The Early Stage Investing Launchpad (ESIL) held its annual conference on December 2-3. The pan-European initiative is delivered by a consortium of highly experienced ecosystem players, deeply embedded in European investment and innovation ecosystems, composed of META Group, BAE (both INSME members) and Bpifrance.
The two-day conference was attended by business angels, investors, the EIC community, as well as public and private stakeholders. On the first day, panelists focused on the intertwining paths of research teams and innovation actors, exploring which future directions their collaboration can take despite persisting challenges.
The conference then presented an overview of today’s trends in the angel investing landscape. While incubators, accelerators, and innovation hubs are multiplying across Europe, Brussels still lags behind Washington in terms of angel investments and crowdfunding. The goal of the ESIL initiative is to create and foster a more comprehensive and geographically-integrated European community of Business Angels.
Furthermore, as highlighted during one of the second day’s panel discussions, business investing needs more diversification. One key aspect is that within the European angels community, women are still a minority, often lacking the proper tools to recognize and exploit potential investment opportunities.
Another relevant takeaway concerns geography: while investments are usually made within nation-States, cross-border capital investment and overall a pan-European angels community would be extremely valuable.
The second day of the conference also featured thematic parallel sessions.
The ESIL annual event ended exploring future opportunities for angel investors and for start-ups in the European landscape as well as the next steps of the ESIL initiative.
Source: ESIL
