Latest / Deep Tech Germany – AI, Robotics & Frontier Innovation by Startuprad.io™ / ICEYE, Mistral and Europe’s Deep Tech Scale-Up Test | E785
Transcript
- 0:00Europe has a scale-up fund with a €5 billion
- 0:04target. The European Commission has put in €1
- 0:07billion, and that is the only commitment we could find
- 0:11disclosed by name. Europe has a new company for
- 0:14startups. It is still a proposal, and the European Parliament
- 0:18has not yet voted on it. Europe has a new
- 0:22rulebook for public buyers. The target for finishing the
- 0:25negotiations is end
- 0:31Europe is adding growth capital faster than it is removing
- 0:35the barriers to scaling. The question for
- 0:382031 is whether its best companies
- 0:42can grow globally without having to move their strategic
- 0:46center out of Europe.
- 0:58This is Startuprad.io, your startup podcast and YouTube
- 1:01channel on startups and venture capital in Europe with focus on
- 1:05Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Hello and welcome everybody, my name
- 1:09is Joe. I am coming to you from Frankfurt am Main, Germany, and
- 1:13this is part number 8 of our series, The European
- 1:16Scale-Up Question or The European Scale-Up Gap. For
- 1:207 episodes, we diagnosed the problem Today we
- 1:24ask what would actually have to change between, say,
- 1:282027— we're very close to it— and 2031 for
- 1:31Europe to produce more globally scaled technology companies.
- 1:35And we write down how we will check.
- 1:39It's 2 years after the Draghi report. The Joint European
- 1:43Disruptive Initiative tracked the follow-through. According to
- 1:46its Draghi Tracker, about a quarter the recommendations
- 1:51have been implemented. Europe does measure its startup
- 1:54conditions. The European Commission publishes a Startup and
- 1:57Scale-Up Scoreboard with 36
- 2:01indicators comparing member states. What nobody
- 2:04tracks in public is the outcome for the same companies
- 2:08over time— which ones scaled, which ones moved,
- 2:12and which ones failed. This is the gap.
- 2:16This episode tries to fill. So today I
- 2:19separate 3 things: policy announcement— what
- 2:23governments and institutions say they will do—
- 2:26infrastructure changes— what actually alters the
- 2:30conditions under which companies scale—
- 2:33and observable outcomes— what founders, investors, and
- 2:37customers then do differently. Most of the
- 2:41debate is about the first This episode is more about the
- 2:45third. So here's my thesis in one breath:
- 2:50Europe is adding growth capital faster than it's removing
- 2:54some of the barriers to scale. This
- 2:57creates a risk— companies may still need to
- 3:01relocate to grow. Our scorecard will
- 3:04test whether they can scale globally
- 3:08while keeping their strategic center in Europe, and it will
- 3:12reward the cases that prove us wrong. I
- 3:15call the timing mismatch the sequencing gap. A new
- 3:19program is an input. A company scaling differently
- 3:23is an outcome. This episode rates Europe on outcomes.
- 3:28Where we are in the argument: Part 1 defines the scale-up gap
- 3:32in our overall series. I mean, Part 2 called
- 3:35fragmentation a hidden growth tax. Part 3 of our
- 3:40scale-up series showed a capital architecture
- 3:43breaks between the rounds. Part 4
- 3:47was demand that does not turn into deployment.
- 3:51Part 5 was talent that does not
- 3:55recycle. Part 6 introduced capital
- 3:58gravity, and Part 7 showed that Europe's
- 4:01strongest hubs do not add up to one market.
- 4:06In Parts 6 and 7, we We put a forecast on record.
- 4:10The EU Inc. will not apply before January 1st,
- 4:152028, at 75% confidence. That
- 4:18forecast stays still on record and we'll score it on
- 4:22that date. Well, maybe a few days later because,
- 4:26you know, New Year's. Anyway, today I add a second
- 4:30stricter one. Defining scale
- 4:33infrastructure. First, a definition, because we will use
- 4:37this from now on. Scale infrastructure
- 4:42is the set of financial, commercial, institutional,
- 4:46and human systems that lets a company grow from
- 4:49product-market fit into global leader without rebuilding
- 4:53its operating environment every time it grows.
