- 18 hours ago
From the resurgence of European tech champions to the shifting dynamics of Asian markets and the growing influence of Gulf capital, the geography of venture investment is changing. AI is concentrating funding in a handful of global hubs, while new investors and asset classes are reshaping where capital flows and who can access it. But the playing field is far from level. Startups still migrate to the U.S. for scale, emerging ecosystems struggle to attract late-stage funding, and new financial centers, from Singapore to the UAE, are competing to become the next engines of innovation. We explore how the global venture map is being redrawn: how capital actually moves across borders, why some regions struggle to keep their champions, and what it takes for ecosystems outside the traditional power centers to remain competitive.
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TechTranscript
00:01Hello everyone. Thank you guys for being here today and thank you all for being
00:05here on stage with me today. We have a really exciting conversation that we're
00:09going to kick off. For a little bit of context, my name is Alex York and I run
00:15the Forbes 30 under 30 list for the US and for Europe. So, so much of my job is
00:21about watching these cross-continental exchanges of funding, business building
00:26from the startup to later stage. So I'm super excited to talk to you guys today
00:31about how those sorts of things are impacting your, you know, work, your day-to-day
00:36lives and how you guys are watching companies grow. I want to start off by
00:40letting you guys all set the stage of why you are the right people to be having
00:45this conversation. So if you would be able to just give me kind of a quick
00:49rundown and give the audience a quick rundown of who you are and what you do
00:53today and why this is a conversation that is an important one for you to be
00:56having in this moment. Do you want to start, Emma? Sure. Hi. Hi everybody. I'm Emma
01:01Cloney. I'm based in Dublin. I'm the Senior Vice President for International Sales and
01:06Strategy and also GM of Ireland for a company called Core42. We're part of the
01:11G42 group and my job is to basically bring sovereign AI infrastructure as a
01:16solution to Europe. The reason I think this is important is because AI is driving so
01:22much capital intensity in terms of capacity and that's showing up in our
01:25day-to-day jobs in terms of the foundations that are required for AI to
01:30run at scale and obviously within a European context on a sovereign on a
01:34sovereign basis as well. But the capital required to do that and drive that is
01:39top of mind for all of our customers today. Hi everyone. I'm Manal. I'm a
01:45principal at HV Capital. For those who don't know us yet, HV is the largest VC fund
01:50coming out of Germany and essentially one of the largest pan-European funds
01:54investing multi-stage across topic sectors in all of Europe and the UK. Why is this
02:01relevant sort of talk about this topic? I mean, to your point, I think there's a big
02:06question around capital deployed in Europe, right? Mainly around AI and deep tech
02:12and how does Europe maintain its sovereignty and sort of it's also geopolitical
02:16power, right? Beyond tech in those sectors. And some of our portfolio
02:20companies that you might know such as N8N, for example, are, you know, proof that
02:26there is a lot of talent in Europe and we also need to have the capital to sort of
02:29follow it. So hello everybody. I'm Stephanie Hospital. I'm the founder and CEO of One
02:37Hack Time. So One Hack Time is a VC fund and platform which invests mostly in French
02:44funders and companies in France and Europe. So we are always the lead and lead seed investors
02:53always at the board. So this topic matters a lot for us as we've done more than 50 investments
03:00since 2007. And when we look at who investment is, we back business that are actually rated
03:06by tech and AI. But we also back business that could develop the tools for AI companies. And when
03:15you see the capital intensity of AI, you have as an investor to pay attention very much to the equity
03:22story and who at the end of the day is going to help you to exit those companies. So I
03:28mean,
03:29what is good for sovereignty sometimes is not good for your investment strategy. So this is why this
03:34topic matters a lot for me.
03:37Hi, my name is Naohem Makino. I'm a director of startup division at Jetro. Jetro is a Japanese
03:45government agency supporting Japanese startups go global. So we have around 2,000 startups from Japan
03:54in our portfolio, which are ready for going global. And our Japanese government is targeting more unicorns
04:02from Japan. So without capital from abroad, we cannot make it. So our main function is to connect
04:11Japanese startups with overseas capitals like you. And yeah, so that's why I will be invited here.
