Forums & Events - Future 500 Initiative

FUTURE 500 INITIATIVE

Forums & Events

Creating Alignment. Unlocking Scale. Shaping Europe’s Next Chapter.

THE PLATFORM

Where data becomes strategy

Future 500 forums are high-trust environments where leaders move beyond conversation toward coordinated action. Data becomes insight. Insight becomes strategy.

We bring together founders, investors, ministers, and institutional partners to transform shared evidence into shared priorities — and shared priorities into coordinated action.

Future 500 Forum 2026

From Selection to Execution: Building Europe’s Scale-Up Engine

Not a conference – a structured working session. Where Brussels established strategic framing, Bled is the moment strategic dialogue becomes concrete action. The forum will deliver the first public presentation of the Future 500 methodology, reveal Future 100 Slovenia, and move from signal to system to execution.

PROGRAMME

First public presentation of the Future 500 methodology
Reveal of Future 100 Slovenia – a signal, not a ranking
High-level plenary on competitiveness and scaling conditions
Curated working sessions: Capital · Deep Tech · Market Access · Talent · Industrial Transformation
Structured matchmaking – companies, investors, corporates, policymakers

KEY THEMES

European competitiveness and scale-up gaps
Capital mobilisation and deployment
Deep tech and industrial transformation
Talent and market access
From policy dialogue to structured execution

“Europe does not suffer from a shortage of innovation. The challenge is turning that innovation into companies that scale globally.”

Kerstin Jorna

Director-General, DG GROW

“The issue is not the availability of capital – it is its mobilisation at the scale and speed required.”

Maria Luís Albuquerque

European Commissioner for Financial Services

“Europe has the ingredients. What is missing is the mechanism that brings them together into execution.”

Peter Bosek

CEO, Erste Group

From €10 Billion to the Trillion Ambition

Champions of Growth – Brussels 2026

A flagship leadership dinner followed by a full-day conference connecting founders, investors, ministers, and global partners. The event explored what it would take for a European founder to scale a trillion-dollar company while retaining European ownership, governance, and values.

KEY THEMES

Europe’s productive forces and the role of entrepreneurs
EU–US comparative insights on company scaling
Capital markets, policy, and talent frameworks
Mobilising capital and deepening financial architecture
Defeating single-market fragmentation
Cultural and family-ownership models for generational growth
EU enlargement as a competitiveness strategy

“Europe does not suffer from a shortage of innovation. The challenge is turning that innovation into companies that scale globally.”

Kerstin Jorna

Director-General, DG GROW

“The issue is not the availability of capital – it is its mobilisation at the scale and speed required.”

Maria Luís Albuquerque

European Commissioner for Financial Services

“Europe has the ingredients. What is missing is the mechanism that brings them together into execution.”

Peter Bosek

CEO, Erste Group

From Start-up to Global Markets: Scaling Up Europe’s Future Champions

Future 500 Launch Forum

The inaugural Future 500 forum, held ahead of the 20th Bled Strategic Forum. The event gathered founders, investors, policymakers, institutional leaders, and media to launch the Future 500 platform — a long-term initiative to identify 500 promising European scale-ups, link them with growth capital and strategic partners, and embed entrepreneurs in competitiveness policymaking.

KEY THEMES

Mobilizing Europe’s Scale-Up Strategy – Opening with senior political and economic leaders
Capital for Champions – Closing the scale-up financing gap (EIB, EBRD, IFC, private capital)
Entrepreneur Spotlight – Fireside conversation with founders who scaled globally
Europe’s Exit Dilemma – Panel on retaining talent and technology within Europe
Strategic Launch of the Future 500 Platform – Unveiling the long-term initiative agenda

“Europe stands at a crossroads. Rich in talent and ideas, but slow to scale them globally.”

Future 500

Launch Forum 2025