- 3 months ago
"Europe has proven it can launch startups. Scaling them is a different story. While early-stage funding has strengthened, many companies hit a ceiling when it comes to later-stage capital, market access, and growth conditions.
This raises a strategic question: should Europe anchor its most promising startups locally, or embrace global expansion as a necessary step in their growth?
Bringing together founders and investors, this session examines the real trade-offs behind staying versus relocating. When does it make sense to expand beyond Europe and what would it take to build an environment where startups don’t just start in Europe, but scale and compete from it?"
This raises a strategic question: should Europe anchor its most promising startups locally, or embrace global expansion as a necessary step in their growth?
Bringing together founders and investors, this session examines the real trade-offs behind staying versus relocating. When does it make sense to expand beyond Europe and what would it take to build an environment where startups don’t just start in Europe, but scale and compete from it?"
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TechTranscript
00:33All right.
00:34Thank you for those that are here.
00:37I want to thank Julien, Susanna, and JD for joining me on stage today as we discuss day
00:46or scale.
00:47With that, I thought I might give you guys each an opportunity to introduce yourself,
00:51if you would like to start.
00:54Hi, everyone.
00:54It's a pleasure to be here.
00:56I'm Julien Lene.
00:57I'm the CEO and one of the co-founders at Adaptive.
01:00At Adaptive, we help companies specialize large language models with reinforcement learning
01:05to get the best trade-off in terms of cost performance.
01:08And although most of us are European as funders, we actually mostly operate in the US and most
01:16of them are actually 99% of our go-to market in North America.
01:21Hi.
01:22My name is Susanna.
01:23I'm an investor.
01:23With Iconic in London, we are a global investment firm partnering with category-leading companies
01:31from Series A through IPOs all the way to public markets.
01:38We've been very fortunate to partner with founders at companies like Anthropic, DataDoc,
01:4511 Labs, Pigment here in Paris, or Adaptive ML.
01:51And we look for category leaders really across the world but have offices in San Francisco,
02:00New York, and London.
02:03Hi.
02:04I'm JD.
02:05I'm managing partner of Iris.
02:06Iris is a pan-European venture and growth tech firm.
02:10We focus on very vertical technologies, companies that create assets that compound, such as Adaptive
02:17from Julien or Shift Technology, AI in the insurance space, exotech robotics in the logistics space.
02:24We like companies that have a clear tech asset that actually can scale within their verticals.
02:30Excellent.
02:31So I'm going to start with one question for each of you and then we'll move on to some
02:36broader questions.
02:37But Julien, as a founder, building in this frontier space of generative AI, what was your decision-making
02:44process around where to base and grow Adaptive ML?
02:50Actually, I think the answer is a bit underwhelming in a way in that I think for us it was
02:55very obvious.
02:56So, you know, as I mentioned, we are all European but the company is a U.S. company and we
03:01started
03:01from the get-go in the U.S.
03:03We moved quite quickly to New York.
03:05Today we have operations kind of split between the two continents where a lot of our engineering
03:09and product team are in Europe, but most of our go-to-market and research is in the U.S.
03:16or in North America or quite a bit in Canada actually.
03:18Oh, in Canada as well.
03:19Okay.
03:19Not to think about.
03:20But yeah, for us, I would say the answer is underwhelming in the sense that it was very
03:24obvious.
03:25Like it was just, you know, from a go-to-market, from an access to fund perspective and all of
03:30this, it was like completely obvious to do so.
03:33And it was, you know, much easier to go that way.
03:36It's much more of the default path.
03:38And, you know, the way that I like to present this is that, is it impossible to, you know,
03:44work fully in Europe, you know, completely start with a European company, work only on
03:48the European market?
03:49Yes.
03:50Yes.
03:51But, you know, doing a startup is already tremendously difficult.
03:54The odds are kind of stacked against you.
03:56So anything that you can take to make it easier, you should take it.
03:59And so there's not really any reason to go off the default path of starting in the U.S.
04:04So you started in the U.S.?
04:06Exactly.
04:06And, but you're based here in France as well.
04:10No, actually, no.