04:20Yes. So as you guys can see, these, you know, amazing speakers are coming from across the globe
04:25and talking about unicorn investors, new startups across Europe. So much is happening, especially
04:31coming from the US. A lot of what we looked at for a long time is like all the money
04:34is in Silicon
04:35Valley. And even now across the US, that's changing and of course, beyond the US as well. But I want
04:41to
04:41know, as people are talking about more of these hubs emerging, and you know, money coming from
04:46elsewhere, is that actually happening? Because I think like, of course, in the US, we talk about like,
04:52maybe New York is a hub, yet the tech founders still move to SF before, you know, they raise a
04:57ton
04:57of money. So I'd love to know from from your work, is this actually happening? Is money coming from
05:02elsewhere? Or where is most of the wealth still coming from today? Do you want to start now?
05:08Yeah, so I can give some examples. Andre C Horvitz is coming to set up the office in Japan, they
05:18have already secured some LPS investment from Japanese corporates. So that's one of the
05:24reasons, but they are looking at us investing in Japanese startups as well. So and we are
05:30supporting them to find potential LPS investments. And in Japan, Japanese ecosystem, there's a
05:38characteristic slide, like, like, we have more corporate investment than family office or investment
05:47from those financial sectors. So it's more stable to get investment as a LP from Japanese
05:57corporate. So that's why these Android and Forbes came to Japan. And also, we have very good source in
06:05terms of startups. And Japanese entrepreneurs, they have more and more global mindset and going global.
06:15So, yeah.
06:17So I would add that it takes time to build an ecosystem. And we've been building the French tech ecosystem
06:24since
06:25the last two, I would say 10 to 12. I mean, it's a lot of support from the states, tax
06:30condition, talents. And obviously, today,
06:34likewise, in Europe, we see the effect of that. We have investors, international investors, who are coming to France, who
06:43are coming to Europe to back scale up to be the investor tapping into those very niche startups that we
06:52think we can have in Europe. But when it comes to the
06:54So when you look at the intensity of the capital overall, today, the massive amount of money are still in
07:00the US, with a lot, I mean, clearly happening in terms of AI. So when you are European funders, I
07:10do think that you have to think hard where you start your company, according to the type of company you're
07:17going to do. So at one time, we brought to back a company named Antimatter, who is doing the first
07:23new cloud services for inference AI. And this company is very interesting, because they built since day one, in all
07:31the geographies. So they are in Europe, in Dubai, in France, in the US, but also in Hong Kong, which
07:38enables this company, day one, to be operating as a global players, and then to attract capital from everywhere.
07:45We've been backing, as for us, as for us, the only European backers, but then we have money coming from
07:52US, from Hong Kong, from Singapore. And this is what, so it means that if you want to build an
08:02AI company, you want to be exposed at some point to massive capital upflow, debt or equity.
08:10And to be attractive, you need to think hard, how you start your company. If you're doing a fintech, no
08:17way, you can do it in Europe, easily. But then you will be tackling the European market, because I do
08:23think that, unfortunately, most of our politicians are confusing sovereignty with, it has to be bought at some point by
08:34a French player or European player.
08:36And this is the main risk we have today, educating our politicians that what is great for a state is
08:43to be open to capital flow, to be open to international funders, to be attractive for them, and at some
08:50point to be something that is truly needed by the others, as Israel has always been able to do.
08:56And this is the challenge that I guess we have in Europe, to make European sovereignty, the fact that European
09:03tech is the best tech for everybody in the world.
09:08Manal, what are you seeing? Are you seeing these new hubs really start up, or what's your experience been like
09:13with it?
09:13Yes, yes, absolutely. So maybe as a background, so I invest myself mainly in early stage investing, so sort of
09:20pre-C to A founders, but as a fund, we do see everything up to Series D.
09:24So my take might be a bit biased on the early stage. We do see a lot of sort of
09:28outflux to SF, especially earlier and earlier, and founders that I would say are the more ambitious of the pack,
09:34right?
09:34So that's something that started as anecdotal evidence, but now we do see a strong sort of, yeah, everyone wants
09:42to go to SF.
09:43There's that sort of saying that two months in SF means two years in the rest of the world, right?
09:47And that says a lot about the sort of talent and capital concentration that you have there that just speeds
09:53everything up, right?
09:54I am deeply a European champion, and I believe that we have so much talent here and so much capital
10:00and so much goodness, right?
10:01Sort of bring together as well, but it might be sometimes hard to actually convince the founders to actually stay
10:07here.
10:09And of course, when the time is right, it does make sense, and we do push our founders to also
10:12move, right?
