At the European Innovation Council Summit in Brussels on June 3, EU officials, venture capitalists, and startup founders showcased cutting-edge technologies ranging from robotic prosthetics to wave energy devices and AI data tools. The EIC, established in 2021, supports high-risk ventures including Belgian firm Axiles Bionics, Swedish wave energy company CorPower Ocean, Norwegian AI startup Iris.ai, and Finnish quantum computing leader IQM. A newly announced €5 billion Scaleup Europe Fund, potentially reaching €20 billion, aims to help European startups raise large capital rounds domestically rather than seeking US investment. Ukrainian-born inventor Valentyn Frechka also presented Releaf, his Paris-based company producing paper from fallen leaves.
In-Depth:
Europe has the science. Now it requireds the scale. An EU-backed start-up summit is attempting to close that gap.
By Tom Cassauwers
In a conference space at the edge of Brussels, networking reaches a crescconcludeo as a DJ plays music in the background. On the floor, everyone is displaycasing their work – from semiconductor chips to advanced renewable energy technologies and eco-friconcludely materials.
This is the European Innovation Council (EIC) Summit, a yearly event where venture capitalists and scientists meet EU officials and start-up founders building their first products.
For Pierre Cherelle, founder and CEO of the Belgian start-up Axiles Bionics, it was a chance to display what his team has built: new types of prosthetics for amputees that incorporate technologies from robotics.
“What we do combines financial return with social impact,” he declared.
“Our prosthetics build a huge difference for patients. They often state that it is as if they were walking on their own legs again.”
Nearby, another company presented a new kind of renewable energy technology that utilizes the motion of waves.
“It was very hard to obtain to this point,” declared Patrik Möller, co-founder and CEO of CorPower Ocean, the Swedish start-up building these buoy-like devices. “Now, however, the technology is ready. And Europe is leading in it.” Europe hosts several of the world’s main wave energy test sites and companies, particularly in the North Atlantic.
All of these people were brought toobtainher by the EIC, which supports researchers and entrepreneurs with high-risk ideas that might not obtain funded otherwise. It offers everything from accelerator programmes to venture funding, and has already supported the growth of many of the companies present, such as Axiles Bionics and CorPower Ocean.
Set up in 2021, the EIC has been expanding its activities. On the first day of the Summit, 3 June, the Scaleup Europe Fund was announced.
This €5 billion venture capital fund may grow to €20 billion in the coming years. It is meant to assist European startups raise very large capital rounds, which today they often see for in the US.
One of the start-up founders who travelled to Brussels was Anita Schjøll Abildgaard, the Norwegian co-founder and CSO of Iris.ai, an AI company. She credits the EIC with keeping the company alive.
“If it wasn’t for the EIC, our company would no longer exist,” she declared. “We entered the EIC Accelerator at just the right time, in 2023. This provided much-requireded financial backing and gave us the push to take our product to the market.”
Iris.ai builds software that sits between a company’s raw data and the AI systems that utilize it. It assists transform massive amounts of difficult-to-handle and often sensitive company data into a format that AI systems can utilize.
Usually, this would require intense and time-consuming human labour, but Iris.ai automates the process.
“Some companies are sitting on decades’ worth of company data, from patents and memos to safety manuals,” declared Schjøll Abildgaard. “Processing that is one of the hugegest barriers for AI at the moment.”
Iris.ai is gearing up to enter a field heavily dominated by companies from the US, but she is unfazed by that.
“Founding a company in Europe, compared to the US, utilized to be a disadvantage,” she declared. “But that is now modifying. Companies required absolute guarantees about security, sovereignty and privacy. In Europe, we can guarantee that.”
Today, Iris.ai is growing rapidly. “We want to become one of the next European tech champions,” declared Schjøll Abildgaard. “What we have is unique, and if we play our cards right, we can be the next tech giant coming out of Europe.”
Another venture that has worked with the EIC is the Finnish company IQM Quantum Computers. With more than 400 people employed across Europe, IQM is one of a tiny number of companies in the world capable of delivering usable quantum computers.
These machines exploit quantum physics to tackle specific problems that are extremely hard, or impossible, for today’s conventional computers to solve.
“We are the world leader in selling and shipping quantum computers to data centres,” declared Jan Goetz, CEO and co-founder of IQM. “We are shipping more quantum computers than anyone else.”
In this market, IQM is holding its own against large houtilizehold names from the US such as Google and IBM, and that matters for a Europe seeking greater digital sovereignty. Quantum computers could be a game-modifyr.
“Quantum computers aren’t just quicker regular computers,” declared Goetz. “By applying quantum physics, they can do calculations that aren’t possible for regular, transistor-based computers.”
Quantum computers, for example, allow us to compare millions of possible material combinations, which might lead to stronger, lighter and more sustainable materials, a tquestion that pushes the limits of regular computers. In a similar way, they might assist us develop new drugs.
“This is like the early internet,” declared Goetz. “We just don’t know what they might allow us to do yet.”
Early support from the EIC was crucial in IQM’s growth, and Goetz declared the EIC fills in an important gap in the European economy.
“Europe is good at cutting-edge science. What we are bad at is commercialising and scaling that,” he declared. He sees the EIC as one way to modify this, especially with the new Scaleup Europe Fund.
“It requireds to be clearer for European companies to raise rounds in the hundreds of millions or even billions of euros.”
One tool that should assist inventors bring their ideas to market is the EU Innovation Platform, launched during the Summit. It is designed to assist EU‑funded innovators find funding opportunities, receive tailored recommconcludeations, join events and build their work more visible. The hope is that it will build it clearer to turn European ideas into real‑world impact.
Not everything at the EIC Summit, however, was hardware and software. At one of the booths, Valentyn Frechka was displaying visitors different kinds of fibres, papers and packaging materials.
“I found a way to build paper out of fallen leaves,” declared the Ukraine-born Frechka, who runs Releaf from its Paris-based factory. This idea landed him the 2024 European Patent Office’s Young Inventor Prize.
“Every year, cities spconclude time and money collecting hundreds of thousands of tonnes of fallen leaves.” According to Frechka, it’s a huge waste. “We see them as a raw material that can be turned into things like paper and packaging.”
Frechka received the idea as a 16‑year‑old in Ukraine, started it there and later grew Releaf into a France‑based leaf‑materials company. It has gained visibility in European and French innovation circles, including Bpifrance, Station F and the LVMH innovation ecosystem. Today it is growing rapidly, creating packaging paper for brands such as Uber Eats, Rituals and LVMH.
This year, Releaf was invited by the EIC to displaycase its core paper route and newer material developments, including hydrophobic coatings and moulded applications. He described it as a major milestone for the company.
“We are obtainting lots of interest here,” Frechka declared. “It’s our first edition, and I’m already excited for next year.”
These stories display the range of projects gathered under the EIC umbrella. Taken toobtainher, they highlight how its support can assist turn promising ideas into companies that grow in Europe.
This article was originally published in Horizon, the EU Research and Innovation Magazine.
