First FreeNow and now Deliveroo. So much for European independence from US companies. It’s a wonder why these sales were approved in this climate.
The EU and UK have no good options at the merger level. If they block the sale, it trashes the start-up ecosystem. If they let it through, an American company buys a local one.
The fundamental problem is the paucity of new-firm formation in the EU and UK, the scaling barriers they face that American compeitors don't, and the increased culture of risk-taking in America that lets its firms pay more for acquisitions. The last can't be addressed. The first two probably can by the EU. (The UK is not a viable sovereign entity in these regards.)
Dude worked at a bank - respectable white collar job acc. to his Dutch friends and family. He picked up a passion for coffee and wanted to open his own shop. His loved ones all thought he was nuts to leave a stable job for a maybe.
I'm sure there's a degree of that in the US, but we have a lot more "just try stuff" in our cultural myths than the Europeans tend to. Guy felt like his options were keep a job he hates or be disowned by everyone he knows.
We're still on a startup board, correct?
OTOH, if it fails, you just go back to banking, right? No big deal; hopefully you had fun.
Myth is the important word here for most people in the US. Unless you are already fairly wealthy or have wealthy parents your options are incredibly limited in the US because of the lack of a social safety net.
Net worth is a poor metric for this, it includes a lot of illiquid assets. You can't eat your car if you lose your job. On the other hand the median savings account balance is $8k which isn't going to last very long at all
No, but you can live in and save rent. Gotta be able to move it, at least every once in a while, though.
Just to give some counter-weight to this, the Netherlands has a self-employment rate that is significantly higher than the EU average [1], one of the higher EU rates of high-growth micro/small enterprises [2], a whole array of tax benefits for the self-employed and SMEs and a relatively fast moving law system that makes it increasingly easier for SMEs to be founded. And let's not forget a bunch of capitalist/financial scoops (first stock market, 1602; first investment banking, 1700s; first investment fund, 1774; etc.) some of which still have a presence today. Needless to say my experience is quite the opposite.
[1] https://www.cedefop.europa.eu/en/tools/skills-intelligence/s... [2] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...
The EU is a political entity which happens to be reconsidering its independence from the US. The UK very much is not and is kowtowing favours hoping to get a good deal.
"European" describes multiple political entities each of which has similar concerns.
The only one of those entities that has actually made any progress towards independence from the US is Russia.
Unlikely, in the case of Deliveroo, but I went through this exact process and it took about a month or so to get sign off and to be allowed to sell my own company to a foreign buyer (health tech)
There’s also monopoly and competition regulation that could stop a sale.
[1] https://www.gov.uk/guidance/national-security-and-investment...
The general case is that no approval is needed in the UK to sell a company to anyone. This is a "free country".
This was especially a reply to the implied suggestion that there was some sort of political approval process.
I doubt the EU is going to block it since AFAIk they’re not competing in any country directly against each other.
My reply was rather to the suggestion that there was some sort of political approval.