04:10So we have an office and we have, you know, we have obviously a part of the company in France,
04:14but we, and we keep that in our DNA because we think there is great technical talent in
04:19Europe, you know, that sort of stuff.
04:21Excellent.
04:21But all of our go-to-market motion is predominantly, you know, North America.
04:25It's primarily North America, U.S.
04:26Yeah.
04:26Okay.
04:26That's great.
04:28Susanna, Iconic invest globally at all stages from seed to IPO, beyond.
04:34My question for you is when you're looking at European countries, what does good look like
04:40or what are, what are some doing right?
04:42Yeah, I think looking at some of our European global leaders in technology and our portfolio,
04:51I would say most companies really share similar traits.
04:56And I would say actually building out of Europe has proven to be an advantage, not really in
05:02spite of it.
05:03And one thing I would highlight is probably founders who are starting to build in Europe
05:12really have to think about how to start a global business from day one, not really as an afterthought.
05:21And founders building in Paris or Stockholm, they do realize that they cannot just tackle a local market,
05:27but they genuinely need to think about internationalization just as they architect their products, their go-to-markets, their team.
05:38And that definitely already gives them an edge from day one.
05:44Secondly, I would say historically what we've seen is that a lot of European companies have been pretty capital efficient
05:52compared to some of their global peers.
05:55And this is just really the factor of European founders having to build more with less.
06:02And we've seen that being reflected in unit economics.
06:06And I think especially in today's environment, it really gives European founders an edge.
06:13And last but not least, I would almost echo what Julianne just said.
06:18I genuinely think that the pockets of talent in cities like London, Paris, Munich, Stockholm are...
06:29Again, the talent is really world class, and I would say it's becoming only better.
06:34A decade ago, we have seen founders really escaping to Silicon Valley.
06:42I think today we're actually seeing the reverse, where a lot of founders and operators
06:48who are trained at places like OpenAI, Meta, Google are coming back with tremendous ambitions and, again, want to build
06:59here.
07:00And I think even AdaptiveML is a perfect example of a company that really is headquartered between Paris and New
07:10York,
07:10but really sees themselves as a global leader.
07:14No, thank you. That's a great answer.
07:17JD, so asking a question from a very early stage investor perspective.
07:23Are you, when you're working with your portfolio companies, pushing them to take a global point of view early on,
07:29or is there ever a reason to be Europe first?
07:32First of all, we don't push them.
07:35I mean, if you start a business and we don't see a potential to be international from day one, that's
07:41going to be tricky.
07:41There are a couple of industries such as, like health, where working with hospitals requires a certain local culture.
07:50So in certain verticals such as health, being local is something that you don't overlook.
07:56You're like, all right, this is going to start like this.
07:58But when you build companies in reinforcement learning, when you build company detecting fraud in insurance,
08:05when you build companies allowing you to manage cash treasury from large groups, the first day the company is created,
08:12it needs to be international.
08:13So it's not that we push this, we know it's international.
08:15The question is, should they be starting with French customers, German customers?
08:20So my belief here is that you go where the market pulls you.
08:23If you're an AI company, problem is, I think you need to be in the U.S.
08:27Because the truth is, there's nothing better than OpenAI and the proximity of these guys to be efficient at pushing
08:33what you push.
08:34But if you're a company providing software for industrial customers, Germany is great.
08:40You've got so many industries, manufacturers, so you've got a great potential.
08:44And you've got to look at the U.S. because it's going to be huge too.
08:47If you're at something in cosmetics, France is a very good space to start.
08:51You get drawn by the markets you're drawn.
08:53The example of Shift Technology, when they started, I invested in seed in 2014.
08:58Well, it took us time to get AXA, but once you have AXA Global and Generali, well, you raise funds
09:04with AXA, with General Catalyst.
09:06You take a couple of trips to the U.S.
09:08It's long to onboard international insurance, GEICO.
09:12But once you're in the U.S., you have the same cycle, you do it again.
09:15But it's not the same to come see these guys with already these brand names in Europe than starting there
09:21without anything and being against other companies.
09:24Also, there's the question of the pool of talent.
