartland, this is the ultimate compliment.

You may joke that America is at last discovering Europe. But that reflects a change in European entrepreneurial potential more than in American attitudes. In recent years, a lively environment for young companies has emerged in Europe, complete with serial entrepreneurs, experienced venture capitalists and the necessary supporting infrastructure, such as law firms and PR agencies. And it is most visible where Europe has been considered weakest: the internet and other parts of the information-technology industry.

Granted, it is not yet clear whether Europe’s tech industries will become big enough to do the things that its entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and policymakers dream of: not just producing brilliant ideas, but turning them into lucrative commercial reality; creating a lot of jobs; and yielding the sorts of innovations that revolutionise old industries and spawn new ones. Nevertheless, the change is palpable.

Hermann Hauser, co-founder of Amadeus Capital Partners, a pioneer of Europe’s venture capital (VC) industry, says that a dozen years ago most of the start-ups his firm financed were led by first-time entrepreneurs. Amadeus, based in Cambridge, had a hard time finding like-minded venture capitalists. Today 70% of the chief executives are repeat entrepreneurs, and there are enough good venture capitalists around to team up on financing. “The progress has been spectacular,” he says, “particularly in Cambridge.”

Other places are blooming too. Europe has a collection of specialised clusters—a bit like Silicon Valley, but spread over a much bigger area. Cambridge resembles Santa Clara, where many big chipmakers are based. For London read Sand Hill Road, the place with the densest concentration of venture capitalists. Berlin is reminiscent of South of Market in San Francisco, the preferred habitat of more artsy start-ups.

Strength in diversity

Europe’s diversity may once have been a disadvantage, a clash of cultures and languages rather than a healthy mix of skills. Now firms have learned to exploit it and providers of capital see it as a strength too. “People from different countries are good in particular roles. Germans tend to excel at business development, Russians at developing software, the French at user interfaces,” says Danny Rimer, who established the London office of Index Ventures, a VC firm. As the internet becomes less dominated by American tastes, he adds, European skills, for instance in design and branding, are becoming more valuable.

Kristian Segerstrale, co-founder of Playfish, sees a further advantage in Europe’s diversity. “When you have to be international from day one, you build your business in a way that later allows you to exploit a truly global market such as the internet.” Mr Segerstrale is Finnish; the other founder, Sebastien de Halleux, is Belgian. Product development is spread evenly across studios in America, Britain, China and Norway. The games themselves are hosted on computers in America.

At Playfish, it may even seem that the idea of a “European” start-up has lost much of its meaning. The same goes for Plastic Logic, which has developed a high-end e-reader meant to replace paper. It is run from Cambridge, but marketing is based in Silicon Valley, much of the software is developed in India and manufacturing is done in Dresden as well as China. “Without videoconferencing and other online collaboration tools, such a structure wouldn’t work. Being attuned to cultural differences, Europeans are better at working in this environment,” says Richard Archuleta, the company’s (American) boss.

A further sign of Europe’s new liveliness is Seedcamp, a programme to train entrepreneurs set up by Saul Klein, a partner at Index Ventures. The list of its events this year reads like a modern Grand Tour: Barcelona, Berlin, Copenhagen, Prague, Zagreb. In recent years both the continent’s leading technology conferences, LeWeb in Paris and Digital, Life, Design in Munich, have become networking fests every bit as animated as their American equivalents. The halls are packed with venture capitalists looking for deals, entrepreneurs explaining their business plans and representatives from big companies trying to make sense of it all.

When Loïc Le Meur, a French entrepreneur, started LeWeb in 2005, it attracted only 250 participants and most speakers were American. Last December ten times as many came and on the stage were plenty of Europeans, including Marten Mickos of MySQL, a maker of databases now owned by Oracle, a software giant, Marc Simoncini, founder of meetic.com, Europe’s largest dating site, and Niklas Zennstrom, who started Skype. “There are now enough success stories. You no longer have to defend yourself for being an entrepreneur,” says Mr Le Meur.

