Breakfast with Butcher in Berlin – Come meet TechCrunch Europe

Ever since my first TechCrunch meetup in Berlin in 2008 and 2009 I’ve been keeping a watchful eye on this city as I travelled around Europe covering startups and explaining the scene to anyone who would listen. But since then it’s quite clear that a couple of things have happened. The whole European scene has improved massively. There are now startup events, activity and fundraising across Europe in an ongoing manner. Sure, it’s not Silicon Valley (I’m sorry, but who cares?) – in fact we should really be comparing ourselves to our own progress, not to other places. And the news is good. The ‘Valley Virus’ has spread, and Europe is now starting to boast some amazing startups.

But something else has happened too: big clusters. And the two biggest clusters right now are London (which we are pretty adept at covering) and Berlin. Yes, Paris remains significant, but it’s a close third behind those cities (hey, shoot me, it’s just my opinion). So to that end – and I’m glad Paul and Sarah agree with me – I plan to increase coverage of the Berlin/German startup scene.

I’ll be doing a couple of things to do that. I’ll be visiting more frequently (so if anyone has a spare apartment lying around let me know!) I’m also currently trying to convince Berlin Partners to bring us over more frequently than AOL’s expenses account will allow…

But to kick things off slowly I’m holding two breakfasts. This Wednesday (1st June) from 8am to 10am and Thursday 2nd June form 9am to 10am at St Oberholz, I’d love to meet any startups who want to come and swap business cards over coffee. If you can’t make those then fear not – we have other plans…

After that I’ll try to divide my time between the two cities (in between the rest of Europe, of course) for the next few months, to get under the skin of what is going on here.

See to you there.