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55. Bull, Bear & Beyond – Molten Ventures: executive interviews: EU VC market image

55. Bull, Bear & Beyond – Molten Ventures: executive interviews: EU VC market

S1 E55 · Bull, Bear & Beyond by Edison Group
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6 Plays10 months ago

In this section, Wilkinson expresses his optimism in the European venture capital (VC) market, which has matured significantly, growing from €20bn in 2016 to around €80bn today, though it remains about one-third the size of the US market. He emphasises that Molten Ventures offers investors daily liquidity access to VC returns, while highlighting the need for more capital in Series B and early growth stages, with pension reform potentially helping to address this gap.

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About ‘Bull, Bear & Beyond’

Bull, Bear & Beyond': features candid conversations with senior executives and from our own team of experts from across industries, exploring strategy, innovation, and the opportunities shaping their markets and 60-second pieces are a compressed summary of content designed to convey our message in a single, easily shareable hit.

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Original interview published on 10/02/2025 and reposted as a podcast

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Transcript

European VC as a Gateway to Innovation

00:00:07
Speaker
Just giving your thoughts on the overall European VC market, you know, we're we're seeing, you know, I guess, continued de de-equitization of of the listed tech sector. um yeah Can you talk about the European VC market as a means to get exposure to innovative technology businesses?

Future of European VC: Ecosystem Maturity

00:00:27
Speaker
I'm super positive about the future for Europe and venture capital and and I think there's a few factors that play into that. One is that we've seen Europe as an ecosystem for venture maturing. When we listed in 2016 we're about 20 billion of scale in terms of the the market in Europe. That's probably around 80 billion now, so it's shown ah a natural progression. We had a peak period a few years ago where it went over 100 billion.

Challenges: Capital Shortage in Growth Stages

00:00:54
Speaker
um And the reason that capital is available in Europe and coming into that ecosystem is because we have really strong underlying IP coming out of universities, but also entrepreneurs creating companies. And so there are certain sectors where Europe has been particularly strong globally, and but it's always had um over the past 20, 30 years, strong IP coming through.
00:01:17
Speaker
What's perhaps been lacking is that scale of capital at all the stages of a company's life cycle, so from early stage through to to growth where we play and then to later stage growth and IPO.
00:01:30
Speaker
What's important is to have that consistency. And at the moment, there is a gap to capital that persists at the stage where we are in that series B early growth stage. And I think, therefore, it's important that we see more capital being unlocked.
00:01:44
Speaker
And I'm positive to see that the discussions around pension reforms and such like are having an impact in terms of at least momentum and perception, but but gives us a sense that the capital will start to

The Role of Pension Capital in VC Growth

00:01:56
Speaker
come. What is true though is that we're still a third the size of the US and so we're we're we're under so under scale. you know I'm talking about a story where we've matured and improved And I see Europe institutionalizing in terms of its venture capital as an asset class, but there's a long way to go. And I do think it's important that governments continue to recognize the need to support that ecosystem and unlocking pension capital is an important part of that.
00:02:22
Speaker
But it isn't just an altruistic unlocking pension capital for the sake of supporting our ecosystem. This is about returns. And venture has proven that it can generate strong returns higher than public markets, even after costs.

Venture Capital in a Diversified Portfolio

00:02:35
Speaker
And it's diversified in terms of the um the asset class relative to other asset classes and how it performs. And therefore, it should be part of a diversified portfolio. And I think ultimately, Molten can be seen as a a portfolio approach where you buy shares in Molten because you're you're thinking about it in in the round of an entire portfolio and we're giving access to the an asset class with daily liquidity. So for me we'll have done our job well when we'll have generalist fund managers not necessarily needing to understand every underlying company but just um understanding that this is institutional and that they can buy a share in Molten to get access to the VC space.