EU to inject €3.75B into venture capital funds to help companies scale up

The EU this week launched a €3.75 billion fund of funds to inject much-needed capital into Europe’s most promising tech companies.

The European Tech Champions Initiative (ETCI) will “support the birth and growth of new European unicorns,” or companies valued at $1 billion or more, said Werner Hoyer, president of the European Investment Bank (EIB), at the launch on Monday night.

The fund will invest public money, provided by the EIB and five EU member states, in venture capital funds that will support late-stage growth phase companies. The hope is that an initial €1 billion of funding will leverage €10 billion of investment in European scale-ups.