Come Home, Little Startups

European investors have long shunned homegrown technology startups. So the Eurotech crowd crossed the Atlantic and went to the NASDAQ stock market to raise cash, much as a flock of Israeli startups has done. Now, European bourses are fighting back. Desperate to stanch the exodus of leading-edge companies, Europeans are setting up new markets where they can raise cash at home.

The latest entry: France's Nouveau Marche, which opened on Feb. 14 after a year on the drawing board. The Nouveau Marche will be followed in September by EASDAQ, a European version of NASDAQ owned by European and American investment banks and NASDAQ itself. Germany, Belgium, and Italy are also planning markets. London has one: the Alternative Investment Market (AIM), with 127 companies (table), most of them from other exchanges.