2025 was a pivotal year for tech. Markets stabilised, AI moved from experimentation to adoption, and Europe showed clear signs that it can build, and scale, global category leaders. Against this backdrop, EQT Ventures & Growth strengthened our early-stage platform, backed bold founders and management team across Europe and the US, and accelerated our mission to support the next generation of AI-native companies.

This year also marked an important organisational evolution. EQT Ventures and EQT Growth came together under one unified early-stage tech platform: nine partners and more than 60 team members across Europe and the US, enabling us to support founders and teams from Seed → Growth → global scale. Leading EQT Ventures, we expanded our international footprint, deepened connectivity across sectors, and unlocked greater value from EQT’s global ecosystem of 300+ portfolio companies and 700,000 employees.

Portfolio Momentum & Milestones

Our portfolio made strong progress across deep tech, climate, consumer technology, and fintech this year, reinforcing our view that AI adoption across these sectors is helping power the next generation of category-defining companies and that Europe is well positioned to lead.

Standout moments from 2025 included:

• Sana’s acquisition by Workday, the largest European AI exit of the year and a major proof point for Europe’s ability to build global-scale AI infrastructure.

• Vinted surpassing €10B in annual GMV, reinforcing its position as one of Europe’s most successful consumer marketplaces.

• EQT Growth invested in Harvey earlier in the year, and in December the company closed a new funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz, valuing the legal AI startup at $8 billion.

• Parloa becoming Germany’s first AI unicorn of 2025 with a $120M Series C.

• Lovable raises $330M with EQT Growth participating to power the age of the builder.

• Mollie’s acquisition of GoCardless in a blockbuster $1.1B deal.

• Nothing’s $200M Series C at a $1.3B valuation, cementing its status as a next-gen consumer hardware leader.

• EQT Growth co-leading Perk’s $200m fundraise and acquisition of spend management specialist Yokoy to create leading integrated travel and expense management platform.

• Applied Systems’ acquisition of Cytora, strengthening its position as an insurance AI leader.

• Wellhub acquiring Urban Sports Club, expanding corporate wellbeing benefits access across Europe.

We also welcomed a new wave of founders and teams into the EQT family through funding rounds for Perk, ecoplanet, MarvelX, Reliaquest, Marvel Fusion, Beside, Strawberry, Filament, Clarifeye, Harvey, and Lovable companies building the future of their respective fields.

2025 showed that ambitious tech companies have the potential to have the potential to have the potential to break through anywhere, but scaling them requires conviction, speed, capital, and a platform built for global reach. EQT today has offices across 20+ countries. As the early-stage tech arm of that platform, we are focused on backing founders from Seed to late growth and helping them plug into EQT’s global network to build the next generation of industry leaders.

Europe-First, Global Always. Our centre of gravity remains Europe, home to deep technical talent, world-class research institutions, and thriving startup hubs. But our reach and impact is global. We supported founders and teams in building cross-border teams, entering new markets, and leveraging EQT’s global platform to accelerate scale. Europe has the building blocks. Our role is to help unlock the scale.

If 2025 taught us anything, it’s that the real breakthrough wasn’t just technological, it was mindset. Founders built faster, thought bigger, and operated with global ambition from day one. Europe didn’t just prove it can build world-class companies; it showed it can scale them. Our job in 2026 is to keep fuelling that ambition.