Great post, it’s a discussion I have regularly with many startups here at TMRW.

IMHO only, don’t shoot ;)

Europe has a (long) history of venture-backed exits within the $€50–200m range; we have amazing engineering and a strong tradition of exits (M&A) to better funded, larger-market US cousins (and now China), and we’re very good at building to that size and scope, see MagicPony, DeepMind lately.

The sudden US surge of “must be a $10bn exit or nothing” investors is just not applicable here in Europe, for too many reasons to list here, and should be just ignored. Which means: building a $500m+ supersize fund to bet on that one needle in the haystack is just too risky; smaller and truly specialised funds are returning the 10X that large or supersizefunds just cannot; notice so many family offices and LPs seeking direct deals and backing smaller, very actively involved, funds.
It’s possible today, and much easier and cheaper, to find and grow 10 mid-size exit companies than one in the the multi-billion exit range. They’re quicker to exit, consume less cash, are more agile (fast-growth valuation companies turn into tankers in no time) and quicker to exit. We have a strong supply of good entrepreneurs (and now serial entrepreneurs too) and great engineering.

It is indeed more work, it uses more resources, requires rolling up sleeves, and gets less media hype but it’s…it’s a choice ;)

100% with Christian’s PoV, most startups should not raise VC.