Techloop Europe: Can Europe secure its innovation potential in the face of global superpowers?

We chose to establish our headquarters in London, the heart of Europe’s tech scene. It is clear to me that the region has the right ecosystem that technology companies like Tradeteq need to thrive. This includes access to the right talent, funding, academic institutions and research, consumer and business appetite for modern fintech solutions and stable political and legal systems.

Many industry observers compare Europe to Silicon Valley as a means of measuring success, but I’m not sure that comparison is accurate. Silicon Valley has been around for several decades and is home to companies that kicked off the computing revolution. The companies based there were, and still are, pioneers because a thriving ecosystem emerged from the first generation of companies like Hewlett Packard, Intel and Shockley Semiconductor Labs.

In comparison, the tech scene in Europe is a lot younger, but advancing at a far more rapid pace and at a lower cost than Silicon Valley in its early days. Just look at the developments made in Europe over the past decade in payments and mobile banking, for example. That’s not a surprise, given the tools at our disposal, but we are only getting started. I believe we are at an early stage of building a European tech ecosystem that will eventually match or even surpass Silicon Valley. Crucially, we will see innovation spread quite widely rather than concentrated amongst a handful of large companies.
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Another reason why the future is bright is that there is a new generation of talent that hone their technology and engineering skills from an early age. They will be the next generation’s Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Elon Musk. They just need to be given the opportunity to thrive. Watch this space!

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