From Start-Up to Global Markets: Scaling Europe’s Future Champions
From Start-Up to Global Markets: Scaling Europe’s Future Champions
Europe produces exceptional entrepreneurial talent. However, systemic shortcomings, such as fragmented capital, complex regulations, and risk-averse investment habits, often push successful startups to scale abroad. Is Europe merely a launchpad for global success stories that find their full potential elsewhere? In a modest Bucharest apartment in 2005, Daniel Dines, a former Microsoft engineer, began building automation tools with a small team and limited capital. His idea was simple but powerful: automate repetitive office work using software robots. That vision became UiPath, which by 2021 achieved the largest-ever IPO for a Romanian-born company on the New York Stock Exchange, reaching a peak valuation of $35 billion. To get there, however, Dines had to relocate the company’s headquarters to New York, attract U.S. venture capital, and operate in a scale-friendly regulatory environment far from the EU. His story is not unique. In London, Demis Hassabis, a Nobel prize-winning neuroscientist and AI prodigy, co-founded DeepMind in 2010. Within four years, he sold the company to Google for approximately $600 million, not because it failed but because Europe lacked the capital and long-term industrial support to keep DeepMind independent. Today, it powers some of Alphabet’s most strategic innovations, but it no longer belongs to Europe. In Helsinki, Ilkka Paananen led Supercell to create global gaming hits like Clash of Clans. Once Europe’s most valuable gaming company (valued at over $10 billion), Supercell was gradually sold to SoftBank and later Tencent, shifting strategic control to Asia. From Warsaw, Piotr Szulczewski, a Polish-born engineer, left for Canada and then Silicon Valley. In 2010, he launched Wish.com, one of the most downloaded shopping apps in the world. At its peak in 2021, Wish reached a $17 billion valuation on the NASDAQ. But despite the founder’s Polish roots, the company grew entirely outside Europe’s institutional and financial ecosystem. In Ljubljana, Samo and Iza Login founded Outfit7, whose global hit Talking Tom was sold to China’s United Luck Group for $1 billion. And in Belgrade, the pattern held. Nordeus, the Serbian mobile-game studio behind Top Eleven, was founded in 2010 by Branko Milutinović, Ivan Stojisavljević, and Milan Jovović, all former Microsoft engineers. In 2021, Take-Two Interactive acquired Nordeus in a $378 million deal. From Vodnjan, Silvio Kutić, along with his brother Roberto Kutić and friend Izabel Jelenić, founded Infobip, Croatia’s first unicorn, but only after securing major U.S. investment. In Zagreb, Mate Rimac founded Rimac Automobili, gaining global acclaim for electric hypercars, yet relying on foreign capital mainly from Asia. Each of these companies, UiPath, DeepMind, Supercell, Wish, Rimac, Infobip, CoOutfit7, began as a spark of European ingenuity – bold ideas born from local brilliance. But when the time came to scale, they faced a hard truth: to grow, you have to go. Capital, governance, or ownership, all shifted abroad.Europe excels in research and innovation but often struggles to turn strong ideas into global businesses. / , Professor, School of Medicine, University of Zagreb, Croatia These are not isolated stories. They are a pattern. A quiet exodus of value. Why? Not because Europe lacks talent, but because it lacks the system to hold onto it. Because Europe still lacks the structural conditions that help turn exceptional talent into enduring global leadership:
Meanwhile, the U.S. nurtures such ambition with a combination of deep venture markets, unified regulatory frameworks, and a culture that celebrates risk, not punishes it. There, bold bets are rewarded. In Europe, they are too often scrutinized, second-guessed, or starved of scale. Europe now stands at a crossroads, not just of policy, but of mindset. With technological acceleration reshaping economies, demographics shifting under the weight of aging populations and declining birth rates, and the geopolitical landscape undergoing a profound realignment, the European Union must choose whether to lead or lag in global innovation, competitiveness, and resilience.
