[h_ko]

Pension funds. European pensions are run as insurances and/or financed via taxes. Thus, there is no investment capital from pensions. The U.S. is quite the opposite, and that fact alone probably explains > 60% of the gap in VC financing.

[snowpid]

some people just use the governmental pensions (like in Germany) which aren't necessarily from a fund so they aren't funds at the beginning. I heard France just aloud pensions funds to use for VC financing.

My opinion this is one of the big reasons for the lack of strong startup investments. The other one is the lacking financial union.