Erin Platts heads up Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) in EMEA and she’s led their growth across the region for over a decade. We discussed the huge transformation in the European ecosystem in the last 5-6 years in terms of:

• Number of repeat entrepreneurs
• Depth and sophistication of capital
• Local aspiration & skillset to create global category leaders
• Diversification of business sectors being served by startups

We also explored Erin’s concerns that Europe’s B2B saas ventures – many of whom appear robust despite the pandemic – may be over-optimistic especially if churn in Q4 2020 and Q1 2021 is higher than expected

And we evaluated the shift to WFH both for SVB and for the VC-backed tech community:

• Zoom has evened up the playing field for companies who no longer need to be located in London, Cambridge or Berlin to have access to Europe’s best funding and networking opportunities
• Efficiency has in many businesses, including SVB, improved – however Erin feels that effectiveness may tail off if we continue to operate 100% virtually for many more months
• The tactical measures SVB has introduced to support employees mental health and wellbeing and “improve the bifurcation between work & home life”

For more insights into SVB head over to https://www.svb.com/uk