Last Thursday, I made a brief presentation at the InvestorNet ICT Round Table in Copenhagen on “Why Asia and Why now?”.
The audience was a mix of European VCs (primarily from Scandinavia) and the discussion centred on what is happening in Asia and how that affects Europe’s lead in innovation and competitive edge…You can see the slides here
The failing Incubator model…?
At the same event in the afternoon, I heard a very interesting talk by Sam K Steffensen of 5te - an incubator situated in the IT University in Copenhagen. Sam was refreshingly direct and deliberately provocative…He said that the traditional incubation model is not working and people (and policy-makers) have not woken up to the possibilities (and the reality) of an inter-connected world…
Sam went on to criticise the environment for innovation in Europe and said that if you are a start-up, it does not help to be in Europe…(I almost had a sense of deja-vu: “No longer catching up with Silicon Valley…“)
March 15th, 2007
Posted by
Shantanu |
Conferences and Panels, Europe and Asia, Globalization, My Presentations |
5 comments
Some sobering remarks and thoughts from a recent TIME magazine article on the WEF in Davos (”Lovely While It Lasts”, Pg 36, TIME Europe, Feb 5, ‘07)…
Zhu Min, Vice President, Bank of China:
- “I am more and more convinced that we’ll have a much tougher situation in the coming years” (talking about the $1 trillion in reserves held by China’s central bank to which another $200billion will be added this year)
China and India together account for about 40% of the world’s population but only 6% of the world’s economic output. By contrast, the US, Japan and Western Europe make up 15% of the global population but account for 80% of its output…(as a consequence…)
- “…There is a great gap and it is going to be bridged over the next 20 years…we are going to see fundamental changes in the center of gravity and the center of power” Jacob A. Frenkel, Vice Chairman, AIG
German Chancellor Angela Merkel:
- “…for the past 200 years, we got used to a Eurocentric view of the world but today we can see that this type of overview is over…”
Laura D. Tyson (ex-Dean, LBS and now Prof at Haas Business School)
- “I do worry how the U.S. will respond to the fact that its hyper-power status in terms of finance and wealth has to be reduced over the next 25 years”. She has reason to worry: most Americans (… and I would add Europeans – SB) have no idea so elemental a shift of power is now under way.
and finally,
- “All the panelists said that they were concerned that the big questions relating to globalization, including the huge power shifts under way from the developed economies to the developing ones, were not being well explained in the West”
Worrying…
January 31st, 2007
Posted by
Shantanu |
China, Emerging Markets, Europe and Asia, Globalization, India, USA and Asia |
no comments
In 2005, the leading UK think tank, Demos began an 18-month study of science and innovation in China, India and South Korea to understand how the emergence of ideas & innovation in unexpected places is altering the global landscape of science and technology.
As they say on their website,
“We used to know where new scientific ideas would come from: the top universities and research laboratories of large companies based in Europe and the US. While production was dispersed among global networks of suppliers, it was assumed that more knowledge-intensive tasks would stay at home.
All that is changing fast…
Since 1999, China’s spending on R&D has increased by more than 20 per cent each year. India now produces 260,000 engineers a year and its number of engineering colleges is due to double to 1,000 by 2010…
…These shifts in global knowledge production are likely to be every bit as significant as the shifts in manufacturing that occurred in the 1970s and early 1980s. The big question is how we should respond. Some view Asia’s growing scientific strengths with alarm, fearing it will mean the loss of highly-skilled jobs in Europe and the US. But innovation is not a zero-sum game: more in Asia does not mean less in Europe or the US.”
The “Atlas of Ideas” was conceived as a project to delve deeper into these issues and understand the implications for Europe and US.
The final report will be launched at a conference on 17th/ 18th January in London where these issues will be debated and discussed in more depth by a wide range of experts. I am really looking forward to the proceedings and the final reports.
January 8th, 2007
Posted by
Shantanu |
China, Conferences and Panels, Global Competition, Globalization, India |
2 comments
Richard Wallace, Chief Editor of EE Times Europe penned a great Op-Ed in last month’s issue (Nov 6 – 19) on “Doing better than the 20-minute rule”
Richard was referring to the well-known aversion of VCs to invest in regions and geographies that are not in close proximity to their base (see e.g. ”It’s Not the People You Know. It’s Where You Are” and “The VC Stampede to Asia”)
Richard writes,
“Call me naïve but isn’t there more to capital’s role in the economic system that merely cloning Silicon Valley start-ups and creating safe harbors? Isn’t venture capital about risk, and the rewards that can accrue to risk takers across the full spectrum of the global economic system?”
