The Arden Letter

🇺🇸🇪🇺 Capital flows, industrial coordination, and geopolitics across the Atlantic, with lessons from China. Written by @Nicolas_Colin. Weekly.

[The Arden Letter @ArdenLetter]

Latest free edition 🤗

[Nicolas Colin @Nicolas_Colin]

1/ Yesterday I sent a free edition of my newsletter @EuropeanStraits. It features a podcast conversation between @MazzucatoM and @Vitolae, as well as links to essays published recently. Thread 👇

Cc @_TheFamily

https://t.co/PXuRTbrQr7

[Nicolas Colin @Nicolas_Colin]

🇺🇸🇪🇺 I’ve been writing a personal newsletter for nearly 10 years. It was long known as "European Straits", evolved into "Drift Signal", and today it becomes... "The Arden Letter" (@ardenletter) 🤗

Each name marked a shift in my mental model. "European Straits" was essentially about building tech companies in Europe. "Drift Signal" tracked how that model updated as software ('bits') gave way to manufacturing ('atoms'), as China raced ahead, and as macroeconomics and geopolitics became impossible to ignore.

"The Arden Letter" is about what comes next: the case that Western economic and strategic power depends on the Atlantic working as one system.

My starting point is pure macro: Europe exports its surplus savings to inflate American financial assets, while America has exported its manufacturing base to China—leaving the Atlantic economies rich in capital, but short of the physical capacity to build. The missing ingredient here is *coordination*: not only between finance, industry, and government, but also across the Atlantic.

The thesis I’ve arrived at is restoring balance requires "allied scale" (a concept coined by Kurt Campbell and @RushDoshi ): treating the Atlantic as one integrated financial and industrial system, pairing American capital and innovation with European process knowledge, engineering talent, factory depth, and high purchasing power.

From now on, most editions of the newsletter will ask the exact same question: does this move American capital closer to European factories, or further away? Whether the subject is a tariff round, a defense budget, a chip factory, or pension reform, that will be my diagnostic lens.

That's because three convictions have been running through my work for the past few months:

1️⃣ The West has the combined mass to match China, but only if it invests in coordination and converts that mass into scale.

2️⃣ Studying rivals like China is a sign of seriousness, offering practical lessons in engineering statecraft rather than a spectacle or a threat.

3️⃣ Reconnecting American capital with European factories starts with investors, founders, and industrialists choosing to build together.

The name Arden itself comes from two places:

🌳 In Shakespeare’s "As You Like It", the Forest of Arden is where exiles retreat to see clearly before returning.

🏡 It is also the name of the Harriman estate in the Hudson Highlands, where Averell and Pamela Harriman are buried. Averell (1891–1986) oversaw Lend-Lease, directed the Marshall Plan in Europe, and treated capital allocation, production, and diplomacy as a single practice. Pamela (1920–1997), as US Ambassador to France, worked the practical seams of the transatlantic alliance through the 1990s. Their practice is what this letter aims to continue.

The inaugural edition, which explains it all, is free and open to everyone. Link: https://t.co/ufhJzH0eLR

[Nicolas Colin @Nicolas_Colin]

1/ My latest NL: a few notes, quotes & sources on revenue-based financing—and why Europe is lagging behind.

Following a panel discussion yesterday w/ @henrik_grim of @GetCapchase & @joshbell of @dawncapital via @SaaStock (replay will be available soon).

https://t.co/DVgbKXOB3F

[Nicolas Colin @Nicolas_Colin]

1/ Tomorrow I'm participating in a panel with some fantastic speakers together with @SaaStock & @GetCapchase.

We will focus on why European SaaS founders should consider revenue-based financing rather than ever more equity capital.

See you at 4pm CET! 👇
https://t.co/ulgSFGaJca

[Nicolas Colin @Nicolas_Colin]

2/ See what I wrote on the topic a while ago—in @Siftedeu:

https://t.co/bJgfKkRUKG

Cc @henrik_grim @joshbell @VincentTouati @_TheFamily @CapitalCall_ @EuropeanStraits

[Nicolas Colin @Nicolas_Colin]

3/ More from my newsletter @EuropeanStraits—framing the discussion on what I call the 'diffraction' of venture capital:

https://t.co/6tewTCnJgn

[Henrik Grim @henrik_grim]

Looking forward to the event and to learning more about your perspectives on this topic @Nicolas_Colin!

