Innovation & technological leadership
Technological risk is not the same as capital at risk.
Across Europe, innovation is everywhere — in the therapies we rely on, the technology that powers our devices, the platforms we use daily and the infrastructure that underpins our economies. What is far less visible is the force that enabled these breakthroughs to scale: private markets. The transformation of entire sectors did not happen by chance or through public research alone. It happened because venture capital, growth equity and private credit absorbed early technological risk, built industrial capacity, and financed the pathways from discovery to deployment. These are not incremental improvements; they are system-level shifts made possible when ambition, regulation and innovation capital align
A key perception shift is needed here. Technological risk is not the same as capital at risk. Early scientific and engineering uncertainty is a necessary, productive and value-creating part of innovation. It is the first step in turning research into real-world capability. Private markets do not absorb technological risk for its own sake, but because doing so unlocks the outcomes Europe needs: new industries, resilient supply chains, leadership in critical technologies and jobs that anchor prosperity across regions.
What follows are examples of what happens when innovation capital operates as it should — with VC funding early risk, growth equity building industrial scale, and private credit creating resilience and infrastructure.
The common thread
Public research seeds discovery — but innovation capital turns ideas into industries. VC, growth equity and private credit are collectively Europe’s engine for technological leadership. Their value is not in risk profiles or volatility, but in the real-world outcomes they deliver: industrial capability, resilient supply chains, strategic autonomy and technologies that matter.
Structural Blockers: What holds innovation and technological leadership back in Europe
These successes show what Europe can achieve when innovation, ambition and capital align. But they also reveal the limits of the current system. Too many promising technologies still struggle to move from laboratory or prototype to industrial scale. Fragmented markets slow expansion; regulatory divergence creates uncertainty at critical moments; and late-stage capital remains too shallow to match the scale of European opportunity. The challenge is not creativity, it is continuity. Europe produces world-class breakthroughs, but we do not yet scale them consistently.
As GPs, we see both the potential and the gaps. We work with founders building technologies in AI, advanced manufacturing, synthetic biology, cybersecurity, quantum and clean-industrial systems. Their progress is real — but so are the headwinds. Our ranking of the top structural blockers makes this clear.