10:13Because, of course, you know, maybe co-investing with U.S. funds or being on the ground also opens up
10:19such a huge market and network for them, right?
10:22But to your point, I would actually strongly agree that it also depends on what type of companies and what
10:27type of business models that you're going for.
10:29For example, I think in Europe, we've seen a lot happening on the application layer.
10:34So if I really limit myself to AI, right?
10:35And that is something that I would say we're less afraid of backing, right?
10:41Because we see the GTM, we see the sort of money coming in, right, in the next six to 12
10:45months.
10:46We've been, I guess, a bit late to the party when it comes to foundational models,
10:51and maybe have underestimated how much of the value actually accrues to the models, right?
10:56And that is something that I think we are definitely sort of course correcting.
11:00So, for example, HV, we co-led the AMI Labs round, which is a one billion pre-seed, right?
11:06Which shows that there is appetite in Europe to build foundational models
11:09and to sort of back the best entrepreneurs in that layer as well.
11:15But I would argue that we need more of those if we look at the, you know, IPO filings that
11:20we hear about every day
11:21from the Anthropic, OpenAI, et cetera.
11:23There are so many things that we're going to get into.
11:25First, I want to just touch on your experience, Emma, being, you know, having a large part of your job
11:31be based in the UAE.
11:32What is that emerging hub like?
11:34How has that changed the conversation here?
11:36You know, I think it's really interesting.
11:38And I totally pick up on Stephanie's point about you need an ecosystem for founders to flourish, right?
11:43So, I think when we think about Europe, we need to think about the right conditions to help those founders
11:48both start up at scale and then stay in Europe.
11:51And to do that, you need to provide all the right, you know, ingredients that they need.
11:55They need capacity, they need capital, and then they need commitment.
11:58And I think we have a lot of that commitment and the talent, both from the European, you know, government,
12:03you know, the European Commission.
12:05But what I'm seeing in the UAE is really interesting.
12:08And the UAE, I think, is a great example for all of us in Europe as we think about AI
12:12adoption.
12:13So, the UAE thought about AI in a very different way.
12:16They did not see AI as just another tech cycle.
12:20They saw this as a strategic, important foundation to drive economic growth.
12:25And what they did was they basically combined policy with commitment,
12:30with driving and building infrastructure and capacity,
12:33and they literally aligned that to a long-term vision.
12:36And when you bring all of those three things together, so you have the vision,
12:40the customer's deployment with the right compute capacity and capital, you can go really fast.
12:45And that's where AI has been really staggeringly successful in the UAE.
12:49If we look at the latest Microsoft report, the diffusion report for Q1,
12:54the UAE has the highest diffusion numbers globally of any nation around AI adoption.
12:59And that is really because of that commitment all the way down.
13:03And it's connected.
13:04It's not just a single company or a single fund.
13:07It's literally connected throughout the whole society.
13:09And I think when we think about capital and funds, the UAE is also a great builder and a provider
13:16of capital to Europe.
13:18There's a really good example of our sister company, MGX, where we partnered with BPI France.
13:23We partnered with Mistral and NVIDIA to build out what will be one of the largest AI campuses in Europe,
13:28which will basically bring three gigabytes to Europe all through France.
13:36So I think we should not think about the Gulf region or the UAE specifically just as a capital provider,
13:41but actually as a capacity builder, so a partner that we can bring and introduce into that European context.
13:47And there's some amazing learnings that we can also bring to bear as we really start to scale and deploy
13:51AI adoption at scale.
13:53And we're definitely seeing, of course, more funding backing European founders.
13:59There's a stat that the amount of global enterprise VC-backed value is up to 18% in Europe compared
14:07to 0% to 1% 30 to 40 years ago.
14:11So that has changed pretty significantly.
14:14But you guys all kind of speak here to there needs to be this community around it.
14:18There needs to be more than maybe just the cash that's put in.
14:22So what else will it take for Europe to continue to increase this number from, you know, 17 or 18
14:28to more and more?
14:30And do we want it to? Should it? Do we want to focus on like European founders going elsewhere?
14:35Like what is the ideal path here that you guys are trying to help set out?
14:39Stephanie, do you want to take that?
14:41Yeah. So I'm also a vice president of France Digital.
14:45It's the leading French startup and VC association.
14:48And we're very much involved to the European agenda.
