I am more optimistic about European tech but my optimism actually has little to do with recent public market ups and downs. Eric Liaw General Partner, IVP I believe that the tech world is 昀氀attening with the continued development of talent pools around the world (including of course across Europe), reduced friction to global distribution of technology products (via cloud & mobile platforms) and greater ambition and aspirations of European entrepreneurs. It’s an exciting time to be starting and investing in new technology compa- nies in Europe regardless of what the stock market did yesterday! More public tech 昀椀rms in Europe With the IPO window effectively having been shut since early 2022, very few tech companies have chosen to list. As a consequence, the overall count of public tech companies has fallen in both Europe (down 3% year-on-year) and the US (-7%). This has been compounded by take-private transactions as well as company failures. Looking at the past decade, there are very different trajectories observable in Europe and the US. While Europe’s count of public tech companies has expanded by more than 200 since 2014, it has declined by almost 200 in the US. It’s important to note, however, that this does not tell the full story. European stock exchanges are full of small- and mid-cap companies, many of whom have market caps of less than $100M. This is a consequence of the fact that public markets in Europe have historically been important sources of growth capital in the historical absence of a well-developed ecosystem for private capital. | 234