Why U.S. VCs don't want to invest in european startups?

- Education? Where did you learn how to program/run a business (typically this can be counter-acted by evidence of success already)

- Location? Yes, you are visiting California and are "ready to move". But you haven't moved yet. You're still located in Europe - that's the bottom line

- Incorporation? You are not incorporated yet. You may say you are willing to, but they will typically not care much unless they know instantly you have the next Google/Facebook.

- Legal resident status? As you have neither moved to California nor incorporated there is no true indication if you will be allowed to get a visa to work in the U.S

I would suggest taking the plunge if you really need the capital. Get the visa, come to the U.S. set up your HQ out of your shared apartment and incorporate. Then look for VC.

Or just go to European VC firms - there are plenty of them.

Most American VCs don't know all of the legal and cultural intricacies of building a startup in another country, which can both be huge factors.

It's way safer for their investment (and possibly even safer for the startups themselves) if the VCs only invest in startups in environments where they do understand those things.

1) London is as close to NY as SF is. This obviously doesn't apply to California based VCs.

2) London has a well developed legal framework for VC deals. When Accel invested in GetJar it was hugely complicated and took over 6 months to do the paperwork because so few VC deals had ever been done in Lithuania. You have to be spectacularly good for a VC to be willing to do that.

Then do so. Your odds will increase from (probably) less than zero to more than zero.