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Europe has now created more $1bn ‘unicorn’ companies than China
- coldtea 5y agoPerhaps because China cares for actual profits?
- ben_w 5y agoGiven Europe’s[0] GDP is slightly higher than that of China, I don’t think it really needs much explanation as to why. If anything, the previous state of affairs warranted an explanation. [0] Continental Europe GDP $22.9 trillion vs. China $16.64 trillion (Wikipedia); this article appears to include the UK in “Europe”, so it isn’t just about the EU, which was ~= GDP to China before the UK left.
- coldtea 5y ago>Given Europe’s[0] GDP is slightly higher than that of China, I don’t think it really needs much explanation as to why. Because it includes 20+ countries with centuries of headstart, 4-5 of which milked half the globe as their colonies (including China)?
- secondaryacct 5y agoCenturies of headstarts ? What we hear sometimes, China had 3000 years worth of knowledge and wisdom before Europe started barely organizing. And China's epansion over the last 6000 years is way more spectacular than the short lived colonies of some european countries ! The EU isn't even a country yet while China had unified its warring kingdoms long ago... China is not the thirld world country westerners like you think it is ! If we re behind the EU its by our own might, not their "headstart" :D Headstart, smh, and what of the US, they have a headstart too? They barely started and are already telling us what to do - that says more abt us than them. Headstart...
- coldtea 5y ago>Centuries of headstarts ? What we hear sometimes, China had 3000 years worth of knowledge and wisdom before Europe started barely organizing. Well, for most of those time, China was the most advanced economy on the planet. It dropped from the top spot around 1600 or so, and it took it several centuries to recover. See, China didn't discover the Americas, plundered its gold and resources for centuries, and murdered millions in the process. Nor did it came to hold 2/3rds of the world as subjects in its colonies. On the contrary, it was colonized itself, force to the whims of the British and so on. Furthermore, it was itself coloni
- confidantlake 5y agoIf after a 3000 year headstart it was unable to resist being colonized by some upstart, they must have been doing something pretty wrong.
- arcturus17 5y ago“Europe” didn’t do any of those things either, really. I am starting to encounter your username repeatedly here and it’s always in the context of toxic comments of very little intellectual value.
- pavs 5y agoWhy do you think, its normal to compare a union of 27 countries with a single country?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- ben_w 5y agoContext. Normally I don’t (I don’t know enough about China!), but when the context is “how many enconomic thingies does this group of people have?” I think comparing groups with roughly equal GDP is probably less wrong than comparing groups with roughly the same number of nations (or people). But I’m neither an economist nor politically trained, so if someone who is either wants to (politely) tell me I’m grossly oversimplifying, I’ll listen.
- throwaway4good 5y agoWould this have been very different had it compared most profitable companies amongst major regions (US, China, EU)? China has positive interest rates unlike EU, perhaps that dampens valuations somewhat.
- acatton 5y agoLooking into the linked data,[1] it looks like a lot of these "unicorns" are blockchain technology companies. I might be biased here as a shitcoin sceptic, but I would love to see in 10 years what happened to these "unicorns" [1] https://app.dealroom.co/unicorns/f/slug_locations/anyof_europe/tags/allof_verified%20unicorns%20and%20%241b%20exits/year_became_unicorn_min/anyof_2021 https://app.dealroom.co/unicorns/f/slug_locations/anyof_euro...
- yorwba 5y agoActually, only 5 of the 72 have "blockchain" listed in the description, but 28 are fintech companies.
- josefx 5y agoGiven that a steady stream of VC money could keep Uber running since 2009 I wouldn't bet on those 10 years.
- fredestine 5y agouber has a product doing something that changed the way people commute. blockchain is a ponzi.
- eldaisfish 5y agoOne could argue that Uber provide a useful service - one that may not be profitable but that is definitely useful. What use - and to whom - are the array of shitcoins?
- notfromhere 5y agoThat’s definitely not the story they sold investors
- bodge5000 5y agohow many of the unicorns out of SV are actually viable businesses that will gain genuine traction 10 years from now? I suspect not a whole lot
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- retskrad 5y agoEurope has one big problem and that is a lack of diversity and culture. The brutalist architecture is in continent is soul crushing. There's a reason why people all over the world migrate to the US. I have been all over Europe and no country comes close to living in California. No country in the world offers the same weather, great pay, culture, entertainment and food from all over the world in one location.
- zz865 5y agoSounds like you've never been. I think you're wrong on just about every point. Even if you like the California sunshine I'd still prefer weather in Mediterranean Europe any time.
- nickserv 5y agoI'm thinking by "all over Europe" they mean "transfered between 2 terminals in CDG"... which truthfully is about as soul crushing as it gets.
- eldaisfish 5y agoNo part of the world combines the economic strength of California with a similar generally agreeable weather. None. Mediterranean Europe has a slew of economies teetering on the edge of collapse or ones that have been destroyed by centuries of economic strife. What use is good weather if you can't make a living there?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- zz865 5y agoPersonally I dont like LA sunshine every day of the year but agreed lots of people do and there are few places in the world with a climate like that. Yes there are a bunch of high paying jobs but with the current house prices and income taxes I'm not convinced much of the economic strength filters down to people.
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- JackPoach 5y agoIt's kind of strange to compare companies strictly based on their valuation. Saudi Aramco valuation today is higher than that of Apple but these are very different companies and I wouldn't claim that one is better than the other.
- smhost 5y agoIt's also strange to compare two economies that have vastly different economic strategies, especially by measuring one of the areas where they diverge most strongly.
- pavs 5y agoIts stranger to compare a country to an "economic and political union of 27 countries".