- 4:57Startup Radio's way to measure it is the the
- 5:00Scale Infrastructure Scorecard. It has
- 5:055 tests, and each test asks about companies'
- 5:08behavior, not government announcements.
- 5:13Number 1, capital. Can a company raise its
- 5:16next growth round without having to
- 5:20move its parent company? The market. Can they
- 5:23expand into another European country
- 5:27as a domestic decision. Demand—
- 5:31can it win repeat European customers,
- 5:36not just pilots? People—
- 5:40do its operators come back as founders and
- 5:43angels? Retention— as it grows,
- 5:48do its parent company, its leadership, and its listing
- 5:52stay in Europe? And here is how we keep
- 5:56it honest. We do not pick like the best 50
- 5:59companies in 2031. That would,
- 6:04uh, kind of select the answer. We fix the group now.
- 6:08Our cohort is every company headquartered in Europe that
- 6:11announced funding of €100 million or more
- 6:15in calendar year 2026. We freeze that list
- 6:19at the end of January 2027. And publish it. Every
- 6:23company stays in the cohort, including the ones that
- 6:27fail, get acquired, or relocate. Each year
- 6:31we score every company on the 5 tests and we
- 6:35publish results, including the cases that contradict
- 6:38us. Before I make my case,
- 6:42the strongest opposing argument, it goes something like this:
- 6:46capital buys time. Europe's reforms are slow, so the
- 6:50best thing a growth fund can do is keep good companies
- 6:54funded until the rules catch up.
- 6:57And international investors are not a threat. A strategic
- 7:01investor can bring customers and supply chain. An American
- 7:05fund can bring expertise and access to the largest market in the world.
- 7:09A company can take that money, list in New York, hire
- 7:13commercial team in California, and still be a European
- 7:16company in every way that matters— research,
- 7:20engineering, leadership, tax. I think that argument
- 7:24is largely right, and I want to say so clearly.
- 7:28Foreign capital can help European companies
- 7:32become global leaders. So the risk I'm
- 7:36casting is narrower. The failure is not
- 7:39foreign money, as I said before. The failure is a
- 7:43company having to relocate its strategic center in
- 7:47order to get the money, the customers, or the listing it needs.
- 7:51The European Central Bank names that risk. It says
- 7:55foreign investors often provide the additional funding European
- 7:59scale-ups need and that they may increase the
- 8:02likelihood of headquarters relocating. May
- 8:06is the important word. Whether it happens is exactly
- 8:10what our scorecard measures. Test number 1,
- 8:14capital. Can Europe finance its winners?
- 8:18What happened? The Scale-Up Europe Fund targets about €5
- 8:22billion. The European Commission committed €1 billion.
- 8:26EQT manages it. It invests in rounds of
- 8:30€100 million and above. In August, it
- 8:33co-led ICEYE's €1 billion financing round,
- 8:38which includes €450 million of
- 8:41primary Series F capital and a valuation
- 8:45above €10 billion. In September, Samsung
- 8:49Electronics and the Scale-Up Fund Europe co-led Mistral
- 8:52AI's €3 billion Series D.
- 8:57On the 10th of July, the EIB Group announced the
- 9:00European Tech Champion Initiative 2.0. With a
- 9:04fundraising target of up to €15
- 9:08billion. And on the 22nd of September, the
- 9:12Commission and the EIB launched an Institutional Investor
- 9:15Pact with 13 institutions saying they intend
- 9:19to invest in Germany. KfW reported that
- 9:23€2.64 billion had been invested under the
- 9:27WIN initiative at the end of 2025 against a goal
- 9:31of €12 billion by 2030. KfW counts
- 9:34investment through funds, funds of funds, direct investments,
- 9:38and debt such as venture debt. There is
- 9:42no published year-by-year schedule, so that figure tells us
- 9:46progress, not whether the WIN initiative is on
- 9:50pace. Why it matters structurally.
