Tom Wehmeier, Partner | Head of Intelligence at Atomico: Europe has a culture of lifting everyone up

0:00Scaling Europe:Hello and welcome back to the Scaling Europe show. I'm Seb Johnson. Thank you for following along. Today we've got a great conversation from our time at Slush and the conversation is supported by Databricks, whose unified platform power source on everyone's FY2026 target, becoming a truly AI-driven company, and Harmonic. Harmonic is the startup discovery engine used by leading VCs across the world to find their fun returners. Check them both out. Thank you. Welcome back. We are here still Slush Helsinki. We're having a good time. I'm here with Tom. Tom is back on the show. We know well, partner at Atomico, author of the State of European Tech Report.

0:35Scaling Europe:You've just released it. You've just been on the main stage talking about it. How was it? It's always epic to be at Slush. Is this your first Slush? My first Slush. First Slush. So far, I'm loving it. It's absolutely crazy. I was just saying it's my 11th now. So 11th year of doing this report. It felt bigger on stage. It actually felt more important than ever, though, to be up there and share what we had to share. We can get into it if you like. Yeah, please. One or two. What are the headlines? What are the key trends? Yeah. So we said this is a crossroads moment for Europe. On the one hand, we've had 12 amazing months.

1:18Like what comes through really clearly from the survey that we did. So we did this huge survey, right? like thousands of people share their voice basically with us. And it's really clear that ambition stepped up, optimism is rising, executions accelerating. From a numbers perspective, we've added a trillion in ecosystem value in a pretty short space of time. On the global stage, that might not feel like big numbers, but for Europe, considering when we first started this report, we were measuring things in tens of billions it's massive we've had a record share of new unicorns out of europe we were on stage just after anton from lovable actually so we as we know well we've got the fastest growing company of all time out of europe so a massive amount to be really positive about real momentum but at the same time too this is a global race and competition on the global stage feels relentless.

2:23One number that we shared to put things in context was, you know, this year we'll die 44 billion of investment into European tech. The US was four times that level in the last three years in the US is 500 billion of investment. The line we used was, you know, we're bootstrapping our ecosystem. And, you know, the crossroads moment is we have to now choose what's the path forward that we want because if we want to be serious about building a future on our terms, in our vision, then we need to build the capability, the capital stack and the support for our innovation ecosystem to give ourselves the best shot at doing that.

3:08And maybe I'll stop there because I can get a bit more into, you know, okay, like how do we get there? but yeah well let's just go

3:15Scaling Europe:to recap things are going great right like on the numbers level investments rising enterprise values rising more unicorns more revenue like everything's moving in the right direction and on the kind of cultural side optimism is up ambition is up it's like everything's going in the right direction it's like this is exactly all we could ever want and dream but on the other side you know what do they say like comparison is a thief of joy and we are in a global competition and we are like european tech is crushing it having an amazing moment but so is american tech and they're sort of still absolutely yeah dominant and the simple way of thinking about it is the bar got raised again yeah so like we raised our bar but the bar got raised again and so it's like you know we as i said up on stage like we we can and should celebrate that we've got you know a handful of 100 billion plus tech companies but you know if if the the bar now is trillion euro companies we need to get to that and so what we set out was four missions um basically that that describe the end state that we want to work towards and and how do we essentially get to a europe that truly is fast frictionless and fearless is what we said and and so those four things um fix the friction so how do we really work as one market with one rule book um we can get into the story of fragmentation and all the bureaucratic overhead that slows progress.

4:45Empower talent. So how do we really, particularly in this moment in time where it feels like there's a real opportunity for Europe, make sure that this is the best place to attract, to reward, to retain the most ambitious builders. Fund the future. so that's all about how do we actually get to a place where our capital markets across private and public are deep liquid and homegrown where we're really mobilizing um european institutional assets as well as european savings to put them to work to fund the future um and so from first angel check all the way into you know ipo and beyond and then the last one is we call it champion risk but what we're saying is we need to get to a place where we cement risk culture and create it as foundational infrastructure for us so that means it's as critical as energy or capital like how we celebrate ambition how we celebrate success also how we talk about failure where we've still got work to do love it like super clear ways that

5:50Scaling Europe:we can improve and drive the ecosystem forward. One area I want to go into, which I think you mentioned that something that I'm really interested in is about capital. And you talked about saving capital, but also institutional capital. So many of the VCs that I speak to talk about how so many of their LPs are not European. So even when you have European VCs, you have American money coming in as LPs and still being able to get so much of the value from European tech success stories. how do we convince motivate inspire european whatever it is pension funds funds of funds to channel their capital into european visa like what stories we need to tell what do we need to do to unlock that kind of like cash yeah well i think the good news is is that stuff's already happening right so it's not that we're starting from zero yeah we have seen that because like As you say, everyone's been talking about this for so long now.