09:26Right now, you start your company in the U.S., even though you're a French founder, you're going to pay
09:31them against anthropic or open AI salaries.
09:36You get great engineering talent, great commercial talent out of engineering school, business schools in France.
09:42The salaries are not the same.
09:43So you have another equation, which is we've got great talent.
09:47It's just a customer somewhere else.
09:48So the summary of your answer is we help them build strong foundations so that they have great products locally.
09:55And I think that's what Adaptive has been doing.
09:57But then you help them find their customers wherever they are.
10:01And sometimes it goes fast.
10:03Sometimes it takes time.
10:04But it's international.
10:05Yeah.
10:06And it sounded a bit sector-specific as well based on…
10:10It is because you don't have, like, one answer fits all.
10:14Right.
10:14What I've learned is right now on AI, truth is it's not happening here.
10:18There's Mistral.
10:19There's a couple of great companies here.
10:20But you want to be in the U.S.
10:21When it comes down to other verticals, it's a world business.
10:26Like, manufacturing is common to the U.S., common to Europe.
10:30Exotec, the first warehouses we sold were to Leclerc, to Carrefour.
10:34But then we got in the U.S. and we got huge contracts there in Asia.
10:38So it doesn't matter where you start as long as you get big customers, big means to be able to
10:44afford new offices and get somewhere else.
10:46The one thing, though, is that in Europe, you go from France to Germany.
10:51It's small traveling for a lot of efforts.
10:53In the U.S., it's the U.S.
10:55It's a great market.
10:57So, yeah, there's a couple of specificities around your industry, around your DNA.
11:03Are you a French founder, a European founder?
11:05But then it's a global market and really your customers decide for you.
11:10Okay.
11:11I think we've got great answers there.
11:13Thank you, guys.
11:13Okay, so moving on to the perceived capital gap in Europe.
11:19So, Susanna, I'm going to start with you and then I'd like JD and Julian to weigh in.
11:23But there is a perception that capital, late-stage capital, just capital in general, remains much harder to access in
11:30Europe.
11:30And I really wanted to understand, you know, what are you seeing in 2026?
11:36And, you know, if you could add a lens on like the risk appetite, supply, just regulation, those types of
11:43things.
11:44Of course.
11:46I would start with saying that I think actually the view that growth capital is harder to access in Europe
11:53is somewhat outdated today.
11:57First of all, the supply of capital has really changed in Europe.
12:02I think, you know, the Gulf funds, the US crossover funds, a lot of growth investment vehicles in Europe have
12:11actually chosen Europe very intentionally versus opportunistically,
12:15which used to be the dialogue five, ten years ago.
12:20And, again, I think even when you look at the returns proportion, Europe has produced some fantastic companies that also
12:31managed to scale, sale, and then also IPO in the US.
12:37On the risk appetite, I would say we still see a little bit more conservatism compared to the Valley.
12:48It's true to some extent, but at the same time, I would say that companies that do well never really
12:58have problems finding growth capital.
13:01And there's a lot of pockets also from the US that are also now present here with offices in Paris,
13:09London, Berlin, who are very, very open to taking that additional risk.
13:14So we're definitely seeing a lot of growth around looking very differently also from the risk perspective versus what it
13:22used to be a few years ago.
13:25So on the regulatory side, I think that's a great question that we should probably all be asking ourselves in
13:34Europe.
13:34I do think that many founders somewhat struggle and for some reasons pick the US as their first market or
13:44even decide to even start companies there from day one because they obviously see the AI act, you know, being
13:54maybe more complex to navigate for some.
13:57But at the same time, I would say we also see companies in Europe that start building really with compliance
14:05and regulatory frameworks from day one.
14:11And what we then later see, especially as they start to sell to enterprises, public institutions really across the world,
14:20it also gives them an advantage compared to some of the peers that they have across the borders.
14:27So overall, I would say it's more of a perception gap.
14:32And I think the gap is really narrowing faster, faster than we think.
14:36Okay, so not as much of a problem as maybe people perceive.
14:42I would say so.
14:43Okay.
14:43Is there anything that you would add to that JD?
14:47I like to create contrasting views.
