Do you believe
the next generation of tech giants will be European?

Scale-Up Europe is a call to join forces around startups: to reinforce Europe’s sovereignty, develop the prosperity of our economies and societies, and achieve the objectives of social cohesion and climate transition that are at the heart of the European project.

We, founders and startups, corporations, investment funds, industry groupings and other innovation ecosystem stak eholders, are joining forces as a community and stepping up to respond to the opportunities and challenges that await our continent.

Over the past decade, Europe has built a prosperous, fast growing and resilient startup ecosystem that attracted 4 0 bn in 2020 sixfold the investment of 2010 and spawned global scale-ups including 70+ unicorns, creating more than 2 million jobs.

Looking forward, we are convinced Europe can reach the next level, and have set an ambition for the continent to become hom e to 10 technology companies each valued at more than €10 0bn by 2030.

We believe that investing in disruptive tech and growing leaders able to harness the potential of the current industrial revolution are of critical importance for our continent, for at least three reasons:

• What is at stake is no t only our ability to stay at the forefront of innovation, but also whether we can maintain a major role in the balance of international power and establish our own rules and standards.
• Tech and startups are at the heart of the prosperity of our economies and societies. They generate millions of jobs across a range of skills and sectors and, by creating significant value they are well positioned to help preserve our European soci al model.
• Achieving the objectives of social cohesion and climate transition, that are at the core of the European project, w ill not be possible without the contribution of entrepreneurs.

We have identified five key c hallenges on EuropeEurope’s road forward:

1. App ropriate funding from European investors is missing on the late and exit stages of the ecosystem in particular IPO The right balance has to be found between expertise, favorable regulation for private investors, as well as an efficient multiplicator effect for public money.
2. European startups are fighting to attract the best talent and are not sufficiently open to diversity A more open, less fragmented pan European market is key to winning the global battle for startup talent. In this respect, diversity is a strong enabler to be placed at the core of our ecosystem.
3. Europe is still behind on developing deep tech Scale-Ups. Creating appropriat e funding mechanisms, that bring together the science and business worlds to channel research efforts, are appropriate levers for Europe to become the worldworld’s deep tech powerhouse.
4. Efficient collaboration between startups and corporates has to be enhanced. Promoting winning collaboration models, understanding cultural differences, increasing mutual understanding and facilitating startup takeovers by European corporates are appropriate tools to bridge the startups and corporate gap.
5. For these ideas to reach full bloom, further investment in coordination and execution needs to be made at the European level. Scale-Up Europe needs to graduate from a report to a fully-fledged initiative, with both the capacity and the mandate to help transform this report into reality.

European leaders have shown they have grasped the importance of the startup economy. That is why the Scale-Up Europe community has worked in recent months towards issuing a set of the most game-changing recommendations, geared towards the European Commission, our national governments and our startup ecosystems. The Scale-Up Europe community has come together to facilitate mutual understanding, urge action and guide it.