E636 | This Week In European Tech with Dan, Mads, Lomax and Ben Prade

Welcome to a new episode of the EUVC Podcast, where our good friends Dan Bowyer and Mads Jensen from SuperSeed are joined by Lomax Ward from Outsized Ventures and Ben Prade, investor & operator at Bullhound Capital (the investment arm of GP Bullhound), for an unfiltered look at Europe’s venture reality: fundraising pain, secondaries-as-a-service, AI’s power hunger, China’s “dark factories,” and how Europe unlocks the capital to compete.

Ben focuses on deep tech, AI, quantum, and space, and he brings a clear-eyed view on how liquidity, secondaries, and structural headwinds are reshaping the market.

🎧 Here’s what’s covered

• 02:35 Fundraising reality: fewer funds, flight to brands
  Why ~25% of new VC money goes to the top 10 brands; what that means for emerging managers; and why DPI is king again.

• 05:26 Sovereign LPs & strings attached
  When government money shapes mandates: the upside (more capital) and the risk (policy over performance).

• 06:45 Chinks of light: Klarna & liquidity
  How high-profile exits (and lock-ups ending) can recycle cash back into European VC.

• 09:37 Goldman buys Industry Ventures
  Why a Wall Street giant wants secondary data + wealth distribution — and how that can unclog LP portfolios.

• 13:08 Nobel Prize & growth mechanics
  Creative destruction (Aghion–Howitt) meets realpolitik: state de-risking, catch-up industrialization, and China’s “build both infra and innovation” model.

• 21:24 AI’s “everything app” moment
  OpenAI’s ~30 GW compute plan (> $1T decade CapEx), Google’s ad-cash advantage, and the looming pricing showdown.

• 25:09 Circularity vs. reality
  Vendor-financing analogies in AI, but remember: revenue expectations — not loops — pop bubbles.

• 28:03 Unit economics: AI ≠ SaaS
  Negative gross margins down the stack; LLMs climbing into apps; why vertical data + UX decide winners.

• 32:02 China’s dark factories
  Execs return “shaken”: robotized plants, BYD’s surge, and how physical AI (motors, batteries, autonomy) changes competitiveness.

• 39:29 Unleashing Europe’s capital
  JP Morgan’s $1.5T initiative vs. European pensions stuck in gov bonds; rewiring incentives to fund productive risk.

• 45:00 Deal of the Week: ecoRobotix
  €90M Series D (Highland Europe, McWin). Precision AI spraying that cuts herbicides/pesticides by up to 95% across 20+ countries.