Enterprise capital agency Atomico’s annual State of European Tech report is out and it reveals funding is trending upwards. However this 12 months’s version goes past the standard evaluation of the tech ecosystem; it has turn into a bit of advocacy that displays a broader shift: European startups and traders are more and more turning to lobbying.
“It’s not sufficient to point out how far we’ve come. It’s crucial, too, that we use these insights to level the way in which ahead,” mentioned the report’s creator, Tom Wehmeier, who can also be a accomplice at Atomico and the agency’s head of intelligence. This consists of 4 coverage suggestions with pretty self-explanatory names: Repair the friction, Fund the longer term, Empower expertise, and Champion threat.
Whereas Atomico is utilizing solutions from a variety of respondents to advocate for these particular suggestions, it arguably has some authority to talk for greater than itself. Based in 2006 by Skype co-founder Niklas Zennström, its portfolio consists of high-profile European corporations similar to Aiven, DeepL, Klarna, Pipedrive, Stripe, and Supercell.
Taking a web page from Massive Tech and from legacy industries, in addition to from their U.S. peers, European tech corporations of that scale are more and more studying to foyer for themselves — on the firm stage, with public affairs hires, but in addition collectively, with open letters that European establishments have paid consideration to.
This additionally explains why lots of Atomico’s suggestions align with subjects which are already very a lot within the air, each within the startup group and within the Brussels coverage world — whether or not it’s the twenty eighth regime proposed by advocacy group EU-INC to create a pan-European firm construction (presently, corporations should navigate 27 completely different nationwide regimes), requires much less regulation, or broader concerns on competitiveness that echo former European Central Financial institution president Mario Draghi’s 2024 report.
This buy-in on the highest ranges is clear in Atomico’s report, too. For the primary time, its 2025 version includes a quote from the president of the European Fee, Ursula von der Leyen, saying that she needs “the way forward for AI to be made in Europe.” This high-level consideration additionally explains why European tech lobbying is turning into extra subtle.
On the twenty eighth regime, for example, Atomico warns that whether or not it is going to be a “regulation” or a “directive” is extremely vital. “That is the distinction between having tooth or not, with the latter representing a continuation of the established order the place guidelines may be interpreted nation to nation, as a substitute of the uniformity tech corporations have to thrive,” the agency argues. (In EU legislation, laws are immediately binding throughout all member states, whereas directives enable every nation to implement guidelines in another way.)
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This stage of element isn’t unprecedented. France Digitale, a French startup and investor affiliation, revealed a “non-paper” on the twenty eighth regime that wasn’t a lot completely different from what different lobbies could produce on different subjects — identical to publications from ESNA, the Europe Startup Nations Alliance. However Atomico’s take, additionally packaged as a video and a stage discuss at tech convention Slush, is supposed to achieve each the tech ecosystem and policymakers.
Paradoxically, what is perhaps lacking is a way of the various forces that might oppose efforts similar to EU-INC. Extra broadly, some suggestions could really feel out of contact to most individuals; in spite of everything, few Europeans get up within the morning involved in regards to the lack of recent homegrown trillion-dollar corporations.
The counterargument is that society as an entire is affected by lackluster progress, however arguably, there may be nonetheless extra that European tech’s rising lobbying might do to win hearts. In keeping with Alexandru Voica, head of company affairs and coverage at London-based AI unicorn Synthesia, that’s one purpose why massive startups have gotten extra vocal.
“Communications and coverage are extra vital than 10 years in the past as a result of in Europe, there’s a deep mistrust of the tech trade,” Voica wrote to TechCrunch. “A decade in the past, [communications] was seen as one thing you can run out of selling to assist with product progress and model consciousness. At the moment, the work we do is far more centered on threat mitigation and fame administration, and so on.”
European tech’s lobbying push additionally carries dangers. If the motion turns into too carefully tied to explicit political events, it might set off backlash and undermine broader help. Nonetheless, no matter politics, many will doubtless agree with Atomico’s central level: “Europe successfully stands at a crossroads.”
