With European VCs Lomax, Mads, Andrew and Dan
2025 year-in-review for European tech: capital, unicorns, geopolitics, AI, health, defence, and space space spaaaace.
01:25 – European tech in numbers
- $45bn into European startups (flat vs 2023–24, still ~½ of 2021 peak).
- 28 new unicorns in 2025 (up from 14 in 2024).
- US dominates: ~$250bn private tech funding.
- VC fundraising still tight (~$10bn into European funds).
- Exits are back: Wiz–Google, Klarna IPO, SMG IPO.
04:16 – 2025 in one sentence
- Dan: “Extreme volatility.”
- Lomax: “The final nail in globalisation.”
- Mads: “China became a true peer to the US.”
- Andrew: “Shipping fast beat gold-plated tech.”
05:49 – Most exciting tech moments
- Mads: Claude Code, Chinese open-source AI, ASML–Mistral deal.
- Lomax: Wiz’s $32bn cash exit.
- Andrew: 6G moves from lab to real specs.
08:39 – Darwin Awards (biggest screw-ups)
- Dan: Meta / Zuckerberg.
- Lomax: The entire EU institutional stack.
- Mads: Europe exporting founders to the US (incentive failure).
- Andrew: Rachel Reeves & UK growth policy.
11:59 – What smart people got wrong
- Mads: GPU bans didn’t stop China—backfired.
- Lomax: AI bubble didn’t burst.
- Dan: Investors piling blindly into defence.
- Andrew: LLMs are “dial-up,” not the endgame.
16:42 – Why 2025 was a good year
- Europe got a massive wake-up call (Dan).
- 4 new European decacorns (Lomax).
- Founders kept building despite chaos (Mads).
- VC rediscovered deep tech & hardware (Andrew).
21:23 – Geopolitics: a less naive world
- Globalisation fragmenting into blocs.
- Trust replaced by “trust but verify.”
- Sovereignty = opportunity for European founders (AI, defence, energy).
34:30 – AI Corner: the year AI got real
- DeepSeek shock wipes ~$600bn off Nvidia (Jan).
- Claude Code: $1bn ARR in ~6 months.
- Google Gemini comeback beats rivals on benchmarks.
- China dominates open-source AI.
- Rise of VLAs (Vision-Language-Action models) → physical AI, robotics.
- Big question for 2026: “Are we the horses?”
47:44 – Health & bio highlights
- GLP-1s everywhere: diabetes → cardio, kidney, neuro.
- Sales ~$62bn, heading toward $120bn+.
- Preventative health clinics scale (Function, Neko).
- Biotech rebounds; AI-designed drugs hit Phase 2.
- Psychedelics back: AbbVie deal, mental health momentum.
56:51 – Defence & space
- Modern warfare now rewards fast shipping founders.
- Global launch cadence: every ~1.5 days.
- Space shifts from experimentation → permanent infrastructure.
- Blue Origin finally launches New Glenn; SpaceX eyes Mars (again).