European Tech Companies, Are You Ready to Hop the Pond?

There’s plenty of advice out there for American companies hoping to expand internationally. But what’s the playbook for European and Israeli companies—specifically those in enterprise tech—hoping to “hop the pond” and enter the lucrative U.S. market?

On this topic, Battery has you covered. We recently published an in-depth guidebook with advice for EMEA-based companies on how to structure a move into the U.S. We discuss issues such as timing (when, exactly, to make the move); whether you should have a centralized, in-office U.S. presence or a more decentralized one; how to pick which U.S. city should be your beachhead; how to think about core business functions like sales, marketing and customer success; and how to tackle tactical challenges such as setting up new legal entities, securing visas for transferring employees and complying with new regulations.

Recently in London, we discussed these topics and others at a “Hop the Pond” event for European CEOs. Battery Partner Zak Ewen moderated a panel featuring Erik Fjellborg, the CEO of Swedish workforce-management software company Quinyx*, and Andy Berry, the CEO of German location-intelligence company VertiGIS*.

Both executives agreed that setting up a U.S. operation can be difficult and expensive, with salespeople and developers requiring significantly higher salaries than in Europe. Fjellborg noted that Quinyx initially underestimated the amount of work it would take to fully localize its product and look as “American” as possible for U.S. buyers. But according to Berry, for many companies, tapping the vast U.S. corporate-tech market is worth it because the average sales-contract size makes up for higher costs.

You can download a full copy of our “Hop the Pond” guide here.

Battery Hop the Pond 2023 by Battery Ventures

*Denotes a Battery portfolio company. For a full list of all Battery investments, please click here.

This material is provided for informational purposes, and it is not, and may not be relied on in any manner as, legal, tax or investment advice or as an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy an interest in any fund or investment vehicle managed by Battery Ventures or any other Battery entity. The views expressed here are solely those of the author, Bill Binch.

The information and data are as of the publication date unless otherwise noted.

The information above may contain projections or other forward-looking statements regarding future events or expectations. Predictions, opinions and other information discussed in this publication are subject to change continually and without notice of any kind and may no longer be true after the date indicated. Battery Ventures assumes no duty to and does not undertake to update forward-looking statements.