Re:Daniel Ek commits to investing €1B in European ”moonshots”
by barry-cotter on Sunday September 27, 2020 @03:05AM
(#24604823)
Booking is a wholly owned subsidiary of Priceline, a US company and has been for the majority of its existence. It was bought for its considerable IT assets after going bankrupt, IIRC.
Re:Daniel Ek commits to investing €1B in European ”moonshots”
by stingraycharles on Sunday September 27, 2020 @08:53AM
(#24606266)
Yes, but I was using it as an example of a healthy Dutch startup ecosystem, and I still believe it is a good argument. I wouldn’t consider Booking.com a startup anymore anyway, just like TomTom etc, but that’s missing the point: they had their roots here, and are good examples of a counter argument that they are merely “grant chasers”.
Re:Daniel Ek commits to investing €1B in European ”moonshots”
by lowdose on Saturday September 26, 2020 @05:41PM
(#24602384)
Gitlab is a remote company because of the poor health of the ecosystem.
Mollie & Adyen have had success because of the walled garden iDeal payment system of the Dutch banks. Eindhoven was a very innovative region until Philips decided to move HQ.
Even Sweden produced more unicorns with a population size a 1/3 of the Netherlands.
Maybe you have had more luck with raising money but I experienced a lot of stupidity from private investors.
Again, I’m not claiming that our startup climate is anything like what your see in SV, but it’s definitely a fairly healthy scene, and it would be an insult to characterize these as grant chasers.