- 9:53There are 3 different numbers in every headline about the European Growth
- 9:57Capital: a target, is what a program aims
- 10:01for. A commitment is money promised, and
- 10:04deployment is money in a company. On the
- 10:08Scale-Up Europe fund, we searched on November 3rd the
- 10:12EIC fund page, EQT's announcement, the EIB,
- 10:16the track price. We found no published total of
- 10:19commitments beyond the Commission's €1 billion.
- 10:24That is a disclosure gap. It is not proof that the money is
- 10:28missing, but a public fund should publish its closing
- 10:31figure, and we will report if it ever does so.
- 10:36The capital test is one question: can a European company raise
- 10:39its next growth round at €100 million plus
- 10:43without investors requiring it to move its parent
- 10:47company out of Europe? Not one big round— round
- 10:50after round until the answer My answer is routinely yes.
- 10:55Europe has growth funds, but it does not yet have
- 10:59capital continuity. What would change my mind?
- 11:03If, say, by 2028, most cohort companies
- 11:07that raise again do so with a European lead or
- 11:10co-lead and without changing their parent company,
- 11:14the capital test is passing. Whether the headline
- 11:19Fund sizes say. If instead
- 11:22redomiciliation clauses— so moving headquarters
- 11:27clauses— start appearing in term sheets as a condition of the next
- 11:30round, the risk is real. What I will
- 11:34measure for every company in 2026 cohort,
- 11:38each later round, who led it and whether
- 11:42the parent company stays where it is. Test
- 11:46number 2, market. Can Europe behave like a home
- 11:49market? What happened? On the
- 11:5318th of March 2026, the Commission
- 11:56proposed EU Inc., the so-called
- 12:0028th regime, as a regulation.
- 12:04Online registration within 48 hours
- 12:07at a maximum cost of €100, with no minimum capital
- 12:12and a European employee stock option rule that defers
- 12:15taxes until shares are sold. It does
- 12:19not include a pan-European corporate tax regime.
- 12:23On the 23rd of October, the member states agreed to the
- 12:26Council's negotiation position. Registration in 2 days
- 12:30for 100 euros survives. Board-level employee participation
- 12:34follows the rule of the country where the company has its registered office. The Council
- 12:38limits the stock option tax treatment to companies
- 12:43up to 750 employees and €150 million in
- 12:46turnover, and it sets a 21-month
- 12:50implementation period after the regulation enters into force.
- 12:55The European Parliament had not adopted its position
- 12:58by late October. Reports say the Legal Affairs
- 13:02Committee vote was postponed twice in October
- 13:06over employee participation. Negotiations with the Council
- 13:10cannot start until Parliament has voted.
- 13:14Why it matters structurally: EU Inc. fixes the
- 13:18first day of company's life. Much of the cost of
- 13:22fragmentation comes later: employment law,
- 13:25payroll, local tax, sector licenses. Those
- 13:29stay national. On the stock options, the Council's limit
- 13:33could exclude larger scale-ups. What happens to options
- 13:37granted before company crosses that line is not
- 13:41yet clear, and that needs to be clarified before
- 13:44founders can plan around it. Here's
- 13:48my own arithmetic on the timeline, and it is
- 13:51an estimate, of course, not a fact. If
- 13:55Parliament votes in the coming weeks, negotiations with the
- 13:59Council run into 2027. After the
- 14:02agreement comes formal adoption, publication, and entry into
- 14:06force. Add the Council's 21 months and the
- 14:10first registration lands somewhere in
- 14:132029. That is where my forecasts
- 14:17later in this episode comes from. What people
- 14:20get wrong: they treat EU Inc. as the market
- 14:24test. It is the entry ticket. Market
- 14:27test is whether a company in Munich can hire in Lisbon,
- 14:31sell to Warsaw, and grant equity in Vienna
- 14:35without rebuilding its legal setup each single time.
- 14:39Before the demand test, which is whether evidence is more encouraging
- 14:43than people think, a quick word from our partners.
- 14:52Startuprad.io helps selected partners reach founders, investors, and operators across
- 14:56Europe, especially Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. If you want
- 14:59to build credibility with these decision-makers, explore a partnership
- 15:03at startuprad.io/become-a-partner.
- 15:08And stay with me because after the demand test, I will give you a
- 15:11forecast you can hold me to.