He further says that Europe has been following the California model of VC investing for a much shorter time and therefore has less to feel defensive about. But,
“…in Europe the problem is exacerbated by the fact that technology-experienced entrepreneurs are only just starting to become high net-worth individuals, potential VCs”
If you agree with Richard’s observation that “like capital, technology has no nationality, is constrained by no borders, and entrepreneurial-driven ‘ecosystems’ can thrive almost anywhere…”, the lack of attention to Asia amongst European VCs is puzzling.
Amongst “European” VC firms*, I know of only ourselves, Quester and 3i as firms that have been devoting time and resources to Asia over the past few years.
Richard’s conclusion is sobering:
“In the world of global technology story telling, there are a lot of great places to hunt.
Is the VC industry really that different, or is it just out of touch with the global entrepreneur?
Any remaining followers of the 20-minute rule – in Silicon Valley or elsewhere – beware”
P.S. I must mention here the work that Alpesh and Sheetal, both good friends, have been involved with for some time now. This is the Global Entrepreneur Programme of the UKTI. Its primary purpose is to help entrepreneurs choose UK as the base for their new venture and provide support & facilitation along the way…A rare example of bureaucratic foresight.
.
* I am aware that Joe Golden at Accel and Gerard Montanus at Atlas have been travelling to China a lot and George at Benchmark + Sonali at Atlas are both well familiar with India…but Accel, Atlas and Benchmark all came to Europe from US and I assume (therefore) are more plugged into “globalization” and what it means for venture firms than their counterparts in Europe.
January 6th, 2007
Posted by
Shantanu |
Entrepreneurship, Globalization |
no comments
A few weeks ago, I read an article in BusinessWeek on the 300 millionth baby born in the USA and the implications of US’ large (and growing) population and its enormous consumption of resources for the rest of the world.
As Victoria Markham wrote in that article, “My daughter and I watched the U.S. Census Bureau Population Clock tick its way, second by second, to the magical 300 million mark…At the historic moment (my daughter) asked: “Why does that matter?”
The answer may be more disturbing than she–or any of us–knows, because the U.S. is a world leader not only in gross domestic product, per-capita income, innovative technologies, and many health and educational standards, but also in a more dubious measure: our environmental footprint.”
“The U.S. population has the largest per capita environmental imprint in the world, with greater impact on many of the planet’s resources and ecosystems than any other nation on earth. Indeed, while we represent just 1/20th of the global population, we consume disproportionately higher amounts–at least one-fourth–of practically every natural resource (in the world).”
Keep Reading…
November 18th, 2006
Posted by
Shantanu |
Development Issues, Globalization |
no comments
Several months ago, I wrote a post on how some of the best small companies and start-ups were going global from Day One of their operations.
Then, a few weeks ago, I wrote about a small Indian company, funded by Sequoia that, in a bold and ambitious move to go global, had opened a coffee shop in (of all the places) Vienna in the heart of Europe…
Last week, I read Part II of this story: “Cafe Coffee Day, India’s largest coffee cafe chain, has opened its second outlet in Vienna…” The company’s Director, Naresh Malhotra said, “We are planning to open more outlets in and around Vienna and, by establishing ourselves in Austria, we plan to enter the German coffee market.”
Its marketing head said, “…we are on a constant lookout for every potential opportunity“.
I suspect that this is just the beginning.
It is not just large, stolid European and US businesses that will face the brunt of competition from China and India…mom-and-pop coffee shops are vulnerable too.
What is neat is the way that these small companies are managing the challenge of cultural barriers…Café Coffee Day claims “…our differentiating factor is that we have employed for service a young team that has been hired locally.”
The article quoted Arvind Singhal of Technopak Advisors as saying that, “”The very reason why they (Coffee Day) are looking out of the country may be because they have realised that the market has reached saturation here.”
For a moment I thought I was reading the story of how Japanese companies became global leaders in their markets…
November 13th, 2006
Posted by
Shantanu |
Global Competition, Globalization, India |
3 comments
