VC money given to innovative European startups fell from 5.64 billion euros in 2006 to 5.27 billion euros last year. The final quarter saw 1.21 billion euros invested – that’s down from 1.36 billion euros the previous quarter or from 1.52 billion euros in the corresponding quarter of 2006, company tracker LibraryHouse reports.
The biggest digital media deals… music recommendation service MyStrands of Spain (16.3 million euros), France’s mobile rich media player Streamezzo (15 million euros), multimedia home networker Gigle (13.5 million euros), London’s alerts and P2P video distributor Skinkers (11.1 million euros) and Israel’s Imagine Communications (10.4 million euros). And the top investors: Accel, Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, Debaeque Venture Capital, Sofinnova Partners and so on.
If Europe is seeing fewer investments, the UK’s place at the head of the European scene is being scaled back, too. In the last quarter of the year, its share of European VC dropped to 22 percent – the lowest proportion in two years. Throughout 2007, though, it dropped only two percent to 27 percent. Other countries like Holland, Switzerland, Germany and France increased their slice of the pie. Cleantech is sweeping up a greater number of investments, breaking the 200 million euro mark at the end of the year.