 see any sign of this slowing down. You cannot go across any village or city these days without stepping into technology. Europe is the future of tech. The whole plumbing landscape has significantly widened. Europe's an amazing place to be a founder. We believe that if somebody is successful, that successful Indian benefit everybody else. You have successful founders who are reinvesting in the ecosystem. Well, good morning, everyone. Welcome to the coolest tech conference on the planet. Literally. My name is Tom Weymar. I'm a partner at Atomaco. And I'm here to tell you all a story. Now, this particular story begins with a Brit and a Finn in a sauna, of course, in a tent in Tokyo. And the Brit happens to be me. And the Finn is Riku Makula, who at the time was the CEO of Slush. And as you do when you're in a tent sauna, we were chatting about the state of European tech and how it was going from strength to strength. But that the message didn't seem to be getting through. It was clear to us that the narrative of the European tech industry was being shaped by outside commentators who were constantly making comparisons to Silicon Valley and often making inaccurate conclusions. So as we sat there and sweated, we agreed to produce the first comprehensive data-driven report to present the true state of European tech to the world. And like many authors, we knew that we could base this story on a cast of great characters. You, the European entrepreneurs. Without all of you, none of this would be possible. And this is not just a story about capital flows or the numbers of exits, although they're both important, but about how our talent is moving, how and where our communities are growing, the specialisms we're developing, and the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for our future. We'll fast forward to 2017, and early this morning, we published our third annual State of European Tech report. Partnering with a range of data providers from LinkedIn to Meetup to the London Stock Exchange, Stack Overflow, and many more, it's more comprehensive than ever. And I just want to take this opportunity to thank Marianne, the current slash CEO, for picking up where Riku left off. There may be a new leader, but with her involvement, the report, just like Slush itself, continues to step up to new levels. And this year, the report has its very own interactive home online. It looks amazing on your mobile, so go check out www.stateofEuropeanTech.com. In its first year, the report declared that 2015 was a breakthrough year for European tech, in which our major hubs had gone to a new level. We said we'd unlocked several achievements. We'd seen European founders build more billion-dollar companies that year than ever before. We saw $10 billion of capital invested into European tech companies in the same 12-month period for the first time ever. But it was far from mission accomplished, and actually it was simply time to get back to work and keep building. And then last year, we proclaimed that deep tech was thriving and diversifying across Europe, how we had the potential to give every other continent a run for its money in this incredibly important area, shaping and creating the future of tech. And then this year, the research tells us two things. Firstly, that European tech is now the strongest it's ever been, and we're marching to the beat of our own drum. And secondly, now that we're operating on our own increasingly independent and virtuous cycle, free from what is happening elsewhere, we're building a tech ecosystem here in our own image. So let's take a closer look. There's no doubt Europe is killing it. Just a few years ago, people were questioning whether entrepreneurs in Europe could build global winners. But now, it's no longer a question of if, but when, how, how big, and how many. The data speaks for itself. But what is the lifeblood of tech? It's you. It's our people, our developers. And do we have them? Yes, 5.5 million of you across Europe. Yes, you heard me right. 5.5 million professional developers. And we're leaving the US behind, where there are only 4.4 million. Just think about that for a second. A million more developers here in Europe. Our education system is producing more STEM grads. Our employers are retraining, and we're self-teaching. And that's why there are an incredible 500,000 more developers today than there were last year. Technology and the people like you that build and shape it are the future of our economy. We're already seeing technology supercharge employment growth in the region. Across Europe, tech jobs are growing three times faster than the rest of the European economy combined. In some countries, it's more like five times faster. And what's more, that growth is accelerating. Last year, we grew 2.1%. This year, it's up to 2.6%. But as more and more tech businesses are founded and funded across Europe, there is an increasing demand and competition for tech talent. So we cannot get complacent. We have to ensure that we keep growing our talent pipeline to meet our future needs for technical skills. And that's because Europe is in a war for talent on at least three fronts. Start-ups are competing with one another for talent. They're competing with technology giants who are choosing to build more and more engineering centers across Europe. And they're also now competing against traditional industry who are embracing tech more than ever before. This battle royale is fiercest across four countries, the UK, France, Germany and the Netherlands. And our report shows that while the UK remains the number one destination for tech talent moving into and within Europe today, when we compare to our analysis from last year, it's clear that the others are challenging the UK hard. And this competition is great. It reflects a product that's in demand. It is the inevitable consequence of our success. And it forces everybody to raise the bar, especially founders who have to think more carefully than ever about how they attract, reward and retain talent. But it is what will elevate European tech to another level again. But founders no longer need to just, to gravitate to just a few cities, where they may encounter a trade-off between the density of capital and talent on the one hand and on the other, the cost of operating there. Luckily, at a European level, there is ample ability to absorb such a trade-off. If you're from Bucharest or Brussels or Oslo, you really do have the freedom now to stay where you are. And it means we're making better use of the huge, untapped talent pools in places like Central and Eastern Europe through an increase in mobility cross-borders