We are
general partners
from across Europe’s venture capital, private equity and private credit ecosystem. We came together at the 2025 Ugly Duck event — EIF’s flagship forum for GPs — to reflect on the state of the European market, share evidence from our portfolios, and discuss what Europe must do to compete at scale.
From Dublin to Tallinn, Lisbon to Bucharest
This year, we joined 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 the leading private credit providers backing Europe’s scale-ups.
Together, we are the practitioners who turn breakthroughs into businesses.
Across 5 workshops
We challenged each other, refining assumptions, and testing the strength of our shared conclusions.
That’s 30 days of continuous debate, distilled into this Playbook.
The common thread
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.
What These Five Blockers Mean in Practice
This is not a failure of innovation. It is a failure of conditions.
Together, these top five blockers form a reinforcing cycle:
- Overregulation and fragmentation slow early progress.
- Policy misalignment disrupts investor and founder confidence.
- Investor preferences for liquidity restrict the supply of long-horizon capital.
- Lack of scale-up funding ensures that even strong breakthroughs fail to mature into European industrial champions.
Bridging the Perception Gaps: What We Heard, What It Means, and What Must Change
The structural blockers slowing Europe’s technological leadership are real, but many of them persist because of how innovation capital is perceived. The challenge extends beyond regulatory and financial considerations. It is also cognitive. The people who shape Europe’s innovation landscape often do not share a common understanding of what we do, the value we create, or the conditions we need to succeed.
Across the workshops, a clear theme surfaced repeatedly:
Policymakers, regulators, long term investors and we as GPs often move in parallel rather than in partnership. In that space between us, misconceptions take root. Some see innovation capital as volatile rather than strategic. Others see a fragmented market rather than a system that creates jobs, tax revenues and industrial capability. Many see risk but not the outcomes it delivers.
"We do not talk to each other enough. We do not understand each other."
"If we want people to value innovation, we have to show them what it delivers, not just talk about IRRs."
"In Europe, we create our own problem. Public money is so involved that regulators feel they must protect it, and that leads to more scrutiny."
Text to go here: It's not just a communications challenge, there's a deeper challenge.
The result is a cycle of hesitation:
- policymakers who underestimate the strategic value of innovation capital
- LPs who stay on the sidelines
- regulators who restrict rather than enable
- GPs who feel misunderstood
In short, Europe’s perception gaps translate directly into Europe’s fundraising gaps.
What Must Change: The solutions identified at Ugly Duck
Misconceptions thrive in the absence of evidence.
"If you see a misconception, take the data and show it. Make it impossible to argue with."
We discussed the value of regular market reports, case studies linked to real outcomes, and clear national narratives that show how innovation capital contributes to jobs, tax revenues and competitiveness.
One GP captured the opportunity with a memorable analogy:
"If European VC were a portfolio company, we would run a serious communications campaign so people finally saw the full picture."
Many of us noted that stakeholders operate in silos. This is not surprising in a young ecosystem, but it limits our potential.
"This market is still early compared to the US. It is about educating the market and showing why it matters."
There is need for stronger, more structured dialogue:
- local and national VC associations advocating consistently
- regular engagement with policymakers, not just during crises
- shared narratives linking innovation capital to national priorities