Following up my post Local Investment – Virtuous or Vicious Circle? earlier in the week, I found this rather good Go4Venture presentation with a Europe-wide perspective on funding trends:
Funding Outside VCs – What Are The Alternatives?
Go4Venture also do a good monthly bulletin on venture investment in the UK and Europe. It’s mostly about much larger and later stage transactions than those I am directly involved in, but it’s a great way to get a general sense of what is happening in the market. You can subscribe and find back issues here: http://www.go4venture.com/bulletin
This month’s edition is boldly entitled European Venture: Crossing the Chasm, and they key conclusion is that European Venture funding is becoming profitable more recent funds achieving respectable IRRs (Internal Rate of Return) of 5% (2005 on) to 10% (2008 on). This compares with an IRR of 2% for funds from 2000 on – clearly a significant improvement. The bulletin also links this to a trend towards fewer large later stage transactions – so this success in the VC space probably doesn’t any bearing on investment for early stage companies. Download the bulletin using the link above for the full story.
