Startups driving Europe’s AI transformation

Analysing startup & investor activity across ten industrial verticals of the EU’s Apply AI strategy. The last in a three part report series on driving innovation in the EU, part of the Innovation Bridge project.

Key findings

• EU Apply AI startups are worth €161B in combined enterprise value in 2025, up 16x from €10B in 2015.
• EU Apply AI startups raised €20B in VC since 2020 and accounted for 17% of all EU venture funding in 2025, up from 4% in 2015.
• Health & Pharma leads the ten verticals with €4.7B of VC since 2020, just ahead of Defence, Security & Space on €4.6B and Robotics on €2.4B.
• Germany leads with 765 VC-backed Apply AI startups and €6.1B raised since 2020, followed by France on 694 startups and €6B.
• The US took 81% of global AI VC in 2025 at €138.6B, ahead of the EU27 on €10.3B and China on €6.3B.