Some successful entrepreneurs have become “angel investors”: rich individuals who put money into start-ups in their early stages. Mr Simoncini has earmarked €100m of his fortune for this. Others include Lukasz Gadowski, founder of Spreadshirt, a shopping site, and Brent Hoberman, co-founder of lastminute.com, a travel site, who is a partner in PROfounders, an early-stage investment firm. In March Mr Zennstrom said he had raised $165m for his new VC firm, Atomico Ventures. All of them explain their enthusiasm by remarking that established VC outfits have virtually abandoned early-stage firms. “When it took us more than a year to get financing for Skype, we knew what line of business we eventually had to get into,” says Mr Zennstrom.

Yet those older VC firms, most of them based in London, have not stood still. Some of the funds set up by big American firms in the early 2000s have stayed and thrived, notably the subsidiary of Accel Partners, which has invested in 42 European start-ups. “Silicon Valley no longer has the monopoly in innovation,” says Kevin Comolli, the managing partner.

There is even a handful of European VC firms of a similar scale to American ones, with both the capital and the expertise to take start-ups global. These include Mr Hauser’s Amadeus, Northzone Ventures, Wellington Partners and Index Ventures, perhaps the leading European fund in internet investments. It has funded several of the continent’s most successful start-ups, notably Skype, MySQL and Last.fm, an online music service.

Despite all this excitement, Europe’s tech breeding ground is still much smaller than Silicon Valley’s: in 2009 young European companies received €2.2 billion in seed and start-up capital (see chart 1), less than their American peers were given in the first quarter of this year alone. Europe lags behind Silicon Valley largely because it started much later and from a much lower base. For entrepreneurship to thrive, several specific conditions must be in place. “It’s like a biological cell where everything depends on everything else,” says Jeff Skinner, executive director of the Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at London Business School.

A tortoise stirs

There are at least half a dozen reasons for Europe’s slow and halting start, and they all still ring true to varying degrees. Top of the list are entrepreneurs themselves. Europe has never been short of talented people with good ideas, yet its entrepreneurs seem more interested in making products than making money; they take fewer risks and appear to be less driven—and maybe less greedy. American VCs in Europe chuckle when they tell of employees of start-ups who had to be talked into taking equity stakes or stock options.

Doubtless this has much to do with Europeans’ preferences, but it surely reflects incentives too. In Europe starting your own company has long carried higher risks and lower rewards than across the Atlantic. In America, a failed start-up tends to be a badge of honour; in Europe, it often spells professional death. In some countries, the law prevents anyone who has gone bankrupt from running a company again. At the same time, taxes make shares and options much less attractive than a good salary. In Germany, for instance, any equity stake is taxed immediately.

Second, Europe is more fragmented. In Silicon Valley meetings may be a car ride away; Europe’s tech entrepreneurs are likelier to board an aeroplane. More important, unlike American start-ups, European ones do not have the benefit of a huge homogeneous market that allows them to grow quickly. This is in spite of the European Union’s efforts to establish a single market among its members.

Third, European entrepreneurs must still contend with thick red tape. In Spain, for instance, labour law makes it “difficult to experiment”, in the words of Martin Varsavsky, founder of FON, based in Madrid, which has knitted a global network of Wi-Fi base stations. Firing is expensive, because of compulsory severance payments. Younger employees with fresher skills are the first to go because of seniority rules. Equally inhibiting, says Mr Varsavsky, is the difficulty of getting work permits for employees from non-EU countries. In contrast, most start-ups in Silicon Valley are run by immigrants, mainly from China and India, but also Europe.

Fourth, the paucity of successful start-ups left Europe short not only of VC but also, more important, of the expertise that ideally comes with the money. In America, university endowments and other institutions with an interest in technology provide the VC industry with its financial foundation. Europe’s pool of capital available from such investors is about 8% of America’s, estimates Thomas Meyer of the European Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (EVCA).

Success breeds success: many American venture capitalists have run start-ups themselves. European ones tend to be bankers and lawyers with little operational experience and less appetite for risk. That is why they have focused on more mature companies rather than on young start-ups. Even there, they have done less well than their American colleagues. And it is why Europe’s new angels are determined to focus on infant firms.

Fifth, European consumers are little help. They are much less “venturesome” than Americans, to borrow a term from Amar Bhidé, a visiting scholar at Harvard University. Big American cities in particular contain a critical mass of early adopters eager to try new online services such as Twitter or Foursquare. Many Europeans still shy away from online shopping because they are afraid that their payment information could be intercepted.

