While venture investing outside the U.S. has come a long way in recent years, our analysis shows it remains an entirely different industry than U.S. venture capital. And when we say different, we mean totally different.
近年来，美国之外的风险投资取得了长足的发展，但分析显示，它仍然是一个完全不同于美国风险投资的行业。实际上，这里所说的不同，其实是完全不同。
We looked at venture investment trends in 2007-2011 from PitchBook and compared them with VC exit results in 2012-2016 to very roughly compare investment in one five-year period with exit results in the ensuing next five years, roughly matching VC investment cycles.
PitchBook 研究了2007-2011年的风险投资趋势，并将它们与2012-2016年的风险投资退出结果进行了粗略的比较——5年期的投资和之后5年的退出结果，其相当于大致匹配的风险投资的投资周期。
Investment trends show “what you would expect”
投资趋势显示出了你的预期
Over 2007-2011, European venture started to accelerate. Of course, the industry remained a fraction of the U.S. in size, but by 2011 there were 1,400 European investments made versus just under 4,000 in the U.S., a healthy jump in activity. And average round size was nearly $5 million versus $7 million for the U.S. — all indicative of a European VC industry developing rapidly from a much smaller base.
2007至2011年，欧洲风投开始加速发展。当然，其行业规模与美国的规模比起来仍然算很小。但到2011年，欧洲的投资已经超过了1400例，而美国还不到4000例，取得了跳跃式发展。欧洲的平均融资规模接近500万美元，而美国的这一数字为700万美元——这一切都表明，欧洲风投行业正从较小规模的阶段迅速发展。
Exit trends point to entirely different industries
资本退出趋势指向完全不同的行业
The subsequent five years, 2012-2016, show entirely different exit profiles. It’s encapsulated in a single number on the bottom right of the chart below:
接下来的五年(2012-2016年)资本退出情况完全不同，资本退出数据如右下角数字所示：
The average U.S. venture capital exit is nearly $200 million, versus $70 million for Europe.
美国的平均风险资本退出规模接近2亿美元，而欧洲为7000万美元。
The number of $250 million exits during this five-year period? 22 across all of Europe, versus 166 in the US. That’s a huge, persistent disparity, especially given the evolution of European venture over the past decade.
在这5年期间，有多少个2.5亿美元的资金退出？整个欧洲有22个，美国有166个——这是个巨大而持久的差异，尤其是综合比较了过去10年欧洲风投的发展。
What’s going on?
发生了什么？
While European venture has come on leaps and bounds, it remains a “smaller round, smaller exit” market.
尽管欧洲的风投已经有了大幅提升，但它仍是一个“融资规模小，资本退出小”的市场。
It is extremely dangerous for European earlier-stage VCs to raise ever-larger funds, or early-stage European companies to take very large A or B rounds. The European exit market is still far less developed, and putting more into companies can only damage returns.
对于欧洲早期的风投公司来说，筹集规模更大的资金极其危险，或者对于早期的欧洲公司来说，进行大规模的A轮融资或B轮融资是极其危险的。欧洲市场的资本退出远远未到成熟阶段，向早期公司投入更多资金只会损害回报。
The above has nothing to do with ambition, it simply reflects a current reality slowly changing; to make significant returns, CEO’s and investors need to invest less into more capital-efficient businesses that can return enough in a smaller, though successful exit.
上述情况与雄心无关，它只是反映了当前缓慢变化的现实：为了得到丰厚的回报，首席执行官和投资者们需要减少对资本效率更高的公司的投资。这样可以在规模较小，但可以成功退出的情况下，拿回足够多的收益。
A “good” exit in Europe is $100 million or more, while a “good” exit in the U.S. is at least $250 million.
在欧洲，一个“好”的退出是1亿美元或者更多；而在美国，一个“好”的退出至少是2.5亿美元。
What’s to be done?
下一步该怎么办？
The key is to fill the Series C “black hole” that currently exists for European tech. This will give the most ambitious CEOs and investors the opportunity to tap late-stage capital to accelerate beyond the $100 million exit mark, in turn creating more future unicorns in Europe; currently Europe has 1/10 the U.S. number.
