Startup and Digital Europe: 10 Recommendations from Silicon Valley Sounding Board - Main contents

What is needed to be implemented in Europe with the goal of improving the growth of digital business and the startup ecosystem? What is the best of both worlds, US and Europe? How can that be combined? What can be improved in Europe? And more specifically, what can the EU do to help startups and scaleups?

Last September during the Startup Europe Comes to Silicon Valley (#SEC2SV) week and European Innovation Day a group of Europe-born, Silicon Valley-based managers, entrepreneurs, and investors provided for the EU some recommendations for facilitating access and scale for businesses in Europe. Specific attention has been paid to the “low hanging fruit list” of changes that might be fast-tracked to impact startup innovation next year, and not in the four- or five-year timeframe. The outcomes of this discussion are summarized in a report written by Alberto Onetti and published by Startup Europe Partnership, the European open innovation platform led by Mind the Bridge under the umbrella of Startup Europe. The Report just has been published and is available here.

Ten key areas have been identified, ranging from Education, Infrastructure, Regulation, Harmonization, Internationalization, Investments, Acquisitions, Immigration, and Gender Gap.

Below the top 10 recommendations emerged from the Sounding Board:

“Europe has the talent - it just needs to develop the ambition, the acceptance of risk and failure, understand that employment flexibility is paramount to high growth and finally that a punitive tax framework won’t keep successful entrepreneurs around.” - Jeff Clavier, Founder and Managing Partner, SoftTech VC

“Make sure it is easy for non-Europeans to start a high-tech company in Europe.” - Fabrizio Capobianco, Founder, Funambol, Tok.tv

“Allow startups to have a more flexible approach to human resources (time worked, hire/fire, holidays).” - Ouriel Ohayon, Founder, ISAI, Appsfire

“Enable and support the recruiting and training of VC professionals and establishment of new small VC funds.” - Michel Wendell, General Partner, Nexit Ventures

“Facilitate market competition to increase efficiencies across EU telecoms and ensure good customer experiences.” - Nicholas Heller, Fractal Labs, SVC2UK, Founders4Schools, Google

“Encourage exits by fiscally incentivizing the acquisition of a startup by corporations and matching investments.” - Matteo Daste, Partner, Squire Patton Boggs

“Involve successful European founders in policymaking.” - Adeyemi Ajao, Tuenty, Identified, Workday

“Ensure the office of the Digital Commissioner is a beacon of change in the drive to digitalization, becoming a defender of startups interests

and ‘up and comers’ in the industry.” - Andrew J. Scott, 7Percent Venture, EIR

“Rules and incentives are needed that would make it a no brainer for a company like MobileIron to open a development center in Europe.” - Vittorio Viarengo, VP Marketing, MobileIron

“The EU market has the same size as the US market in terms of consumers. However national champions cannot address the EU as a single market and scale as fast as American category leaders can. There is a need for regulatory harmonization in the EU.” - Nicolas Brusson, Co-founder and COO, BlaBlaCar