Why American VC Robert Goldberg from YL Ventures focuses on Europe

Yoav Andrew Leitersdorf, Managing Partner of YL Ventures – an European and Israeli early stage technology venture capital fund – emailed me that they will announce tomorrow that YL Ventures is appointing Robert Goldberg as a Venture Partner. He is a Silicon Valley Internet and digital media veteran and now shifts his focus to Europe and Israel.

So I’ve emailed mr. Goldberg with the question: why Europe? Isn’t it more attractive for an American VC to focus on the 300 million English-speaking people market of the US? He replied, saying: “After spending considerable time investigating and experiencing the European market first hand and through Yoav, I’ve come to the conclusion that there is a very interesting investment opportunity there for several reasons.”

“First and foremost there is a pool of passionate entrepreneurs with substantial technical talent. Second, similar to what happened in the US in the early part of this decade, Venture Funds grew larger and more risk adverse, largely abandoning their ability to invest smaller amounts of money in early stage companies. That trend has reversed itself in the US, but not in Europe. This leaves great entrepreneurs with early stage ideas fewer options. The opportunity is filling the excess demand with supply! Thirdly, although in many ways trends and ecosystems often develop first in the US, that can also lead to a kind of group think. I have found a different, often refreshing and more innovative approach to developing opportunities in the market place coming from European and Israeli companies.”

Of course, the European internet entrepreneurs who are reading this article now, wonder whether Robert Goldberg might be interested in their start-ups. Luckily Goldberg is kind enough to give you a profile: “We are focused on companies in the media, mobile and internet infrastructure space that have a passionate founder with domain expertise. These companies have business models that are capital efficient in that expenses can be kept in sync with market traction and revenues.”