- 15:16Test number 3, demand. Will you buy what it builds?
- 15:20And here I want to start with a
- 15:23counterexample to my own series. Yes, I know.
- 15:27In part 4, we called it demand without deployment. Public
- 15:31money funds the supply of innovation, but the public buyer
- 15:35does not become the customer. Now look at ICEYE.
- 15:38According to EQT's announcement,
- 15:42ICEYE already delivers sovereign satellite systems
- 15:46for 7 European governments, and it's delivered an operational
- 15:49capability to Poland less than 12 months after the
- 15:53contract was signed. ICEYE shows that European
- 15:57reference demand can work. A
- 16:00European company won European governments as customers and
- 16:04delivered it under a year. The question for
- 16:082031 is not whether this is possible, it
- 16:11is whether it becomes routine across sectors
- 16:15for companies that are not already leaders.
- 16:19Count the repeat contracts, not the pilots. A
- 16:23pilot tells you a buyer is curious. A repeat contract
- 16:26tells you a buyer depends on you.
- 16:31What happened to the rules? On
- 16:35the 9th of September 2026, the Commission proposed the
- 16:38Public Procurement Act, one directly
- 16:42applicable regulation instead of 3 directives:
- 16:47a European preference in awarding contracts,
- 16:51simplified procurements that the Commission says will
- 16:54save public buyers time, and a minimum 30%
- 16:58weight for quality criteria, innovation among them,
- 17:02subject to the comply or explain rule. The political
- 17:06target is to conclude negotiations by the end of
- 17:092027. So why does this matter
- 17:13structurally? The proposal does contain machinery
- 17:17meant to make procurement faster and reward
- 17:20quality. What is unproven is whether it will.
- 17:25Comply or explain lets a buyer opt out with a
- 17:29reason. Simpler procedures save time on paper.
- 17:32The test is the time from tender to deployment in
- 17:36practice. What I will measure:
- 17:40for the cohort, announced European public or industrial
- 17:44contracts and how many are repeat or framework
- 17:47contracts. At the system level, time from tender
- 17:51to operational deployment where buyers publish it.
- 17:55Test number 4, people and experience compound.
- 18:00In part 5 of the series that We argued
- 18:04that Europe produces talent, but scaling experience
- 18:08does not recycle fast enough, meaning
- 18:12employees who once scaled go back into companies
- 18:16that are scaling. The operator who took a company from
- 18:20100 to 1,000 people should become the angel,
- 18:24the founder, or the board member of the next companies.
- 18:272 signals matter. First, employee ownership.
- 18:31Equity that employees build is what can turn
- 18:35operators into angels, which is why the scope
- 18:38of the EU stock option rule matters. Second, where
- 18:42founders and operators base themselves. Atomicos'
- 18:462025 Founder Survey found that 15% of
- 18:50surveyed founders had moved their headquarters abroad,
- 18:54and 57% of those had moved to the United States.
- 18:59What people are getting wrong here— they count startups founded
- 19:03and visas issued. Those are inputs. The
- 19:06outcome is experienced people building the next company
- 19:10in Europe. What it will measure for the cohort:
- 19:14new companies founded by alumni of cohort
- 19:17companies and where those new companies are based. The
- 19:21baseline goes into the first annual scorecard in November
- 19:242027. Test number 5, retention. Do
- 19:28the winners stay? This is capital gravity
- 19:32turned into a scorecard line, and I want to be precise about it.
- 19:36Some good news first. EY reports that European IPO
- 19:40numbers rose 35% and proceeds
- 19:4328% in the first 3 quarters of 2026
- 19:47compared with the previous year. On the 8th of
- 19:51October, the council agreed a position agreed-to position
- 19:55that would move supervision of largest trading venues
- 19:59and post-trade infrastructure to the European Securities
- 20:03Regulator, ESMA. Now the position—
- 20:08we score retention as 4 separate indicators,
- 20:12not simply one. Where's the parent company incorporated?