- TeMPOraL 5y agoEspecially when said country has 3x the population of the "economic and political union".
- pavs 5y agoAre we comparing, country, population, size of region? We often compare USA with China, but when it comes to european countries, it has to be EU? This is an honest question, I couldn't care less about either region or gain anything financially or care about emotional internet points. I am not rooting for anyone, though I think predominantly western centric super powers is a bad idea. But why this line of thinking and comparison, isn't it apple to oranges? Its a genuine question, despite being downvoted for whatever reason.
- ginko 5y agoI feel it would be apples and oranges to compare (sub-)continent spanning multi-ethnic countries like the USA or China with individual EU countries. The point of the EU is to form one economical union. Sure there's still deficits in unification on other fronts, but economically the EU is pretty much one uniform bloc of comparable size.
- marvel_boy 5y agoAll this companies (Starling, Saltpay, etc. ) are UK based. Europe will be never able to compete with UK on the startup arena.
- F117-DK 5y agoI'm pretty sure UK is part of Europe.. not the EU though.
- libertine 5y agoThere's a whole identity crisis going on.
- wisethrowaway 5y agoThere's politicians trying to trademark "Europe" to make their monopolistic government "Union" more palatable.
- DaedPsyker 5y agoWell I guess USA better rename itself too.
- wisethrowaway 5y agoMany people have raised this issue. How can you call it United States of America when America includes 40+ countries. I suggest these names for the US government: - Internal Revenue Service - North America Management Company - Corrections Corporation - Currencies and Arbitrages International
- Barrin92 5y ago20 of the 72 created unicorns in 2021 are located in the UK. That's about a quarter with 15% of the population. Which means that the UK is over-represented, but that's a strange definition of 'all' or implying the EU is not already competitive.
- yawaworht1978 5y agoEurope might not be one country, but in Europe, you have many very high level education systems and no restrictions on travel and work(within the EU). This leads to mind and culture share between some very bright people, European start ups are the companies I have worked with which had the most efficient and impressive work flows, coordination and motivation. I think this is an advantage compared to the unified systems like China. I can't speak for Chinese companies, but I have peeked around on job review sites to get some insights and what i have seen is....different. I have also worked at some of the largest us companies, they are very good, but also a bit different. All of them can lead to success, i don't think one is better than the other.
- qnsi 5y agoThough the fact that EU is a group of 27 different countries creates barrier to easy scaling. You need to have website in 20 something languages, customer service in those languages, and be knowledgable of cultural differences. This is the reason many companies first scale nationally and then go to the USA (at least that's the story I heard a lot). Edit: Also I forgot national law. Even though a lot of law is centralized on EU level, still every country has a national law different from neighbours
- ivan_gammel 5y agoJust wanted to add national law to the list, when noticed your update. IMHO this is the biggest challenge: if you do your org and tech setup right, localizing websites and CS is relatively easy and can become a SOP, but adjusting the processes and even just understanding how you should work in new legal environment is a real problem (I have experience of scaling healthtech from Germany to 9 more EU countries in less than a year).
- anonuser123456 5y agoI don't think Europe has a problem with brains. But European governments seem to want to crush companies that begin to dominate the market, regardless of whether this dominance is based on a better product or anticompetitive practices.
- ur-whale 5y agoPSA: in this article "Europe" seem to include the UK, which seems to be native to a lot of these "unicorn" companies. The numbers might look different if the UK numbers weren't included.
- Zenst 5y agoThe UK is part of Europe - no democracy of voting system can change tectonic plates. But I'm aware many transpose the two terms as the same. Either way - what is not known is how those ventures were funded and whilst a company may startup in EUrope, it don't mean all that financing came from within that domain.
- bigbillheck 5y ago> no democracy of voting system can change tectonic plates. If that's your definition, how can you exclude big parts of China from that same plate?
- _-david-_ 5y agoEurope and other continents are not actually based on the tectonic plates. They are arbitrary based on historical and cultural reasons. Continents were determined prior to knowledge about tectonic plates.
- alkonaut 5y agoThe EEA, the Eurozone and the EU are all things that aren't equivalent to "Europe". Great Britain was in Europe millions of years ago and will still be in Europe a million years from now. It doesn't matter whether the subject at hand is economy or geography. Some parts of the former Soviet union or Turkey could be debated whether they are in Europe and it could even be dependent on context, but great britain will never be outside europe even if Nigel Farage paddles for the rest of his life.
- lorenzfx 5y agoTrue. Same goes for the US when you exclude California. And yes, the UK isn't part of the European Union anymore, but it's still part of Europe.
- jansan 5y agoI may be getting old, but can someone tell me how I can display more than the first ten companies on that Dealroom website (desktop browser)?
- throwaway4good 5y ago"Showing 10 out of 73 available results. Login to lookup specific unicorns and use advanced search filters." (It says so at the bottom ... sometimes ...)
- throwaway210222 5y agoThere is a bit of a card trick being played with VCs and their pet unicorns. I can register a company with just 1 share, then issue another 1 billion shares at any time. If I then sell just on e these shares for a dollar, I am a unicorn post-money. This folk is what they are doing. Nothing more (just the numbers of shares and amounts change a bit) The value - I guess - is to bring enough credentials and big names to this dog-and-pony show to get people to suspend disbelief long enough to offload it. But when western governments are printing mountains of cash that would make a Zimbabwean treasury official blush, expect more of this. What is far ticker is a billion dollars of distributable post-tax profit.
- bigbillheck 5y agoWhy is having more unicorns a thing to brag about? Maybe China has fewer unicorns because there's a healthier startup ecosystem with more places for VC dollars to go.