The European Commission has established the Scale Up Europe Fund, which will invest in promising companies developing strategic deep technology ideas in collaboration with leading private investors from across the continent.
By working with these potential founding investors, the European Commission will advance the EU Startup and Scaleup Strategy, which aims to build a dynamic and competitive startup and scaleup ecosystem across Europe.
As the Draghi report highlighted, Europe’s ability to scale up innovative companies is crucial for competitiveness.
The Scale Up Europe Fund therefore responds to this urgent need to scale up investments and close the gap with world leaders.
European talent is lagging behind, but Scaleup Europe is trying to change that
Currently, despite a strong startup pipeline, limited access to late-stage growth capital and fragmented investment markets are hampering the ability of European innovators to grow into global leaders.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said: “Europe has the ideas and talent to build the world’s most innovative companies. But as companies scale up, we need to ensure they have the means to grow, attract investment and thrive here at home.”
“Quality jobs and the competitiveness of Europe as a whole depend on it. The Scaling Up Europe Fund is an essential part of our work to ensure that Europe’s best people choose Europe.”
During her 2025 State of the Union address, President von der Leyen announced the Scaling Up Europe Fund as a flagship initiative aimed at making major investments in fast-growing young companies in critical technology sectors.
Leading European investor advances technology leadership
Today, a high-level meeting hosted by Ekaterina Zakharieva, Secretary for Start-ups, Research and Innovation, brought together a core group of potential investors and the European Investment Bank (EIB) with a common goal. The idea was to unlock the value of Europe’s growing scale-up companies while promoting Europe’s technology leadership.
In addition to the Commission and the EIB Group, the fund’s group of potential founding investors includes Novo Holdings, EIFO (Danish Export Investment Fund), CriteriaCaixa, Santander/Mouro Capital, Fondazione – Includes Compania Sanpaolo/Intesa Sanpaolo/Fondazione Calipuro, APG Asset Management on behalf of Dutch pension fund ABP, Wallenberg Investments and BGK (Gospodarstova Bank). Klajowego).
These potential investors will work with the committee to establish the fund and deploy their capital.
Covers a wide range of technical fields
The companies also agreed today that the ScaleUp Europe Fund will focus on growth capital and late-stage investments in a wide range of strategic technology companies in Europe, including:
Artificial intelligence Quantum technology Semiconductor technology Robotics/autonomous systems Energy technology Space technology Biotechnology Medical technology Advanced materials Agritech
next step
The ScaleUp Europe Fund operates as a market-based, privately managed, privately co-financed growth fund that invests in major European-led investment rounds.
The Committee, in collaboration with other Founding Investors, selects and appoints the Management Company to implement the Fund.
A public offering for a management company will be announced soon, with the aim of enabling the Scale-Up Europe Fund to begin making its first investments in spring 2026.
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