START Summit 2025 – Thoughts & Takeaways
StartSummit 2025 was a reminder of Europe’s growing confidence in its own startup and innovation ecosystem. Here are my key takeaways.
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Start Summit St. Gallen
These days, I've been attending the Start Summit in St. Gallen (as I do every year). It's an excellent conference that I highly recommend to anyone interested in startups, innovation, and entrepreneurship. With around 7,000 attendees, StartSummit offers an ideal conference size—large enough to attract notable innovators, investors, and thought leaders, yet intimate enough to facilitate genuine conversations and meaningful connections.
There was a lot to explore at this year's summit, but I’d like to focus particularly on three key themes:
A Wave of Optimism for Startups and Innovation in Europe
I've been involved in startups and innovation for 15 years. For a long time, the dominant narrative was that Europe is lagging behind the U.S. and that serious entrepreneurs needed to relocate across the Atlantic to succeed. However, the conversation has notably shifted. Over the past year, I've noticed increased confidence in Europe’s unique strengths and potential to compete globally.
This optimistic atmosphere was tangible at StartSummit, where speakers passionately discussed Europe’s resilience and potential. Here are a few insightful quotes that capture this renewed spirit:
Jeannette zu Fürstenberg (La Famiglia): “We are much stronger than we think we are... Founders come back from the US and want to build for European resilience... Progress is not good enough — we need to want to win... Europe has embraced a ‘we are defeated’ mindset, we need to counter that narrative, otherwise it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
Hector Gonzalez (SpiNNcloud): “Europe is well-positioned in energy-efficient AI. The technology is already here—we just need a more aggressive mindset to compete with global superpowers.”
Michiel Kotting (Northzone): “Forced by geopolitical circumstances, we’re seeing a lot of proud founders and investors who want to build strength and independence in Europe.”
Noemi Kmoth (Start Global): “Europe was always at the forefront of innovation."
Peter Specht (Creandum): “Europe has a strong setup at the early stage, but scaling is still challenging... Venture returns in Europe are on par with the U.S."
Alexander Schmitt (Lightspeed Venture): “European tech over the last ten years is a massive success story—we’ve increased funding volumes tenfold. Great founders emerge everywhere. Europeans are at the core of innovation, competing head-to-head with U.S. counterparts.”
Luke Pappas (NEA): “As a founder, Europe provides everything you need. Simply moving to San Francisco won’t help if you don’t already have a network there.”
Rainer Märkle (HV Capital): “Europe still lacks large exit markets and deep public markets, but we're on the right track. There is considerable international positivity about Europe, and we shouldn’t be misled by negative press.”
Artificial Intelligence
I attended an interesting discussion with Steve Furber, who was instrumental in designing the ARM Microprocessors. He highlighted one of AI’s biggest challenges: the energy problem. He talked about how understanding the human brain better could help to solve it. After all, our brains run on the energy equivalent of a light bulb, while AI requires massive amounts of power. I particularly liked this quote from Steve:
„Google’s first AI system had to be shown 10 million cats before it could recognize a cat. My grandson saw just one cat and could consistently recognize cats from then on. Humans can learn from very little data—we need to better understand how this works by studying the brain and applying those insights to AI.“
Here are additional thought-provoking quotes on AI from the conference:
Peter Specht (Creandum): “AI is probably nearing the peak of its hype cycle.”
Yaron Valler (Target Global): “The first wave of AI startups focused on cost savings. The second wave will leverage data to create entirely new value propositions.”
Alexander Schmitt (Lightspeed Ventures): “The quality of revenue in AI can be like a leaky bucket.”
Luke Pappas (NEA): “AI models are smart due to the data they're trained on. Companies owning industry-specific data will have substantial value. Data provides a unique edge (...) AI & Defense tech have the highest multiples now in terms of valuations.
Even if not so obvious and not known to everyone, Europe has a few interesting AI startups: Black Forest Lab headquartered in Freiburg and Lovable based in Stockholm, are increasingly becoming the talk of the town, even in the Bay Area:
Sri Chandrasekar (Point72 Ventures): “There isn't a single person in the Bay Area who hasn't heard of Lovable or played around with it.”
Robin Rombach (Black Forest Labs): “The main ingredients for building AI are compute power (= capital) and talent. Especially on the talent side, Europe has that...“
Emerging Topic: Defense Tech
Another notable trend at StartSummit was the rise of "defense tech." It feels like a topic poised to gain considerable attention in the coming years, bringing new audiences to tech conferences. It feels kind of strange to see conference attendees in military camouflage — and I found myself missing the artists and creatives who used to flood these events during the Metaverse and NFT hype.
I attended a session with military representatives, who highlighted how rigid their systems currently are and emphasized the need for greater adaptability and openness to innovation.
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Disclaimer: The thoughts published in this publication are my personal opinion and should not be considered as investment advice or a recommendation for any type of action. I am not a financial expert. The startups, organizations or corporates highlighted in this publication have caught my interest. This mention is not an endorsement or recommendation to engage with them. Readers should always do their own research.