Newsletter

In April, we par­ti­ci­pa­ted in a trip to Japan with a Thü­rin­gen dele­ga­tion and were able to inter­act with the startup com­mu­ni­ties in Osaka and Tokyo, which were impres­sive.  In the last 5–10 years the Japa­nese startup eco­sys­tem has explo­ded in size and greatly impro­ved in qua­lity, as working for a Japa­nese con­glo­mo­rate is no lon­ger seen as the only estee­med career path.  In Japan, as in many parts of the globe, it has become en vogue to found a startup. 

This trip to Japan crysta­li­zed our view that the pro­li­fe­ra­tion of start­ups (often very simi­lar start­ups) around the world has been expo­nen­tial in the last years, not­wi­th­stan­ding the pan­de­mic and geo­po­li­ti­cal wars and con­flicts.  Infor­ma­tion and, even more importantly, ideas are tra­ver­sing the globe at light speed with very little fric­tion.  This extre­mely rapid and easy access to new ideas, no mat­ter where they emerge in the world, crea­tes tre­men­dous value for huma­nity and is spu­ring inno­va­tion on an unpre­ce­den­ted level.  While this deve­lo­p­ment is awe-inspi­ring, it also means that any idea that can be easily repli­ca­ted will be repli­ca­ted.  Importantly, for start­ups and inves­tors it dra­ma­ti­cally increa­ses the pre­mium on inno­va­tions that are truly dif­fi­cult to copy or emu­late. 

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