European tech rocketships are taking off, but London is being left behind
A new generation of tech ‘rocketship’ companies are giving Europe its mojo back, but London is lagging, writes Christoph Klink
The European tech ecosystem finally has its confidence back. A new generation of ‘rocketships’ – startups like Lovable and Mistral that were founded after 2020 and have already achieved and maintained unicorn status – are proving that European companies can scale. And as fast as anywhere in the world.
While it has historically taken European startups more than seven years to reach unicorn status, rocketships are doing it in just two.
That is virtually identical to the 1.6 years it takes in the United States. So whilst European startups can’t out-raise their US counterparts for the foreseeable future, they are certainly able to out-execute them.
But for a city that has grown used to being the unicorn capital of Europe, rocketships aren’t taking off from London just as frequently as one would expect yet. In fact, only one of the 14 rocketships in Europe is based in London. It seems that momentum is largely driven by builders in Paris, Stockholm and Berlin.
So what is behind the Execution Era, and what does it take to win in this era??
The Execution Era
We see two main drivers behind this change: AI and technical founders coupled with a remarkable execution mindset that is fast becoming scalers’ operating model.
AI allows startups to move faster than ever before. And we are likely only seeing the early beginnings of that. 85 per cent of founders use AI to build their (first) products. This levels the playing field for European startups, allowing them to build better products, faster and with fewer resources. More generously capitalised US companies can invest heavily, but European companies can keep pace with leaner, more efficient teams. They are making capital-efficient building their competitive weapon.
The velocity in tech has changed. Five of the top 10 fastest growing software companies were founded since 2020. And two of them, including the fastest growing one, are European.
The second factor is technical founders. Data shows that the most successful and fastest growing tech companies in the world are almost universally built by founders with technical backgrounds. Among the fastest growing software companies and global tech giants, the share of technical founders is 95 per cent.
In today’s era of execution, Europe actually has a higher rate of technical founders building and running unicorns than the US. And while the sample is still small, we see an even bigger wave of technical founders forming right from inception. Between 2023 and 2025, the number of AI engineers becoming founders has increased by 14 times.
London’s tech scene can catch up
London has all of the ingredients to win in this new era of AI and execution.
London’s tech ecosystem has been Europe’s powerhouse for over a decade, drawing founders, capital and global attention. But the rocketship effect is being fuelled by AI levelling the playing field, and the hubs pulling ahead are those with strong pipelines of technical talent that benefit from the compounding returns of the flywheel effect. Paris has École Polytechnique feeding AI unicorns like Mistral, while the Lovable founding team include KTH Institute of Technology graduates and former employees of Spotify, Depict and Klarna.
Cambridge is nurturing world-class AI founders like those behind Eleven Labs and Helsing, but those companies are not necessarily anchoring themselves in London.
London has unmatched financial infrastructure and a deep investor base, but capital is no longer the main bottleneck. Execution is. Founders are more concerned about the speed of customer acquisition and execution than they are about accessing capital. They treat speed of execution as the key to their competitiveness. And founders in Stockholm, Paris and Berlin – perhaps because they haven’t had access to the pools of capital you find in London – are turning that into their advantage.
Of course there are reasons for optimism and the race is on. London produces unicorns at scale and boasts one of the most international ecosystems anywhere in the world. But maintaining its position as default capital for European tech will require doubling down on technical talent and using AI to unlock a relentless focus on capital efficiency and execution.
The rise of European rocketships is a huge opportunity for the continent, and London can still be at the forefront. But that won’t happen by default. The city needs to embrace the winning formula of the Execution Era as much as anyone else, or watch as Paris and Stockholm shape Europe’s AI future.
Christoph Klink is a partner at Antler