[Nicolas Colin @Nicolas_Colin]

1/ While WhatsApp is down, allow me to share the latest edition of my NL @EuropeanStraits 👇

🎧 Feat. a conversation between @azeem & @Vitolae about the former's (highly recommended) book "Exponential"—click for details and listening to the episode.

https://t.co/qkoGki89JV

[Nicolas Colin @Nicolas_Colin]

By the way, I just unlocked this, from the @EuropeanStraits archive 👇

Cc @Noahpinion

https://t.co/TfOnJkdznx

[Nicolas Colin @Nicolas_Colin]

27/ Some thoughts on capitalism, and the "grip" as the most important concept to be mastered by corporate strategists 👇

(From the @EuropeanStraits archive.)

Cc @AgnesCallard @vgr

https://t.co/fe69RcERlU

[Nicolas Colin @Nicolas_Colin]

26/ More from the @EuropeanStraits archive—previously paywalled:

Not many people pay attention to a business’s financial model, but it reveals a lot about their fate 👇

https://t.co/8oRvzFWYhq

[Nicolas Colin @Nicolas_Colin]

25/ An essay about the "global savings glut" and the startup world 👇

(From the @EuropeanStraits archive—now accessible for all.)

https://t.co/CjXli2hX65

[Nicolas Colin @Nicolas_Colin]

24/ The state of Delaware performs a vital role for US tech companies. Europe lacks an equivalent.

(From the @EuropeanStraits archive—now accessible for all.)

https://t.co/1EtiFE16Rm

[Nicolas Colin @Nicolas_Colin]

23/ Just unlocked this from the @EuropeanStraits archive: My preferred approach to writing memos, and a few links to go further on each item 👇

Cc @FStuerenburg

https://t.co/6ZITnSphVD

[Fred Destin @fdestin]

Breaking the mould: Unai / @maxim_xyz and his team are building a full stack, integrated VR hardware + virtual world social experience — @Nicolas_Colin looks at their unique attempt to kill two birds with one stone.

[Nicolas Colin @Nicolas_Colin]

21/ Just unlocked from @EuropeanStraits: A few thoughts on the rules of strategy and how they apply to hardware (in this case, VR) startups—building on the case of our portfolio company Unai

Cc @maxim_xyz @daedalium @_TheFamily

https://t.co/xSlgLkf07B

[Nicolas Colin @Nicolas_Colin]

By 2100, Africa will have the three largest cities in the world:
• Lagos, in Nigeria 🇳🇬
• Dar es Salaam, in Tanzania 🇹🇿 and
• Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo 🇨🇩

@Kdenkss interviewed by @hofrench 👇 Cc @IanHathaway @Vitolae @MacaesBruno

https://t.co/tbMdNrUSgY

[Nicolas Colin @Nicolas_Colin]

@RoiStartup @_WeMaintain @Siftedeu Indeed, talk about a very large niche!

Here's the complete list of unlocked @EuropeanStraits essays by the way 👇

https://t.co/C0xaYMaXGf

[Nicolas Colin @Nicolas_Colin]

1/ Resuming my weekly newsletter @EuropeanStraits, which would soon shift to a new focus: emergent entrepreneurial ecosystems across the world and startups doing business across borders.

In the meantime, here's today's edition 👇

https://t.co/b9712VtwQH

[Nicolas Colin @Nicolas_Colin]

20/ This one, published in September 2020, was inspired by the whole GameStop saga and the fact that Reddit and Robinhood have become prime platforms for investing in the stock market.

https://t.co/s0HUJD9Ng4

[Nicolas Colin @Nicolas_Colin]

19/ Here's a practical how-to guide for founders confronted with regulatory challenges—published in January 2021, unlocked just now. Cc @sGianella @mschmidbaur @vojtech @martinmignot

https://t.co/QUe4tJChaC