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Comment by IrishTechie | Hacker News Reader

Two factors stick out to me.

Investing in the stock market is far more common in the US compared to the EU for the average person (something like 60% versus 15% of people in the EU). I imagine that has a huge impact on the amount of money sloshing around to fund companies from the top down.

The EU is bigger than the US in population terms, but when it comes to raising funding for a new startup it’s hard to look far beyond the borders of your own small country for many reasons. If this could be fixed it would make a massive difference in my view.

I’ve been involved in the founding of a few companies in Ireland and raising funding is tough and for all the work the figures are tiny compared to the US. You’ll likely be talking to Irish and UK investors only.

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>> Investing in the stock market is far more common in the US compared to the EU for the average person (something like 60% versus 15% of people in the EU).

Is this accurate? For example, 80% of the UK has a pension and those are invested (partially) in stocks. Unsure how this works across the rest of Europe but 15% seems really low.

>> The EU is bigger than the US in population terms, but when it comes to raising funding for a new startup it’s hard to look far beyond the borders of your own small country

Completely agree with this. As much as the EU is a single market, in a lot of ways it falls short. Even if you're in some of the larger capitals you still end up looking for funding within your country. What do you think the solution is? Is the problem language? The completely different tax systems in each country? The spread of things (e.g. less concentration in one or two cities the way tech is in the US)?

The ESA is not an EU agency which complicates that comparison: https://www.esa.int/About_Us/Corporate_news/Member_States_Co...

> I’ve been involved in the founding of a few companies in Ireland and raising funding is tough and for all the work the figures are tiny compared to the US. You’ll likely be talking to Irish and UK investors only.

I am not surprised, but you would probably find it easier to raise money from investors in the UK for a larger established business: lots of companies from lots of countries list in London, for example. I think other factors are probably more important than the lack of a single market for capital raising on people's direct investments.

> Investing in the stock market is far more common in the US compared to the EU for the average person (something like 60% versus 15% of people in the EU)

Are you looking at people investing directly? A lot of people in the UK have pensions that invest in the stock market. About 75% of people of working age, IIRC.

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