Finally, timing has been unkind. The European tech business started growing decades later than America’s, and first really got going only in the late 1990s—just in time for the bursting of the internet bubble. Entrepreneurial networks disintegrated, venture capitalists stopped funding infant companies, and the media ridiculed anything to do with the internet.

Weeding and fertiliser still required

Europe has gone some way to overcoming these difficulties. According to an index compiled by the OECD, establishing a company has become easier (see chart 2). Perhaps surprisingly, some European countries score better than America. But America’s mark is dented by the lack of competition in its network industries, such as telecommunications and utilities. Regulation in Europe remains more onerous than in the United States.

Bureaucracy is not European entrepreneurs’ only grumble. These days their biggest gripe is about finding the right employees. “It sometimes is a challenge to get people to move from Cambridge to Bristol [150 miles, or 240km],” jokes Stan Boland, boss of Icera, a maker of radio chips for mobile devices. “Europe lacks this mixture of technology and business acumen. People mostly stay in their silos,” says Stephan Uhrenbacher, founder of Qype, a website for user reviews of local services.

Despite the strides Europe has made, it has produced few world leaders—and certainly no equivalent of Google or Facebook. European start-ups tend to sell themselves early and mostly to American firms. Last.fm was bought for $280m by CBS; Electronic Arts paid $400m for Playfish. Amazon is said to be willing to fork out $3 billion for vente-privee.

For this there are several possible explanations. Many venture capitalists cite a lack of “exit options”. Only a few European start-ups can hope for a big flotation at home. No stockmarket in Europe is a match for the NASDAQ, where most American technology companies are listed. In addition, Europe’s big IT firms still mostly prefer to develop new technology themselves rather than buy it. Europe also lacks executives with the experience to turn a start-up into a big company, says Hussein Kanji, formerly of Accel’s European branch, who is now raising capital for a new early-stage venture fund.

It is tempting to wonder what governments might do to help. The answer may be: not all that much. “You cannot build an ecosystem, you have to grow it,” says Mr Skinner of the London Business School. Simon Levene, formerly of Accel Partners Europe, adds: “These things take time. Europe is now where Silicon Valley was in the early 1990s.”

Still, government intervention has helped IT industries in the past. Without it, Silicon Valley might not be what it is today, argues Josh Lerner, a professor at Harvard Business School. Particularly in its early days, he says, public funding played a key role. In Israel, which has several thriving high-tech firms, the state also helped, mainly by jump-starting a VC industry.

Europe has all kinds of programmes to inject public money into VC. The European Investment Bank and the EU jointly own the European Investment Fund, a “fund of funds” placing money with other funds rather than directly in start-ups, which by the end of 2009 had invested €4.1 billion. Some national governments have been even more generous. In France, citizens get all kinds of tax breaks for investing in VC funds or directly in start-ups. Among other things, they can cut their wealth tax by up to 75% if they invest an equivalent amount. Not surprisingly, France has plenty of VC: nearly €2 billion was thus raised last year.

State programmes do leave a mark. Bristol, in the west of England, would not be home to so many semiconductor companies had the government not poured tens of millions of pounds into a chipmaker a few years ago. The firm was a financial disaster, but spawned several start-ups. Yet this shows that a lot of money is wasted along the way. In France a good slice goes to big banks and insurers, which operate most funds and charge hefty fees: on average, 38% of the initial investment over eight years, according to a report by the French finance ministry.

Public funding tends also to distort the market, being loaded with political objectives and preferences for certain technologies, as the EVCA noted recently. Worse, despite high hopes, private money did not follow the public lead and, in the wake of the credit crunch, is even leaving the market. The EVCA said that Europe’s VC industry was “in deep crisis” and that a new regulation debated in Brussels would make life even harder by burdening funds with “punitive disclosure requirements”.

Still, the high-tech industry has moved up the political agenda, notably in Brussels. The EU now has an innovation commissioner, Maire Geoghegan-Quinn. She heads a group of commissioners which, this autumn, is to produce a “research and innovation plan” to make life easier for European technology start-ups.