Existing engines of European economic growth, established industrial champions, are showing signs of fatigue while countries like the U.S. and China propel tech-driven, science-based scale-ups into global leadership. The US combines an unparalleled depth of late-stage venture capital network, unified federal regulation, world-class research institutions with entrepreneurial incentives, and a cultural narrative that frames failure as experience (not shame). Startups grow fast not just because capital is available but because the ecosystem rewards speed, ambition, and learning-by-doing. In China, the model is different but no less strategic. The state actively supports scale-ups in strategic sectors through mission-driven industrial policy, preferred procurement, domestic market access, and sovereign capital. Chinese entrepreneurs operate in an environment where scaling is not a private battle: it is a national priority. Government alignment, capital fluidity, and a tolerance for controlled risk-taking have enabled Chinese firms to leapfrog from copycats to global innovation leaders in fields like AI, e-commerce, and green tech. Like the US and China, Europe innovates but struggles to scale. This “scale-up gap” is now a strategic vulnerability. Despite its innovation, therefore, Europe is still ruled by once-large incumbents. As of June 2025, SAP and Novo Nor – disk stand as Europe’s most valuable publicly traded companies, each commanding a market capitalization in the vicinity of €314 billion. They are closely followed by industry powerhouses, such as ASML, LVMH, Nestlé, Roche, and AstraZeneca, all of which rank among the top 100 global firms. Yet, despite their significance within the European context, these champions remain modest in scale when set against the tower – ing valuations of their American counter – parts. Apple and Microsoft, each exceeding €2.7 trillion in market value, are nearly nine times larger. This striking disparity under – scores the systemic hurdles Europe continues to face in nurturing globally dominant firms, particularly in the realms of digital innovation and platform-driven business models. As of 2025, U.S. companies account for over 70 of the 100 most valuable tech firms globally. In contrast, Europe has a handful, SAP, ASML, and a few pharma giants, but even those are legacy incumbents, not scale-ups. Some of Europe’s best tech companies are either sold (DeepMind), relocated (UiPath), or absorbed (Supercell, ARM) before they can mature independently. This is not a deficit of ideas. It is a deficit of scale. And costs Europe more than just market share. It costs us influence, resilience, and the ability to define the future of innovation on our terms.
The Future 500 Initiative is designed to reverse this trend. It is not another list. It is an operational platform to identify, support, and retain 500 of the most promising scale-up companies across Europe. It focuses on the EU as a whole but particularly on Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe where talent runs deep but support systems remain underdeveloped. And if Europe wants to lead, we must stop exporting our best and start scaling them here. That difference matters. Europe excels in research and innovation but often struggles to turn strong ideas into global businesses. As Stanford professor and entrepreneur Jure Leskovec puts it: “ At Stanford, entrepreneurship is part of the culture. Professors work closely with students, not just as mentors but also as co-founders and advisors. Our goal isn’t to lock knowledge into patents but to turn it into real-world impact. ” Leskovec recently visited Slovenia and saw the present technical talent and innovation firsthand. Yet, he noted a recurring hesitation at the scale-up stage: “There’s great expertise and quality here, but often a lack of systems to support rapid growth. When the market is ready, hesitation can cost you the advantage. ” Around the world, the most dynamic economies are not defined solely by their infrastructure, mineral wealth, or even institutions but by their capacity to empower scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs to turn bold ideas into transformative enter – prises. In the United States and increasingly in China, innovation is not just an aspiration—it is embedded in national identity and industrial strategy. Entrepreneurs are not only job creators. They are cultural icons, policy influencers, and drivers of geopolitical relevance. Europe, too, needs to elevate its entrepreneurial culture—not only through capital and policy but by making space for a new generation of role models. And per – haps most importantly, they are the people young Europeans look up to. Young Europeans need to see that entrepreneurs can be both successful and relatable—normal people who achieve extraordinary things without losing their integrity and becoming arrogant ego maniacs. Their stories can shape ambition and show that building wealth and having a positive impact on society are not mutually exclusive. Success must feel possible, accessible, and worth striving for. Europe, despite being home to some of the world’s best research institutions and brightest minds, has yet to create an environment where its innovators can rise with similar speed and stature. The result is a paradox: rich in ideas, yet often poor in outcomes. A continent that patents breakthroughs in clean energy, artificial intelligence, and health technologies, but too often sees them scaled elsewhere. As the global economy accelerates, Europe can no longer afford to treat entrepreneurial growth as an organic process. It must become a deliberate, structured, and strategic effort. This is the founding logic of the Future 500 Initiative: to create a platform where Europe’s most promising companies are not only discovered but equipped, supported, and connected to become the next generation of global champions. Because in the 21st century, prosperity is not inherited. It is built by people who dare to invent, scale, and lead. The scale-up imperative Europe’s start-up ecosystem is strong in emerging fields like AI, biotech, and green tech. Yet, far too few evolve into global mar – ket leaders. According to both the European Commission and the European Innovation Scoreboard, Europe leads in early-stage innovation but trails in mobilizing later-stage capital and converting knowledge into industrial strength. A bold, unifying platform is urgently needed – one that empowers 500 of Europe’s most promising growth-stage companies. Future 500 – The Atlantic Council’s initiative, developed in partnership with IEDC Bled School of Management and promoted by Bled Strategic Forum, aims to identify Europe’s top 500 growth-stage firms, especially from CEE and SEE. It strives to bridge entrepreneurs, policymakers, investors, and academia to overcome fragmentation and elevate companies poised to lead Europe’s industrial and technological renewal.
