Key Takeaways

• Europe’s opportunity to build European Tech Champions: While the US and China are ahead in funding and infrastructure, Europe has the talent, strong industrial capabilities and deep pool of capital to build globally competitive companies. Technological changes in the next five years will be more transformative than what we've seen in Europe in the last 10, driven by innovation, and AI in particular. 
• The funding landscape for European scale-ups is changing, with new profiles of investors emerging: 
  • We’re about to witness the largest intergenerational wealth transfer in European history, estimated at €3.6 trillion. More family offices are investing in the growth ecosystem, with new generations of digital native leaders taking over the reins of their family wealth. We expect families to increase their asset allocation in the growth ecosystem to 7% by 2030, up from less than 1% today. BNP Paribas Wealth Management can play a key role in connecting this capital with innovative companies. 
  • The venture capital (VC) growth ecosystem has doubled from 2000 primarily specialised VC funds in the US in 2015 to 4000 funds today that include pension funds, insurance companies and sovereign wealth funds in Italy, France and Germany.

• Funding gap: While the volume of capital to European start-ups has tripled since 2015, there is a multi-billion-euro funding gap for European scale-ups, due to European market fragmentation. 
  • The European capital market is fragmented by language, culture and regulation. Creating a single European capital market is essential. 
  • Asset management consolidation across Europe, including BNP Paribas’ acquisition of AXA IM to form Europe’s second largest asset manager, will help mobilise dormant capital into productive equity.