SXSW 26: Europe nonetheless struggles to put money into deep tech

European funding corporations would not have the urge for food to put money into deep tech. In a dialogue on the South by Southwest (SXSW) 2026 convention and pageant in London, the co-founder of ARM and director at Amadeus Capital Companions, Herman Hauser, spoke about his disappointment that ARM was unable to checklist on the London Inventory Alternate. He additionally mentioned his additional disappointment when UK buyers lacked the foresight to see the potential of ARM, even after it had listed on Nasdaq.

Discussing ARM, which he stated is Britain’s largest know-how firm, Hauser famous that its market capitalisation is double that of HSBC, which is the subsequent largest firm on the London Inventory Alternate.

“The saddest mistake is once we went again to all the large fund managers within the UK and stated, ‘You made numerous cash with ARM the final time, right here is a chance to purchase ARM once more at a $50bn valuation’, all of them laughed and stated, ‘Wou have to be joking at $50bn. What’s the prospect of a UK or European-based firm to develop from $50bn?’,” he stated. “Properly, now it is $410bn. They missed out on the most important creation of wealth within the UK ever as a result of their analysts and London failed to grasp know-how developments.”

In contrast to the dotcom increase and crash of the late Nineties and early 2000s, Hauser sees synthetic intelligence (AI) as a increase that’s prone to generate profits for profitable companies. Trying on the deep tech funding alternative, he stated: “Among the AI firms that we’re now seeing have gone from zero to a whole lot of tens of millions of income. This isn’t simply ‘eyeballs’ like we heard about within the web increase. That is actual revenues resulting in earnings and unbelievable development for scale-ups.” 

Past Europe’s potential to assume massive by way of deep tech funding, Hauser pointed to the problem in hiring CEOs for UK and European startups, with the experience to develop the enterprise.

“In Silicon Valley – and we’ve accomplished this a variety of instances –go to someone at Apple or a Meta or Google who runs a billion-dollar division and say, ‘The startup wants your assist.’ Take into consideration getting someone out of Rolls-Royce or Mercedes or a few of our massive firms in Europe. First, the tradition isn’t there. Folks wouldn’t even have a look at their startup. Then they’re all locked up for six months or a 12 months on their discover paper.” 

“So, out of the 12 unicorns I’ve been concerned in, each one in every of them ended up within the US,” he added. “We’ve received to maintain them in Europe.”

Hauser sees the €5bn European Innovation Council’s Scale-Up Europe Fund as the biggest deep tech fund in Europe. “The ambition is to develop that from €5bn to €20bn, and perhaps ultimately €100bn.” 

Hauser additionally claimed that Europe is now giving buyers in deep tech a greater return than the US. “That is the primary time in historical past that European enterprise capital offers higher returns than American enterprise capital. That’s why some huge cash is flowing into Europe.”

Together with enhancements in funding because of initiatives such because the Scale-Up Europe Fund and probably greater returns for buyers, Hauser referenced the political local weather within the US, which can tempt some Silicon Valley executives to look to Europe for his or her subsequent transfer.

“Various the essential situations for creating giant firms in Europe are current,” he added.