EUVC

Europe’s strongest AI opportunity may not be building the biggest general-purpose model. It could be applying AI where the region already has an advantage in science, engineering and specialised industries.

In this episode of This Week in European Tech, Dan Bowyer⁠, ⁠Mads Jensen⁠ and ⁠Priyanka Savjani⁠ of ⁠SuperSeed⁠ discuss what London-built Isomorphic Labs tells us about that opportunity and why AI for science could become a distinctive area of strength for the UK and Europe.

They also examine who is paying for the AI infrastructure boom, why falling model prices can still lead to rising total costs, how Mistral fits into Europe’s sovereignty ambitions and why Anthropic’s potential IPO could become a benchmark for the wider AI market.

The conversation also turns to closer UK-EU cooperation and whether sector-specific agreements could strengthen Europe’s technology ecosystem.

Highlights

• Why Europe’s AI advantage may be strongest in science
• What Isomorphic Labs could signal about the UK’s AI opportunity
• Who is ultimately paying for the AI boom
• Why cheaper AI can still mean higher overall spending
• Where Mistral fits into the sovereign AI debate
• Why price-performance matters more than headline model size
• How Anthropic’s IPO could reshape AI valuations
• Whether deeper UK-EU cooperation could benefit European tech

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We’re pleased to be partnering with Luxembourg Venture Days on October 14–15 at Luxexpo The Box. Explore the agenda and register here: venture-days.lu

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Cheap, reliable energy is becoming a strategic advantage. As AI, data centres and manufacturing demand more power, the economics of electricity increasingly influence which countries and companies can stay competitive.

Recorded at EUVC Summit 2026, Joe McDonald, CEO and Co-Founder of tem, joins Adam Chirkowski, Partner at AlbionVC, to discuss how the energy market needs to change and why the UK and parts of Europe could be particularly well positioned to build major new companies in the sector.

Joe explains how tem is rebuilding the transaction infrastructure behind energy using AI, why layers of intermediation still add significant cost and what it takes to compete with long-established utilities.

The conversation also explores why the complexity of energy can create defensibility, how the sector could develop in a similar way to fintech and why lowering the cost of the electron matters far beyond the energy industry itself.

Highlights

• Why energy costs increasingly influence national competitiveness
• How AI and data centres are increasing the importance of low-cost power
• Where friction still exists in energy transactions
• How tem is building new transaction infrastructure
• Why incumbents struggle to reinvent their own business models
• How complexity can become a moat in energy
• Why the UK and parts of Europe may have a structural advantage
• What the energy sector can learn from fintech
• Why Europe could produce the next generation of major energy companies

A credible CVC does not have to start with a traditional fund structure. Haufe Group Ventures⁠ built its model around an evergreen balance-sheet setup, a lean team and a clear mandate, proving the approach through deals rather than a large fund launch.

In this episode, Andreas Munk Holm and Jeppe Høier speak with Jasper Roll, Managing Director at Haufe Group Ventures⁠, about how he helped build the venture arm of a family-owned German software company from the ground up.

Jasper explains how Haufe combines direct investments, venture building and, more recently, LP investing, why the team deliberately started small and how three investors have completed more than 20 deals, including follow-ons.

He also shares why early-stage CVCs need a clear portfolio strategy, enough commitment to build it properly and the discipline to walk away when valuations or deal dynamics do not fit the model.

The conversation also explores how Haufe manages expectations around venture timelines and failures, how a young CVC builds credibility with founders and other investors and why Jasper believes corporates can no longer rely on innovation happening entirely within their own walls.

Highlights

• How to build a credible CVC without a traditional fund structure

• Why Haufe deliberately started with a lean setup

• How direct investing, venture building and LP investing work together

• How a three-person investment team has completed more than 20 deals

• Why CVCs need conviction before committing capital

• Why saying no can be harder than saying yes

• How to manage internal expectations around failures and long-term returns

• How young CVCs build credibility with founders and investors

• Why corporates need to engage with innovation beyond their own walls

Timestamps

• (00:00) Intro
• (02:00) From startup operator to building Haufe Group Ventures
• (04:00) Designing Haufe’s corporate venturing model
• (09:00) AI, SaaS and the new moats in software
• (16:00) How a three-person team completed 20+ deals
• (24:00) Navigating inflated AI rounds and knowing when to say no
• (28:00) Building credibility and deal flow as a young CVC
• (34:00) Managing failures, returns and internal expectations
• (40:00) What European corporates should learn from the Mittelstand

Getting pension capital into venture is not simply about proving that the returns are attractive. It requires building an investment model that institutions can actually underwrite, while knowing which parts of the strategy should remain non-negotiable.

Pavel Mucha, Founder of Aspire11, explains how a Czech pension fund committed €500 million to venture and growth investing, why the team chose to start with €500 million rather than the €2 billion initially discussed and how they structured the platform to make pension capital work in practice.

