Sebastian Frisk: The Best Founders Now Want to Scale Their Businesses in Europe

Change is rippling across Europe. Talking to entrepreneurs, investors and politicians across the region, you can feel the mood shifting in real time, responding to an exciting combination of technological, economic and geopolitical forces.

In May, the European Union and some of Europe’s leading companies and institutions entrusted EQT to manage the Scaleup Europe Fund, catching a growing wave of enthusiasm for the European tech scene. It is our belief that the Scaleup Europe Fund – and its mission to turn Europe’s tech champions into global leaders – has had the good fortune to arrive at the right time. In my opinion, one year earlier would have been too early and one year later would have been too late.

For the first time in a very long time, many European founders want to stay and scale their businesses in Europe. And those mission-driven founders finally have a European capital partner who shares their bold ambitions.

Work behind the scenes

In her State of the Union speech last month, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen outlined the myriad global threats facing the region. But she was also able to sound a few optimistic notes, not least a shoutout for ICEYE, a Finnish provider of satellite intelligence services and the first company backed by the Scaleup Europe Fund.

Since ICEYE, the Scaleup Europe Fund has announced another six investments, including Euclyd, a Dutch designer of ultra-efficient AI inference chips, and The Exploration Company, a Franco-German builder of reusable spacecraft and engines. These deals are a testament to the hard work the SEF team have been putting in behind the scenes. We’ve screened more than a thousand startups, taken more than 250 meetings with founders and held a similar number of conversations with potential investors.

But the dream of a Europe-focused scaleup fund goes back even further. In 2022, we looked hard at developing a deeptech fund. The white space for investment was obvious to us even then and we saw Europe’s need for capital. But we came to believe that the European deeptech market wasn't mature enough to support such a project. We paused our efforts and waited for the world to catch up. As every investor and entrepreneur knows, the right idea at the wrong time is not a successful idea.

Now it's fully live, building the Scaleup Europe Fund into a portfolio that can help bridge Europe’s startup funding valley of death will take skill. The portfolio will need a combination of early-stage investments in technologies with the potential to change the world but are far from commercialization – that might take many years to reach their full potential – with some investments in emerging scaled technology companies, like Mistral, that we believe are likely to be closer to an IPO or other exit. Between these two poles, we also need investments that have the potential to become €100bn-plus businesses – European champions that can compete globally while developing talent and fueling innovation.

Ultimately, we believe that the Scaleup Europe Fund has two missions: backing technologies and helping European leaders go global, while staying based in Europe.

Building the SEF portfolio

While we’re very excited about our first investments and the extraordinary founders we’ve partnered with, you can’t look at the portfolio snapshot today and assume that’s a proxy for the final portfolio composition. To do that we need a bit more time. We launched the fund barely three months ago after all.

We have a clear strategy for the final portfolio composition and have identified companies we want to back. But we can only invest in opportunities as they arise and there is no assurance any particular investment will be made.

With this initiative, I feel privileged to be riding a wave of change. I also feel a true purpose in my professional life for the first time. I’m working on a project that can act as a catalyst to European growth, at what feels like a tipping point in history. When I search for comparisons, 2026 feels to me like the dawn of the 20th century, when electrification and new industries met great power rivalry. Companies that grew out of that era, like Bosch, Philips and ABB, still lead today. That's the opportunity now.

The Scaleup Europe Fund can’t solve Europe's scale-up problems on its own, of course. Our ambition is to show that backing European companies all the way to global scale can pay, and also bring private capital along with it. The speed at which the EU has moved so far deserves credit. Our founders will also help shine a light on where Europe still makes it too hard to scale, from regulation and capital markets to public procurement.

Looking to the future, our goals are clear. We aim to support European technology companies as they seek to scale and compete globally. And, ultimately, we want to help Europe create its first trillion-euro company.

This is a marketing communication. Please refer to the information document of the Scaleup Europe Fund before making any final investment decisions.

​​Statements contained in this Article that are not historical facts are based on current expectations, assumptions, opinions, and/or beliefs of the Author. Such statements are not facts and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors. Prospective Investors in the Scaleup Europe Fund should not rely on these statements as if they were fact. Moreover, certain information contained in this Article may constitute "forward-looking statements", which can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "may", "might”, “will”, “expect”, “target”, “intend” or "believe", or the negatives thereof or other variations thereon or comparable terminology. Any forward-looking statements in this Article are based upon current assumptions and views, may be simplified and may depend on events outside of the Author’s control. Other events that were not taken into account may occur and may significantly affect the analysis herein. Therefore, changes to any assumptions may have a material impact on any forward-looking statements. Actual results may therefore be materially different from any forward-looking statements in this Article.

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