Keeping tabs on dry powder and university spinouts

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The start of a new season is always a good time to revisit past predictions and look for new topics to track. Today, dry powder and university spinouts. — Anna

Record levels of dry powder in Europe?

In November of last year, PitchBook made so many predictions on venture capital and private equity in Europe that it is now reexamining them in a fresh report.

The new report, titled “European Private Capital Outlook: H1 Follow-Up,” doesn’t just look at whether PitchBook analysts were right or wrong. It also reevaluates its forecasts and what changed since then to make new assertions.

Several of PitchBook’s new predictions have to do with private equity, but the one that caught my attention relates more directly to startups: the amount of venture capital that may or may not be available to them.

Often referred to as dry powder, the money raised by VC funds that hasn’t been invested yet was expected by PitchBook to reach record levels in Europe this year. Its EMEA Private Capital analyst Nicolas Moura stands by the prediction, but the nuances between then and now are worth exploring.