The conversation covers how Aspire11 adapted the economics, absorbed initial costs and introduced shorter commitment windows, while maintaining its position on avoiding home bias, accepting long holding periods and building concentrated portfolios.

Pavel also discusses why attracting younger savers mattered, what venture can learn from pension investment in buyout funds and how the Canadian pension model influenced Aspire11.

Highlights

• Why Aspire11 started with €500m rather than €2bn

• What pension capital needed from a venture investment model

• Why attracting younger savers mattered alongside returns

• What venture can learn from pension investment in buyouts

• Why Aspire11 rejected a domestic-only investment mandate

• Why long holding periods and concentration mattered

• How Aspire11 removed an additional management-fee layer

• Why the team absorbed initial costs itself

• How vintage windows made commitments easier to manage

• How fund investments and later-stage direct investments helped smooth the J-curve

Sending a car or moped across a city to deliver a single meal is an expensive and inefficient way to move food. Drone delivery offers a different model, with the potential to make last-mile logistics faster, cheaper and cleaner.

Patrick Murphy, Co-founder and Managing Partner at Tapestry VC and a founding investor and board member at Manna, explains how autonomous drone delivery is moving into real-world use.

He shares how Manna has completed 300,000 deliveries, partnered with major delivery platforms and raised $50 million to support its global expansion.

The conversation covers the economics of drone delivery, how the technology works in practice and why replacing delivery cars and mopeds could change the way local logistics operate.

Highlights

• Why delivery by car is so inefficient

• How drone delivery can reduce cost and delivery time

• Why Manna believes autonomous delivery is ready to go mainstream

• How the drones operate in practice

• What 300,000 completed deliveries have demonstrated

• Why major delivery platforms are partnering with Manna

• How the company plans to expand to hundreds of cities

• Why drone delivery could replace millions of car journeys

This session was recorded at the Love Tomorrow Summit, where EUVC curated the investor-focused programme.

ElevenLabs reaching a $22 billion valuation is another sign that Europe can produce globally competitive AI companies. But as personal agents become more capable, Europe also risks falling behind if consumers get access later and the US captures the learning curve first.

In this episode of This Week in European Tech, Dan Bowyer, Mads Jensen and Priyanka Savjani of SuperSeed discuss what ElevenLabs says about Europe’s AI potential, why Mads believes UK venture is in its strongest shape since 2016 and how regulation could shape where the next generation of consumer AI products gets built and adopted.

The conversation also covers the tension between making AI agents more persistent and keeping them within safe boundaries, what AI safety could learn from aviation, AMD’s acquisition of World Labs and what Anthropic’s economics reveal about the cost of competing at the frontier.

Highlights

• What ElevenLabs’ $22B valuation says about European AI

• Why UK venture may be in its strongest shape since 2016

• Why Europe could fall behind in personal AI agents

• How regulation is shaping where consumer AI products launch

• Why persistence makes AI agents both more useful and harder to control

• What AI safety could learn from aviation

• Why AMD acquired World Labs

• What Anthropic’s economics reveal about frontier AI

A product can solve a real problem and still fail to make it through enterprise procurement.

Greg Lawton, CEO at Nodes & Links, joins Andreas Munk Holm to explain why technical founders selling into large, risk-sensitive organisations need more than product-market fit.

Greg argues that they also need company commercial fit: the processes, security, compliance and operational maturity required for a customer to actually buy from them.

Drawing on his experience selling into defence and building Nodes & Links, Greg explains why complex enterprise sales is often about clearing milestones long before revenue starts to scale.

That means understanding how decisions are really made across users, management, budget holders, IT, security and procurement.

The conversation also explores why procurement friction can become a competitive moat, how to hire for relationship-led sales, why legitimacy matters more than lead volume and how Nodes & Links built auditable AI for environments where hallucinations are unacceptable.

Highlights

• Why product-market fit is not enough for complex enterprise sales
• What company commercial fit means in practice
• Why procurement milestones can matter more than early revenue
• How multiple stakeholders shape the enterprise buying process
• Why procurement barriers can reduce competition
• What Greg looks for in enterprise sales hires
• Why legitimacy matters more than a huge top of funnel
• How Nodes & Links approaches AI where outputs need to be provably reliable

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We’re pleased to be partnering with Luxembourg Venture Days on October 14–15 at Luxexpo The Box. Explore the agenda and register here: venture-days.lu

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Timestamps

• (00:00) Intro
• (02:45) Why product-market fit is only the first hurdle
• (05:00) Why enterprise sales is a milestone game, not a revenue game
• (06:20) What Nodes & Links does and why its AI must be auditable
• (09:40) Selling AI where hallucinations are unacceptable
• (12:10) How enterprise procurement really works
• (16:00) Why barriers to entry become barriers to competition
• (17:30) What selling to the Navy taught Greg about complex sales
• (20:10) Hiring for relationship-led enterprise sales
• (23:45) Why legitimacy matters more than lead volume
• (28:15) How the AI boom changed the sales conversation
• (32:50) Why pilot contracts can mean very little
• (34:35) What 744 years of project time saved looks like
• (36:35) Why complex enterprise software is still difficult to build in-house

Working longer does not necessarily make founders feel worse. In fact, some of the founders putting in the most hours report feeling healthier than their peers.

