From Savings to Sovereignty: Innovation, Pension Funds, and Long-Term Economic Growth in Europe

European tech is far too dependant on overseas capital. Currently Europe’s pension funds invest almost nothing in venture capital. We unpack the opportunity in data.

Key findings

• VC-backed companies founded in Europe since 2020 hold 17% of the enterprise value of that global founding cohort, up from 14% for 2010-2019.
• At the scaleup stage, 41% of the VC raised by European companies since 2020 came from US investors, against 21% from domestic investors.
• European companies raise $18B a year in $100M+ scaleup rounds against $82B in the US, the widest of the three funding-stage gaps.
• European pension funds hold $15 trillion in assets and have committed $5 billion to venture capital since 2010, an allocation of 0.04% or less.
• The Bay Area has 19 VC-backed companies worth $100B+ founded since 1990; Europe has three, plus DeepMind, which the deck includes illustratively after its £400M sale.