A coalition of prominent European tech founders has announced plans to establish a new initiative aimed at supporting and investing in young entrepreneurs across the continent. The collective effort seeks to leverage the experience and resources of established industry leaders to nurture emerging talent and drive innovation within the tech sector. The initiative, dubbed Project Europe, is a €10 million fund aimed at helping entrepreneurs aged 18-25 build tech startups.
Led by British venture capitalist Harry Stebbings, the project has 150 of Europe’s top founders onboard and will invest out of a €10m fund. “The world has made up its mind that Europe is not a place of innovation. That is wrong,” said Stebbings.
“There is a doom loop around Europe, and we need to change that. The brain drain to the U.S. is very real, and it’s going to really damage the future of Europe unless something changes.”
Project Europe will invest €200k into 10 to 20 aspiring homegrown entrepreneurs under the age of 25 every year. Each young entrepreneur will be assigned one big European founder — like Andrey Khusid from Miro or Tobias Lutke from Shopify — to work on “solving hard problems with technical solutions.” In exchange for the money, the fund will receive a 6.66% equity stake in the companies.
Contributing to the project are a group of venture firms along with more than 125 tech founders from the region who will act as mentors. These include notable figures such as Tobias Lutke, Sebastian Siemiatkowski, and Niklas Östberg.
Supporting young tech entrepreneurs
Bringing together more than 100 of Europe’s top founders under one mission highlights the power and impact of Project Europe in shaping the next generation,” Siemiatkowski said. We’re here to back young talent tackling the toughest technical challenges — with capital, mentorship, and infrastructure.
The fund is being backed by three venture capital firms: 20VC, Berlin-based Point Nine, and New York-based Adjacent, as well as over 100 founders. If the Thiel fellowship and Y Combinator had a baby, it would be this,” says Stebbings, referring to Peter Thiel’s fellowship program and the famed Silicon Valley accelerator Y Combinator.
Project Europe also hired Kitty Mayo, who previously ran programs at Entrepreneur First, as CEO. The plan came together rapidly. Stebbings says he came up with the idea three weeks ago, and originally planned to bring on 25 founders.
But word spread, and it went from 25 founders to 150 in just three days, he says. The project comes amid rising geopolitical tensions, with the US’s support for Europe rapidly dissipating. “We’ve never seen such de-growth in Europe since probably the 70s.
We are in a difficult macro situation,” Stebbings says. “The world thinks that we can’t build great companies anymore.”
Project Europe aims to supercharge growth in startups in Europe: “We have amazing companies here, and we fundamentally need to change the narrative around how we build companies.” The initiative seeks to retain talent and solidify Europe’s position as a leader in tech innovation amidst a competitive global landscape.
Photo by; Sherise Van Dyk on Unsplash