If history is any guide, the commission will mainly suggest throwing more public money at innovation, fears Ann Mettler, executive director of the Lisbon Council, a Brussels think-tank. To keep up with America and Asia, she says, Europe instead has to become more adventurous: entrepreneurs and venture capitalists must take more risks, politicians stop protecting vested interests, incumbent companies be open to experiment and consumers try more new things. The much-needed cultural revolution in Europe’s tech industries is not yet complete.

The guys over at Grasshopper have a nice infographic about EU vs US about entrepreneurship. Click on the image for a full size view.

• GERMANY – HTGF and New Commercial Room invest in SciEngines

High-Tech Gründerfonds and New Commercial Room have invested an undisclosed sum in software business SciEngine

• FRANCE – Sofinnova Partners leads EUR 3.3m investment in Celsius

Sofinnova Partners, a leading European venture capital firm, announced that it has invested EUR2.2 million in Celsius X VI II, a French-Swiss firm developing unique mobile phones based on high complexity mechanics. Sofinnova’s investment is joined by AGF Private Equity’s EUR500,000 and a further EUR600,000 from business angels bringing the total funding to EUR3.3 million. Jean Schmitt, Managing Partner at Sofinnova Partners will also join the Celsius X VI II management board.

• GERMANY – Hasso Plattner Ventures co-invests in RIB Software

Venture firm Hasso Plattner Ventures and listed software company SAP AG have invested in software provider RIB Software AG

• SWEDEN – FlatFrog gains €12.5M in funding

Financial investor Invus and strategic backer Promethan have co-led a financing round for technology business FlatFrog Labratories, in which existing investor Sunstone Capital also participated. ( Press release )

• GERMANY – Triangle and ERP invest EUR 2.5m in TakWak

Triangle Venture Capital and ERP Startfonds have invested in TakWak, a spinout from FG Microtec, in a funding round worth EUR 2.5m

• UK – YFM invests £120,000 into New Net Technologies

YFM, alongside management, has invested £120,000 into software company New Net Technologies in a second round of financing for the business

• GERMANY – Acton Capital Partners acquires stake in mytheresa

Acton Capital Partners has acquired a minority stake in luxury online retailer mytheresa through an undisclosed investment

• UK – Bestport in £4.5m round for Intela

Bestport Ventures has led an investment in internet marketing company Intela, committing a little over £3m in a round totalling £4

• GERMANY – Seventure and DuMont invest EUR 2m in Tradoria

Seventure Partners and DuMont Venture have invested EUR 2m in e-commerce solutions company Tradoria, in a series-B funding round

• FRANCE – Alven invests EUR 500,000 in QuelleEnergie

Alven Capital has invested EUR 500,000 in online energy consultancy QuelleEnergie, alongside business angels who have supported the company since its formation in 2008

• GERMANY – HTGF provides seed funding for Raumfeld

High-Tech Gründerfonds has provided seed funding for hi-fi systems maker Raumfeld GmbH

• FRANCE – EdRIP invests EUR 2.5m in Smile

Edmond de Rothschild Investment Partners has backed Smile, an open source solutions company, with EUR 2.5m

• FRANCE – Aster Capital receives EUR 70m for maiden fund

Alstom and Schneider Electric, the electricity companies, are launching a joint venture capital fund, Aster Capital, targeting start-up company in the energy and environmental sector

• GERMANY – Earlybird leads EUR 3m round for EBS Technology

Earlybird has led a EUR 3m investment in medical device business EBS Technology GmbH, together with BC Brandenburg Capital

• FRANCE – I-Source supports eYeka

I-Source has invested an undisclosed amount into eYeka, a company which a provides online video and image service applications

• FRANCE – I-Source invests EUR 2m in Mobigard

I-Source, alongside Direct Energie and Bouygues Telecom Initiatives, has provided software business Mobigard with a EUR 2m investment

• UK – The Aspire Fund invests in TalentPuzzle

Capital for Enterprise’s The Aspire Fund has invested an undisclosed amount into TalentPuzzle, an online recruitment platform, alongside Venrex Investment Managemnet and two angel investors

