Welcome back to another episode of Upside at the EUVC Podcast, where Dan Bowyer, Mads Jensen of SuperSeed, Lomax Ward of Outsized Ventures dissect the stories reshaping European venture, from Helsinki’s Slush takeover to China’s rising leverage, TPU vs GPU battles, the UK’s AI money wave, and why immigrants found half the unicorns in the Western world.
This week’s episode ranges from Germany’s €35B space ambitions to Meta’s TPU dealmaking, from cookie law rollbacks to Lithuania’s secondhand unicorn, all culminating in one conclusion: Europe’s window for action is open, but narrowing.
🎧 Here’s what’s covered
00:26 Slush recap: from Nokia’s fall to Europe’s most founder-first event.
05:11 Web Summit vs Slush: why nonprofit incentives matter.
07:52 Germany’s €35B space strategy: defense, procurement & sovereignty.
10:21 The immigrant founder effect: 50–90% of unicorns built by newcomers.
13:12 The political backlash: skilled vs low-skilled migration confusion.
17:22 Defense stocks boom: tanks, night vision, gearboxes — and 200%+ gains.
20:51 Vinted’s €8B secondary: Lithuania’s marketplace becomes half the ecosystem.
22:58 Cookie banners may finally die: EU proposes a digital omnibus rollback.
25:07 UK’s AI investment wave: growth zones, sovereign AI, drug discovery.
31:20 China’s new posture: rare earth leverage, Belarus factories & new red lines.
35:41 Europe’s multipolar dilemma: squeezed between the US and China.
40:14 AI Corner: 70% of AI startups now using Chinese open source models.
42:00 Google’s TPU moment: Gemini 3 beats frontier models across 19/20 benchmarks.
43:20 Meta & Anthropic commit to TPUs — a major shift in compute economics.
44:20 Nvidia’s blowout quarter: $57B Q3, 75% margins, sold out through 2026.
46:15 Deals of the Week: Voice (Germany) raises $50M; nursing workflows go AI.