14:53So it makes a lot of sense to have a global market in Europe, which is not yet the case.
15:00And all the development of the 28 scheme to enable companies to operate globally, at least in Europe, for European
15:09companies.
15:09It works well for FinTech with the financial passport, but not yet for the rest.
15:14I mean, if you start a company in France, you have to have subsidiaries with some label, complex label in
15:22the other countries.
15:23So that is a lot.
15:25And then we need also to have a large corporation.
15:29We have a lot of big companies in Europe.
15:32They're all here.
15:33I mean, from all over the world to start thinking how they can buy and they can help those companies
15:39to scale.
15:40And last but not least, it's important to fund companies.
15:44But what matters more is to have really funders who want to become global leaders.
15:50We have the ability to scale at the international level, the companies.
15:53And this is a specific set of skills that we're learning today.
15:58We have more and more that.
16:00But again, we need to think that success is global.
16:03And sometimes we think too much by region.
16:07Obviously, the political constraint that we have in the world make us be more by region.
16:13But at the end of the day, the success will be only global.
16:16And we see that with the U.S. players.
16:18In the other hand, we need also to make sure that we develop sovereignty, thinking about resilience, making sure that
16:27we can be independent, independent of our solution, but also having the solution, again, that the others need.
16:36When you're talking about then like these different things that come into building a global company, of course, it is,
16:44you know, being able to work with people from around the world, getting money from around the world.
16:47But also for certain industries, as both of you guys were mentioning, like the rules are different and how you
16:52have to build companies and what customers even want.
16:55Those are very different.
16:56So how would you guys advise anyone?
16:59But, you know, I know, Manal and Stephanie, you guys mentioned this.
17:02How would you advise early stage founders to think about, I'm so early on in my founding journey, but I
17:09know I want this to be global.
17:10How do I like grow without growing too fast or, you know, dilute where my brain power is going when
17:17you're trying to capture all these markets at once?
17:19How should a founder start in those early days to kind of set the groundwork for that?
17:24I think I would say that would very much depend on the founder and sort of the actual topic that
17:30we're looking into, right?
17:31Maybe one of the sort of recent memory I have of a discussion I actually had with a founder building
17:39in the sort of AI legal space, so an AI native company for consumer legal services.
17:45And what we came about with was actually thinking through GTM together in a way that, okay, if you start
17:51in the UK, then the natural next market would be the US, just because legally speaking, the type of law
17:57that he's actually going after is structured in a very, very similar way.
18:01So you also need to make your life a little bit easier wherever you can, right?
18:04Because you are, you know, like everything that could go wrong will go wrong probably, you know, in early stage.
18:10And you need to minimize those risks essentially.
18:13So for that question, that's how I would sort of go about it.
18:17You do have natural fragmentation in Europe, which is a bit of a shame, right?
18:21But we saw quite clearly that if he was to go European country by European country, that would just slow
18:26him down versus competition, right?
18:27Versus much larger, well-funded competition from the US that could actually just come in higher, you know, firepower of
18:36GTM and then just sort of win Europe.
18:39So that kind of depends on what you build.
18:41But maybe another point that is indirectly sort of adjacent to your question, I think something else that Europe might
18:48need that is also more global and that will make these types of founders also global from the get-go
18:53is also to actually focus on compute, I think.
18:55So Europe will have an issue in terms of just not enough compute, right, to just power the models, power
19:02the actual intelligence, right, that we need to actually create that sort of new economy, right, or that layer.
19:07And there's that paper that I was just reading the other day, Europe 2031 by Judith Dada and some MIT
19:15professors.
19:16That's really interesting and shows the sort of hopeful but also doom and gloom trajectory of Europe, right?
19:21And I think one key learning for me was that there was about 5% of compute that is available
19:26in Europe versus 80% in the US.
19:29So this is quite staggering when you think about it.
19:33What else might Europe offer, though, because I know, Stephanie, in preparation for this panel, you talked a lot about
19:38the infrastructure, the energy access, all the sorts of things that exist within Europe that in the US, at least
19:44I know we're talking about, like, where are we going to get this from, to your point when all about,
19:48like, this compute power.
19:49What else does Europe offer that, you know, a founder, maybe if it's not purely cash, can gain from the
19:55partnerships, the deals, all those sorts of things that they're getting here on the ground?
20:01Infrastructure matters a lot.
20:02As you said, compute matters a lot.