or through an expansion of distributed teams and satellite offices. We've already seen some of Europe's leading tech companies, whether it's transfer-wise, Farfetch, Zalando, Mapillary, Pipe Drive, and most recently Spotify, seek to make use of European talent across the region by building in a distributed way and using multiple satellite offices. Extraordinary talent in places like Warsaw, Tarlin, Minsk will be a key part of the future of European tech and entrepreneurship. And it's not just people that are mobile and distributed. Capital is, too. This year, European VCs will make over 1,000 investments in European companies outside of their home country. In fact, for rounds of $10 million or more, European VCs are more likely to invest in another European country than at home. So it means that if you're doing amazing things, word spreads quickly, and the capital will find you. Just ask Grafkor, Sequoia track them down to Bristol, a city 200 kilometers due west of London. Incredibly, this year is going to be another record year for investment in European tech at just over 19 billion. That comfortably exceeds the 14 billion invested in 2016. And don't forget that only two years ago, we were celebrating the $10 billion milestone. And it's not just more investment. It's not just dumb money. We now have a deeper and more sophisticated investor base than ever before, spreading across the region in a way we've not seen. And what matters most is that this goes right the way from the earlier stages in our angel investors, all the way through into the public markets, where we see that we have an increasingly sophisticated set of investors that really get tech. And not only do they get it, thanks to the amazing companies our world-class founders are building, those investors that are lucky enough to be invited to join those entrepreneurs on their journey are rewarded with great returns. For example, European tech IPOs this year have delivered strong results, outperforming the US by quite some margin. A dollar invested into every European tech IPO and US tech IPO in 2017 would have delivered four times the returns from Europe than from the US on a weighted aggregate basis. So the talent, community, and capital foundations are clearly strong for Europe. But what is also clear is that we are now building our very own blueprint for success. We're not doing it a Silicon Valley way, we're not doing it a Chinese way, but we're doing it our very own European way. And having poured over the data and spoken to hundreds of people right the way through all sections of our ecosystem, I wanna pick out three clear opportunities for Europe to increase its technology advantage and continue to follow its own path over the coming years. So firstly, Europe's specialism in deep tech which is massively scaling up and will be incredibly advantageous as the opportunity for collaboration between our companies increases. In Europe, for example, we are building some of the future technology that will underpin entire industries and sectors. Think of Graphcore's IPU chip or improbable spatial OS or Unity's game engine or Messagebird's communication platform. Just this time last year, people were still questioning whether Europe was just a feeder for the world's largest tech companies. They saw we could produce world-class innovation but they said we didn't have the appetite to go big. In fact, they said we just look to sell out. Well, this year, we've seen European dip tech founders give a very clear answer. They want to scale their businesses themselves and the world's best investors are ready to back them. All across Europe, some of the most promising deep tech companies have raised big rounds from the very best in Europe and beyond and they're all saying the same thing. We have our eyes on a huge prize and we're gonna go after it. Now Europeans have always had the expertise to go big in the hardest fields of innovation but now we have the ecosystem and funding that gives our founders the tools and the independence to do exactly that. In 2017, Europe is on track for 3.5 billion to be invested into its deep tech companies. Take Lilliam from Munich, who are transforming the future of transportation with their electric autonomous vertical take-off and landing jet and have just raised 90 million in a series B round led by Tencent having raised from Atomico this time last year. Now secondly, in Europe, our appetite for collaborating with traditional industry and playing to our industrial heritage is unique. What started in a few industries is moving through all traditional industries, logistics, automotive, healthcare to name just a few. And this comes with a number of advantages for founders, ready-made talent, funding opportunities, partnerships, all of which our report shows are happening at record levels across Europe. And the future opportunity is huge as well. While Europe controls a tiny share of cash held by public tech companies, it is the largest holder of cash held by non-tech companies equating to roughly $1.5 trillion. And as these corporates seek to respond to the transformation that's happening all around them, their capital is going to be increasingly directed towards supporting the tech industry. Europe's openness to working with industry can yield positive results for everyone. Founders can find great partners and reach new customers at scale. Choices for developers will explode as traditional industry embraces the toughest tech challenges and vice versa. And investors can attract funding from corporates who are hungry to learn about how technology can help them to diversify and remain relevant. And then thirdly and finally, rather than being a challenge, we believe that regulation could become a source of competitive advantages at every level. The move fast and break things mantra as it applies to regulated industries is going. If you look at all of the most important technologies, whether it's artificial intelligence, cryptocurrencies and blockchain, drones, vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, autonomous vehicles, they'll all require updates to today's regulatory frameworks in order to be commercialized and reach their full potential. And this is especially important because as we've heard some of the biggest macro challenges we face, healthcare provision, food sustainability, carbon emissions, they cannot be tackled by governments alone. We need our entrepreneurs to apply these technologies to take on big societal issues. And by working with regulators and governments, we're already seeing technology enable meaningful and positive change in many of our societies.