The European Commission has completed on Tuesday the necessary legal steps to launch a new financial vehicle aimed at strengthening the development of European technology companies in the expansion phase. This fund will start making its first investments in the coming weeks, with the goal of mobilizing up to 5 billion euros from both public and private resources.
The new instrument, named Scaleup Europe Fund and integrated into the European Innovation Council Fund, will channel direct investments towards European companies with strong growth potential in areas considered strategic, including artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, biotechnology, or clean technologies.
The responsibility for management will fall to the venture capital firm EQT, selected after a competitive process and authorized to make investment decisions "independently and under market conditions," as emphasized by Brussels in an official note.
The president of the community executive, Ursula von der Leyen, has emphasized that this new fund will facilitate that European companies in the expansion phase access financing "right here, in Europe" and can transform into "world-leading companies," turning "European innovation into our competitive advantage."
According to the European Commission, the first investment operations will materialize "in the coming weeks." The promoting group of the fund is made up of public and private European investors, including the Spanish CriteriaCaixa and Santander, through its venture capital manager Mouro Capital. Brussels has specified that it will continue to add new participants with the aim of reaching a total investment capacity of 5 billion euros.
The creation of this fund is part of the community strategy to facilitate that European companies with greater projection can grow and scale their activity without having to resort to external financing to the Union. Although the community bloc has a "solid" scientific base and a dynamic ecosystem of emerging companies, many companies have been forced to turn to capital from third countries to maintain their expansion, as acknowledged by the Commission itself.