EIB and investors pledge €10bn for European scale-ups

Seven member states and the EIB Group agreed the first closing of the Tech Champions fund-of-funds, aiming to mobilise up to €80 billion in venture capital.

The EIB Group, 15 institutional investors and seven EU member states have pledged to channel over €10 billion in new equity into European scale-ups. Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Italy and Spain committed around €2 billion for the first closing of the Tech Champions fund-of-funds.

The gap in later-stage venture funding between Europe and the USA runs deep. By European Commission calculations, about 133 billion dollars of venture capital went into later-stage American growth companies in 2024. The EU drew 21.3 billion, roughly 84 percent below the US level. The public-private alliance aims to mobilise up to €80 billion in total, the European Investment Bank group says. Its average tickets of €200 million are meant to let European tech companies scale globally.

The initiative behind it, ETCI 2.0, has a fundraising target of up to €15 billion, according to the European Investment Bank group. That is around four times the size of the original Tech Champions fund-of-funds launched in 2023. All EU member states unanimously backed the expansion in July. The EIB group says ETCI 2.0 aims to reach more than 1,500 European scale-ups.

So far, that first initiative has backed 15 venture capital megafunds and more than 50 EU-based companies, 16 of which reached unicorn status, each valued above €1 billion. France sits out this first closing of the fund-of-funds, unlike in the first edition of the initiative, according to Les Echos, a French business newspaper. French institutional money still reaches the programme through the Tibi Initiative.

How fast the money now reaches companies is the open question. Europreneurs Media notes the €8 billion from institutions is a declared intention and the €80 billion figure an ambition. First investment decisions will show the pace of conversion, the outlet writes. The EIB Group says the first approvals are expected in the coming weeks. The European Commission and the EIB Group have also launched a European Institutional Investors Pact, which makes it easier for institutional investors to find these investment opportunities through the EIB Group-led Investment Platform.