The European Commission has completed the legal steps needed to launch the Scaleup Europe Fund, a €5bn scheme designed to keep Europe’s most promising technology firms from moving to the United States or China.
Management of the fund will be handled by EQT, a Stockholm-based private equity group.
Capital will be focused on artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, biotechnology and clean tech, which the commission calls “strategic deep tech”, and the first investments are expected within weeks.
But investment decisions will be made independently and “on market terms”, according to information shared by the commission on Tuesday 4 August).
The fund, first floated by commission president Ursula von der Leyen in her 2025 State of the Union address, is part of the European Innovation Council Fund.
