U.S. tech investor Coatue plans to set up an office in Europe

October 7, 2021: -U.S. hedge fund Coatue Management has planned to set up a new office in Europe as part of an effort to capitalize on the continent’s surging tech industry.

“We currently have offices in New York, San Francisco, and Hong Kong, and we’re excited to an office in Europe at some point shortly,” Coatue Ventures Chairman Dan Rose said to CNBC.

“We believe Europe is emerging as a prime innovation hub in both the public and private markets, as evidenced by the increase in venture capital activity across the continent,” said Rose. She was an executive at Facebook and Amazon.

The New York-headquartered company is one of the most prominent tech investors globally, and it’s been pumping billions of dollars into fast-growing companies that it believes will get bigger.

Notable investments from the firm founded in 1999 by Philippe Laffont and Thomas Laffont include TikTok parent-company ByteDance, Snap, and Spotify.

A source in the venture capital industry told CNBC that Coatue has been struggling to find the right people hiring in Europe, who added that the office is most to be in London.

“There’s a huge scarcity of talent,” the person said, asking to remain anonymous because of the nature of the discussion.

The anticipated arrival of Coatue in Europe comes below a year after renowned Silicon Valley venture capital firm Sequoia opening a new office in London.

The CNBC source said that several other prominent U.S. tech investment firms are looks to hire people on the ground in Europe.