The race to build Europe’s next generation of global tech champions is fiercely competitive. This DLD26 session, moderated by investor Max Laemmle, takes a look at the structural roadblocks holding the continent back.
The panelists are: Evgenia Plotnikova of Dawn Capital, a $2 billion London fund backing B2B companies across AI, infrastructure and security; Marie-Hélène Ametsreiter, General Partner at Speedinvest with a focus on climate and industrial tech; and Lina Wenner, Partner at firstminute capital, a first-cheque fund backed by more than 130 unicorn founders.
Plotnikova sees Europe’s strength in applying AI to complex, often locally regulated systems, such as banking and healthcare. “We as a firm invest in companies that put AI at the center of mission-critical systems”, she says.
Wenner is more anxious. While the U.S. and China treat AI as a “race that they have to win”, Europe seems more focused on putting guardrails in place. “There’s a lot of caution”, she says, “but we’re not really building anything ourselves.”
Ametsreiter sees Europe’s capital markets as a structural bottleneck. Europe cannot scale winners until it harmonizes listing rules and fixes liquidity gaps, she argues.
Watch the video to explore this insightful discussion in detail.
