Lars Fjeldsoe-Nielsen left Europe to work in Silicon Valley eight years ago. After significant stints at the likes of Uber and Dropbox, he returned in 2015 to find the region's tech scene had changed dramatically.
"There has been a shift in mentality, it's cool to be an entrepreneur, people are not afraid of taking risks," Fjeldsoe-Nielsen told CNBC in a phone interview.
"The market opportunity is huge and you can now launch a global company out of Europe."
Europe's booming start-up ecosystem is flourishing with new regions beyond just London and Berlin becoming significant tech hubs. And an increasing number of companies are finding funding to expand.
European technology companies raised $3 billion in the third quarter of 2016, down 17 percent year-on-year, according to a report released by London-based venture capital firm Atomico on Wednesday. Atomico, which was started by Skype co-founder Niklas Zennstrom, launched the report at Slush in Helsinki, one of Europe's fast-growing technology conferences.
Atomico noted that the number of deals, however, were up 27 percent and 2016 is still on for a record year of funding in dollar terms, forecasting $13.6 billion will be invested in technology start-ups in Europe, versus $12.6 billion last year. Tech firms in the region have been able to pull in large sums of money if needed. For example, British cybersecurity firm Darktrace raised $65 million in July, while German travel booking start-up GoEuro secured $70 million last month.
But many of the larger rounds in Europe have come with the help of U.S. investors with a funding gap still remaining. On a gross domestic product adjusted basis, U.S. venture capital funds raised 5.3 times more than their European peers. The gap is equivalent to around $25 billion a year, according to Atomico's report.