European initiative aims to mobilize over ten billion euros for startups

As part of the European Tech Champions Initiative (ETCI), European countries want to create a fund of funds with ten billion euros. Germany also wants to participate with one billion.

Ministers from 18 European countries have jointly launched an initiative to support tech startups with ten billion euros. The aim is to reduce dependence on Asian and US investors.

In order to keep up in the global technological race, the European Union must strengthen its ecosystem for start-ups, according to a joint declaration of the initiative. The current funding situation is holding back both startups and scale-ups. This is now to change. To this end, the initiative wants to launch a fund of funds under which new European venture capital funds are to be created. This is intended to guarantee capital resources for young companies. The fund of funds is to be managed by the European Investment Fund (EIF). The plan is to finance it with public and private money.

For Germany, the ministers Christian Lindner and Robert Habeck have signed the declaration. Just like France, Germany wants to participate in the new venture capital fund with one billion euros. The new fund is to be launched at the end of 2022.