- 20:16Where does the chief executive work? Where is senior
- 20:20commercial leadership based? And where is the company listed
- 20:24or expected to list? A US listing
- 20:28alone is not a failure. A US sales team
- 20:31alone is not a failure. What we look for is the
- 20:35pattern— several of those moving out of Europe
- 20:39while the engineering stays. And remember the definition: a parent
- 20:43company in Zurich or London counts as European in our
- 20:47scorecard. The sequencing gap.
- 20:51Now put the 5 tests on a timeline.
- 20:55Capital arriving now. The Scaleup Europe Fund has
- 20:58been investing since August 2026.
- 21:02ETCI 2.0 is fundraising.
- 21:06The market arrives later. EU Inc. is not
- 21:09law. Parliament has not voted and the Council's
- 21:13text gives member states 21 months
- 21:17after the entry into force. Procurement reforms arrive
- 21:21later still. Agreement is targeted for the end of
- 21:252027, and then it has to be applied.
- 21:29So many companies financed by Europe's new growth money will scale
- 21:33for some years under today's rule. Some
- 21:37will do it very well, as ICEYE shows. The
- 21:41risk is that others will need to move their
- 21:44strategic center to get the next round— the customers or
- 21:48the listing. That is the sequencing gap. It is a
- 21:52risk to test, not a verdict.
- 21:563 scenarios for 2031.
- 22:00Scenario number 1: Sequence Europe. EU Inc.
- 22:04is agreed in '27. and becomes usable
- 22:08in '29 with employee equity that still works for
- 22:12larger companies. The procurement act is agreed and buyers
- 22:15start running repeat contracts with young companies.
- 22:19The growth funds reach their targets and keep investing through a
- 22:23downturn. In that world, most cohort companies
- 22:27pass most tests. Another
- 22:30scenario, scenario number 2. Capital First Europe, the funds
- 22:34deploy, but market rules stays national in practice.
- 22:38Europe gets more large rounds, and a meaningful share of
- 22:42cohort companies move their parent company or leadership abroad to
- 22:46reach the next stage. The capital test improves, the
- 22:49retention test does not. And on today's legislative
- 22:53calendar, I think this scenario deserves some
- 22:57serious weight. Scenario number 3,
- 23:01stall. A downturn arrives before the instruments
- 23:05are completed. Institutional investors pull back,
- 23:08targets slip, and legislative piles lose
- 23:12priority. What separates scenario
- 23:161 from number 2 is timing. The decision
- 23:19about where a parent company sits often comes around the later
- 23:23growth rounds or before an IPO. For companies
- 23:27raising large rounds in '27 or '26,
- 23:31that is roughly '28 to 2030. The
- 23:35window is real and is narrow.
- 23:40What would prove us wrong? Every thesis
- 23:43in this series should be falsifiable. So
- 23:47here's what would prove This one wrong.
- 23:52First, most cohort companies pass retention tests
- 23:56under today's rules. Before EU Inc. and
- 23:59procurement reforms apply, then the sequencing gap was
- 24:03not binding. Capital was enough, and I will say so
- 24:07on the show. Second, if the
- 24:10cohort shows relocations even after
- 24:14reforms are in place, then the problem was never the order of
- 24:18the instruments. It was something deeper,
- 24:21like market size or valuation, and the next part of this
- 24:25series will have to go there. Third, if
- 24:29European public and industrial buyers turn more cohort
- 24:32companies into repeat customers, as ICEYE
- 24:36shows is possible, the demand test passes and
- 24:39part 4 of this series Needs an update.
- 24:43That would be actually a good problem to have.
- 24:49Milestones we'll be watching, '27 to 2031.
- 24:54The milestones I will track, in order: next
- 24:58European Parliament's vote on EU Inc. Until that
- 25:02happens, nothing can be negotiated. January
- 25:05'27, we freeze and publish the 2026 cohort.
- 25:10In '27, Whatever the scale-up your
- 25:13fund publishes as a closing figure and whether
- 25:16ETCI 2.0 confirms the
- 25:20size of its first closing. By the end of
- 25:23'27? Whether the Public Procurement Act and the
- 25:27Savings and Investment Union supervision package are
- 25:30agreed, as the political targets say. The
- 25:34Commission is also due to report on its startup and scale-up
- 25:37strategy By the end of '27. November
- 25:41'27, 12 months out, the first annual
- 25:44scorecard for the cohort, then every November until
- 25:482031. Forecast.
