Not familiar with Martin Varsavsky – Fon; but I am familiar with Fon and I'm told that Martin Varsavsky invested in many, many startups.  Martin calls the US Dollar the "New Peso", and I can testify personally, of the weakness of the dollar against the Euro (it's awful).

Martin Varsavsky thinks that Start-ups don't need to locate in Silicon Valley - and that Europe has the richest "poor" people in the world.  For example, Europe takes care of it's poor while in the United States - it's pathetic (that's Martin's words, not mine).

Martin Varsavsky predicts there will be a new wave of acquisitions, partially due to the new strength of the Euro.  Martin Varsavsky also teaches a class on investing - he teaches that you can build businesses in Europe, talked about is success with Fon in Spain (now it's the largest WiFi network in the world).   He said, though, that it's hard to get people in Europe to invest in an idea, especially if it sounds crazy, whereas American's are much more open minded.  

So it sounds like a European Start up can be successful in Europe, but you may need to go to America to get the funding.

In Europe, taxation policies make it much easier to take risks for startups, plus the education and great business school (Entrepreneur); however, in Europe, the prevailing, traditional opinion of an Entrepreneur is as a thief (and that perception is changing for the better and Entrepreneurs are becoming more respected).

Europe has a cultural diversity, with 22 different languages, and bi-lingual education is a good thing, according to Varsavsky, and many investments in Europe are in Real Estate.   Labor laws are disliked in Europe but he prefers Universal Health Care that we have in Europe.