Christian Sinding on Europe’s technology opportunity, building global champions and why the platform around founders matters as much as capital.

Europe is entering a different era of technology company building. That is the argument Christian Sinding, Institutional Partner at EQT and Chair of the Scaleup Europe Fund Investment Committee, makes in a new conversation with Michael Sidgmore on Alt Goes Mainstream.

The discussion spans European capital markets, AI, space and robotics,  including an appearance from NEO, the humanoid robot built by EQT Ventures portfolio company 1X. But running through it is a bigger question: what needs to change for Europe’s most ambitious technology companies to reach their full potential?

From European success to global ambition

Christian argues that Europe has historically struggled to translate its strength in research and innovation into companies of global scale. What is changing is the ambition of the founders themselves.

“We want to scale in Europe, but we want to be absolute global winners in our industry. And those are the kinds of companies that we're looking to back.”    

He points to Lovable, whose founder has articulated an ambition to build the first trillion-euro technology company from Europe, as one expression of that shift.  

But greater ambition also raises the bar for the ecosystem around those companies.

Christian discusses the importance of EU Inc., deeper and more integrated European capital markets and reforms that make it easier for companies, talent and capital to move across Europe. 

The Scaleup Europe Fund, managed by EQT, is one part of that picture: providing growth capital to European technology companies with the potential to become global leaders.

But Christian is clear that capital alone isn't the differentiator.

“If we didn't have all those capabilities I talked about and we didn't have the speed and we only had capital, we'd be in zero co-leads.”  

A platform that starts earlier

The wider EQT platform is an important part of that proposition.

Technology themes increasingly stretch across traditional investment stages. Christian uses space as an example. EQT Ventures began investing in the sector years ago, including in The Exploration Company. Today, the theme extends across other parts of EQT, including through the Scaleup Europe Fund.  

For Christian, that early-stage exposure is strategically important:

“I think it's a very important strategic resource for EQT. And the reason is that what venture capital is doing and also what growth is doing is looking into the future and saying, what are going to be the most important industries of the future? Who are going to be, which founders, which industries, which companies are going to be the ones that are going to be impacting the world.” 

And the relationship works in both directions. Insights from Ventures can help identify emerging technologies early, while industrial relationships, operating experience and global networks from across EQT can become useful to founders as their companies grow.

“If you ask the companies that we work with in the early stage, we're very active owners also there. So we bring a lot of resources, you know, with our industrial network, with the Wallenberg network in offtake programs or mentoring programs or just good governance for actually taking companies public.”   

That becomes particularly relevant as technology moves further into the physical world. Christian discusses opportunities across robotics, automation, space, defence technology and industrial technology, where companies may need customers, industrial partnerships and significant capital alongside technology.   

The conversation brings that to life when NEO, the humanoid robot developed by EQT Ventures portfolio company 1X, joins Christian and Michael in Oslo.  

Why not?

Ultimately, Christian argues that Europe’s opportunity requires a shift in mindset as much as capital or policy.

“It's the ‘yes, but’ type of person where you kind of see the opportunity, but it's just for some reason you can't go after it. And then it's the, ‘that's going to be hard, but why not’? Let's go for it.”   

That “why not?” runs through the conversation, from creating deeper European capital markets and backing emerging technologies to the ambition of building the first trillion-euro technology company from Europe.

For Christian, “why not?” isn't a slogan about Europe. It's a challenge to stop allowing difficulty to determine the size of the ambition.

Watch here

*This is a marketing communication. Please refer to the information document of the Scaleup Europe Fund before making any final investment decisions.*