This week’s Svagat Show features Kartik Varma, a good friend, serial entrepreneur and angel investor who has spent the last 3 decades across India, US and Europe, and who’s been based in the UK for the last decade. Kartik has been the founder of 2 exited startups in India, the last of which was Proptiger, India’s largest online real estate services firm backed by Accel and acquired by NewsCorp. He’s also led Techstars’ fintech activities in Europe and now has embarked on another entrepreneurial venture.
My takeaways from the podcast:
Macro Changes: Europe has seen big macro economic changes over the last 3 decades. In this timeframe, Indian professionals have risen to the upper echelons of the corporate world - which has led to a good reputation for the Indian professional in Europe.
Europe Opportunity: With almost 650M people (750M incl. Russia), a 1T tech spend (Gartner), $40K+ per capita income, an increase in venture capital ($50B+ in 2023) - Europe has a large domestic market, in addition to being a good base from where to launch global companies.
Innovation: Historically, Europe focuses more on originality and deep tech, while India has excelled in copying models. One reason for this could be that its easier for US based companies to expand to Europe, where as India has had to create home grown solutions. Also, while Europe has a head start in industries like sustainability, AI, Industry 3.0; India has the potential to become a global leader in creating category killer companies especially in agritech, with its innovations becoming a blueprint for adoption, especially in the global South.
India can contribute to filling the talent gap in Europe and collaborate on innovation and technology. The acceptance of remote working has made it more mainstream to hire engineers from India to work in different time zones.
Talent attractiveness: Europe needs to open its doors to talent from across the world to avoid being left behind in the digital age. Today there are multiple options and avenues for technical talent to come to Europe, but it’s imperative that the governments of the various European nations continue to attract global talent and not get caught up in policies that might harm this
PR Push and Talent attractiveness: Europe needs a strong PR push and narrative to talk about the unique innovation, strong university ecosystem, and the local successes in the tech world.
Compensation: Europe’s compensation for technology roles is rather low compared to the US (for a nuanced view, see this post on trimodal nature of salaries in tech), but makes up in other ways like healthcare, strong welfare state and infrastructure, in addition to work life balance, fewer working hours and safety.
Note: If you’re an Indian operator in Europe thinking of starting up or an Indian founder in Europe - I’d love to chat and learn of your journey
Should Indians move to Europe?