A recurring theme in the European world of technology is that the region needs its own Google or Microsoft. Now, a new fund is being launched to support this initiative.
Project Europe – a new fund for founders to “solve tough problems with technical solutions” — says it first put together $10 million from 128 different founders and technical executives from startups further afield in Europe and further afield. The list you can view here includes founders of Klarna, Mistral and Soundcloud. Successful recipients each get 200,000 euros (approximately $200,000) to build an idea.
Companies need to start in Europe, but there is no limit to moving them later. Also, founders do not need to have a fully formed startup to apply. You can apply with an idea, or if you are “tinkering with a paper”, the site's fund will point out.
There is one more thing to be aware of. If you are over 25, stop reading now. Project Europe limits awards to people under the age of 25.
One round investor described age-specific requirements as a way to “support the next generation of founders.” The focus on young founders is reminiscent of the Thiel Fellowship, who gives $100,000 to a US university dropout, but in the case of Project Europe there is no dropout clause.
Over the past decades, there has been extensive debate over how Europe has not managed to seize the opportunity to build a megatech business that rivals meta, Apple or Google. In many ways, it's a classic chicken and egg issue.
Some have accurately identified shortages in growth stages of funding as a major bottleneck that encourages founders to move to the US.
Others say the problem has something to do with risking preferences. Ian Hogarth, a founder-turned VC, one of the most outspoken people on this topic, writes about how the most promising companies are moving and selling too much. In other words, we never know if the lack of growth capital has actually proven a bottleneck. (Hogarth is not one of the lists of people supporting Project Europe.)
Perhaps it's a combination of why Europe hasn't yet produced trillion dollar tech companies in the order of hyperscalers coming out of the US and Asia. And it is controversial that seed funding is an important gating factor among them.
According to Project Europe, initial investments will give you 6.66% of the stock of your new idea/business if you are leading the investment.
In addition to the money, the cohort receives 1:1 mentorship from one of the fund's nine partners. These include Synthesia's Victor Riparbery, Eleven Love's Matty Stanisewski, and Speak Games' Lina Onur Sirinoglu (the only female partner).
Other perks include access to 119 others in the Fund for Advice. A 20VC podcaster-turned investor, Harry Stevings, who built his business from growth hacking and microinvestment, is one of the creators of Project Europe. He also provides access to the media empire as part of the deal.