> Investing in an Estonian startup from, say, the Netherlands is near impossible
If anything this would be due to Dutch regulations rather than Estonian ones. So that would be more of a problem for setting up VCs in the EU rather than attracting capital in general, as the same would apply to the rest of the world. Is it easier for a US or Singapore VC to invest in an Japanese startup vs an Estonian startup? As far as I know the answer is a "no", but I'm happy to be proven wrong.
This is because there's no unified capital market.
A texas VC can invest in a startup in Chicago and a startup in Florida can raise money from NY and so on.
> If anything this would be due to Dutch regulations rather than Estonian ones
Yes, because there's no unified capital market. You describe an effect not the cause. With 27 member states, if such regulations are bi-directional, you'd need 351 of such "regulations". If one way, you'd need 702.
In the US with 51 states, there aren't a total of 1,275 "regulation contracts" between all states, there's one, and it's federal.
I don't think you understood my point. This "disadvantage" applies the exact same way to starrups every other non-US country, it's not something specific to the EU so it makes no sense to posit it as an EU thing.
> Is it easier for a US or Singapore VC to invest in an Japanese startup vs an Estonian startup?
This was my main question, and it looks like the answer is indeed no.
Still, the existence of the EU is (to bring peace by) lowering, mostly economic, barriers that traditionally exist between countries.
And the comparison in this threat was "between EU and US" (in europe Thing is hard... in Europe you cannot... etc). When people use "The EU" or "Europe" in this sense, they consider it as a "Single thing". Europe, or the EU, has a great disadvantage for startups over the US. You say that is because Europe is not a "thing" like a country is. I say, that is because Europe seen as a "thing" lacks some critical infrastructure that "the thing called US" has - or even "the thing Brazil" or "China" do have, internally.
If anything this would be due to Dutch regulations rather than Estonian ones. So that would be more of a problem for setting up VCs in the EU rather than attracting capital in general, as the same would apply to the rest of the world. Is it easier for a US or Singapore VC to invest in an Japanese startup vs an Estonian startup? As far as I know the answer is a "no", but I'm happy to be proven wrong.