There is a war going on between cities across the globe: Which is the new valley? There are many applicants – the hottest are probably London, New York and Berlin. And this is also the topic of the third Hot Seat Session at NEXT Berlin 2012: Does Berlin have the potential to become the flourishing ecosystem for startups Silicon Valley has been in the last years?

The debaters are <a href=”https://nextconf.eu/person/charlie-odonnell/”>Charlie O’Donnell</a> (Brooklyn Bridge Venture) and <a href=”https://nextconf.eu/person/stefan-glanzer/”>Stefan Glänzer</a> (White Bear Yard). <a href=”https://nextconf.eu/person/mike-butcher-2/”>Mike Butcher</a> (Tech Crunch) served again as moderator of the session.
O’Donnell founded the first VC in New York ‘on the other side of the river’, as he describes it – in Brooklyn. He has been in the industry for a quite some time now and observed the development on the capital market. Stefan Glänzer is an entrepreneur who has been working in Berlin for a long time and now moved to London.

Regarding Berlin their opinions differ – as expected – vastly. But they agree on the following: You shouldn’t emphasise the decision between being here or there. Rather, it’s important to “build bridges between Berlin, London and New York,” O’Donnell explained. “There is no reason why your capital can’t come from one place and your expertise from another. There should be less borders,” he concluded.