The Future 500 initiative is not simply another ranking. It is a strategic policy instrument to:
Future 500 emphasizes leaders who combine scientific, regulatory, ethical, and business fluency. Together with universities, health systems, and business schools like IEDC, we will publish an annual Future 500 Index tracking economic and societal impact, aligning with the EU’s competitiveness agenda and Green Deal Industrial Plan. Europe hosts some of the world’s strongest research institutions – ETH Zurich, Max Planck Society, KU Leuven, and generous frameworks like Horizon Europe and the European Research Council. Yet, the continent still struggles to translate scientific excellence into globally scaled companies.
The EU’s Startup and Scaleup Strategy directly addresses long-standing structural barriers: fragmented capital markets, weak university–industry collaboration, and limited access to late-stage growth funding. Recognizing that innovation alone is not enough, the EU is scaling up its financial and institutional instruments to accelerate global competitiveness:
These are important and ambitious steps, and EU officials are rightfully proud of them. Yet, financial instruments alone will not close the competitiveness gap. The EU now needs a new generation of leaders—those capable of navigating science, entrepreneurship, and policy simultaneously—to translate this framework into globally competitive enterprises. A recent example illustrates this potential: In May 2025, the Albanian government invested €8.8 million in Machine Thinking Lab, an AI startup led by diaspora talent Mira Murati. Within weeks, the company closed a $2 billion seed round at a $10 billion valuation. This 1,000× capital multiplier shows how even small states, when strategically aligned behind key sectors and talent, can unlock extraordinary private investment. Europe’s path to global leadership depends not only on funding but on strategic vision, coordination, and entrepreneurial vitality. Jean Tirole’s 1984 paper (co-authored with Drew Fudenberg) titled “The FatCat Effect, the PuppyDog Ploy, and the Lean and Hungry Look”, in which they describe “lean and hungry” (i.e., agile, ambitious) firms as more capable of disruptive advantage in markets of strategic substitutes. Jean Tirole’s reference to “the lean and hungry look” is a deliberate nod to William Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar. The phrase comes from Act I, Scene II, where Caesar says: “Let me have men about me that are fat; Y ond Cassius has a lean and hungry look; He thinks too much: such men are danger – ous.” Tirole uses this metaphor to character – ize aggressive, ambitious market entrants— those not yet comfortable or complacent who pose a strategic threat to incumbents. Just as Caesar feared Cassius for being too sharp and unsatisfied, incumbent firms may fear “lean and hungry” startups that are driven, resourceful, and disruptive. Platforms like Future 500 intend to identify and promote those who are driven, resourceful, and disruptive. Leading institutions, such as INSEAD, IE Business School, HEC Paris, and ESMT Berlin, together with Central and Eastern European leaders like the IEDC–Bled, shape a new generation of entrepreneurial leaders. Without functioning scale-up mechanisms, however, even the best-trained founders risk stagnation. Europe has plenty of strategies. What it needs now are doers. It is scientists and entrepreneurs who can turn ambition into action. Europe’s start-up ecosystem is strong in emerging fields like AI, biotech, and green tech. Yet, far too few evolve into global market leaders.