14:50So personally, I think it's harder, but it's not harder because there's not money.
14:55Right now there's like freaking amount of money.
14:58No, the issue relates to what we just discussed around the scale and the speed of companies.
15:04The growth money that you want to catch and you're talking about is looking for companies that are scaling fast.
15:11And the standard of scaling fast right now because anthropic, open AI has drastically changed.
15:18So already five years ago, scaling like Slack, scaling like Stripe, you didn't have that many companies in Europe doing
15:25that.
15:26You got Spotify recently, you got a couple.
15:29UiPath was amazing.
15:30But the unit that we're talking about here in Europe doesn't compare to the amount that you find in the
15:37US.
15:38And now that you have AI companies like these companies do 20 billion revenue, or 40 for anthropic.
15:46So like we've changed scale.
15:48And so the growth capital right now that typically Zuzana represents, you got a choice.
15:53Do I invest in anthropic like six months before the IPO?
15:57It's a little bit expensive, but you know what?
15:59It seems to be interesting.
16:00Or do you find companies in Europe?
16:02It's going to be cheaper, right?
16:03But do you get the same level of scale?
16:05Do you get the same level of multiples?
16:07And the truth is, that's the challenge of Europe right now for two reasons.
16:11As Zuzana said, regulation, but regulation is a reflection of the state of mind.
16:15Right now, Europe is a little bit secluded.
16:17You want to build global businesses, we're talking about the AI Act.
16:20So you got much more ambition to generate to say, well, you know what?
16:23You're building a company here, but it's as if you were in San Francisco.
16:26That's not the case today.
16:28So we got to scale up in the resources we provide to companies,
16:31in the way corporates are adopting IT, AI in their IT.
16:34So right now, if you look at the curves,
16:36Western Europe is far behind any other country in the world
16:39in terms of AI adoption or IT modernization.
16:42The second thing is, well, the speed at which companies from one point
16:47can actually generate scale.
16:48So if you generate the right state of mind and the right environment,
16:52then companies with their cultures, with the fact they go to the US,
16:55the fact they create a lot of partnerships, can generate speed.
16:58So I would agree with Susanna that the money's there.
17:01The question is, growth capital needs to compare to multiples
17:04that are right now freaking high.
17:06So we got to work at generating freaking high growing companies in Europe.
17:11Any thoughts, Julian, from a founder?
17:14I think, and I agree with both of your points.
17:20I would add a nuance, actually, that I think is quite important,
17:24to an extent a nuance in the question, which is, you know,
17:27if we take the question as, like, can European funder access, you know,
17:31US capital easily or capital in general easily?
17:34The answer is yes.
17:35Like, the answer, you know, is that, as you mentioned, you know,
17:38a firm like Index, like Iconic, you know, like others now,
17:40have very well developed, you know, international practice and European practices
17:44that invest, you know, at every stages and very successfully so.
17:49But, you know, the reality of this is that, one, this is US money.
17:54This money doesn't come from Europe.
17:56Two, this is invested typically in US structures.
17:58I would be very curious to see the statistics on how much money
18:01is actually invested in companies incorporated in Europe.
18:05because I think that number is actually probably not even a percent
18:08of what it is, you know, in the US.
18:11And I think, ultimately, like, is access to capital, you know, easy?
18:17The answer is yes.
18:18And I think as long taking into account what G.J. was saying,
18:21which is like, look, you need to be fast growing.
18:23You know, the bar can be high and all of this.
18:25You know, an investor is not going to make a bad investment.
18:27But, you know, truly European capital, truly, you know, European companies
18:32are virtually non-existent.
18:34And it's very, like, I think, Iris, you are one of the few.
18:37There is not that many, you know, that we can easily name
18:40that make this effort of building this.
18:43And that's very concerning.
18:44Because that, I think, in the long term is a huge, you know,
18:48is a huge issue to not have a form.
18:51A sovereignty is an overused word that I don't particularly like.
18:55But to not have, you know, a source of capital, a source of investment
18:58that is, you know, native to Europe
19:01and that doesn't depend on external, you know, on external superpowers.
19:05And that, I think, is like the elephant in the room, really.
