E.U. Bank Lines Up €10 Billion for Europe’s Scale-Ups, With Uniqa on Board

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Europe’s big pot of growth capital for tech is filling up, but Austria as a country is watching from the sidelines for now: The European Investment Bank said on Monday that, together with E.U. member states and large institutional investors, more than €10 billion is set to flow into European scale-ups. Austria is not among the seven countries in the first closing, though the Austrian insurer Uniqa is taking part.

Where the €10 Billion Comes From

According to the E.I.B., the more than €10 billion is made up of two parts:

• Member states: Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Spain are joining the first closing of the Tech Champions fund-of-funds with around €2 billion in commitments. More countries are expected to follow once their national procedures are complete.
• Institutional investors: Fifteen banks, insurers, pension funds and foundations have declared their intention to contribute more than €8 billion combined. They include the Dutch pension managers APG, PGGM and MN Services; the banks ABN AMRO, Santander, BBVA and Danske Bank; the Italian asset manager Azimut; the foundation Compagnia di San Paolo; France’s Tibi Initiative; and Uniqa Insurance Group.

The announcement came on the sidelines of a meeting of E.U. finance ministers in Brussels. The first investment decisions are expected within weeks, according to the E.I.B. “Europe has world-class talent, innovative companies and technological leadership,” said Nadia Calviño, the bank’s president, who called the alliance a catalyst to mobilize capital at scale.

How the Fund-of-Funds Works

The money is part of the second European Tech Champions Initiative (ETCI 2), which aims to channel up to €80 billion into European tech companies. The fund-of-funds does not invest directly in start-ups. Instead, it backs large venture capital funds, which in turn finance fast-growing companies. Average investment tickets are set at around €200 million. Target areas include A.I. and deep tech, life sciences, cybersecurity and space.

In parallel, the E.I.B. is launching the second edition of its Defence Equity Facility for defense, space and cybersecurity. It aims to raise €1 billion; the European Commission is committing €100 million, joined by countries including Lithuania and Bulgaria.

What the First Round Achieved

The first ETCI launched in 2023 with six E.U. countries and about €3.9 billion. According to the E.I.B., it backed 15 large venture funds, which in turn financed more than 50 companies in the E.U. Sixteen of them are now unicorns, valued at more than €1 billion.

Austria Lags Behind

For Austria, the news is mixed. Uniqa, a Vienna-based insurer, is on board, but the country itself is missing from the seven member states in the first closing. Its own national fund-of-funds is also slow in coming: The cabinet approved it in September 2025, but according to the government’s industrial strategy, it is not set to start operating until early 2027. As Trending Topics recently reported, only about €23 million has been budgeted for it in the current legislative period through 2029.

Other countries are further along. Alongside ETCI 2, there are national programs such as France’s Tibi Initiative and Germany’s WIN initiative, and at the E.U. level, the European Commission’s Scaleup Europe Fund.

Taxpayer Money for Tech Funds Remains Contested

State-backed billion-euro tech funds are not without critics, however. When the first ETCI was announced, Dries Faems, a professor at the WHU Otto Beisheim School of Management, argued that there was no clear market failure to justify the use of taxpayer money. Public investors, he said, tend to play it safe after early failures, and political interests could influence how the money is distributed. A better approach, he argued, would be to unify the digital single market. In addition, the €8 billion from institutional investors is for now only a declaration of intent; so far, only the roughly €2 billion from member states has been committed.