20:04And this is why, as for us, one time we were backing a compute companies.
20:08I mean, because we need that infrastructure and we need to do it in a very flexible way.
20:13And this is what we do as an antimatter, where we can offer access to compute wherever there's energy.
20:19And the good thing is that we have a lot of energy, nuclear energy, renewable energy, available in Europe.
20:25I mean, if you compare to China, I mean, clearly China is ahead.
20:29But compared to the US, I mean, we're pretty king of the world for that.
20:33So we can say, yeah, I mean, we've been able to develop that.
20:36We have infrastructure, network infrastructure, I mean, capabilities.
20:40And we often forget that.
20:42But if we want to offer all those services, you have to have good network.
20:46I mean, and the telecom industry in Europe is really strong.
20:50And we have always invested in that.
20:52So I guess that this is a very strong advantage, talents, obviously.
20:57But what matters more is will.
21:00The will to be the one winning.
21:02And often you will learn, you will, and you have maybe this case in Japan,
21:06hear people saying, ah, it's too late.
21:08No, it's never too late.
21:10Because every 10 years, we have a new technological revolution that makes everything possible.
21:17So let's take it.
21:18Let's be prepared for this one, but also for the next one.
21:21And make sure all your current business are adapted to this wave of AI.
21:27And this is a massive opportunity for Europe.
21:29I mean, we can get productivity, efficiency.
21:32And we have all the components at the end of the day to offer that attractive place for funders.
21:40I mean, as for me, I prefer to start my company in France.
21:43I mean, the quality of life, quality of infrastructure, quality of everything matters a lot.
21:47And this is also the values that we are offering in Europe.
21:50So this is why we have to all to fight to keep that.
21:54Because, again, every new election, every new government may change that.
22:00And we've been fortunate in France to have 10 years of great support from the government.
22:04So let's make it happen again.
22:07Yeah.
22:08In the U.S., there's a lot of the 9-9-6 rule working from 9 a.m. to 9
22:12p.m. six days a week.
22:13So if that doesn't exist in France, I think that's a good option for many reasons.
22:18Now, I want to ask you, we haven't talked so much about the Asian market yet in this conversation.
22:22How is Japan coming into play?
22:24How is the conversation different there versus Europe?
22:28And how are these kind of international flows happening from your perspective?
22:31I think for early-stage startups from Japan, I mean, previously, we have, as I mentioned, we supported more than
22:432,000 startups from Japan.
22:45And previously, we supported more later stage.
22:48They have a product market fit in Japanese market, and then they go to the U.S. market or other
22:55market.
22:55But they couldn't have a founder commitment.
23:00They just hire a sales manager, and then they failed, actually.
23:04So now we have supported more and more early-stage startups going global from day one.
23:11And we support them to setting up their RSC corp and getting visa in the U.S.
23:18So that's what we are doing right now.
23:20But on the other side, we have advantage in domain knowledge, like entertainment content industry.
23:30or manufacturing industry.
23:33So in those domains, we can have advantage to make a startup from Japan, I think.
23:40And for those startups, then, that you're kind of helping to support there, do they normally then stay in Japan
23:45for the entirety of their career?
23:47Or is there that global, like, expansion of, I'm going to build an HQ elsewhere?
23:50Or what's, like, the later stage after you help to support them through that?
23:54Actually, more and more Japanese entrepreneurs move into the Bay Area, and then they start their startups there.
24:01And we are expecting them to go there, and then after exiting their startups, they may invest in Japanese startups.
24:13So that's what we are expecting.
24:16It's kind of an ecosystem, right?
24:17So we have several examples, Japanese entrepreneurs.
24:22Like, one example is one Japanese Y Combinator alumni.
24:26They got exit from a million, a hundred million USD.
24:31And now they have a fund for the U.S. and Japanese startups to invest in.
24:36So that's a very good example.
24:38So maybe I will recall a personal memory when a few years ago I was invited with Jerry Young, former
24:46CEO of IHAU and Nobuyuki Idei, to give a lecture to Japanese founders, explaining to them how you can scale
24:56and start an ecosystem.
24:57It was in 2019.
24:59And Japan has been always paving the way for technology breakthrough.
25:04I mean, when Nobuyuki Idei-san was the CEO of Sony, under his management, you launched the PlayStation, you launched
25:15the Walkman.