19:08Because access to capital, you know, yeah, I mean, that has been solved.
19:12I don't know since, actually, I don't know since when, you know,
19:16big funds started going to Europe.
19:18But I feel it's been a decade or so progressively.
19:20So that's been solved a decade ago.
19:21I think the challenge today is more, how do we build our own, you know,
19:25our own Iconic, our own Index, our own, you know, Andresenovits.
19:28That, I think, is a much more, you know, relevant, you know, thought.
19:32And that's very difficult.
19:33Because these funds exist because behind them,
19:37there is a million of macroeconomic trends and entities
19:40that enable them to survive, you know, pension funds, you know,
19:42very large, like massive amounts of money that are moving around.
19:46And even at the end of the road, you mentioned, you know,
19:49successful European companies can IPO in the US.
19:52They don't IPO in Europe because an IPO in Europe is, I think, like, look,
19:57the SpaceX IPO, the valuation of SpaceX is nearly the valuation
20:01of all of the French public companies put together.
20:04We are not, you know, we don't have an IPO market.
20:06Like, we have nothing.
20:07Like, we are not able to take, you know, big tech companies public.
20:11We are not able to do this.
20:12So we need to build all of that capital infrastructure.
20:15And that, I think, is a much more interesting challenge and difficult one.
20:20Anything you want to add to that, Susanne?
20:22It looked like you had something.
20:24Yeah, I had quite a few things going through my head.
20:27I think it's a good point about, you know, European companies in Europe
20:31being funded in the United States.
20:32Like, that was a really good point about the percentage of capital
20:34that actually stays.
20:35Yeah.
20:36Probably no, because I think there's a lot of my statistics on this.
20:40We like, yes, we do like to have a lot of statistics.
20:43And I encourage everyone to visit our website with all the insights.
20:46You can probably, you know, you can back a lot of things that Julian said.
20:52I had a few reflections, but I think a very interesting point that you brought up
20:56is that, you know, we don't have even founders starting to think about,
21:02let's say, European structure, for example, as they start a company.
21:06And I wouldn't necessarily say that this comes from, you know,
21:11US money forcing founders to do that.
21:14Founders, they honestly move mountains to build their business.
21:21And if you have to, you know, deal with the German bureaucracy,
21:25French bureaucracy, et cetera, et cetera, from day one,
21:28I think right now we really have a system where we almost force founders to take shortcuts.
21:37And I think there are very, you know, very little steps that we could be taking from day one,
21:44really celebrating tech founders, supporting them.
21:48And I think, you know, one can argue where we are with this today in Europe in terms of really,
21:54again,
21:55supporting the environment and making sure to Julian's point that this capital also get recycled here.
22:01It doesn't matter as much that, you know, you IPO in the US or you build a large operations team
22:08in the US.
22:09It's at the end of the day, what really creates economic value is where you hold the team,
22:16where you hold the IP, where ultimately, again, the capital gets recycled,
22:21where founders become investors, where operators become founders.
22:24And this knowledge of how to build tech and AI in Europe compounds here in the continent.
22:31And I think that those ways will follow.
22:34And we're already seeing, luckily, a lot of that starting in Europe.
22:39But, again, my key reflections after what you said,
22:44there are very small steps that we can take to be really supporting founders from day one,
22:49not necessarily, you know, start solving large problems.
22:53We can also start small.
22:54No, that's a really good point.
22:56And anything you wanted to add?
22:58No?
22:59I think we've covered it all right.
23:00Excellent.
23:01Yeah, no, that's great.
23:02But you had said something around the team and you guys had talked about talent.
23:05So I did want to talk about the market access to the talent here in Europe
23:10and how the AI talent, the deep tech talent,
23:16and how that might be shaping the next generation of companies that are here in Europe
23:22and maybe based here, if there's any thought on that.
23:26Yeah, I mean, one thing I can say is that, and that was the point of GD initially,
23:32which is like, and your point as well around London and Paris,
23:35which is there's an amazing pool of talent in Europe.
23:38Europe, and I'm generalizing a little bit the statement here beyond France,
23:42but I think, in general, Europe is really good at producing talent.
