Re:Y Combinator’s European founder intake continues to grow
by SuoDuanDao on Tuesday August 24, 2021 @10:50AM
(#28289586)
I've also heard that the German banking system is much more geographically diverse, with many smaller banks giving business loans to businesses in their immediate geographic area. If that's still the case, it would make sense that there would be less concentration of capital and therefore entrepreneurship.
Re:Y Combinator’s European founder intake continues to grow
by martin_a on Wednesday August 25, 2021 @09:03AM
(#28301120)
That's true, too. There are lots of so called "Volksbanken" ("peoples' banks") and "Sparkasse" ("savings bank", see this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savings_bank) which act very local and are sometimes rather small especially in the more rural areas.
Nevertheless those banks are often the biggest lenders to local businesses and startups in need of credit (my brothers' wife is working in such a department) although that is not VC like in "burn it if you need to". German banks are more risk averse, at least the most of them.
As a German this is an interesting point.
While I'm no big fan of the big cities (Berlin, Munich, Hamburg) we see lots of successful* startups happening and gaining track there and in smaller towns.
University cities are often doing fine, too and are slowly but surely developing startup structures and everything else.
To me this looks more promising than concentrating all startups and money in one place and measuring everything against that.