From EU Inc to a €5 billion fund target: where the EU's 2025 startup strategy stands

On May 28, 2025, the European Commission adopted the EU Startup and Scaleup Strategy, “Choose Europe to start and scale”. Its stated aim is to make the European Union the best place in the world to launch and grow technology-driven companies, including deep tech firms. A year and a half later, its flagship legal proposal, a single EU company form called EU Inc, still awaits agreement between Parliament and EU governments, a late-stage fund targeting €5 billion has started investing, and the Commission says most of the strategy's other actions will be delivered by the end of 2026.

The problem the strategy set out

According to the Commission figures summarized by the European Parliament's research service, nearly 30% of European unicorns, privately held startups valued at €1 billion or more, relocated outside the EU between 2008 and 2021, and only 8% of the world's scaleups are based in Europe. The Commission also pointed to a bank-centered financial system, with bank assets worth 300% of EU GDP against 85% in the United States, which it said helps explain the shortage of venture capital for risky, capital-intensive technologies needing more than €100 million. Universities account for over 10% of patents filed at the European Patent Office, it said, but only a third of those patents are commercially exploited.

The strategy grouped its response into five areas: innovation-friendly regulation, better access to finance, faster market uptake and expansion, support for top talent, and access to infrastructure, networks and services. It promised a 28th regime, a single set of EU-wide company rules alongside national ones, a European Innovation Act, EU definitions of startups and scaleups, a Lab to Unicorn initiative for university spinoffs and a Blue Carpet initiative to attract skilled people.

What has been delivered

The Commission's strategy page, citing a state-of-play presentation dated September 28, 2026, says 10 of the 26 actions have been delivered and 16 are launched and ongoing, with most due by the end of 2026 and a few in 2027. Its tallies by area, which add a sixth heading for measuring progress, are below; they add up to 11 completed, by our count, one more than the page's headline figure.

On March 18, 2026, the Commission adopted two of the strategy's actions: the EU Inc proposal and a recommendation on common definitions of innovative enterprises, innovative startups and innovative scaleups, meant to help target regulatory or financial support. In September 2026 it proposed the European Innovation Act, which would create a harmonized EU framework for research and development procurement and an EU-wide framework for valuing intellectual property, to make IP-backed finance easier. A European Startup and Scaleup Scoreboard, built on Joint Research Centre data, now ranks member states on 36 indicators.

On finance, the Commission completed the legal steps to set up the Scaleup Europe Fund on August 4, 2026. The European Innovation Council's fund board chose EQT as investment adviser and fund manager, the Commission says, and the fund is to invest in areas such as AI, quantum, cleantech, biotech and space. First investments have been made and more were expected in autumn 2026. A coalition of potential founding investors, including Novo Holdings, Denmark's EIFO, CriteriaCaixa, Allianz and the Dutch pension fund ABP, helped shape its structure, the Commission says. (Our report on the European Innovation Council's 2027 budget covers the innovation council's own contributions to the fund in 2026 and 2027.)

EU Inc, still in negotiation

EU Inc would be optional and sit alongside national company forms. The Commission says it would allow fully digital registration within 48 hours for no more than €100, easier digital share transfers, digital insolvency procedures, automatic sharing of company data with authorities under the “once-only” principle, and an optional EU scheme for employee stock options with harmonized deferred taxation. Member states could choose to let EU Inc companies list on public equity markets.

Views differ on the safeguards. On October 23, 2026, the Council adopted its negotiating position, which keeps dealings with national administrations to a minimum but strengthens checks at every stage, lets member states refuse registration on grounds linked to national laws on money laundering, terrorism or other crimes, and narrows the stock option scheme with thresholds of 750 employees and €150 million in annual turnover, according to the Parliament's summary. The European Committee of the Regions welcomed EU Inc as pragmatic in July 2026, while the European Economic and Social Committee asked for protection against fraud, abusive arrangements and the circumvention of workers' participation rights.

In Parliament, the legal affairs committee's rapporteur, René Repasi (S&D, Germany), published a draft report on June 29, 2026. The Parliament's Legislative Train, updated on October 25, 2026, lists the file, procedure 2026/0074(COD), as tabled; its latest developments are the draft report and the Council mandate, and it records no plenary vote. The Parliament's Legislative Observatory, as fetched on November 13, 2026, shows the file still awaiting a decision in the legal affairs committee. By our reading of the procedure, EU Inc will not be available to founders until Parliament and the Council agree on a text and the regulation is formally adopted.