25:15I mean, clearly, and again, what happened, I guess, in Japan, it's a question of will, political will, social will.
25:26I mean, you have to have role models, people that are the entrepreneurs you want to empower, to explain to
25:35young people that, yes, it's possible.
25:37Because it was possible before, it's still possible.
25:40It takes time, but I'm sure you will make it because now, on top of that, you will have a
25:44lot of money flow.
25:46I have heard that the institutional investors in Japan have been massively exposed to SpaceX.
25:51So, you have the money, you have the money to scale that, you need to have the will.
25:56Yeah, that's why we are supporting Japanese entrepreneurs to change their mindset with our, we have lots of acceleration program
26:07with global partners,
26:09like 500 Global and Alchemist and other well-known accelerator in the US.
26:14Yes, and now, the Japanese entrepreneurs' mindset, it's changing, and that's why they go to the Bay Area to start
26:23their business, I think.
26:24Yeah, I totally understand that.
26:26I want to talk about the UAE side of things, and we mentioned here, like, the French government being, you
26:31know, super supportive, kind of the Japanese model there.
26:34You talked about that, while the UAE has, like, tons of governmental support, and there's a lot that's happening there,
26:40that doesn't necessarily need to be the model that others follow, but I'd love to know, like, what we can
26:45learn from it,
26:46what might be helpful to replicate in a place like Europe or globally,
26:50and maybe the things that you think should stay European or should stay kind of their own course.
26:57Yeah, I think it's a really good point.
26:58And so, we're not saying by any means that we should follow or copy the UAE model, because Europe is
27:03very complex.
27:03You know, I think you said already, Europe is fragmented.
27:05That makes it beautiful, and it makes it complex at the same time, right?
27:09So, we have all of those lovely nuances, but we have very strong regulation in Europe,
27:14not just at the European level, at the country level, at the industry level, at the company level.
27:19So, you know, that adds another layer of complexity.
27:21So, whatever we do and what companies will decide to do around sovereign AI has to be what we're coining
27:29sovereign on their terms.
27:30So, what does sovereignty mean to a French, you know, public sector institution versus a German bank is completely different.
27:36So, I think the notion of sovereignty is very nuanced, and I think we need to recognize that.
27:42So, you know, we hope that what has been built in the UAE, I think, first of all, it's at
27:48a national scale,
27:49and that makes it very different.
27:51There are very few countries that have rolled out and deployed AI at scale nationally.
27:55So, if we think about the infrastructure and the backbone that Core 42 and G42, our parent company, have built
28:01in the UAE,
28:01it's across all of government with, for example, 11 million digital transactions per day.
28:09We built the first global financial services sovereign cloud with the central bank of the UAE,
28:16and we've also built a fully sovereign public cloud where we've got almost 100 customers running,
28:22and that's got 200 sovereign controls actually built into the architecture.
28:26And I think one of the learnings there is we've built sovereign from the ground up.
28:30We haven't bolted sovereignty on to infrastructure and operations after the fact.
28:34And I think that's a big learning that maybe Europe can take.
28:39And then I think the other thing is that this level of, yes, capital, but also capacity, compute capacity, and
28:49also commitment.
28:49You know, and you talked about will, commitment.
28:51And that's really important, and there is great regulation now in Europe.
28:56You know, the recent tech sovereignty package is putting all of the technology investment, AI,
29:02top of the agenda for the European Commission and nation countries that fall in within that.
29:07So, there is commitment.
29:09There is funding.
29:11What I think we now need to do is build and encourage sovereign solutions that make sense for Europe.
29:17And I do genuinely think that we can't do it on our own in Europe.
29:22You know, I think it's a hybrid approach is probably the most sensible approach because most European country companies,
29:28and we know that about 62% of European companies right now are in the business of and finding and
29:34identifying an AI sovereign provider.
29:36So, they are building an AI sovereign solution for their organization.
29:39And they want access to global providers.
29:42They want access to the best in class, but they want to do it on their terms.
29:45So, they want to retain control.
29:47They want to make sure that they have the, you know, not just data residency because we can have loads
29:53of data centers,
29:53but it doesn't mean it's sovereign just because they sit in a country.
29:56I think sovereignty has moved way beyond with AI than just data residency and failover and latency,
30:02which we had in the cloud era.
30:04It's now really who has control to my data, who's got access, how is that accessed, you know, agents,
30:10how do we bring agentic control into all of that.
