Europe will not produce the next OpenAI. Rainer Märkle, General Partner at HV Capital, is unusually direct about this — and unusually unbothered by it.
"The large language models are US-based. They have much cheaper energy, much cheaper infrastructure, and compute power. There are just structural disadvantages for companies built in Europe," he says. For Märkle, acknowledging what Europe cannot win is the starting point for understanding what it can.
And what it can win, he argues, is substantial. Robotics, aerospace, defense, Industry 4.0 and 5.0, real-world AI — the translation of deep industrial knowledge into technology companies capable of global scale. Germany alone has produced hundreds of industrial market leaders across machinery, manufacturing and engineering over the past century. That heritage, Märkle believes, is now being rewired into a new generation of deep tech champions.
The macro moment is accelerating it. Geopolitical tensions, the push for European sovereignty, and a structural decoupling from US platforms have turned what was already a technology wave into an urgent commercial and political priority. "This added fuel to the fire," he says. "You have an unprecedented wave of new technologies that are really getting to product stage and that see radically fast adoption."
The proof points are beginning to arrive. Quantum Systems — a drone company in HV Capital's portfolio — has announced plans to go public next year. Alongside Helsing, Mistral, and Aleph Alpha, Märkle sees these as the exits and IPOs that will shift the broader narrative. "Once you see those huge successes, that is when the broader public will recognize: actually, Europe made it."
HV Capital itself is a case study in European venture's evolution. The firm built its track record on consumer businesses — Zalando, Delivery Hero, HelloFresh, Flix — before continuously renewing its strategy toward deep tech and AI. "As a venture firm, you have to keep adapting," Märkle says. "This drive to never miss out on a new theme is what brought us to where we are today."
