This year's Global Venture Capital survey found that European venture capitalists (VCs) focus more on other European countries over Asia or the Americas. The study compared the views of investors from Europe, Asia and North America, and found that a flow of higher quality deals and lower additional risk keep European investments close to home.

Some key findings emerging from this year's survey include:

• Fifty-one percent of European venture capitalists' strategies clearly demonstrate a preference to have some kind of physical proximity to their portfolio in order to work more effectively with management.
• Eighty-six percent of European respondents said that at least some part of their portfolio has significant operations, including manufacturing, research and development, engineering and back office, located outside the country in which their companies are based. These numbers are higher than surveyed VC investors in the United States, although nearly nine in 10 of U.S. respondents this year reported twice as many of their portfolio investments in domestic businesses with significant operations outside of the United States as compared to last year's survey.
• The primary reason European VCs look to expand their investments globally is to take advantage of higher quality deal flow.
• VCs see intellectual property protection as one of its biggest challenges.

The survey is sponsored by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu and the European Private Equity and Venture Capital Association in Europe (EVCA). Results are based on responses from partners at firms in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Asia Pacific. It is presented by the Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu (DTT) Technology, Media and Telecommunications (TMT) Industry Group, made up of the TMT practices of Deloitte's member firms.

Learn more from the complete report, available as a PDF file attachment below or read the press release.