• FRANCE – Highland CP and Endeavour provide Spartoo with EUR 12m

Highland Capital Partners and Endeavour Vision have led a EUR 12m Series-B round of financing of Online shoe distributor Spartoo

• GERMANY – JCMB and IBB back online learning portal sofatutor

JCMB Beteiligungs and IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft have invested an undisclosed sum in online learning portal sofatutor

• FINLAND – Inventure and Nexit in EUR 3m round for Rightware

Venture investors Inventure and Nexit Ventures have co-led a EUR 3m financing round for software company Rightware

• UK – Maven’s Capital for Enterprise invests £650,000 into Qire

Maven Capital Partners, through its Capital for Enterprise Fund, has invested £650,000 into Qire, a provider of intelligent voice messaging solutions

• DENMARK – ViaVenture backs Adform

Danish venture fund Via Venture Partners has invested in online marketing platform provider Adform

• UK – WHEB Ventures invests in PassivSystems

WHEB Ventures has invested an undisclosed amount into home energy management company PassivSystems

• SPAIN – Debaeque takes 10% in BuyVip

Venture firm Debaeque has invested an undisclosed sum in online private buyers club BuyVip, acquiring a 10% stake in the business

• UK – Bridges leads £1m round for Call Britannia

Bridges Ventures, via its Social Entrepeneurs Fund, has led a £1m investment in customer contact centre business Call Britannia, alongside Big Issue Invest, management and the government’s Future Jobs Fund

• GERMANY – Balderton Capital leads EUR 5m wooga funding

Balderton Capital has led a EUR 5m investment in social gaming company wooga

• Meidlinger Partners holds $15m first close of cleantech fund

Meidlinger Partners has reached a first closing of its cleantech fund, Meidlinger Partners Sustainable Investments, on $15m

• UK – NorthStar leads £800,000 Cogenta funding

NorthStar Equity Investors (NSEI) has led an £800,000 investment into software company Cogenta Systems, alongside Hotspur Capital Partners

• UK – Orkos Capital et al. invest EUR 9m into Muzicall

Orkos Capital, Veddis Ventures and GP Bullhound have invested EUR 9m into ringback tone service provider Muzicall, alongside existing backers BlueRun Ventures and Thule Investments

• UK – Octopus launches £25m Titan VCT 4 fund

Octopus Investments has announced the launch of Octopus Titan VCT 4, a new vehicle designed to invest in early stage UK companies with a target of £25m

• ROMANIA – 3TS Capital Partners back InternetCorp

3TS Capital Partners has acquired a minority stake in Romanian online media company InternetCorp

• UK – Atlas et al invest $20m into picoChip

Atlas Venture, Highland Capital Partners, Pond Venture Partners and Scottish Equity Partners have invested $20m into wireless infrastructure company picoChip, alongside Rothschild, AT&T, Intel and Samsung, in a Series E funding round

• SWEDEN – Chalmers back NemaLabs with further SEK 5m

Chalmers Innovation Seed Fund is backing software business Nema Labs with SEK 5m in a funding round raising a total of SEK 10m for the company’s internationalisation

• UK – ePlanet invests over £1m into eCommera

ePlanet Ventures has invested in e-commerce service provider eCommera in a deal valued at £1m.

• AUSTRIA – Pontis leads $3.5m round for Xendex

Pontis Capital and a group of business angels have invested in games developer Xendex, in a financing round worth $3.5M

• UK – DN Capital invests in Apsmart

DN Capital has invested an undisclosed amount into smartphone company Apsmart

• GERMANY – HTFG and MAZ invest in MobileBits

High-Tech Gründerfonds and Maz level one have invested an undisclosed sum in software company MobileBits

• UK – Dawn Capital invests in series A round for Manic Monkey

Dawn Capital has invested an undisclosed amount into 3D animation specialist Manic Monkey in a series-A round of financing

• GERMANY – Crédit Agricole et al. invest in Upside Shopping

Crédit Agricole (CA) Private Equity has participated in an undisclosed financing round for internet business Upside Shopping, alongside seed investors Rocket Internet GmbH and existing backers

• UK – Beringea invests £1m into TH_NK

Beringea, via its ProVen VCT fund, has made a £1m investment into digital agency TH_NK

• UK – Entrepreneurs launch new venture fund

A syndicate of technology entrepreneurs have launched a new London-based venture fund, The Founders Club, open only to investors that are founders or chief executives of start up companies

Last week was absolutely astonishing regarding venture capital deals in Europe. I was overwhelmed by the amount of news I got. Here are the most important, even though I left out many deals that weren’t digital, web or mobile.

