€90bn trusted investor network for European deep tech

The European Commission has launched a Trusted Investors Network to co-invest with European venture capital funds on deep tech startups. The network aims to address the problems that startups have finding funding in Europe.

The first group comprises 71 investors from across Europe, including venture capital funds, public investment banks, foundations and corporate venture funds and represent over €90 billion of assets.

The investors in the network include deep tech hardware funds Herman Hauser’s Amadeus Capital Partners, Atomico, BPI France, Atlantic Bridge and Matterwave Ventures.

These will work with the European Innovation Council (EIC) on co-investments in startup and scale up deep tech companies.

There are currently 251 of these companies backed by the EIC with nearly €1bn, halfway to its target of 500 companies by 2027. Startup companies include UK quantum firm Riverlane and Pilot Photonics in Ireland, while the scale up companies include AI chip designer Axelera AI, smart glasses engine maker Dispelix, quantum firm Multiverse Computing and laser sensor firm .lumen.

• €1.2bn to scale up Europe’s deep tech companies

The launch responds to the need to increase financing of such companies to grow in Europe and provides the foundation for further development in 2025.

“With the launch of the Trusted Investors Network, we are making an important step forward in strengthening Europe’s innovation ecosystem and ensuring that our most promising companies have the capital and support they need to scale up. By joining forces with venture capital, we are responding to the urgent challenges laid out in the Draghi report that call for bold action to ensure Europe’s competitiveness in critical technologies,” said Iliana Ivanova, Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth.

The launch of the trusted investor network was part of the first EIC Scaling Summit, which brought together 120 companies selected from the EIC portfolio and national programmes with the potential to scaleup and become billion euro companies.

In February and in June 2024, Commissioner Ivanova invited a group of investors to discuss the network. The charter signed today and the launch of the network is a concrete result of those consultations and a next step for the EIC to secure scale-up financing for high-risk deep tech companies that have potential but often struggle on the European market to find the right investors.

Trusted Investors Network