FAZ: US VCs Coming to Germany
The FAZ posted an article today claiming that an increasing number of US VCs are starting to look for investments in Germany and also considering to open offices in London. Now, haven’t we heard this story once before? 1999 all over again?
However, when you read on, the authors point out that most of the investments the US investors care about are in Cleantech, or other, engineering-heavy sectors as opposed to only the currently overhyped Web 2.0 area (although, confusingly, the article first talks about the Samwer brothers and other angels, who are primarily active in consumer Internet).
One thing is for sure: There is a tremendous amount of German engineering talent, that has never really connected with the VC philosophy of quickly ramping up a company if there is a disruptive innovation. In areas like mechanical and electrical engineering, it’s still much more about slowly but steadily building companies and trading of growth for less risk….which is great, but if VCs can help tilt the balance towards faster growth for some cases, that would certainly be a good thing…
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