I’m curious to see some stats about the VC industry in this last part of 2009, I have a felling it’s really booming.

• PPM Oost invests in Can-iT

Governmanet-backed venture investor PPM Oost has invested an undisclosed sum into internet firm Can-iT, acquiring a 16% stake in the business

• Icso backs EUR 4m AT Internet investment

Icso Private Equity and l’IRDI have provided software business AT Internet with an investment of over EUR 4m

• Maven Capital invests £2m into Documetric

Maven Capital Partners, via its Capital for Enterprise Fund, has invested £2m into Documetric, a provider of business-to-business services

• YFM Venture Finance invests £400,000 into Lattice Voice

YFM Venture Finance, via its PIF and YHEF vehicles, has invested £406,000 into telecoms software company Lattice Voice Technologies

• Emertec supports Insiteo

Emertec, alongside a group of business angels, has provided a first round of funding for Insiteo, an indoor geo-location company, valued at several million euros

• Chalmers leads a SEK 2.3m funding round for Aluwave

Chalmer Innovation Seed Fund has alongside Innovationsbron and existing backers participated in a SEK 2.3 millions round for Aluwave

• Wellington leads $16m Livebookings funding

Pan-European venture capital firm Wellington Partners has led a $16m funding round for online restaurant marketing and reservations service Livebookings, along existing investors

• NextStage makes EUR 1m Expertissim investment

NextStage has invested EUR 1m in Expertissim, an online art retail platform

• Neuhaus Partners and T-Venture invest in WWG

German venture investor Neuhaus Partners and T-Venture, the venture capital company of Deutsche Telekom, have joined existing investors Holtzbrinck Ventures and High-Tech Grunderfonds, in a series A round of funding for online games portal Worldwidegames GmbH (WWG)

• Auriga leads EUR 3.2m Cytoo financing

Augriga Partners has led a second round of financing for technology company Cytoo, raising EUR 3.2 millions

• Advent, AGF and Atlas return for EUR 15m Dailymotion investment (TechCrunch post)

Advent Venture Partners, AGF Private Equity, Atlas Venture and Partech International have returned for a EUR 15m third round of funding in Dailymotion, alongside a new investor

• XAnge provide KissKissBankBank with EUR 750k

XAnge Private Equity has provided KissKissBankBank, an internet platform, with EUR 750,000 in seed financing

• Mercia et al. invest £400,000 into Allinea Software

Mercia Technology Seed Fund and Midven, via its Advantage Growth Fund, have co-led a £400,000 seed funding round for specialist software developer Allinea Software

• MCP backs Microgame in a 8 figures deal

International private equity fund Monitor Clipper Partners (MCP) has backed online game operator Microgame, in a deal thought to be valued in the tens of millions of Euros

• Amadeus Capital invests in Linkdex

Amadeus Capital Partners, via its Amadeus Seed Fund and Amadeus III vehicle, has invested EUR650,000 into software company Linkdex

• BrainsToVentures invests in Linguee

Investors from BrainsToVentures have, together with its in-house fund, provided a second round of financing for online translation search engine provider Linguee GmbH

• Seventure invests EUR 1.6m into TalentSoft (TechCrunch post)

Seventure Partners has provided software company TalentSoft with an investment of EUR 1.6m

Here is a summary of the most important upcoming events in Europe.
We will try to cover as much of them as possibile.