关键是要填补目前欧洲技术所存在的C轮融资“黑洞”。这将使最有雄心的CEO和投资者有机会利用后期资本，加速实现超过1亿美元的退出线，从而在欧洲创造更多未来的独角兽公司。目前，欧洲独角兽公司数量占美国的十分之一。
Here are specific, feasible actions that can address this gap in a reasonable time frame:
这里有一些具体可行的方法可供在合理的时间段内解决此缺口：
Extend the success of tax-advantaged investing to larger rounds. The U.K.’s EIS scheme has fueled unprecedented growth in Series A funding. Extending that and similar schemes around Europe to larger later rounds will undoubtedly increase the available capital for the most promising “scale-up” companies.
1
扩大税收优惠投资的成功范围。
英国的EIS计划为A轮融资带来了前所未有的增长。将欧洲范围内的类似计划扩大到规模更大的后续融资回合，无疑会增加这些最有希望“扩大规模”的公司的可用资本。
Introduce specific government financing/co-funding for Series C rounds. It is very possible to do this via attractive debt instruments, as later-stage companies are often profitable and able to fund low-interest debt. For example, if each €15 million-plus equity round qualified for a €5 million matching government debt instrument priced at a very low interest rate, overnight it will increase the larger round market, and leverage even greater gains for late-stage investors, in turn bringing more capital to Series C and later rounds.
2
为C轮融资引进具体的政府融资/共同融资。
通过有吸引力的债券工具，很有可能做到这一点，因为后期阶段的公司通常能获利，并且能够为低利率的债券提供资金。例如，如果每1500万欧元以上的股票都能以极低的利率定价获得匹配的500万欧元的政府债券，一夜之间，它将扩大更大的融资市场，并为后期投资者带来更大的收益，进而为C轮融资和后续融资带来更多资金。
Increase the number of highly skilled worker visas available for tech scale-ups. Europe has inherent advantages versus Silicon Valley; more stable workforce, far less current hostility to immigrants and a long tradition of numerous high-quality engineering schools. Adding to that a large scale inward “genius visa” program like H-1B in the U.S. will enable companies raising Series C to have confidence they can recruit the volume of engineers they need quickly, in turn making it even easier to raise their rounds.
3
增加高技术人才的签证数量以便促进科技升级。
相对于硅谷，欧洲有其固有的优势：劳动力更稳定、当前对移民的敌意更少、传统悠久的优质工科学校众多。在美国，像H-1B这样的大规模的面向“人才签证”的项目将使C轮融资的公司有信心，迅速招募到所需的工程师数量，从而使融资变得更加容易。
Create smaller “scale-up hubs” along the lines of “startup hubs” springing up around Europe. There is no shortage of European incubators, hot-desk workspaces and other types of “startup hubs,” but all cater to companies just starting. A more sophisticated and smaller scale set of “scale-up hubs” catering to 100 employee companies, where more advanced mentoring and selective support is available, could spread experience and know-how to aspiring CEOs, and reduce scale-up and financing risks significantly. These hubs would be much smaller than startup hubs as they would cater to a few dozen CEOs, not a few hundred, and be aimed at filling the experience and mentoring gaps that can otherwise undermine large capital raises.
4
以欧洲“创业中心”线创建更小的“扩展中心”。
欧洲孵化园、公用办公区和其它类型的“创业中心”都不缺，但都只面向刚起步的公司。而更复杂、规模更小的“扩展中心”面向100多家公司，可提供更高级的指导和有选择性的支持，可以将经验和知识传授给有抱负的CEO，并且还能显著降低扩大规模和融资的风险。这些中心比创业中心要小得多，因为他们为几十个CEO，不是几百个CEO服务，他们的目标是填补经验和指导缺口，否则就会破坏大规模的资本筹集。
Without specific actions, the industry will need 20-30 years to evolve toward U.S. levels. With specific actions, we think this can be cut to perhaps 10 years.
如果没有具体的行动，该行业将需要20到30年的时间才能发展到美国的水平。若采取了具体的行动，也许可以缩短至10年。
Shortening this time horizon could perhaps create 10-20 more future tech unicorns, adding perhaps $50-100 billion of future aggregate economic value to European tech.
缩短该时间可能会创造出10到20个未来的科技独角兽公司，可能会为欧洲科技公司增加500-1000亿美元的未来聚合经济价值。
Now that is an attractive return on investment.
如今，这才是很有吸引力的投资回报。
本文由戈壁创投编译自TechcCrunch
作者：Victor Basta
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