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).