US vs EU: The Battle of the π¦'s
There's nothing better than a fight.. If you're winning,. but are we? Join us as we dive into that Q with us π
The new unicorn report by Affinity and Dealroom is out and weβre well-entertained π€ Read on for our take on some of it or download it directly here:
But weβre before jumping into this, we should avoid the pitch forks and torches by presenting a map with all the European Unicorn cities on it. Suffice it to say, the hyper-caffeinated, machinegun typing European LinkedIn-VCs had us sweating after posting an incomplete map on LinkedIn some time back π
So long awaited - and to Mathiasβ great satisfaction - weβre pleased to announce, the one and only π true Unicorn map of Europe π
Rate of unicorn creation
Thereβs another graph from Affinity & Dealroomβs report that I wanna draw out π
While in absolute numbers, the US is far ahead of us, weβre seeing that over the past 5 years, the U.S. has been creating net new unicorns at a rate of 52% YoY which is half the rate of Europe (roughly 2x YoY).
Data being from Q2 - so donβt be disconcerted by the steep drop in the tail there.
New funds raised
Zooming in on new funds raised by startups, the investment volume of U.S. firms into European unicorns grew from 4.6B to 24.6B - a 5.3x increase between 2020 to 2021. In the same period, European investments into the same European unicorns grew from 6.1B to 17.9B, a 2.9x increase. Mike Butcherβs phrasing βthe US scramble for Europeβ truly is real.
VC reactions to the market uncertainty
I really enjoy reading the relationship intelligence parts of these reports βcos they give us something that the datasets of the dealroomβs and crunchbaseβs of the world canβt give us.
Notice the trend lines of the below graphs and how European email activity and number of deal opportunities changed in the period in comparison to US firms. Did we slow down more?
Iβll leave it to you to read the full report and make up your own opinion.
Join us in making sense of the current cycle.
Based on the data presented in the unicorn report, weβre putting together a webinar where we try and make sense of the current cycle. βCos honestly, even the most experienced investors say βI have no clueβ when you ask them about what will happen next. But hopefully, weβll get closer by putting the question to the our expert panel on the 8th of November at 4 PM CET - we sincerely hope youβll want to come join us! π
Our expert panel will be:
A peek at what we'll be covering π
The rate of unicorn creation in Europe vs US - what are we seeing and why?
Capital efficiency across geos and it's importance for shaping VC returns.
The role of networks in pan-European investing and how the best build competitive advantage via community.
How our panel thinks about the coming 6 months, what they see in their pipeline and how they plan to act.
Loving the map mate. Portugal in it now... YAY πππππ