30:12So, there's a lot of learnings and the proof points of the commitment and, as I say, that rollout at
30:19scale over many years,
30:21and then that actually showing up in the actual AI adoption across the entire country, but it's not a blueprint.
30:27It's ideas.
30:29It's a proof point, but it's not a blueprint.
30:31So, I think we're very open to having conversations and working through an ecosystem of partners because, actually, AI, I
30:37think, genuinely only does work through partnerships and local partnerships.
30:40So, our message is really let's take what we've learned and then work through local partners with local companies to
30:46build the sovereign environment that they need on their terms.
30:48You're so right, though, that as things become more and more global, more and more, like, tech-driven, it's super
30:54hard to then distinguish, like, whose is whose information or data or rights to things.
30:59And I think, you know, and we mentioned this on the pep call as well, like, there is kind of
31:05this dichotomy in a lot of founders' minds right now of,
31:07do I want to have the freedom to build this how I want or do I want to get global
31:11money?
31:12How do you advise, and all of you, I ask this question to, how do you advise them to think
31:17about that right now as more and more money maybe is available around the world,
31:21but maybe they'll have to start thinking about, am I going to have to change the way that I'm doing
31:24business in exchange for some of this?
31:30I think, you want to go? Okay.
31:33I think, again, maybe the devil is in the details, and I would very much have that sort of case
31:41-by-case conversation, actually, with founders, to be honest.
31:44There is truth to sort of, you know, having external money or international money and, obviously, smart money will help
31:51you in your cap table, right,
31:52in terms of introductions, opening markets, opening the right talents, attracting, and also, it is a signaling game for a
32:00long time, right, until you're very, very established.
32:03So, in that sense, I would default towards, do have all the conversations.
32:07When you run a process, do run a large process, do take the introductions.
32:11I think some, I see also some of my founders being sort of quite particular, and also, if you do
32:16have a lot of interest, you try and sort of block the doors.
32:18I usually advise them to sort of open the doors, actually, and speak to as many people as possible, because
32:23you actually never really know what will come out of a conversation, right, beyond just money.
32:28And, in general, we do live in, on the one hand, in a more and more globalized world, so I
32:32would think that it makes sense, right?
32:35Again, caveat, it very much depends on what you build, I think, and maybe one side note or something I
32:40wanted to add to sort of what you're saying.
32:42I very much agree to your point, and I think one concrete example is that we've all seen that Anthropic
32:47has blocked Fable, right, Mito's usage to anyone who's non-U.S.,
32:51so to the point of forcing sort of non-U.S. founders to also build Anthropics.
32:59Yeah, I totally agree with what you said, Manal.
33:02I do think that, as a founder, you need to think global day one, but be clear, depending on which
33:08type of company you're doing, which equity, fundraising, customer story you will have.
33:14If you're building an AI company, again, be careful, because at some point there might be restriction, at the end
33:22of the day you want to exit,
33:24who is going to be able to buy your company because you are a very important company for your states.
33:30So you have to pay attention to where you structure, how you structure, which investor you take, but be global.
33:37If you don't think global, if tech is not global, because, again, all our politicians are tenting us to think
33:45locally,
33:46it's the rise of populism is about being local, and we are all citizens of the world.
33:53We need to keep that, and we welcome, again, all the founders in France, in Europe, international founders.
33:59And I guess that an ecosystem that is successful is an ecosystem that is able to attract international funders creating
34:06their company in Europe
34:08instead of the U.S. or Japan or French funders in Japan.
34:14This is how you see that your ecosystem is attractive for entrepreneurs, but also for then financial investors.
34:25There has been, obviously, a huge focus on some of these U.S. AI companies, to your point, raising billions
34:32of dollars,
34:33taking up a massive share of the funding, and then also of the consumer base.
34:39First, I want to ask you now, how are you thinking about the U.S. companies, especially, you know,
34:44he mentioned to me in the green room that you're headed to SF shortly to start, you know, working there.
34:50How are you thinking about how these U.S. players are really leading the charge in some ways?
34:56And how do you advise other startups to either build on that, do something differently?
35:01Like, what does that mean for the other AI companies around the world hoping to raise money today?
35:06And I'll ask this to everyone now.
35:07I'd love to know your thoughts since you're headed there shortly to be right down the street from that.