23:46Like, I think our universities, our school system, and all of this,
23:49all of our education are really high-quality.
23:53They are very good, produce very high-quality talent, and that's, you know, and that's amazing.
23:59Now, I think it's a little bit more, you know, once again, a little bit more uncomfortable
24:05and actually connects to your point today, which is like, well,
24:08one of the reasons that pool of talent is so amazing is because it's really cheap.
24:13Because indeed, when you hire an engineer in France versus the US, it doesn't even call you half.
24:19Like, it's not even that. And yes, because today, you know, if you look at the GDP per capita,
24:23adjusted for purchase power if you want, this year, France is going to pass the bar of being half as
24:29much as the US.
24:30So, on a per capita basis, adjusted for purchase power parity, France is twice as poor.
24:38Basically, it's like, you know, it's like we're only half as rich as the US.
24:42And so, all of, you know, all of the salaries and everything follow.
24:45So, yes, you know, as a founder or as someone running a company, it's great because you have access to
24:51cheap talent for cheaper.
24:53Now, is it sustainable? Because you are basically treating Europe as an overseas provider.
24:59So, you know, when I was in school, when I was in middle school, when I was in high school,
25:04they teach you about, you know, the third world and where we send our factories and all of this.
25:08This is literally what's happening here right now.
25:10And this is literally what people in the US think about, you know, Europe.
25:15Yeah, it's great, you know, as a guy, you know, exploiting that leverage.
25:20But is it sustainable and is it good for our future?
25:24No, it's absolutely, in fact, it's a nightmare and it's extremely uncomfortable.
25:29And it should make us, you know, extremely worried that this trend is only deepening.
25:34Because this is a train wreck, you know, that we are watching happening in slow motion.
25:38Also, because that talent eventually lives.
25:41Because the reality is that not only that talent eventually realized they could be paid so much more in the
25:46US.
25:46And also the standard of life in the US is so much higher than it is in Europe.
25:52And I think this is something that people underestimate.
25:55When, you know, when you are an employee of Anthropic and you are paid, you know,
25:58the salary that they pay to the researchers, your standards of life are light years away
26:03than even some of the richest people in Paris.
26:05And so people eventually live.
26:06And when they leave, it's a one-way street.
26:09And that was your point, actually.
26:10That was a very good point, which is you build an ecosystem.
26:13You know, eventually, you know, the funders, they exit.
26:16Or people in the companies, you know, they make a lot of money.
26:19They become operators.
26:20They take risks, you know, of their own.
26:21They become operators.
26:22Very skilled operators because they have the experience.
26:25They become investors.
26:26They reinvest their knowledge in the thing.
26:27It's an ecosystem.
26:28You know, it's like on the scale of like decades, it's an ecosystem.
26:32And you can see, you can see, you know, with the people we interact with,
26:35you can see this has tremendous value.
26:37But if the people go away, the ecosystem is going away.
26:42So you spend all of these resources educating these people,
26:44making them amazing, and then you're not able to retain them.
26:48That's an absolute disaster.
26:49Personally, I find it extremely scary.
26:51Like, it's uncomfortable to talk about.
26:52I find it terrifying.
26:53Like, it's like, you know, it's how civilization comes to an end, basically.
27:03I would actually take it one step further.
27:07And something I've also been reflecting on is, to your point, I think Europe has always had amazing scientific engineering
27:18talent.
27:18And even when you look at some of the, you know, hyperscalers today and technology platforms that, to JD's point,
27:28almost rule the world,
27:29I think you could sort of sift through their teams and identify more or less which parts of the world
27:36a lot of their top tech talent comes from.
27:40But I think the real question and something we should really start working on is, we know Europe produces amazing
27:49talent.
27:49The real question is, how do we make sure that talent is really retained?
27:55And I don't want to say it like this about people, but almost recycled here in the ecosystem.
28:00And how do we make sure that we really encourage this young talent to exit some of the, you know,
28:07most valuable companies in Europe and actually stay here.
28:11And really compound versus simply, you know, leave to San Francisco because it appears to be easier.
28:19So, yeah, a few things to work on, for sure.
