We are here at Money 2020 Europe in Amsterdam and I'm delighted to be joined by Rana Yared, who is the general partner of Bolton Capital.
Rana, thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you so much for having me.
OK, so I want to jump straight into Built in Europe.
It's a big campaign you've just launched.
Tell us all about it and walk us through why it's so important now.
We wanted to take a moment to really celebrate that building a business in.
Europe is exceptional that European businesses are now winning globally in multiple sectors and that as a percentage of technology is now 15% in Europe and we want to stop apologizing for the fact that businesses are built in Europe.
It's not about potential.
It's actually about what is happening today and today you have Wave and Revolut and 11 Labs and Lovable, and they went everywhere, right?
Why do they win everywhere and why do you think the apologism started in the first place?
Where does that come from?
At some point there was a pull from investors maybe to ask businesses that were built in Europe to actually move to the US in order to be closer to talent, and what we want to highlight is that a third of the World's engineers actually graduate here in Europe.
They are dispersed, so they're not all in SF.
They have a way longer tenure, average work tenure than they do in the US, and they are excited to work on problems that are being built nationally and in Europe because they feel pride about building here, right?
And do you think that previously there was almost a hesitation over the regulatory landscape, and is that changing for Europe, or is that actually not really part of it, as you say, the talent is such a crucial question?
I think the hesitation was a feeling that you were away from the center of innovation and talent, but if you look at what's happening in Stockholm between Munich and Zurich with TMU and the technical abilities in Oxford and Cambridge, FinTech in London and Germany, these are places where there's an enormous amount of innovation, and founders and venture capitalists feel very strongly that that talent can build great global businesses and is today building great global businesses and will continue to do so in the future.
Yes, and the innovation centers keep popping up.
Lisbon is such a Center when the war started in Ukraine, you saw so many apps putting their Ukrainian flags on them because they were built by Ukrainians.
So everyone, as you say, a huge amount of talent here, and it's clearly a very attractive place to live.
Rana, I want to ask you about then, you know, you sort of mentioned the talent.
What is uniquely European about fintech, the fintech opportunity?
It's a bit of a boring answer, but that FinTech opportunity in Europe goes back to the fact that London was actually the center of FX trading.
So whether you're trading into the US or into Asia, foreign exchange trading globally really does have that nexus around London.
And so as a result of that, there's great payments in infrastructure that was actually born in Europe first.
The other thing is that while there might be 500 million people in Europe roughly, and I count Britain.
There are many currencies, and so this concept of cross payments, cross border flows has actually always been alive and well in Europe.
And so a lot of the innovation that has taken place is just a result of having had so many currencies and frankly open borders between countries with different currencies.
And there's been a slight change in the UK's landscape over the last few years.
They have sort of shifted its status away from that.
Like crazy hot, hotbed of like innovation and talent.
Slightly different landscape today.
What do you think changes that direction, and what do you think the other fintech hubs across Europe can learn from that and just retaining that status of talent and opportunity, irrespective of what one's position on Brexit is, the reality is that a lot of the senior talent around financials has actually stayed in London.
And so when we look Businesses that are being built in other countries, they grow to a certain point, and then there's a question of where do I find that great go to market talent, and largely the talent density around fintech actually does remain in London.
But the place where we've seen a real rise in that density are in Paris, which was a big recipient of workers coming out of Brexit and Much, which is just a hotbed for development right now, not only in FinTech but also across healthcare and deep tech.
Yes, I love it.
It's amazing we're still coming up with new locations and new areas that are such importance to fintech as hubs, not to mention Amsterdam where we are now.
It's a wonderful turn of phrase.
I love it, and especially from a woman in FinTech and in BC, I think we should stop apologizing for a lot of things.
I think we should, and including loving fintech landscape in Europe.
So thank you for giving us reasons to be excited about the fintech landscape, and we hope you enjoy the rest of Money 2020.
Thank you so much for having me.
