Demo Europe Hits Russia — and Start-ups Have To Beg 26
judgecorp writes "The Demo VC funding event has hit Europe (Moscow, specifically), and it is very clear that start-ups in Europe have to compete hard for any venture capital. In its 20 year history in Silicon Valley, Demo is famous for highlighting subsequent success stories such as Netscape, Skype and Salesforce.com. Demo Europe began with a venture capitalist waxing lyrical on how the shortage of funds means he gets plenty of choice where to put his money. Promising tech start-ups have a series of hoops to jump through including brief pitches. The most promising candidates so far include a Russian social VoIP network and a shared whiteboard."
Re:VCs think they are kingmakers (Score:5, Insightful)
The typical VC isn't looking to build a long lasting business, their goal is to make a company look big and promising by whatever means neccessary then cash out by selling their shares to whoever. They are professional pump-and-dumpers, hence the sobriquet 'vulture capitalists'. I'd imagine in an environment with less ready money floating about for them to offload their investments there would be fewer of them.
Tech != internet (Score:5, Insightful)
When did the word "tech" become synonymous with a internet dot.com business? Must've been the late 90's.
Time to move on and realize technology encompasses more than just "doing ____, but on the internet!"
Internet has been a good thing but the downside has been that it absorbed too much money that could've gone int real tech like fusion and space rockets.