35:14Yes, again, as I mentioned, we have some advantage in domain, like some manufacturing.
35:23I can give you some example.
35:25We got international founders, which became a unicorn from Japan recently,
35:32which is called Genki Robotics, which was established by Andy Rubin, who is the founder of Android.
35:41And he came to Tokyo to set up his robotics setups in Japan.
35:48And the reason why, one of the reasons why he came to Japan is I think we have a very
35:55good manufacturing industries,
35:56and also we have domain data, so that's why we can attract those international founders to Japan.
36:05But still, without global funding, especially from the U.S., we cannot make such unique...
36:13Because these Genki Robotics as well, they got funding from NREA or TopTaya, which is from the U.S.
36:22So, I think businesses in Japan, but funding from global.
36:26Totally.
36:27If I may say at one right time, we have always seen our founders changing dimension the day they were
36:33operating in the U.S.
36:35So, if you are very ambitious, start in France, start in Europe,
36:40but at some point if your company is an AI company, not a fintech or marketplaces,
36:44even that, you have to be successful in the U.S.
36:47You have to be exposed to the U.S.
36:48You have to think international.
36:50So, and as for us, we're trying also to back founders that are not originating from France
36:57and that goes to the U.S., start a company there,
37:01because this is also where, when you look at all the success stories in the U.S.,
37:05you have many French founders that are top performers,
37:09that have built massive companies in the U.S.
37:12So, this is also a way of building your ecosystem,
37:15backing your French founder all over the world, or Japanese founders.
37:21Manal, you have mentioned, too, that some of the precedents set by U.S.
37:25companies in terms of how much they're raising might be skewing things.
37:28We have to think about it in context.
37:30So, there have been a couple unicorn companies in Europe that have raised a billion plus dollars,
37:37but that's, for a lot of the AI companies in the U.S., just another day.
37:42How are you thinking about, as you're on the ground with founders today,
37:46how are these precedents that the U.S. AI companies are setting,
37:50how is that impacting your conversations and your advice for them?
37:53Yeah, that's a good question.
37:55And I would very much echo what you were saying, actually, Stephanie.
37:59So, there is something about the ambition of founders when they go to the U.S.
38:03and when they drink a bit of that SF Kool-Aid, to be honest,
38:07and just seeing that Sky truly is the limit, you know,
38:10and that you can build so much more, so much faster, so much bigger,
38:14and have access to so much talent, right?
38:17So, that is something that when the time is right,
38:20but now the time becomes faster and faster, actually,
38:23we do push our founders to start a GTM, you know, in the U.S.,
38:27or say yes to customers that are just beyond the sort of normal playbook, right?
38:31And just, yeah, go faster, break things, let's see what happens.
38:34But I think also being, especially in AI, right,
38:37being close to the power, so to say,
38:39or being close to really the pulse of what is happening
38:43becomes more and more important,
38:44and the gap does widen, so, yeah.
38:48We have just under a minute left.
38:50I'd love to go down the line and just ask you all for one prediction that you have
38:54about how money flow is going to change within the next five to ten years
38:58that might really impact a lot of the people in this room.
39:02Do you want to start it off?
39:03Well, I think we should stop thinking about capital as just money.
39:07I think we should really start thinking about, as I said,
39:10the UA example of capital being the opportunity to open doors,
39:13just form partnerships and be open to not being, you know,
39:17the money is coming from the EU or from the Gulf region,
39:20but actually in partnership together, I think we can achieve an awful lot more.
39:25Maybe one quick word is that there's so much talent here.
39:29I think talent is equally distributed.
39:31We might need more capital in Europe, in a sense, in the later stages as well,
39:36and that's something that I'm very, very hopeful will happen.
39:40Well, money is power, so make sure that the European capital is backing European funders
39:49and thinking that it's more attractive to invest here in Europe than to back the U.S. companies.
39:58I think now we are moving to Asian tech era.
40:02So now it's, I think, more important than ever, the domain knowledge.
40:09So each country should have their advantage in terms of industries.
40:14So Japan has some advantage in some industry,
40:18and France has some advantage in some areas.
40:21So, yeah, you can go to that kind of domain knowledge.
40:26You should have some advantage, definitely.
40:29And that knowledge is part of that capital that you were mentioning, too, Oma.
40:32Thank you guys so much for being here.
40:34Thank you guys for listening in.
40:35I appreciate you guys taking the time.
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