On July 9th I flew to London to attend the Europas, the awards hosted by TechCrunch Europe.

Let me just say it was a huge success. All of the most important, successful and influencial people in the european tech scene where in the same room exchanging ideas, feedback and (hopefully) capital. I met people from UK, France, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Romania, Poland. There were quite a few americans too.

It was a really enjoyable event, and I’m gonna share with you what I got from it:
London is the epicenter of Europe’s innovation and startup ecosystem. The money is there, the startups are there, the community is there.
That doesn’t mean that you can’t buid a successful business in other cities (there were a lot of examples in that same room), it just seems easier. This can be caused by many different factors, first one being language.

So what about Italy then? Well, not great news. There were only two other italians attending the event. The italian innovation community is growing but as always it just focuses on its own country, not attending this events is a HUGE mistake. Networking is one of the most important phases when building a truly global (or any kind, for that matter) business.

I really do hope italians will understand that, and start flying all over Europe and US to meet people, share ideas, get feedback from different markets and cultures. Or simply to have fun.

Let’s go back at the event, here are the winners.

    • Best Bootstrapped Startup (less than 3 years old) – Soup.io
    • Best Social Innovation (benefits society, EMEA) – Mendeley
    • Best Cleantech / Environmental Startup (EMEA) – Alertme
    • Best European Hardware / Real World Gadget (EMEA) – Poken
    • Best Entertainment App or Service (EMEA) – SoundCloud
    • Best Mobile Startup (EMEA) – Nimbuzz
    • Best Mobile Application (EMEA) – Spinvox
    • Best Web Application Or Service (EMEA) – Spotify
    • Best Enterprise / B2B Startup (EMEA) – Huddle
    • Best New Startup, Summer 2008-2009 – Spotify
  • “The Europas GRAND PRIX” – Spotify

The european startup community is growing, I urge everyone to be a part of it. Not only will you get to know some amazing peers but you will gain a real competitive advantage for your business.