EIB to unveil 15 billion euro tech initiative to scale European startups

The European Investment Bank (EIB) will announce a €15 billion initiative today, in collaboration with EU capitals and private investors, aimed at supporting the growth of European technology companies.

For decades, startups on the continent have struggled to raise the large-scale funding rounds necessary to scale on this side of the Atlantic, frequently turning to US investors or relocating abroad as they expand.

“We are catching up. Now we need to accelerate,” EIB President Nadia Calviño said.

Under the existing European Tech Champions Initiative, the EIB had already pooled resources with six EU governments to establish funds that invest in high-growth companies across the EU.

Calviño described the initiative as “very successful,” noting that it has supported 12 European “unicorn” companies valued at over $1 billion, including the German artificial intelligence translation firm DeepL.

The bank is now expanding the program with a new phase nearly four times the size of the original.

Twenty-five EU governments, alongside private investors such as Santander and Danske Bank, are expected to participate in the program.

This initial €15 billion aims to mobilize up to €80 billion in total investment. Calviño stated that this estimate is based on the multiplier effects achieved under previous programs.

As part of these efforts, the EIB also aims to attract European pension funds, which manage immense pools of capital but have historically allocated fewer resources to technology investments compared to their US counterparts.

In addition to the new funding, Calviño noted that the EIB will create a platform providing a single point of access for existing European scale-up initiatives, including the European Commission’s Scaleup Europe Fund, France’s Tibi initiative, and Germany’s Win initiative.