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CEOs, investors and CFOs of tech unicorns have spent their time dealing with layoffs, valuation cuts and negative reactions – but tech failure need not be the threat everyone fears for the future of Europe’s tech ecosystem.
In fact, this recession is creating a new generation of established, high-growth startups as a result of highly skilled technologists deciding to become founders themselves.
Europe has never been credited with the myth of Apple or Facebook for budding entrepreneurs working in their dorm rooms or parents’ garages. Instead, the typical European tech unicorn founder He moved away from Canary Wharf Bank in 2008. Or they used their network and savings from a decade at a consulting firm to create their own startup.
That profile is changing—and technological disruption is accelerating that change. Instead, founders are now emerging from European tech startups and unicorns.
Over the past 10 years, tech startups and benchmarks have attracted the best talent Europe has to offer. We now have more people with experience building their own companies or working in highly successful startup environments – a demographic that reflects the US West Coast ecosystem.
For many, this will be the first recession or recession they’ve ever experienced – and it will come as a shock.
Top employees at Europe’s tech unicorns have spent the past decade riding the money train. Inflated wages and golden shackles lock in talented workers, resulting in fierce competition for talent. Only the most determined entrepreneurs were walking away from seven-figure paydays to start their own companies.
Playing offense is fun at times. Many tech unicorn managers and directors join these companies to lead a team of ten people and become responsible for 150 people after 12 months. That rollercoaster of steep learning curves, building new things and prestige is a very attractive environment.
However, the world has changed. For the first time in their careers, these same individuals will have to fire their teams, quit their pet projects, and play defense.
Once you see how liberating building a tech startup is and how lucrative the upside can be, you won’t want to trade that excitement for the stability of your old corporate, consulting, or finance career. The dam is about to break and there’s going to be a wave of really strong founders ready to start tech companies from our current unicorns.
For the first time, Europe will have founders who understand what it takes to start and scale billion-dollar tech companies. And for the first time, these founders have learned the lesson of failure and want to create companies with real customers, real income and real growth potential. More and more founders from these backgrounds are approaching me to discuss startup funding.
This will have a more significant effect in Europe than in the mature US ecosystem, which has produced generations of entrepreneurial talent. Of course, new tech startups will be created as a direct result of the changing employment landscape in the US, but this will also accelerate the American culture of tech entrepreneurship that has been in place for decades.
Europe has a total of 132 Unicodes. Of these, an extraordinary 85 reached unicorn status by 2021. The US experienced a similarly meteoric rise last year, with 340 companies achieving billion-dollar valuations. The number of people who have developed skills while working at unicorn companies has more than doubled in the past two years.
The tech ecosystem—talent—the most fundamental element in Europe is at a different level than it was a few years ago. This alone keeps the creative flywheel spinning and the tech ecosystem growing. There has never been a better time for the right founder with the right experience to found a tech startup in Europe.
lan Poensgen is a partner at global VC firm Antler..
Opinions expressed in Fortune.com comment sections are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect their opinions or beliefs. Chance.
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