The European Commission has joined together with top-tier private investors from across the continent to establish the Scaleup Europe Fund, which will invest in promising companies developing strategic deep tech ideas.
By joining forces with these potential founding investors, the Commission moves forward with the EU Startup and Scaleup Strategy, aimed at building a dynamic and competitive startup and scaleup ecosystem across Europe.
As the Draghi report highlighted, Europe’s ability to scale innovative companies is crucial to competitiveness.
Therefore, the Scaleup Europe Fund responds to this urgent need to boost investment and close the gap with global leaders.
European talent lags behind, but Scaleup Europe is set to change this
Currently, despite a strong startup pipeline, limited access to late-stage growth capital and fragmented investment markets have hindered European innovators’ ability to grow into global leaders.
“Europe has the ideas and the talent to build the most innovative companies in the world. But as they scale up, we need to ensure they have the means to grow, attract investment, and thrive right here at home,” stated European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
“High-quality jobs and Europe’s overall competitiveness depend on it. The Scaleup Europe Fund is an essential part of our work to make sure the best of Europe can choose Europe.”
President von der Leyen announced the Scaleup Europe Fund in her 2025 State of the Union Address as a flagship initiative aimed at making major investments in young, fast-growing companies in critical tech areas.
Leading European investors will boost tech leadership
At the high-level meeting hosted today by Ekaterina Zaharieva, Commissioner for Startups, Research and Innovation, a core group of potential investors and the European Investment Bank (EIB) came together with a common goal: to unlock the value of Europe’s flourishing scale-up companies while promoting European tech leadership.
Alongside the Commission and the EIB Group, the group of potential founding investors in the Fund includes Novo Holdings, EIFO (Export and Investment Fund of Denmark), CriteriaCaixa, Santander/Mouro Capital, Fondazione Compagnia San Paolo/ Intesa Sanpaolo/Fondazione Cariplo, APG Asset Management, acting on behalf of Dutch pension fund ABP, Wallenberg Investments, and BGK (Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego).
These potential investors will work hand in hand with the Commission to establish and capitalise the fund.
Covering a broad range of technology areas
They also agreed today that the Scaleup Europe Fund will focus on growth capital and late-stage investments in a broad range of European strategic technology companies, including:
- Artificial intelligence
- Quantum technologies
- Semiconductor technologies
- Robotics and autonomous systems
- Energy technologies
- Space technologies
- Biotechnologies
- Medical technologies
- Advanced materials
- Agritech
Next steps
The Scaleup Europe Fund will operate as a market-based, privately managed, and privately co-financed growth fund investing in major European-led investment rounds.
The Commission, alongside the other founding investors, will select and appoint a management company to implement the fund.
A public call for the management company will be published soon, with the aim of enabling the Scaleup Europe Fund to start its first investments in Spring 2026.
