This was the main question of the VC panel. I especially liked Martin Varsavsky‘s and Morten Lund‘s remarks. Both think that big projects which are backed by debt will be in trouble, while small ones financed with equity will not suffer. The only but is that valuations will be affected, so it could not be the best moment to sell your startup.

Lund was very honest. He admitted to love recessions: “It is good to build things with energy. And now you can do anything with a portable. Besides, for angel investors it is the best moment to buy, as things get cheaper”. On the other hand, Varsavsky declared himself to be happier as an investor than as an entrepreneur. Of course, he was mentioning the fact that he is going to earn a lot of money out of his small stake in Eolia, a renewable energies company based in Spain with plans to do an IPO this year.

As of the possibility that advertisers cut their budgets, they all think that is going to affect traditional media (mainly, newspapers). They are not really measuring very well the ROI and a crisis could trigger big cuts in money spent on this type of media. On the opposite, online advertising should not suffer as it has good foundations and advertisers are gradually realizing that it has many advantages when compared with offline one.