6:44I think what is different now is this general sense of urgency and a realization that we really do actually have to act and move the needle on it. And so we've seen in the UK with Mansion House and now that converting into something called Novo, in France with Wynn, in Germany with Tibi, that it can be done if you bring together those institutional investors, catalyzed by policymakers, actually, with the investor community themselves, that we can move the needle on that. What really needs to happen, though, is that we do it at continental scale because that's going to be the thing that truly gets the capital flowing through.

7:26And here, too, it's probably not very well known, but the commission, European commission, is working on something called the Innovation Investment Pact, which is basically about doing the same thing. You know, they've taken all the lessons from what they saw in France, Germany, and the UK, and then do that at European scale. And I think maybe just like one more thing to say is there's the economic rationale, right? Like this just makes good sense from a returns perspective, and European VC has been able to demonstrate its track record now on that front. But the other thing that I think is going to make a difference here is how do we basically build Mission Europe and create the emotional case and the strategic case for it?

8:13Like America first, you know, that has resonated. And America first as a movement changes how people invest, changes what jobs people take, changes where they choose to build. and we need to get to something similar to that. And we need to create those moments in the spotlight on stage with prime ministers and with investors. And that's going to be another thing that I think gets the tap turning.

8:38Scaling Europe:And what do you think about European nationalism? Do you think we need more of like, you know, the way that America is so good at selling itself, so good at storytelling and so good at United? Who can disagree with like America first? Who can disagree with the principles behind Make America Great Again? There's such amazing marketing techniques. do you think we need more european nationalism and marketing so here's our challenge right which is like in reality we're dozens of countries coming together but we we must act as one continent because the only way that we can be um you know truly relevant on the global stage is is by coming together as one region and um yeah honestly like what you hear in the conversations here is um and And you hear it from Anton at Loverball.

9:24Like, I want to build, you know, not just from Europe, but for Europe.

9:28Scaling Europe:Yeah. And I think that sense of pride and sense of mission, it's there for, you know, a lot of the founder community. Actually, we asked this question in our survey, I should say. So we asked the question, you know, to what extent is basically mission Europe part of the way that you think? Like, how intrinsic is that to the building of the company? and one in two founders say, yeah, this is like core to my mission to prove that it can be done from Europe. That's crazy. Right? There's another third that's like, there's another third that says, yes, it is, but I'm going to have to also think about this, you know, from an economic perspective, like what makes sense.

10:08And then there's 15 % that are like truly agnostic. I'm just going to build wherever it's easiest and fastest.

10:15Scaling Europe:That's so interesting. So there's a real sense. It's there, yeah. And so, as you say, how do you build that narrative to really create that sense of alignment around this mission Europe? Yeah. Which is, you know, what you're doing too. Yeah, I mean, that's kind of why I asked about European nationalism because it's like, it feels like there needs to be a broader pan-European movement of like, we are Europeans. It's not even EU or like, we are Europeans. We want to see success, economic growth, GDP, trillion dollar tech companies. And it feels like we're sort of missing that unifying force of like, we can do this.

10:55Scaling Europe:We should be doing this. And we need to sell our story more. And I think exactly as you say, like, let's not be quiet about celebrating success, celebrating ambition, celebrating progress. Well, God knows the Americans aren't quiet about it, are they? Right, exactly. And they're so good at it. One of the best things about speaking to American founders and investors is the passion and the pride that they take. And I think one thing that we said on stage was comparisons to the US. We would always say, let's not always compare ourselves, but those benchmarks are helpful. Those benchmarks help us to realize where the bar is, but they don't define us.

11:30So we'll build a Europe in our own vision. We'll build Europe that's not like anywhere else. But we do need to all get behind that idea.

11:38Scaling Europe:Yeah, and I think those comparisons are helpful, right? Because it's aspirational and it does help us highlight our own weaknesses. Yeah, exactly. But it's like we also have to forge our own path. And we have to do it in a European way. I always, one of the things I'm like, I'm not anti-America, but I always look at America and I look at the GDP growth that they've had and it's been phenomenal. I think they're 50 % richer today than they were 15 years ago. I mean, it's just like GDP growth that we can't even dream of. But they still have a lot of the issues that we have, even without the GDP growth.

