Berlin on the Road to Becoming a Start-Up Mecca

spiegel.de

3 pointschalst4 comments

Whenever I read Paul Graham's articles about the startup culture in Silicon Valley, I thought: Here in Berlin, things are quite similar. We have lots of well-functioning coworking spaces, hacker spaces, and a huge number of User Groups.

However, I never came to the conclusion that this would make Berlin a "start-up mecca". I simply couldn't know, as I've never lived in Silicon Valley and thus don't have any base for comparison.

Maybe I've underestimated Berlin.

You did.

It's clearly not going to be like Silicon Valley: little in the way of VC finance, the biggest companies headquartered around here are Mittelstand, &c.

But it is a fantastically attractive location for programmers, and capable of meeting some kind of critical mass. Maybe it could be a start-up location more focussed on growing into a company like Ferruccio Lamborghini than General Motors.

Obligatory links

1. Older HN story, London Is Gonna Be Pissed, But We Prefer Berlin for Startups (techcrunch.com) http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2573513

2. http://siliconallee.com/

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