Yesterday, in an article featuring a number of up-and-coming European technology startups, The Wall Street Journal repeated interesting stats (sourced from Dow Jones VentureSource) about the growing number of VC investments in the region.
Indeed, equity financing for European tech companies reached 7.9 billion euros last year, up from 6.3 billion euros in 2013, and the biggest amount invested since the end of the dot-com boom in 2001. All signs point to that trend continuing this year as M&A transactions and IPOs ramp up.
Against that backdrop of increased activity in the European technology industry in terms of capital injections, we recently caught up with Dörte Höppner in Brussels for a meet-and-greet.
Höppner is the affable chief executive officer of the European Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (EVCA), a non-profit organisation whose mission is to represent the interests of the European investment industry vis-à-vis policymakers, regulators and national trade associations.
With approximately 700 industry players as its members and a team of 24 full-time staffers, the EVCA serves as the voice of European private equity (which includes venture capital) and collects a lot of data and statistics. In fact, in the coming months, the EVCA will publish fresh data on private equity and venture capital activity in Europe in 2014 - stay tuned on that.
In the meantime, you can watch the video interview above to gain more insights on the EVCA's raison d'être and achievements, and Höppner's views on past and future trends in private equity in Europe.
Also check out: Earlybird VC Ciarán O’Leary: “European investors need to up their game.” (video)
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