12:06Scaling Europe:And I think that's what I love about Europe is that we have this culture of lifting everyone up with us. Right. It's like when one of us succeeds, we all succeed as a society. And it's like we need to find a way to build the companies, to grow the GDP and do it in a way that aligns with our European way of doing things. I couldn't agree more. Yeah, yeah. Sorry, I feel like we've been like sidetracked. No, it's not sidetracked. No, I love it. So you talked about talent, risk. and actually I was going to ask is that what would you see is the the tension or the different roles and responsibilities between policymakers and the ecosystem yeah you know as people who operate an ecosystem there's only so much that we can do yeah what is it that we should be doing either on like risk or yeah versus policymakers who yeah I think it's quite clear that what people are asking for of them what should we be doing as policy as a ecosystem players yeah great question so so one thing that we said was this is not a time to be a bystander yeah this is our moment to speak up to show up yeah to basically connect because there's never been a greater openness to listening on the policymaker side like they understand that they need to make changes but there's a difference between identifying a problem and coming with a solution that actually fixes the problem and actually creates something that is going to be helpful and get used as companies scale and so in that design and implementation phase that's where it's really critical that we all show up to those conversations so you know something really simple that we said was sign the open letter yeah you know like look at look at what happened in the in the uk over the last couple of weeks with the exit tax it's extremely powerful when people do one small act which is sign an open letter but we do it at the scale of our community and then and then you get you know when you've got amazing people like dormant startup coalition also kind of channeling all of that it makes a difference so sign the open letter show up to the side event like respond to the consultation it all feels like a micro action but it's it's super compounding and um and so i think that's you know that that's one thing that we can do the other thing which overrides everything is just keep building right because like the reality is is we've gone from not really having an ecosystem to speak of at all 20 years ago to having something extraordinary like we've said um with a bunch of headwinds.

14:46So whether anything changes or not, like we're going to keep making extraordinary progress because founders keep building and there's just like this organic learning and sophistication that we've acquired on the founder side, on the operator side, on the investor side. And that's going to keep taking us to amazing places. what we've said is if we get these changes and we get them designed and implemented in the right way, then we remove, like we basically, we raise the ceiling and we steepen the trajectory of our progress. And so that's like, okay, well, if one is the base case, this is like our upside vision case.

15:29Let's work towards that. And yeah, I mean, the 28th regime is going to be a, it's going to be a really interesting test moment. Because I think this becomes the first time where we can sort of test whether policymakers are really serious. Like, are you in it to win it? Because if you are, then take the EU Inc. proposal and put that forward and make it happen. And then, what's that going to do to belief and trust?

16:00Scaling Europe:I mean, that opens the door to all sorts of collaboration and policy changes down the line. Exactly. if you had to put a percentage probability 28th regime happens the way that we want it to happen you know what is it making it a directive not a yeah a regulation a regulation not a directive we're hearing we're hearing reasons to be cautious to be optimistic I honestly I can't put a probability I think it's like who knows I can't put a probability on it you've got no way that the wind is blowing you think it's like I think like what's being worked towards is like how can we shape this in a way where it can get through under I'm going to get quite technical now but under qualified majority voting so basically where it doesn't require yeah it doesn't require unanimity and and then that can be put forward but it sounds like there's still some things that are being considered to be put into it that the that could create more friction um in the approval and decision making process and so that gives me a bit of cause for concern but you know what like this is why we just all got to keep talking yeah and bigging it up and and and making that resonate because that rallying that we've seen over like this time 12 months ago it kicked off but what we've seen in in the year since has been nothing short of remarkable and well look final question big predictions for 2026 2027 where do you think the state of the European market is going?

17:31Yeah, I think, so it's like we said, we're going to keep growing and we have incredible momentum behind us. One of the things that we highlighted in the report is a mighty 50, these rising European champions. I think we'll see more from them on the global stage. And then, as we said, We've got 28th Regime, we've got an Innovation Act, we've got this Investment Compact. There's a whole bunch of things literally over the next 12 months being talked about. It's going to be really interesting to come back here next year and see where we've got to. But we're starting to measure things in trillions.

18:17That's exciting, right?

18:19Scaling Europe:First time. Amazing. Well, Tom, thank you so much for joining. And thank you so much that you do for the State of the Ecosystem report that you do. Thank you as well. and I throw it right back at you. It's early days for me. Yeah, always great to chat. Thanks.