Be Greedy When Others are Fearful: Why Now Is the Time to Double Down on European VC
TL; DR
- European VC is an exciting investment opportunity for those willing to look beyond the obvious;
- At Vintage Investment Partners, we have been investing in Europe for over a decade and have deployed over half a billion USD across top-tier fund investments, direct investments in breakout companies, and secondaries;
- I’m excited to open and lead Vintage’s European office out of London – partnering with leading funds, founders, and LPs to support the next wave of growth. Our focus includes tailored secondary solutions, direct investments in growth-stage companies, investments in leading VC funds, and the continued expansion of our Value+ platform, which connects startups with insights, customers, and scale.
- I look forward to strengthening the bridge between Europe’s tech ecosystem and Vintage’s global platform leveraging our 20+ years of VC and growth investing experience. Let’s talk!
Musings
Throughout my 15 years in the finance industry, I’ve always enjoyed being part of an international team exploring multiple markets in pursuit of partnering with the best builders, thinkers, and investors globally. It’s a privilege to continue to do this as part of Vintage – especially as we double down on European VC and Growth investing via our three investment vehicles: Fund of Funds, Growth, and secondaries. Maybe I’m getting old and sentimental, or maybe I just love a challenge; either way, today I’m more excited than ever to go long European tech and innovation.
Over the course of my career, I have watched European VC mature, accelerate, and ultimately course correct during the 2022-23 reset. That market correction was an important test for the local ecosystem and Europe passed with resilience. The ecosystem now shows clear signs of long term strength: smart, sticky capital, massive founder successes, and economic and societal tailwinds are in place to drive a flywheel of sustainable growth.
“Show me the money”
Even after the correction, European VC stabilized at 2024 funding levels ~34% higher than pre-pandemic levels and unicorn numbers up ~4x since 2015. Capital is now not only more abundant, but stickier, as underscored by our own analysis at Vintage which suggests that the drop in VC activity in 2022-2024 was less dramatic in Europe vs. the U.S.
This resilience is driven in part by Europe’s increasingly mature and dynamic local and global investor landscape. The European VC manager landscape is much more vibrant today and I’m excited to partner with many of the GPs helping to drive this ecosystem forward, including:
- Established leaders like 83North, Accel, Creandum, LocalGlobe, Point Nine, and Seedcamp, whom we’re proud to have backed at Vintage;
- Exciting next generation investment firms like our friends at BlueYard and Singular, who bring investment experience through the cycle (or two) despite operating newer shops, or Amino Collective and Visionaries, bringing invaluable mix of operator and investor experience that we’ve lacked in Europe in the past;
- Angels, angel funds and solo GPs like Chalfen, Rerail and SystemOne in our portfolio, turbo charging the power of the founder at the earliest of stages in an impactful way.
Another driver behind the ecosystem’s resilience in activity and, based on Vintage’s internal analysis, attractive top quartile returns, is the smaller median fund size in Europe. In a power law-driven asset class, larger fund sizes can pose return challenges, particularly in ecosystems like Europe, where capital markets are still developing and exit paths remain more limited. As highlighted in Alan Feld’s recent blog, while many argue that large fund sizes inevitably dilute returns, the reality is more nuanced. At Vintage, we believe fund size must be evaluated in the context of strategy, platform capabilities, and the types of companies being built. This view is echoed in the Vintage Europe VC Outlook 2025, which identifies several structural advantages of smaller fund sizes – such as earlier entry stages, more focused ownership, and tighter GP-founder engagement – that have helped European vehicles consistently outperform their U.S. peers on a TVPI basis. Europe’s smaller funds often retain sharper focus and capital discipline – traits that align well with the ecosystem’s M&A-driven exit environment and enable strong multiple generation despite more modest absolute outcomes.
“You are my hero”
My father was an entrepreneur. I grew up watching him hustle; helping him with small tasks while hanging around his office. We celebrated the successes and cried when he had to close shop (multiple times!). The biggest lesson he taught me: resilience matters. Curiosity, perseverance, and adaptability are the foundations of success, and that’s also what we look for in founders.I’m thrilled about the evolution of the local founder landscape. While Europe boasted for long a deep pool of well-educated and technical talent, it’s over the past decade that the European tech ecosystem experienced a staggering 7x growth in headcount. Even more important is the emergence of “founder factories”, successful unicorn companies whose former employees go on to found new startups (as coined by Accel & Dealroom). These phenomena represent a critical maturation phase for European tech, creating a virtuous cycle of innovation and company creation.
According to Accel x Dealroom’s 2025 report, Europe and Israel’s unicorns have fueled the creation of more than 2,000 new tech-enabled startups as former employees become founders. Our portfolio company Klarna (66 startups) and Spotify (61), originally backed by our friends at Creandum,have become the most prolific sources of entrepreneurial talent and are in the great company of many more. Vintage’s proprietary data suggests that not only more founders bring prior start-up experience, but there is also a big shift towards more technical founders in the new batch of winners. This talent flywheel is now spinning rapidly: 22 European and Israeli founder factories have already spawned 25 more 5, an innovation compounding effect we’re excited to invest behind.
MythBusters Themes
“There’s no growth in Europe and markets are small…”
The first thing I learned when I started investing in Growth-stage companies (like the ones we back at Vintage) was to focus on the micro today and imagine how it will benefit from the macro tomorrow. European GDP growth may be slow but Europe is a large (745 million population; $42.1 trillion in GDP) and urbanized market, offering a deep pool of compelling investment opportunities within the innovation economy that will benefit from local or global macro tailwinds in the future. The current tectonic shifts in the global economy are distressing in the short term (read a buying opportunity for savvy investors) and could present positive long-term shifts in certain segments (read long term value creation optionality). More on where we see opportunities in vol.2!
“Markets are fragmented and regulation is a challenge…”
Indeed heavy red tape and diversity of regional regulations, languages, and business practices are a feature, not just a bug. Differentiated strategies and operational rigor win here. That’s why we back GPs and founders with a unique edge, whether it’s navigating regulatory mazes or building cross-border. Our Value+ team helps them do just that, drawing on decades of global investing experience.
London, Paris, and Berlin remain dominant centers, while data suggests emerging tech hubs are gaining momentum across Europe. Cities like Stockholm, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Munich, and Tallinn are developing distinct specializations and benefiting from the founder factory effect. Covering the European ecosystem is difficult, but the market opportunity is exciting. That’s why we are now on the ground with a permanent hub!
“There are talent gaps and brain drain…”
True in some categories (like enterprise, ML/DevOps, etc.) for GTM functions, And global platforms like ours have the capabilities to support talented builders with these and other challenges and provide funding that allows businesses to retain and attract top talent. Of course, our own Value+ arm can also help there.
Finally, will it matter as much in an AI/agentic era, with providers handling GTM, rev ops or customer service seamlessly across time zones and borders via agents that “sound, act and feel” as local as your employees used to be?
“Hope for the Future”
Snufkin, a character from the Moomin books, famously said, “The main thing in life is to know your own mind.”
The future of European tech investment is not merely about catching up to Silicon Valley but about developing a distinctive model to navigate the local market context. Having invested in European VC and Growth for well over a decade, I see an exciting opportunity for investors who develop nuanced strategies to succeed, capitalizing on a flywheel that is set to spin quicker. I’m privileged and excited to take part and help enable the next phase of European innovation and growth together with the Vintage team, which has had a strong thesis and presence in the market since 2013.
We are just getting started.
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