I can only say that other financing players in Europe are starting to wake up. I've already seen two European startups making serious money go on to raise considerable capital via debt financing, one via a bank syndicate and the other via an institutional investor. Terms are less strict on management, capital cost is a fraction of VC equity, no equity/board seats are given away, avoiding the abusive-VC free ride. On the other hand, debt-finance does require considerable financial discipline (which can be good and bad). As long as you have a clear idea of how that capital is going to be used and how much cash is going to come back to the business, startups with user traction and free cashflow should go the debt financing road.