TWO YEARS ON: Which startup is Europe’s next €100 million exit?

€100 million_exitTwo years ago, I wrote a piece for TechCrunch about which European startup was ‘cleared for the next €100+ million exit’ and picked out five European companies that I considered the most likely to do so.

A lot can happen in two years, but as can be seen from the summaries below, all five have ‘moved on’, pulled in more funding and taken their businesses to another level. These five predictions weren’t too far off the mark and I’m currently putting together another list of five companies that look as if they have huge potential. Any suggestions would be welcomed. Continue reading

German trains do not run on time and the Berlin Wall never went away

This time last Friday I was having a beer breakfast in Berlin awaiting a taxi to take me two hours south to the iconic MLOVE conference near Leipzig… I had just arrived from Warsaw where I’d seen Italy beat Germany 2-1 at the Euros.

Suffice to say the taxi finally arrived and we drove along the spine of Germany to arrive at a castle for the final afternoon of the conference. As the car wended along what used to be the West/East German border my mind drifted back to my previous visit to Berlin almost 30 years ago. Continue reading