Back from the summer break, with lots of things happening in the French startups landcape like Pasqal IPOs at the Nasdaq and raising $280m, or Mistral signing a large contract with Saudi Arabia, I wanted to start with some numbers and put things in perspective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We hear a lot about Europe’s inability to compete with the US and China in technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And, of course, the gap is real.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But looking at the first half of 2026, I see some reasons for optimism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
French startups raised \u20ac4.6 billion \u2014 up 65% year-on-year<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Germany raised slightly more, with strong investments in robotics, defence, space and energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The UK remains Europe’s undisputed leader, attracting around $17 billion<\/strong> \u2014 although AI alone represented almost three quarters of that amount.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Italy remains smaller, while the Nordic countries continue to produce remarkable technology companies relative to the size of their economies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But perhaps we are looking at the wrong competition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n France vs Germany vs UK is interesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Europe vs the rest of the world is much more important.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n And from that perspective, something interesting is happening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n European startups attracted around $44.5 billion in the first half of 2026<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Capital is returning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But differently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fewer deals. And increasingly, capital is flowing towards technologies that matter strategically:<\/p>\n\n\n\n AI. France is particularly interesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not because it leads Europe in funding \u2014 it doesn’t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But because its technology ecosystem has become remarkably diversified.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Over the past months, my first experiences as a Business Angel have given me a very small window into this world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Healthcare. AI. Plasma technology. Fintech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Four completely different businesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the same thing struck me every time:<\/p>\n\n\n\n ambitious founders trying to solve real problems.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Europe certainly still has weaknesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Scaling remains difficult. Capital markets remain fragmented. And too many successful European companies eventually look across the Atlantic for the funding required to become global champions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But perhaps the conclusion shouldn’t be that European Tech is dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Perhaps it is that European Tech is growing up.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n More selective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n More industrial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n More strategic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And increasingly connected to Europe’s need for technological sovereignty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We will not beat Silicon Valley by trying to recreate Silicon Valley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nor China by trying to become China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Europe needs to turn its own strengths \u2014 science, engineering, industrial know-how and entrepreneurial talent \u2014 into scalable global businesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The ingredients are there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The next challenge is scale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And that is a challenge worth being optimistic about.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Back from the summer break, with lots of things happening in the French startups landcape like Pasqal IPOs at the Nasdaq and raising $280m, or Mistral signing a large contract with Saudi Arabia, I wanted to start with some numbers and put things in perspective. We hear a lot about Europe’s inability to compete with…<\/p>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":283,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/feed\/update\/urn:li:activity:7500092735614525440\/","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-non-classe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aerelisadvisory.eu\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aerelisadvisory.eu\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aerelisadvisory.eu\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aerelisadvisory.eu\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aerelisadvisory.eu\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/aerelisadvisory.eu\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":284,"href":"https:\/\/aerelisadvisory.eu\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282\/revisions\/284"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aerelisadvisory.eu\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aerelisadvisory.eu\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aerelisadvisory.eu\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aerelisadvisory.eu\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Larger tickets.
More selectivity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
DeepTech.
Quantum.
Energy.
Space.
Robotics.
Defence.
Health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n