Europe Can Build Trillion-Euro Companies. Here's the Proof | Tom Wehmeier, Atomico скачать в хорошем качестве

Europe Can Build Trillion-Euro Companies. Here's the Proof | Tom Wehmeier, Atomico

Europe has more tech talent than ever, more capital, more repeat founders. And yet conviction remains uneven. Tom Wehmeier has tracked European tech through data for 11 years as Partner at Atomico and author of the State of European Tech report. What he sees now: the fundamentals have compounded, but the collective psychology has not kept pace. On Follow the Gradient, Tom breaks down what the data says versus what founders feel, where the ecosystem has genuinely matured, and where the gaps in European venture capital, talent retention, and market fragmentation still hold companies back. Essential listening for founders scaling from Europe, operators weighing US expansion, and anyone building where speed and regulation collide. In this episode, we cover: Why European tech sentiment is fragile even as ecosystem infrastructure compounds year over year How talent from Apple, Meta, and Palantir is now cycling into European startups and what that unlocks The three barriers keeping pension funds from venture allocation, including the least obvious one Why the Series C relocation problem is driven by customer pull, cap table influence, and capital markets gravity What DeepL, Lovable, Spotify, and Framer have in common: product velocity, talent bar, and narrative clarity How fragmentation across European markets builds global resilience rather than slowing companies down Where sovereignty matters most: energy, compute, defense, and economic infrastructure The single misunderstood metric in European tech: exit rates Timestamps 00:00 Introduction 03:07 Europe's ecosystem fundamentals have never been stronger 10:51 Where the friction shows up: go-to-market and fragmentation 13:21 What will improve soon vs what founders must design around 17:09 Europe's 4.6 million tech workers and where the talent advantage breaks down 19:52 The compounding talent flywheel across generations 24:38 Why 30% of companies relocate abroad at Series C 28:45 The pension fund bottleneck: perception, regulation, and talent 37:20 What breakout European companies do differently 43:59 Rapid fire Our biggest takeaways, including Tom's view on what founders consistently misread about Europe's exit data: https://www.followthegradient.io/p/to... Where to find Tom LinkedIn:   / tomwehmeier   Email: tom@atomico.com State of European Tech: https://stateofeuropeantech.com Atomico: https://atomico.com 🎙 Follow the Gradient: conversations about building a business from Europe while staying sane. Hosts: Melanie:   / melaniexgabriel   Christian:   / christian-woese   Subscribe & follow: Newsletter: https://www.followthegradient.io YouTube:    / @followthegradient   LinkedIn:   / followthegradient   X: https://x.com/followgradient Instagram:   / followthegradient