28:23A few things to needle on.
28:24JD, anything you want to add?
28:26Well, it's hard to add anything because, actually, I like both tech and mostly agree with everything Julian said.
28:31The one thing, though, is, like, if what Julian said is still valid in 10 years, you'll be right, we'll
28:38be the third world.
28:39The good news is right now, A, there's a shortage of talent in the U.S., but they're cutting the
28:44visas.
28:45And number two, I think we are precisely at the spot where we need to decide whether we want to
28:50build our own technology.
28:51We've got our own economy.
28:52We've got manufacturing, although our number one industry, which is cars, decided to go electric.
28:58So, basically, to hand over the market to China and the U.S.
29:00Until they realize, perhaps, they should slow down.
29:02So, the point is, we've got basis for building businesses.
29:07And the question is, so, if we have a brain leak, which currently is the case out of French schools,
29:14you've got about 10%, 15% going straight to the U.S. saying, what's the point?
29:18I can have such a salary doing math for whichever company that you have there.
29:23But I think that for people who stay, the opportunity to have great tech and to scale it
29:28is something we need to invest in strategically and strongly to make sure we build a bridge,
29:35an accelerator of innovation and of capital for the next few years here.
29:40I think it's feasible because, again, as we said typically when we talk about the bricks,
29:46the cheapness of our economy allows us to be competitive if the regulation
29:51or if the fiscality doesn't keep us from doing it.
29:54So, the truth is, it's not too late.
29:57The way France funds entrepreneurship is great.
30:00You get a lot of helps.
30:01In Germany right now, the reforms that are being taken by the government
30:05to support more innovation and support more startups are great.
30:09So, the thing is, you're going to have to arbitrate, as Julien said,
30:12whether you want to have an aging population.
30:14So, keep the fiscality high and pay retirement.
30:17Or say, guys, I'm going to lower the fiscality so that these companies can be competitive worldwide
30:21and exploit themselves.
30:23So, the debate is not as to whether the talent is there.
30:26It is.
30:27The real debate is how much are we able to orientate our societies and governments
30:32towards the future by making it lighter, more accessible,
30:36and enabling the companies who are here to stay here and compete worldwide out of here.
30:42And that will be the challenge because each time a founder creates a company here and goes away,
30:47it's a chance that we'll lose and we need to rebuild it again.
30:51Yeah.
30:52And so, with just under five minutes left, one question because we've talked about this,
30:58you know, this large SpaceX couple trillion dollar IPO.
31:03Do you ever see in the future a time when there is a 500 trillion dollar IPO in Europe?
31:12And, you know, what would be the conditions that would need to start to take or these decisions
31:18that Europe would need to start to take in the next, you know, year or two?
31:22And I'd love to hear from each of you on how can Europe get there?
31:31I sense the easy question.
31:33So, the answer is no.
31:34You've got no liquidity market right now.
31:35To have a 300 billion stock exchange, you need to create it.
31:39So, to have these kind of IPOs, you need to have the money.
31:42To have the money, you need to have the stock exchange.
31:44So, the question is not whether we have it or not.
31:46The question is how do you build it?
31:48And again, for me, first, money comes.
31:52I mean, each time you have a forum like the one you had last week, Choose France, et cetera,
31:57you have 10 billion, 20 billion appearing because you're like, yeah, data center seems cheap,
32:02real estate's interesting, and I like your way of life.
32:04So, you can bring money in.
32:06The question is to build, again, the attractive companies, technologies and infrastructure to do that.
32:12So, I believe that can we have that suddenly in five years?
32:16No, because you need the liquidity.
32:17But the first step is to really turn the society towards more innovation, more companies,
32:23so that people can pour money.
32:25And then you'll need the stock exchange to change these chairs, to deploy that money,
32:29and so you'll have what you expect, which is this kind of IPOs.
32:33So, how do we set up that environment, that ecosystem, so we can start to grow here in Europe?
32:38Please read again the Draghi report.
32:40Seems like a good start.
32:43Go ahead, Suzanne.
32:45I would say, to answer your question, but also something I hear over and over again,
32:50and I guess Julia might also agree with me.
