as investors crowded in to back what could become the next Spotify, UiPath, or Adyen. The war in Ukraine and rising interest rates seem to have ended the party for now with investment in the continent’s startups forecast to fall by 15% to $85 billion this year.
The funding slowdown and selloff of publicly traded tech stocks has also hit the valuations of Europe’s unicorns. At least 45 startups were “dehorned” after slipping below a $1 billion valuation, according to venture capital firm Atomico’s annual State of Europe report. Despite this pullback, investment in European startups is still more than double the $38.8 billion committed in 2020. “As the European ecosystem matures, we’re naturally going to see ebbs and flows, but we shouldn’t discount our overall progress on the basis of macro conditions that are impacting every sector worldwide,” says Sarah Guemouri, principal at Atomico & co-author of the report.
A major factor in the slowdown in investment in European startups has been a drop in the number of $100 million plus rounds beginning in the summer. Around 133 of these mega rounds were invested in the first half of 2022 but only 37 rounds of a similar size were agreed to in the third quarter. The number of American investors backing this type of mega round for later stage startups also dropped by 22% even after a string of big name U.S.-based investors like
Imagine my surprise... inventors everywhere are fiscally punished and alienated by their own countries. It's no wonder why everyone moves their industries to China, atleast they welcome commercial innovation.