• April 20th: Mini Seedcamp London.

http://seedcamp.com/pages/london09


• April 21st: Geek’n'Rolla London.

http://www.amiando.com/geeknrolla.html


• April 24th: Nonic Bilbao.

http://nonickconference.com/


• April 28th: Amazon Web Services Startup-Tour London.

http://aws.amazon.com/startupproject/


• April 28th-30th: Internet World London.

http://www.internetworld.co.uk/


• April 29th: Working Capital Camp Catania.

http://www.workingcapitalcamp.com/catania


• May 5th: Next09 Hamburg.

http://www.next-conference.com/next09/


• May 19th – 20th: European Venture Market Berlin.

http://www.europeanventuremarket.com/


• May 22nd: TechGarage Rome.

http://www.techgarage.eu/


• May 27th: TechCrunch Nordic Talk Stockholm.

http://www.amiando.com/tcstockholm.html


• June 23rd: Fuel09 London.

http://events.carsonified.com/fuel/2009/london/

Facebook is considered to be one of the best places to work in the world, and that doesn’t come as a surprise: who wouldn’t want to work for a company that changes the way we live? Facebook has more than 200 million registered users, and you would work on a product that many (all) of your friends use daily.

If you must know, Facebook has many European offices and is hiring for different positions all around our lovely continent.

If you are based in London, Dublin, Paris, Stockholm or Milan there are open positions waiting for your application. You should definitely check out facebook’s careers page.

Here you can find a nice promo video:

The great guys over at intruders.tv had the chance to interview Marc Roisin of Vinogusto at Plugg09.

Vinogusto launched in 2007, it is based in Brussels and provides guides for wine lovers. It is completely based on user content.

“Are you crazy?” “Are you starting your blog with a post linking to competitors?” That’s the first question that someone may ask me after reading this post.
Well, the main goal is to help startups, entrepreneurs and enthusiasts providing news, interviews, articles and other resources. I can only be glad there are such sites around already doing this job.
In the past few years I have seen some great companies launch in Europe but no one ever had the kind of media exposure that valley’s startups get, and I think we have to (and we can) change that.
Here is a list of the best blogs and sites that currently cover european startups, I read them every day and I think everyone should.

• Techcrunch Europe

You all know Techcrunch, the most important startup blog in the world, founded and edited by Michael Arrington. This is the continent-specific blog dedicated to europe, it is edited by Mike Butcher. They cover startups and organize  major entrepreneurship events around Europe.

• Techcrunch France (French)

Techcrunch France was founded in 2006 for the fracophone community according to technorati it soon grew to be one of the most influential blogs in France.

• Arctic Startup

ArcticStartup is one of my favorite blogs, it covers all the startups in the scandinavian countries. It was founded by Ville Vesterinen, Antti Vilpponen, Miikka Kukkosuo and Karri Saarinen. If you live in any of the nordic countries this blog should be a daily read.

• The Next Web

TheNextWeb was started in 2006 by the founders of The Next Web conference (which will be held again this year in Amsterdam starting April 15). They cover “everything that influences the future of the Web, in any way“.

• Dutch Cowboys (Dutch)

Too bad I can’t read dutch, because this blog looks interesting and the dutch startup scene is one of the most active around Europe. There are also German Cowboys and Belgian Cowboys.

• Loogic (Spanish, Italian, English)

Loogic is the most influential web2.0 blog in Spain, it is available in spanish, italian and english.

• theStartup

This one, of course. We are aiming high, and we’d like to make it to the top, providing great and useful content every day!

Please feel free to add some others I forgot in the comments, and I’ll update the post.

There we go.. first post! I just want to share with you why I’m starting this blog (and why I think you should read it).

Being very passionate about entrepreneurship and startups, and noticing the lack of information about the european startup scene I would like to fill a hole, while trying to have as much fun as possible and learn a lot from the great people this community is made of. I know there are a lot of other blogs and websites that write about this subject but I feel that currently every blog focuses on a specific country or area, or covers more than european startups. I just think there is a need for a pan-european blog, covering and giving the needed media exposure to european startups, entrepreneurs and events.

I’ll cover pretty much all the topics that relate to startups: entrepreneurship, finance, marketing, M&A, venture capital, but you are likely to see tech news too. My hope is to cover all the major european conferences and events, where entrepreneurs can share their wisdom and most importantly announce great new companies and products.

As you may have guessed I’m not a native english speaker so please forgive my errors, I’ll try to check them but I can’t guarantee error-free posts. If you would like to contribute or have any other suggestion, I’ll be glad to hear from you at the following address: contact @t thestartup d0t eu. I hope you’ll join me in this adventure.