32:54What really needs to change to support this AI and tech momentum in Europe, in my opinion,
33:01is really European businesses need to start adopting AI technologies more.
33:08They need to rethink procurement cycles.
33:11They really need to, especially European enterprises, I think, I would highly encourage them personally
33:18to think about how to really lean into this AI way versus stand on the sidelines.
33:24And I think this could be quite a shorter-term step to take.
33:31So, is it almost like a culture of leaning in and embracing AI?
33:35Yeah, I think, even to Julien's point, you know, a lot of founders think of selling in the US from
33:42day one.
33:44Oftentimes, I hear this is the reason it's just easier and faster.
33:48Yeah, I understood.
33:50It's faster, easier, more capital, and you get better multiples in the US.
33:56So, you've got to create that environment where that exists in Europe.
34:00Yeah, absolutely. I think, like, you know, for, you know, beside, and Julie, you're completely right,
34:05like today we don't have nearly the economical infrastructure to sustain this sort of company.
34:09So, this is a moot point.
34:10But even if we had, you know, companies that were nearly ready to be there, which we don't either,
34:16to get, you know, these companies to exist, there needs to be a fundamental change in, you know, in the
34:22economy now.
34:23Because the reason in the US it works so well, our first customer, by the way, at Adaptive was AT
34:28&T.
34:29AT&T is the largest telco in the US.
34:31This is unthinkable in Europe.
34:33And they signed an exclusivity for the first year, I can tell you this.
34:36So, this is unthinkable in Europe that a large company will sign an exclusivity for a technology for one year
34:42with a new startup as their first customer.
34:44This is completely bonkers. This will never be done.
34:47But the reason in the US companies do this is because the market is tremendously more competitive.
34:52So, these companies, if they want to stay relevant, if AT&T wants to stay competitive, it has to take
34:58bets as a company.
34:59Because if it doesn't take bets as a company with startup to access the best of technology,
35:04it will not, like, it will not be competitive and it will not exist in a decade.
35:07The market is much more aggressive. It creates much more competition.
35:11In Europe, there is none of that.
35:13We probably have the least capitalistic market on Earth.
35:16Like, very likely that China has a more fair market.
35:20The market in Europe is extremely directed, is extremely, you know, like, contracts that are decided, you know,
35:26basically by governmental power or that, you know, exchange between friends.
35:30And that is extremely inefficient.
35:32Or markets are extraordinarily inefficient if you compare them to, like, US markets or even to Asian markets.
35:38And that's the sort of stuff we have to fundamentally change to be able to grow these companies.
35:43You know, like, get people to invest much more.
35:45You know, get large companies to be like, okay, I'm going to take more bets.
35:48And create the environment that forces them to take these bets.
35:51Well, look, if you don't take these bets, you are going to get disrupted.
35:54You are going to get removed away.
35:56And this comes at every stage, you know, this comes in the structuration of the economy, in how these companies
36:00are run,
36:01and also in how the government interacts, you know, with public companies.
36:05To whom do they give the contract?
36:07Do they give opportunities, you know, to startups?
36:09You know, in France, we do a lot of stuff where the government gives grants to startups.
36:13Yes.
36:14Well, great, but as a funder, the grants, it's not revenue.
36:19So it's shitty.
36:20Like, I would much prefer you to give me a contract.
36:23And I would prefer you to give me half of the money as revenue.
36:25Like, that's much sexier to me.
36:27And that's, you know, that's a much more interesting way.
36:29And you probably get more out of it.
36:31And in the US, you see much more of that.
36:33Of, like, the government, you know, interfacing with startups and all of that.
36:37And so I think all of this, you know, it's a lot.
36:39But all of this essentially has to, that mindset has to change, to go towards this, to, you know,
36:44to actually start building these companies and eventually one day take them public.
36:48Take them public.
36:49That's great.
36:49Okay.
36:50Well, I think we are out of time.
36:52And I just wanted to say thank you.
36:54This was an amazing conversation and really appreciated the divergent of thought.
36:59So I hope everyone else enjoyed it.
37:01Thank you so much for being here today.
37:03Thank you very much.
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