LIVE FROM MWC25 BARCELONA: Renate Nikolay, a deputy director general at the European Commission (EC) (pictured, second from right), acknowledged the region has regulations that need to be relaxed to make investing more attractive.

In a panel session she noted the priority for the European Union is to get a boost of confidence and to move forward with a focus on innovation and investment, instead of only regulation.

Nikolay, deputy DG for Communications Networks, Content and Technology, added it’s great to see that the commission, not only European institutions, wants to increase competitiveness and also drive an agenda of simplification to look critically at its regulatory framework.

She noted regulation isn’t necessarily against innovation. “But the feeling is we have maybe a huge set of regulatory frameworks in Europe that need to be looked at in a context of are they still fit for purpose.”

Closing the gap
Dealroom.co CEO Yoram Wijngaarde (pictured, centre) cited data from a report attributing part of the productivity gap to the rise of the US tech sector. “You can see actually the US breaking away, not from just from Europe, but from everybody already in the 90s.”

Robert Lacher, founding partner of Visionaries Club (pictured, second from left), raised a question: could AI be the trigger applied to the industrial sector to lower the gap?

Nikolay added AI is potentially a game changer for Europe over the next two to three years to “move forward massively”.

Lacher noted people in Europe now don’t take things for granted after perhaps sleepwalking in the last 20 years. “For me as an investor and for the next generation of entrepreneurs, I think it’s a massive opportunity.”

Sufficient capital
For late-stage software development, he noted investors feel there is more than enough capital.

He believes current geopolitical shocks and tectonic shifts are always once in a lifetime moment for entrepreneurs. “There couldn’t be better opportunities in these times to build a new company. People are waking up, starting to take risks again and becoming hungry again.”

Factorial CEO Jordi Romero (pictured, far right) argued Europe should never strive to be Silicon Valley, “because we’re never going to win. There is only one Silicon Valley.”

Romero said the region has been losing brilliant minds to the US and other parts of the world for a few decades. He suggested short-term incentives to start pulling back talent from other economies to local start-ups to help them scale faster, such as a better tax regime, coupled with existing cost of living advantages.