Europe, it's time to put your money where your mouth is

After ten years of ecosystem building, European tech must now prove its capacity and commitment to execute at scale.

The continent stands at an inflection point, with entrepreneurs building globally competitive companies in critical and fast-growing industries. Across AI, quantum computing, life and health sciences, robotics, and energy, Europe has the opportunity to build and scale critical businesses, essential to Europe’s economic resilience and technological sovereignty.

Collaboration is key to unlocking this future.

Improving access to capital through coordinated action is now central to Europe’s ability to compete for global leadership in innovation. Initiatives such as Build in Europe, Project Europe, the European Commission’s renewed EU-Inc agenda, and EU-backed vehicles like the ScaleUp Europe Fund signal growing alignment across founders, policymakers, and capital providers.

Finding common ground and forming partnerships is essential to bridging Europe’s existing paradox: that world-class science, innovation, and talent are hindered by a lack of scale capital. As venture capitalists, we must help build the structural conditions that allow European companies to scale globally. This moment demands cooperation among European investors willing to pool their expertise, capital, and conviction across markets, stages, and sectors to unify a fragmented ecosystem.

Europe is home to some of the world’s most promising technical talent and scientific research, yet we consistently underinvest in scaling the outcomes, particularly in R&D-heavy sectors like AI, defense, and deep tech. Europe invests up to 3x less per capita in late-stage VC than the US and allocates a tiny amount of pension funding to startups.

The well-publicized growth capital gap must be addressed for Europe to succeed. Funding the future at scale can only be achieved through tackling regulatory fragmentation, talent access gaps, and fundamentally changing how long-term institutional capital is allocated to innovation.

Leading US venture platforms combine scale, integrated capital, and long-term institutional backing, supported by deep public markets and a mature base of pension and endowment capital, to support companies from inception to global expansion. Their ability to deploy large, conviction-led rounds at critical stages reinforces a powerful cycle of ambition, talent, and capital. Europe doesn't need to replicate the US model, but it must learn from what works: building larger pan-European platforms, aligning policy and private capital, and convincing long-term institutions that Europe is ready for capital at scale.

Particularly in capital-intensive and long-cycle innovation areas like deep tech, the need for European growth funding has never been more pronounced. Unlike later-stage financial capital, venture and growth investors are built to support ambition, uncertainty, and rapid technological change. Too often, Europe’s most promising companies face a binary choice: slow down or raise large late-stage rounds from non-European capital, with an inevitable shift in strategic gravity.

As venture capital investors, operational expertise meets risk appetite for innovation. Beyond balance sheets, European VC is uniquely positioned to identify and scale with the continent’s most ambitious founders.

According to Atomico’s State of European Tech Report, the number of startups in Europe has increased fivefold since 2015. Recent figures show that European venture investments exceeded $85 billion across more than 8,600 deals in 2025, one of the strongest years on record.

Momentum across sectors and geographies suggests a window for decisive action. Alongside the growth in the number of startups, the venture capital ecosystem is also thriving with new, emerging managers competing with larger and more storied institutions, increasing the value proposition for founders. This geographic expansion is visible across Central and Eastern Europe, Southern Europe, and the Nordics — regions rich in talent but historically less served by venture capital.

Addressing the continent’s digital and capital divide is now central to the European Commission’s policy agenda. It must also be central to investment strategy: looking beyond traditional hubs, backing scale-ups from less capital-dense ecosystems, and working through strong local partners. This demands a genuinely pan-European approach, reducing fragmentation, strengthening cross-border platforms, and building alliances across capital and industry. Sovereignty, in this context, is achieved through coordination and scale.

Speaking of sovereignty, many of Europe’s most promising technologies are inherently dual-use. Quantum computing, robotics, space technologies, and advanced semiconductors sit at the intersection of civilian innovation and defence, resilience, and security. These sectors demand long time horizons, substantial capital, and alignment with public policy frameworks. Europe-based growth capital can better support multi-year R&D and industrialization cycles, align investment strategies with EU defence and security priorities, and act as a stable, long-term partner for companies operating in sensitive technological domains. Anchoring these investments in Europe helps ensure that strategic technologies remain aligned with European interests over time, without compromising commercial ambition.

Europe has the talent, research, and capital, but it currently lacks alignment between countries, institutions, and ambition. What it needs is the financial infrastructure to translate innovation into leadership, and leadership into sovereignty. For investors, this represents a compelling opportunity: deep innovation, attractive relative valuations, and improving exit pathways as pan-European capital scales.

To succeed, these efforts must continue to deepen pan-European coordination, reduce structural fragmentation, and strengthen alliances among investors willing to back Europe’s next generation of global champions. The opportunity and ambition are there; it is now crucial to scale it up.

By:

François Robinet, Managing Partner at AVP
Olivier Tonneau, Founder and Partner at Quantonation
Andreas Schwarzenbrunner, General Partner at Speedinvest