The new Europe: Less complaining, more billion-dollar startups

It was an "insane week," observers write on LinkedIn. And it's true: Europe's startup and venture capital scene has had quite a run. A truly incredible momentum—especially since there's always been so much complaining: Europe is too slow, if you want to make it, you have to go to the Valley, blah blah blah.

And then this. A recap of the past few days:

• Revolut , a UK-based financial and super app, has reached a valuation of 75 billion US dollars – thus finally placing the fintech in the global top league.
• Mistral AI , France, Artificial Intelligence and Foundation Models, raises new funding and is valued at just under $12 billion – a record pace for European AI companies.
• Elevenlabs , UK/Poland, AI-based speech technology, achieves annual revenue (ARR) of 200 million US dollars and is already traded on the secondary market at 6.6 billion US dollars.
• Reorbit , Finland, space/spacetech, receives financing of 45 million euros – the largest space round in Europe ever.
• Proxima Fusion , Germany, fusion energy/deeptech, extends its Series A financing round to 145 million euros – a milestone for European nuclear fusion technologies.
• Framer , Netherlands, software tool for web and UI design, raises $100 million , $2 billion valuation
• IQM Quantum Computers, Finland, raises $320 million in financing – becoming a unicorn

Christoph Klink, partner at global early-stage VC Antler and head of Germany, comments on the wild ride.

A new generation of “rocketships” – companies like Lovable , Helsing and Mistral, founded since 2020 and already breaking the unicorn barrier – proves that we Europeans can also scale at lightning speed.

On average, European unicorns took just over seven years to break the sound barrier. The new generation is now doing it in just two years.

The last few years have been a difficult test for some committed Europeans. The narrative in the tech sector was clear. "If you don't build in Silicon Valley, you don't even need to compete," was often echoed in discussions. "If you want to be successful, you'd better go somewhere else."

But the pace of development in the tech sector has changed in recent years. Five of the top 10 fastest-growing software companies of all time were founded in the past five years. Two of them are European—including Lovable, which tops the list.

So apparently something is still possible in Europe.

Raising capital will likely be more challenging in Europe than in the US for the foreseeable future. But this very scarcity has given rise to a new European strength. And with it, a group of companies that are extremely capital-efficient and scaling at lightning speed.

Speed ​​is everything, and Europeans are setting a breathtaking pace. With two years to reach the unicorn milestone, Europeans are within striking distance of the US, where it currently takes an average of 1.6 years.

Of the 14 European "Rocketships," the majority are located in Sweden, France, or Germany. Four of the European Rocketships are German startups. This year, Helsing became the next decacorn—a privately held company valued at more than 10 billion euros.

But how do founders manage to scale at this speed?

Three factors are central: AI, technical capabilities, and a rigorous focus on execution.

AI enables startups to develop faster than ever before – and this pace will continue to accelerate. Almost all founders use AI to develop their (first) software products. This drastically reduces the resources required. We see better products being created, more affordably, and in less time.

Capital efficiency is becoming a virtue. While capital-rich US companies can invest more, European firms with lean, efficient teams are keeping pace through relentless focus. Capital-efficient growth is the new secret weapon.

The second success factor we're observing is increasing the prevalence of technical skills in the founding team. Data shows that the world's largest and fastest-growing tech companies are almost exclusively built by founders with a technical background. Among the fastest-growing software companies and global tech champions, the proportion of technical founders is approximately 95 percent.

And while Europe lagged behind in this regard for a long time – among unicorn founders, the proportion of people with technical backgrounds was just 26 percent up until 2020 – it has risen to approximately 90 percent among European "rocketships." While German and European founders used to mostly come from consulting or investment banking backgrounds, today they are increasingly made up of experienced serial entrepreneurs and former employees of scaleups from the tech sector. The startup mafias are becoming increasingly powerful, and the tech sector now accounts for 70 percent of this new group of founders.

We have also observed a tenfold increase in the number of AI engineers among the founders of new startups in Germany over the past two years – a stronger increase than in other regions of Europe.

This not only makes it clear that Europe is producing a large number of strong engineers – they are also finally starting more companies.

The third, crucial factor is mindset. For example, if you talk to Marius Meiners, founder of Peec AI, one of Germany's fastest-growing young tech companies, you'll hear: "Today, most ideas for great success are often quite obvious, and therefore, 50 competitors are not uncommon. Therefore, it takes more than just the belief that you can build a large company. It requires the deep conviction that you can prevail against all strong competitors, and the discipline to put that into practice."

Successful founders are primarily concerned with the speed of customer acquisition rather than lamenting their difficulty accessing capital. They see speed of scaling as the key to competitiveness. And that's precisely how they build world-class companies.

What we are observing is a historic shift in Germany and across Europe. Over the past 20 years, both the pace of scaling and the backgrounds of founders have remained fairly constant.

Both metrics have changed fundamentally in the last two to three years. And Germany is excellently positioned to seize this opportunity.

Germany has long suffered from a lack of large capital pools like those found in Silicon Valley and London. But capital is no longer the primary concern for founders. If you ask our portfolio, it's primarily speed in scaling and customer acquisition that they focus on.

This is the beginning of a journey that could finally bring Europe the first tech company with a market value of one trillion US dollars. And there's no reason why this company shouldn't come from Germany.