I had the pleasure of keynoting the Vator Splash conference at Google Campus during London’s Tech Week. The conference showcased six local startups and some of the most insightful and successful local entrepreneurs, including Brent Hoberman, founder of lastminute.com, a London “Unicorn.”

Tremendous talent, and yet one comment gave me pause: “All the best deals get funded.” It made me ponder: how do you know? What deals failed to get seeded, or failed to get follow-on, that could have been the next big hit?

I have been involved with the Australian tech scene for fifteen years, and I have heard the same remark from VC’s there. Someone Down Under recently scrutinized that belief, and found that of the top 20 recent startups in Oz that had successfully crossed the pond and raised big in the US, not one was funded by the local VC community. A terrible indictment, if true (I haven’t verified it); the new breed of funds there, such as Blackbird, Squarepeg, and Tank Stream, are determined to change this.

I would be surprised if any VC in the US would have made that assertion — that all good deals get funded — back in 2010, after a Lost Decade of venture returns. Traditional venture capital had consolidated from over 1000 fund managers in 2000 to fewer than 100 active funds in 2010. Since then, the lean startup era spawned over 150 new seed funds and many more super-angels. They have funded a Cambrian Explosion of Startups. The traditional funds have largely vacated the early funding stages, and the new seed funds have financed deals they would have eschewed. Many ideas got funded that never would have emerged otherwise.

The promotion of London Tech Week and the many people trying to turn Silicon Roundabout into a major tech center belies the complacency of that remark. No complacency at the newer funds like ProFounders, London Venture Partners, Huxton Ventures and others I had the opportunity to meet.

No complacency either in Silicon Valley. It is largely forgotten that 25 years ago the Valley felt it was over! The PC Bubble had burst, and the Berlin Wall had fallen, which led to a reduction in US defense spending that threw a lot of engineers out in the street. A community-wide effort called Joint Venture:Silicon Valley emerged to re-spark innovation. The dot-com bubble followed.

Many of these proto-tech centers rely on government programs to propel them forward. These programs can be a trap. I suspect a lot of the angst in Oz over the successes bypassing the Oz VCs comes from prior government sponsorship of venture funds, anointing fund managers who may be more politically connected than financially capable. (We’ll see soon, as the conservative government just slashed those programs.) I wonder if they should instead look to themselves to promote their tech community, much as we did with Joint Venture:Silicon Valley. London Tech Week is a step in the right direction.