Europe’s tech startup boom meets funding bottleneck Europe is seeing more new tech startups being formed than any other region, supported by the strongest ever teams working on the most challenging and urgent problems. Europe has all the essential raw ingredi- ents to become the next tech superpower. But for Europe to be able to shape the future of tech, the ecosys- tem needs to take further action to embrace the opportunity and to embrace the risk that comes with it. Europe’s ability to fund and build true innovation has evolved by leaps and bounds over the past decade. Nev- ertheless, a noticeable disparity with the US persists in terms of access to capital. More European tech startups are formed each year, but over time, a growing gap emerges when it comes to their likelihood to secure external investment. After 昀椀ve years, US tech startups are 40% more likely to have successfully secured venture capital funding. This is in spite of the fact that once companies secure an initial round of Seed investment, the probability of scaling to a billion-dollar valuation is the same in Europe as it is in the US. This underlines the imperative for the European tech ecosystem to ensure that funding 昀氀ows to European talent, to give them the 昀椀repower to compete globally and to ensure Europe can play a meaningful role in shaping the future. 57 | Executive summary