The core message of the session was that Europe should present itself as a serious home for business, innovation, talent, and global-scale technology companies—not by ignoring its gaps, but by telling more of its existing success stories and turning policy into practical support for founders. Speaking in Munich during Oktoberfest, the speaker framed the setting as part of a distinct European way of life, combining innovation, business, deep tech, and community. They argued that the familiar narrative that Europe is “not a place for business,” does not innovate, and only regulates is incomplete. As evidence, they said Europe hosts more early-stage startups than any other region and created a record 27,000 tech companies in 2025.

The speaker then moved from data to examples, stressing that founders’ stories are the best answer to negative perceptions. IQM was presented as a European quantum success story: founded eight years earlier from quantum research in Munich and Finland, it now sells more quantum computers than anyone else globally. The speaker noted that IQM became the first EU quantum company to list on Nasdaq in July, while remaining anchored in Europe, and added that the European Innovation Council supported it first to deploy and later to scale. A second example was The Exploration Company, headquartered in Munich and Bordeaux. The speaker described how Ellen Ubi left Airbus five years ago to build reusable space capsules, and said the company recently secured the largest Series C financing ever raised by a European space company with help from the new Scaleup Europe Fund.

From there, the session shifted to Europe’s policy agenda for making scaleup success less exceptional. The speaker described the first European startup and scaleup strategy as a plan with timelines and milestones, highlighting three measures. The first was EU Inc., a proposed single EU-wide optional framework to start and operate a company through one digital procedure instead of twenty-seven, within forty-eight hours and for under €100, with the ambition of welcoming the first EU Inc. company in 2028. The second was the Scaleup Europe Fund, described as Europe’s biggest growth fund, designed to address the late-stage deep tech capital gap through a market-based structure managed by an independent fund manager.

The third measure was simplification, especially through the proposed European Innovation Act. The speaker said founders often ask not just for equity, but for help finding clients and persuading customers to choose new technologies. They argued that public procurers should lead by example by buying more from European innovators. The European Innovation Act was presented as a way to make R&D procurement faster, simpler, and more favorable to startups through a single European rule book and cross-border tenders. The conclusion was a direct call for the audience to keep innovating while challenging old perceptions, with the speaker reaffirming that Europe is a place for business, innovation, talent, and, fittingly for Oktoberfest, beer, food, and music.