- 25:51Here's my forecast on record. No company will be able to
- 25:55register as an EU Inc. anywhere in
- 25:59the European Union before January 1st,
- 26:022029. My confidence is 70%.
- 26:07The reason is simply the calendar. As of
- 26:10late October 26th, the European Parliament had
- 26:14not adopted its position, and negotiations with the
- 26:18member states cannot start until it does.
- 26:22This sits next to our earlier forecast,
- 26:26not instead of it. The Part 6 forecast, no EU
- 26:30Inc. before January 1st, 2028, at 75% stays on
- 26:34record. And it will be scored on that date.
- 26:382 more predictions. First, the Scale-Up Europe Fund will
- 26:42not publicly confirm that commitments of €5
- 26:45billion or more before June 30th,
- 26:492027. Confidence 65%.
- 26:52Second, the Public Procurement Act will not be
- 26:56formally adopted before end of '27.
- 27:00Confidence 65%. And our part 6
- 27:03forecast stays open as originally worded.
- 27:07By the end of '27, at least one scale-up fund Europe
- 27:11portfolio company will have a parent holding company
- 27:15outside of the EU. Note that this one is
- 27:19about the EU, so a Swiss or British parent
- 27:23would count. Still 60%.
- 27:27Our synthesis. So what connects all of this?
- 27:31Europe's instruments are no longer missing. Their timing is
- 27:35uneven and their effect is unproven. Each
- 27:39test depends on the others. Growth capital helps most
- 27:43when the company can also hire, sell, and grant equity
- 27:47across Europe, and when European buyers become repeat
- 27:50customers. The game changes when the
- 27:545 tests turn green for the same companies at the same
- 27:58time. And if the cohort shows that companies
- 28:01scale globally and keep their strategic center in
- 28:05Europe under today's rules, we will say so.
- 28:08Operator and investor split. If I were
- 28:12fundraising in '27, I would do 3 things.
- 28:17I would plan my next growth rounds as a sequence and
- 28:20ask every lead investor in writing whether
- 28:24any future round assumes a change of parent company or
- 28:28listing venue. I would build an employee equity
- 28:32plan that works today across countries and can migrate
- 28:36later rather than waiting for EU Inc.
- 28:40And I would decide deliberately where my first
- 28:43large reference customer comes from. For some companies, early
- 28:47US expansion is right commercial decision. If you go to the
- 28:51US first, decide in advance which functions
- 28:55and which decision rights stay in Europe.
- 28:59If I were an investor, I would underwrite European growth rounds
- 29:03on the follow-on path, not the single check. I would
- 29:07track the full retention indicators for early growth stage
- 29:11companies separately, and I would treat the €100
- 29:14million line as the point where your
- 29:17co-investors are now present and worth bringing in early.
- 29:22If you want to go deeper, the
- 29:26Startuprad.io Founder Vault contains the working tools
- 29:29behind this episode: our Scale Infrastructure Scorecard,
- 29:33the indicators we are tracking through
- 29:382031, and practical questions for growth
- 29:41financing and corporate location decisions. Members also
- 29:45get our analysis of targets,
- 29:48commitments, and actual capital deployment, plus the
- 29:52investor diligence checklist. Join through YouTube
- 29:56membership or Substack. Both links are
- 29:59in the show notes.
- 30:03Thank you for listening to part 8 of the European Scale-Up Question. The
- 30:07single idea to take you— to take with you A program
- 30:11is an input. A company scaling differently is an outcome.
- 30:15We have fixed the cohort rules today, so we cannot
- 30:19choose the answer later. We'll come back to this
- 30:23every November until 2031. If
- 30:27If this analysis helped, share it with a founder
- 30:31or investor facing a major growth decision. And if
- 30:34you know a European company that challenges our thesis,
- 30:39send us the evidence. Subscribe to Startuprad.io for future
- 30:43updates to the scorecard. All eight parts of the
- 30:47series are linked in the show notes. This was Startuprad.io.
- 30:51My name is Joe. Take care and see you next time. Bye.