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| London's Silicon Roundabout/ Tech City Credit: dulwichonview.org.uk/ |
In recent years US venture funds have raised the
level of funding of European tech startups but so far there have been few firms
that have exceeded $1bn valuations.
ARM Holdings Plc, which was founded in 1990,
provides the chip technology that powers most smartphones and is the UK's
biggest technology firm by value.
It has a market capitalisation of $22bn compared
with Google's $397bn.
Simon Segars, chief
executive of Arm Holdings, in an interview with the FT praised the
rise of digital entrepreneurialism in the UK, but says the lack of capital
available for the “growth” stage meant that UK companies were more likely to
sell early than stay independent.
The Startup Genome project has estimated that the
UK has about 3,000 young tech startups and figures compiled for the FT by
Go4Venture Advisers, an analyst group, and DFJ Esprit, the venture capital
group, indicate that US funds have been providing increased funding for growth
companies.
In 2010, European startups received $808m from growth funding rounds, either
from US investors alone or through joint investments between American and
European venture groups. By 2013, this total had risen $1.9bn and is forecast to
rise to $3.5bn by the end of this year.
The FT says that in funding rounds that include
US investors between 2010 and 2014, UK tech startups received $4.3bn from 159
funding deals that were worth $10m or more while German startups received over
$2bn across 74 deals involving American investors during growth rounds, and
French startups, gained $1.9bn from 70 deals.
