The chart above shows the breakdown of the geographic location of the 66 companies that have presented in Helsinki, Estoril and Milan. There is a good split between countries based in the larger economies in both northern and southern Europe and also between western Europe and eastern Europe. A sign of the EASY Project’s international focus is that two Russian companies presented at the Helsinki meeting, even though Russia is clearly not in the EU!

The need for these companies for funds is very apparent with the 66 companies requiring E98.6m of funds between them to exploit opportunities in everything from robotics to biotechnology and from online businesses to transportation. The range of sums requested by the companies was from E250,000 to E10,000,000, but 2/3rds of the companies want to raise funds of between E1,000,000 and E2,000,000, regardless of where they are based in the EU.

This research shows that Europe is perhaps more homogenous in the opportunities that are presented to investors than people might guess. If you are a medical technology company, pretty much wherever you are based it is likely that you will require Emillions to successfully exploit your opportunity. Likewise if you are an internet based website it hardly matters whether you are in the Czech Republic like 360Geocities or in France, like e-Medicis – you will still need around E250,000 to move to the next stage of your business plan.

Although this is a relatively small sample size for research purposes, it does seem that within any one business sector, there may be more similarities in terms of the requirements for funding, than there are differences. This is an important point for business angel investors. You may comfortably look abroad for your investment opportunities, because they will not have such different financing needs from the ones you find at home!