Economic policy EU development bank wants to invest billions in start-ups
The European Investment Bank (EIB Group) wants to invest tens of billions in innovative and fast-growing young tech companies. This is to keep them in Europe.
20.06.2025, 07:04
SDA
By 2027, 70 billion euros are to be made available for such start-up and scale-up companies. "Scale-ups" are companies that are growing rapidly after being founded ("start-up") and have established a functioning business model.
At a meeting in Luxembourg today, the Board of Governors of the development bank, which is made up of EU finance ministers, intends to give the go-ahead for a corresponding program called TechEU.
With this package, the EIB Group also wants to encourage private and public investors to participate in projects. According to the EIB, a total of 250 billion euros could then be mobilized for the European technology sector.
Companies should "be able to grow and prosper in Europe"
Companies active in the fields of clean technologies, artificial intelligence (AI), health, security and defense technologies, digital infrastructure and critical raw materials are to be supported. "The program aims to ensure that ideas, technologies and companies born in the EU can grow and thrive in Europe," it said. The aim is to finance research projects and companies from the idea to the IPO.
Against the backdrop of competitiveness, Brussels is currently trying to keep start-ups and scale-ups on the continent. They are indispensable for the future of Europe. The European Commission recently presented a strategy for this and wants to simplify regulations in areas such as insolvency, labor and tax law.
Many companies are moving to the USA
According to the authority, more start-ups are founded in Europe than in the USA. However, in the past 15 years, almost 30 percent of European "unicorn start-ups" - i.e. start-ups that are later worth more than one billion US dollars - have relocated their headquarters to a non-EU country. According to the EIB, almost 30 percent of unicorn start-ups left Europe between 2008 and 2021. Most of them moved to the USA.
One reason for the fact that it is more difficult to turn small start-ups into larger companies in Europe is money, according to the data. According to data, while start-ups in the USA received around 70.5 billion dollars for the initial phase in 2024, the figure in Europe was 16 billion - with a similar number of start-ups on both sides of the Atlantic.
