How Big Companies Make Innovation Acquiring Startups

Is important to give a geographical dimension to the M&A markets that considers also the regions inside USA and Europe (the rest of the world will be treated in a general way, considering that is the 10% only of the total M&A activity), identifying the best Ecosystems and Innovating Hubs.
To do that has been created an exit/acquisition index for geographical area. This number represents a ratio between the exits and the acquisitions performed in the same area by local firms.
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Empirically has been observed that the best Startups Ecosystems with the greatest performances are those areas where α and β are approximate to 1. In fact where there is a balance between buyers and sellers. Speaking about Ecosystems is due to start from the Silicon Valley. That area for dimensions of the phenomena is the only region that can be compared with countries and continents. Here we have a perfect balance between exits and acquisitions with a slight negative β , which means that the money received in acquisitions is a little more than the spent one. In Silicon Valley there are both a ecosystem able to generate startups and a strong presence of BCs willing and able to absorb this offer.

The general american situation isn’t much more different. An α= 0,9 suggest the ability of the USA venture to attract companies form other parts of the worlds. In the rest of the world the situation is different at all. α and β can also be taken as measure of the transfers, the flows between Countries of firms and so, of technology, Innovation, know-how, market shares; Wealth in a word. In fact if we observe the other world Areas the best one is Europe, the closest to the general balance of both indexes, but where there is still a drain of startups to other areas, with a negative M&A balance. That is sign of a of a traditional ecosystem which has not yet adapted, that is able to produce startups but where the presence of BCs disposed to acquisitions isn’t still enough strong. Taking the overall data of USA and EU, that as said together constitute the 80-90% of the global market as buyers and sellers, results that there is a net flow of startups from Europe that is going to benefit of the american system.

Accounting the other areas the general balance is negative as in EU but in a higher measure, a predictable aspect with younger and less developed ecosystems, that also in a lot of cases involves Developing Countries with various deficits. However, it is worth mentioning the Asian regions the β= 0.5 tells that these Countries, for firsts China, Japan and South Korea, are net acquirers of startups. Obviously there is a huge imbalance between the capital received in M&A deals and capital spent in acquisition, precisely the double. It seems that there is a strong presence of BCs active in Open Innovation and acquisitions, but where there is a lack of supply from the local startups system. China with its monster resources is strongly work to reduce the gap with the american system.

In fact China is actuating policies to attract and apply ever more national and foreign funds for startups. In first line the chinese digital giants like Tencent and Alibaba with the Government through an alliance between its fund Starquest Capital and Sequoia Capital China, the chinese division of the famous california’s Capital Venture. These politics are part of the China’s 2030 program. In 2018, the startups market has been able to rise $58.8 billions of dollars against the $67 the USA (Monica d’Ascenzio, 2018). In particular with not only economical but also politics reasons, the government posed priority to become the world leader in strategical fields like drones, the Autonomous Drive and the Artificial Intelligence, with the target to transform the AI in a $150 billions industry in 2030.

Examining more deeper the European Union the North-Center countries have a better M&A balance, close to the balance, while the southern and east countries show a negative balance and so net sellers of startups. That is in line with the economy’s general situation inside the Union. In particular the best performance is from UK, followed by Germany with the growing hubs of Berlin and Hamburg. UK leads countries in Europe in exit volume with 1,234 since 2010, like the total volume of Germany, France, Spain and Italy combined. As slight net buyers of startups we have France, Switzerland and Norway.