New data on the European venture capital (VC) sector points to a healthy environment for both investment and return opportunities in European high-growth technology star-up businesses. 


Speaking at Ariadne Capital’s 12th Entrepreneur Country (EC) Forum, Matthias Ummenhofer, head of VC at the European Investment Fund (EIF), shared EIF's 2013 data announcing over EUR4bn of commitments across 248 European VC funds and business angels over the course of last year, up from EUR3.4bn in 2012.
The majority of the capital invested in 2013 by 103 VC funds and angels, 52 per cent, went into information and communication technology firms while 18 per cent of the portfolio was invested in UK businesses, followed by Germany with 16 per cent and France with 15 per cent.
In 2013, 16 European companies in EIF’s underlying VC portfolio were exited at valuations above USD100m, with an aggregated exit value of over EUR10.4bn and an average multiple of 5.9x, underpinning Europe’s rising performance in venture investing.


Also speaking at the conference, Marcus Stuttard, head of AIM at London Stock Exchange, shared his bullish expectations of AIM following 62 successful listings and GBP1.1bn of capital raised through IPOs in 2013. He further talked about the positive impact of the rule change from last August, allowing AIM-quoted securities to be included in ISAs. This is already evident by the outperformance of AIM over FTSE100 indices since then. 


Julie Meyer, CEO of Ariadne Capital, says: "The most successful businesses will be the digital enablers, the Davids whose disruptive forces can transform whole industries. Innovation nowadays is about economic models and not technology. The constantly growing number of game-changing technology start-up businesses in Europe illustrates the ability of European entrepreneurs to compete and overtake their Silicon Valley counterparts while redefining the entrepreneurship landscape in the start-up Europe.”
