Lifting Europe’s Ambition: The Next Generation of Unicorns and Decacorns “Made in Europe

Context/Need

• Europe is showing a growing technological lag behind the United States and, in certain sectors, behind China. This gap, initially linked to the slower adoption of digital technologies, is now widening more broadly across a dozen key technological fields critical for future competitiveness, such as artificial intelligence, automation, and biotechnology. Moreover, technologies are increasingly playing a “cross-cutting” role, permeating all sectors of activity. As a result, even the industries where Europe has remained highly competitive—automotive, aerospace, luxury goods, retail, pharmaceuticals, etc.—could find themselves weakened in the medium term.
• On top, in current EU environment, scaling and succeeding in finding the sweet spot for sustainable growth can be a challenge, being when entering new markets, developing and launching new products, deploying new Go-to-Market strategies, looking for investments, preparing for IPOs… They are keen on welcoming for this challenge European Start-ups that are reaching an inflection point in their growth.

Expected Solutions

• This challenge is targeting especially the fields that are crucial for EU sovereignty (e.g. DeepTech, Climate & Energy, Artificial Intelligence, Health & BioTech, Quantum Computing, Automation, Advanced Materials…).

Rewards

• Growth support – Full day
  • 1 full day “Growth Strategy” session with McKinsey & Company senior experts + 1 invitation to their exclusive CEO dinner taking place during VivaTech + invitations to additional McKinsey & Company’s events planned in 2025 with speaking opportunity (depending on the field of the Start-up)
• Growth support – Half day
  • 1 half day “Growth Strategy” session with McKinsey & Company senior experts + 1 invitation to their exclusive CEO dinner taking place during VivaTech + invitations to additional McKinsey & Company’s events planned in 2025 (depending on the field of the Start-up)
• Growth support – Dinner
  • 1 invitation to their exclusive CEO dinner taking place during VivaTech + invitations to additional McKinsey & Company’s events planned in 2025 with speaking opportunity (depending on the field of the Start-up)
• Boost your start-up : go through their scale readiness assessment
  • Leap Quotient allows to assess readiness to successfully scale across all venture dimensions (product & strategy, GTM, Technology, People, Operations, Capital)

Selection Criteria

• Size and maturity: Minimum 100M€ of valuation
• Geography: Headquartered in Europe
• Team & Management: Still partially or fully founders led
• Growth: Preparing a growth acceleration/infection point : entering new markets, developing and launching new products/technologies, deploying Go-To-Market strategies, looking for investments, preparing for IPO…
• Sectors: Priority given to fields that are crucial for EU sovereignty (e.g. DeepTech, Climate & Energy, Artificial Intelligence, Health & BioTech, Quantum Computing, Automation, Advanced Materials…).

For more information, visit Viva Technology.