The contributors
We are
general partners from
investment funds
from across Europe’s venture capital, private equity and private credit ecosystem.
Together we have backed
companies
From Dublin to Tallinn, Lisbon to Bucharest
We came together at Ugly Duck from 30+ countries, representing the full geography of Europe’s innovation economy.
We represent every part of innovation capital
- early-stage venture,
- growth equity,
- deep-tech and climate funds,
- specialist managers,
- and private credit providers backing Europe’s scale-ups.
Together, we are the practitioners who turn breakthroughs into businesses and scale them.
Across 5 workshops
We challenged each other on how our asset classes are seen through the eyes of our stakeholders: investors, regulators, policymakers and EU citizens.
We discussed, debated, refined assumptions, and tested the strength of our shared conclusions.
That is 200 hours of continuous debate, distilled into this Playbook.
Guiding the conversation
Each workshop was guided by 3–5 co-leads - investors drawn from the EIF's portfolio. They did the critical pre-work: grounding the sessions in the real-world outcomes delivered by innovation capital, and setting a frame that encouraged all of us to think beyond our own funds and portfolios, and instead consider what private markets have enabled at a system level. Their role was to ensure that what emerged was a set of grounded, practitioner-led insights focused on what innovation capital can achieve for Europe if the right conditions are in place.
Innovation & technological leadership
Fatou Diagne Bootstrap Europe
Craig Douglas World Fund
Lise Rechsteiner
Vsquared Ventures
Simon Turner
Sofinnova Partners
Tom Vanhoutte
imec.xpand
Uli Grabenwarter
EIF
Nicolas Perard EIF
Human and planetary health
Eric Archambeau Astanor
Arturo Benito ImpactBridge
Gentiane Gorlier
Yield Lab
Sofia Ioannidou
Andera
Marie-Capucine Lemétais
Ring Capital
Xavier Pont
Ship2B Ventures
Matteo Squilloni
EIF
Johannes Virkkunen EIF
Sustainability and industrial competitiveness
Martin Kröner GET Fund
Fabio Ranghino Ambienta
Yair Reem
Extantia
Grethe Safar Meisingset
HitecVision
Adelaide Cracco
EIF
Priscilla Schnepper EIF
Security & sovereignty
Moritz Jungmann Future Energy Ventures
Umberto Mosetti 3Ip
Olivia Noirot-Nerin
Sienna IM
Alexander Ribbink
Keen Venture Partners
Francesco Battazzi
EIF
Nathalie Chollet
EIF
Future-oriented financial markets
Karsten Batran Bright Capital
Roberto Pilotto FSI
Mathieu Teisseire
Eurazeo
Tom Wehmeier
Atomico
Zvonimir Ratkovski
EIF
Sarah Stein
EIF
Marco Natoli
EIF
Watch the Ugly Duck recap video
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Five workshops. Five domains. Five hundred voices. Our role was to listen carefully, find the signal in the debate and give it a shape others could act on. The thinking here belongs to the GPs. We simply held the pen.
- the Ugly Duck team
