Starting up outside the valley
Where’s the money for people with a dream and a plan? I had an interesting conversation with a couple of people last night about starting up in London. Then this morning I was reminded that 3i is pulling out of early stage and a bunch of angel networks that actually operate more like venture capital funds. So where do people with a dream and a plan go for start up (seed) capital? I know you should start out with friends, family members and fools, but what if you don’t have access to capital through this channel?
Sure there are things in Europe like Seedcamp and other hubs as well a friend of A friend of mine is trying to address this through matching private individuals and other angels to entrepreneurs through his site lift-finance.net/. Is this enough capital for tech and logistic ventures that have heavy capital costs to start up? Personally I don’t think so.
Is this a common problem in places not called Silicon Valley?
