This month, we sat down with Kal Deutsch, Managing Partner at Silicon Valley in Your Pocket and Batchery, two leading startup accelerators based in the San Francisco Bay Area. 

Kal was part of the jury at the Startup World Cup Austria 2025 Grand Finale, bringing with him decades of experience from the world’s most influential tech hub. Having supported over 3.000 startups in more than 40 countries and served as a mentor, investor and accelerator leader, Kal shares his insights on U.S. market expansion, the future of virtual accelerators, and the growing impact of AI on early-stage venture building. His unique blend of European perspective and Silicon Valley pragmatism makes for great insights on how to bridge ecosystems and build globally scalable companies.

In this interview, Kal speaks about:

• How global founders can approach U.S. expansion amid growing economic volatility
  
• What Europe can learn from — and do differently than — Silicon Valley
  
• Why virtual accelerators and AI-powered startups are changing the founder-investor dynamic
• What Austrian founders are doing right — and how to go even further

Interview

1. With renewed trade tensions and U.S. tariffs making headlines, how do you see these developments impacting transatlantic startup collaboration and investment?

Obviously, any such hindrance to free trade presents challenges to both sides of any trade, no matter where they are in the world. But the optimistic side of me tells me that you cannot hold innovation back. Efficient markets find workarounds. California, the fourth largest global economy, has strongly indicated that it is still open for business and continues to work to diminish those detrimental impacts. And lastly, many capital-efficient technology companies tend to have good operating margins, which should still allow a profitable US market entry. Something that should only get better with the rectification of these policies.

2. What should European founders be aware of when thinking about U.S. expansion in this climate?

Without sounding glib, keep looking at the U.S. market if it makes economic sense, and avoid it if it doesn’t. On occasion, we have advised against U.S. market entry strategies to founders when we did not see a path to success. For example, we helped a European company do a Silicon Valley competitive analysis for their industry. They found that there were 32 competitors doing the same thing. Instead, they chose to incorporate in the U.K. (pre-Brexit). They subsequently participated in two different notable European accelerator programs, and found success that they would not have found in the U.S. So, think globally when strategically pursuing the best markets. 

Founders should remind themselves that it is a global marketplace. The United States economy at $28 trillion is an important part of that global marketplace, but only 24% of the $115 trillion global marketplace. Founders should consider the global potential of their startup from the get-go. A modern startup might have its headquarters in Vienna, sales office in the United States, back-office in Sofia, developers in Sarajevo, accounting in Mexico City, and customer service in Manila. A broad global footprint allows even early-stage companies to optimize the operations, while keeping costs under control and strongly positioning them for a strong and sustainable global expansion.

3. Silicon Valley is often praised for its risk culture and investor-founder dynamics. What cultural or structural barriers do you still see in Europe? What are countries like Austria doing well in comparison?

I am a bit of a contrarian when it comes to classic Silicon Valley risk. The traditional venture capital market often focuses on creating Unicorn start-ups at the expense of a high failure rate among portfolio companies. That model is not necessarily optimal for startup founders. In fact, it is not optimal for investors, as historical venture returns have tended to be below those of Wall Street. Given my European upbringing in the United States, I appreciate some aspects of the conservative risk aversion that you might see in European investors and I think there are opportunities to find a healthy middle ground by being more analytical and deliberative during the early-stage startup phases. We strongly encourage using processes like Steve Blank’s Customer Development methodology to iteratively validate the foundations of product/market fit before going too deep into development and launch. 

Given the excellent academic and scientific foundations in Austria, there are excellent opportunities for founders to derisk their ventures by leveraging these methods.

4. You’ve supported startups remotely across continents. In smaller markets like Austria. What’s your take on the role of virtual accelerators and remote investor relationships? Are they here to stay?

We started our company because we wanted to export the Silicon Valley mindset and best practices to the world. Entrepreneurism is the 21st century economic catalyst that can empower problem-solving and economic prosperity. We got to experience first-hand the power of fostering student-entrepreneurs at U.C. Berkeley. In-person coaching and mentoring are always best, but the second-best opportunity would always be to deliver the tools, methods, mindset and coaching through digital means. 

We genuinely feel that this mission is bigger than us, so we welcome collaboration and even train-the-trainer programs, so that we can collectively build more and bigger innovation ecosystems around the world. Indeed, I believe the virtual models are here to stay. We are collaborating with multiple organizations to design an international network of interconnected AI hubs. Our vision is knowledge and best practices sharing to foster the development of the 21st century economic engine the world needs.

5. What current trends in the U.S. startup and VC scene do you think European founders and investors should be paying more attention to – whether it’s AI, climate-focused funds, or shifting LP dynamics?

There is a seismic shift underway, thanks to the Lean AI movement – the deployment of AI in early-stage startups in the quest for foundational and sustainable operational efficiencies. We consider it the great enabler for specific verticals that need innovation, like climate tech. With the proper deployment of different technological stacks, founders (even solopreneurs) can now streamline and accelerate their paths to market, including key milestones ranging from customer discovery to MVP development to monetization pilots. The risk, however, is that founders’ competitors are afforded those same opportunities, which is why we developed our Batchery Pragmatic AI program, so that founders can define and develop longer-term sustainable advantages. 

We’re already witnessing some remarkable outcomes, as startups are demonstrating unprecedented revenue per employee statistics; better even than the original tech wave in Silicon Valley, sometimes up to $3.7MM per employee. We anticipate that, as a result, the relationship with investors may change, as those companies that can achieve these efficiencies should be able to negotiate more favorable terms. In fact, some founders may even avoid traditional financing in favor of revenue-growth based financing. 

All-in-all, it is a great time to be a founder!