Europe creates global value. Now regulators need to help us keep the rewards

TLDR

• Europe generates 17% of new global enterprise value but captures only 10% of exit value, with $375B underfunded over the past decade.

Key Takeaways

• Over 40% of European tech exit value is captured abroad; DeepMind, bought by Google for $650M in 2013, is now estimated at over $700B.
• Europe needs at least $1T in additional tech investment over the next decade to prevent the funding gap from widening; matching US pace requires $2T+.
• Only 0.01% of European pension fund AUM is invested in European venture, versus three times that share in the US; matching US levels could add $210B.
• A joint France-Germany finance ministry report (FIVE) recommends mandatory workplace pensions and a shift to defined contribution schemes to unlock capital.
• European VC returned 17.2% net over 10 years (Q2 2025 data), outperforming US VC at 13.1%, US public equities at 13.7%, and European public equities at 7.8%.

Why It Matters

• US and Asian investors now supply almost half of late-stage European startup funding, meaning local investors miss cap-table presence that anchors IP, talent, and value at home.
• Policy moves including the EU-INC, UK NOVA and Venture Link schemes, and Dutch pension reform are converging to unlock cross-border capital at scale.
• If pension capital shifts, the beneficiaries extend beyond founders and VCs to ordinary workers whose retirement savings would be tied to European tech performance.

Camilla Richards · 2026-01-23 · Read the original