The Time For Talk About European Tech is Over, Now is Time For Action

Europe can become a global technology powerhouse by retaining scaleups, deploying capital faster and turning successful companies into an ecosystem of founders, talent and strategic capabilities.

• Over the last decade, Europe transferred more than €1.2tn in value mainly to the U.S. by selling technology companies too early; the article imagines that by 2035 Europe will host trillion-euro technology companies that are headquartered, listed and hiring locally.
• The technology flywheel is beginning to form around companies such as Spotify and Mistral, while ASML is presented as proof that Europe can build companies on which the world depends across areas including AI, quantum, space, biotech and defence.
• Europe’s main shortfall is growth capital deployed with sufficient speed, scale and conviction, particularly from Series B to pre-IPO; the Scaleup Europe Fund targets more than €5bn and supports milestones such as first factories, clinical programmes and next-generation chips.
• Since EQT received the mandate in May, it has screened more than 1,000 companies, met over 250, announced seven investments in one month and invested €1bn, including in ICEYE in August and Tandem Health in September.
• The fund is intended to catalyse more than financing through corporate partnerships, offtake agreements, talent networks and closer public-private cooperation, while policymakers are urged to pursue an EU-INC and a savings and investment union.

Takeaway: The opportunity is to anchor Europe’s technology scaleups with European capital and supporting institutions, but the 2035 outcome is hypothetical and depends on coordinated action by investors, companies and policymakers.