Itxaso del Palacio, General Partner at Notion Capital, explores this founder health paradox and why feeling capable of pushing harder may not be the same as performing sustainably.

Using lessons from endurance sport and findings from Notion Capital’s Negative Split research, she explains why founders need to pace themselves for a journey that can last five, eight or ten years.

She also looks at the role of intrinsic motivation, teams, coaches and peer networks in helping founders maintain performance over time.

The talk ultimately challenges investors and board members to look beyond growth metrics and consider whether the people building the company have what they need to finish the race strongly.

Highlights

• Why founders can learn from endurance athletes
• What the negative split reveals about sustainable performance
• Why long working hours can distort how healthy founders feel
• What startup culture misunderstands about recovery
• Why intrinsic motivation matters over the long term
• How strong support networks help founders keep performing
• Why boards should look beyond financial and operating metrics
• Why the way a founder finishes matters more than how they start

This session was recorded at the Love Tomorrow Summit, where EUVC curated the investor-focused programme.

Timestamps

• (00:00) Intro
• (01:20) What happens when founders have to keep going for years
• (03:00) Why elite athletes pace for the second half
• (04:35) Why investors treat founders like machines
• (05:30) What the Negative Split research found
• (06:40) The perception gap around founder health
• (08:05) What startup culture gets wrong about recovery
• (09:10) Intrinsic motivation and support networks
• (10:00) Why founder health is a business issue
• (10:40) What investors should ask in the boardroom
• (11:15) Why performance is about how you finish

Europe’s exposure to technologies and supply chains it does not control is becoming harder to ignore.

In this episode of This Week in European Tech, Dan Bowyer, Mads Jensen of SuperSeed and Andrew J Scott of 7percent Ventures look at that problem from several angles.

The discussion starts with US–China tensions over rare earths before turning to Europe’s own reliance on Chinese refining capacity and how difficult it would be to rebuild more of that industrial capability closer to home.

They also examine the intensifying AI price war. OpenAI and Anthropic are making frontier intelligence cheaper, while open-source models are gaining ground.

But lower prices do not necessarily make enterprises more independent: once models are integrated deeply into workflows, switching providers can carry its own technical, legal and operational costs.

The conversation then moves to autonomous AI agents, what happens when they behave in unexpected ways and how Europe is beginning to define liability when AI-powered products cause harm.

They close with signs of movement elsewhere in the European ecosystem, from semiconductor investment to pension capital entering venture.

Highlights

• What US–China rare-earth tensions reveal about Europe’s own dependencies
• Why refining capacity matters as much as access to raw materials
• How the AI price war is changing enterprise buying decisions
• Why cheaper models may still leave companies locked into providers
• How open-source AI is gaining ground inside enterprises
• What autonomous agents mean for security and accountability
• How Europe is approaching AI product liability
• Why recent semiconductor and pension-fund moves matter for European tech

AI in GTM is often framed as a productivity tool: write the email faster, automate the workflow or increase the volume of outreach.

Harrison Rose, Co-Founder of Goodfit and Paddle, makes the case for a more fundamental shift.

His argument is that AI becomes far more valuable when it moves from executing tasks to making decisions. Harrison traces that thinking back to Paddle, where classification models helped identify relevant software companies more quickly and accurately than a manual research process.

He then looks at what today’s AI makes possible. By combining market data with past wins, losses, contract values and interactions, teams can begin to predict which accounts are worth pursuing and how to approach them.

Harrison explains how expected value can inform those choices and why GTM systems may increasingly decide who gets targeted, when, through which channels and with what level of spend.

This talk was recorded during the EUVC Summit & Awards Show 2026.

Highlights

• Why scaling old GTM workflows misses the bigger AI opportunity
• Why Harrison sees decision-making as AI’s core strength
• What Paddle’s early use of classification models revealed
• How AI can use more context than an individual rep
• How expected value can improve account prioritisation
• Why GTM strategy could become increasingly dynamic and machine-led
• What this shift could mean for the buyer experience

Timestamps

• (00:00) Intro
• (01:00) Why AI in GTM needs a different approach
• (02:15) The GTM problem Harrison faced at Paddle
• (03:25) Automating prospect research with classification models
• (05:00) What Paddle’s early use of AI revealed
• (06:10) Why automating bad GTM work does not make it better
• (08:05) Why decision-making is AI’s real strength
• (09:45) How AI can outperform traditional account mapping
• (11:10) Using expected value to prioritise accounts
• (12:50) Letting AI decide channels, spend and outreach
• (13:55) What programmatic advertising tells us about the future of GTM
• (14:35) The future of AI-led go-to-market