Revolut, Mistral, Wayve and ElevenLabs are backing a six-figure “Built in Europe” advertising campaign, challenging the idea that globally important technology companies must move to Silicon Valley to scale.
The campaign, the brainchild of European VC investor Balderton, is backed by more than 100 European founders and CEOs and calls for more people to build or join a tech startup in Europe.
It comes amid long-standing concern that Europe is losing its top startup talent as they look to deep-pocketed US investors to scale up, as well as concern from European governments and investors that European founders feel they need to be in Silicon Valley to make it big.
Suranga Chandratillake, partner at Balderton, which backs European founders and has invested in Revolut and Wayve, explained the genesis of the campaign.
He said that Balderton had an "incredible" 2005, with notable exits and significant investments and that Balderton was broadly optimistic about the European tech ecosystem, a feeling that, he said, was not reflected on social media and in the media.
