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Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →No. Europe does not have a trillion-dollar venture-backed company today. Dealroom’s figures, as reported by The Next Web (TNW) from Wave by Vento in Turin on October 8, 2026, count zero European VC-backed companies at that valuation. What Dealroom founder and CEO Yoram Wijngaarde offered was a conditional forecast: the first trillion-dollar VC-backed company “is going to be created,” it may be a company that is still early stage today, and it will only happen if Europe creates the conditions for it to scale.
What Wijngaarde said, and what the headline gets wrong
The headline reads as if a specific European startup has already reached, or is already worth, a trillion dollars. The speech says something narrower. Wijngaarde was describing a future outcome and a possible starting point, not a company valued at that level. TNW’s account does not name a candidate, and it does not say which sector or country the company would come from.
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The full statement, as TNW printed it, reads:
“I think that the VC-backed ecosystem is going to overtake our industrial base in terms of total value created within the next five years, if we play our cards right. And I think that also the first trillion-dollar VC-backed company is going to be created. And it’s a company that’s maybe still early stage today, so we have to think about that future and also prepare for it and have the conditions for that to really happen.”
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Two phrases carry the argument. “If we play our cards right” makes the five-year overtaking claim conditional. “Have the conditions for that to really happen” makes the trillion-dollar company conditional on policy and market design, not on the company’s own momentum. The phrase “maybe still early stage today” is a hedge, and it should be read as one: it means the company that could eventually reach $1 trillion may not yet be visible as a large business.
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The numbers behind the forecast
The figures below are Dealroom data as presented at the Turin session and reported by TNW. The underlying dataset and the event recording were not available for review, so the definitions behind each count are not established beyond TNW’s account. Where TNW did not report a comparable US figure, the cell says so.
| Measure (Dealroom, 2026, as reported by TNW) | Europe | United States |
|---|---|---|
| VC-backed companies valued above $10 billion | 56 | Not stated |
| VC-backed companies valued at $1 trillion | 0 | 7 (companies worth more than $1 trillion) |
| Companies worth more than $100 billion | 4 (TNW names Spotify, Arm, Booking.com, and Revolut) | Not stated |
| Aggregate value of VC-backed companies | $4.4 trillion | Not stated |
| Startups that had raised at least $100,000 | 54,771 | 79,432 |
| Companies that had raised at least $100 million | 1,233 | 5,115 |
The table mixes three different kinds of measure: valuation thresholds for companies, fundraising thresholds for startups, and aggregate value. Compare like with like. The gap at the top, zero European companies at $1 trillion against seven US companies, is a valuation count. The gap at the base, roughly 55,000 European startups against roughly 79,000 US startups with at least $100,000 raised, is a count of fundraising activity. Neither one, on its own, explains why the trillion-dollar outcome would be more likely in one place than the other.
Where the gap opens: scale-up funding
Wijngaarde’s central argument, as TNW reports it, is that Europe’s venture investment is growing but that the gap with the United States widens at later funding stages. He put European venture investment at $89 billion a year. He also said that overseas investors own most of the later-stage shares in Europe’s most successful startups, so that much of the value created in those companies leaves Europe as they grow.
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Outbyte Driver Updater FREEFix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →Outbyte PC Repair FREERepair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →He made one comparison that cuts against the simple “Europe lacks startups” story: for the same amount raised, he said European startups were as likely to become unicorns as American ones. That claim is an event-reported comparison, and TNW does not show its method. It points to late-stage capital, not early-stage founding, as the bottleneck.
Tom Wehmeier, partner and head of insights at Atomico, whom Wijngaarde spoke with after the presentation, supplied the pension and institutional side of the picture:
- About €15 trillion is held by European pension funds and insurers.
- Those institutions invested €15.5 billion in venture capital over the preceding decade.
- About $50 billion of European capital was directed to bonds issued by US hyperscalers in 2026.
Wijngaarde’s proposal follows from these figures. He estimated that directing just 1% of European pension capital into venture capital would increase scale-up funding by 50%. That is his estimate, not an effect the event or TNW tested independently. Treat it as a projection that depends on how much of that capital could actually be deployed into late-stage rounds.
Structural obstacles the speakers named
The speakers did not limit the problem to money. TNW reports four further arguments, each presented as a speaker’s view rather than a conclusion the report tested.
Company restructuring costs
Wijngaarde linked higher costs of restructuring a company to fewer unicorns per person in Spain, Italy, and France, compared with Denmark and the United States.
Founders who build in the US
He said about 42% of European unicorn founders built their companies in the United States. This figure concerns where founders chose to build, and the report does not explain how the share was measured.
A single capital market and EU Inc
The speakers backed a single European capital market and the proposed EU Inc company form. Both are presented as policy proposals. TNW’s account does not quantify what either would change.
Public procurement
Wehmeier put annual European public procurement at about €2 trillion, and argued that little of it reaches startups outside areas such as defence. The speakers called for startups to gain access to public procurement beyond defence. Again, this is a proposal; the report does not estimate how much revenue it would add.
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Which company could it be?
TNW’s report does not name a candidate for the first trillion-dollar VC-backed company. The four European companies it names as worth more than $100 billion are Spotify, Arm, Booking.com, and Revolut. Reaching $1 trillion from $100 billion is a tenfold increase, and the report does not suggest any of the four is the company the speaker had in mind. Readers who want a name will need to find the forecast’s author or a later account that identifies one; none is established here.
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How to read a forecast like this
- Treat it as a conditional forecast. The speaker framed the outcome as dependent on policy and market conditions. A count of companies today cannot confirm or refute a claim about a company that does not yet exist.
- Check which threshold a number uses. The $10 billion, $100 billion, $1 trillion, $100,000 fundraising, and $100 million fundraising figures measure different things. Do not add them together or compare them as if they measured one quantity.
- Keep the attribution attached. These are Dealroom figures, presented by Wijngaarde at an event and reported by TNW. The original presentation and dataset were not reviewed, and TNW’s account does not set out the methodology for the forecast.
- Keep VC-backed separate from startup and from industry. The forecast concerns VC-backed companies. It is not a comparison of all European businesses against the whole European industrial base on identical accounting measures.
Dealroom’s own About page describes the company as founded in Amsterdam in 2013. It says its data draws on company websites, investor portfolios, news, filings, registries, job boards, and local partners, and that its Intelligence Unit checks company information. That describes how Dealroom says it collects data in general. It does not establish how the specific trillion-dollar figures were built.
What would test the forecast
If the speaker is right, the signals to watch in Dealroom’s own series are the number of European VC-backed companies above $10 billion, which stood at 56 in this presentation; the number above $100 billion, currently four; and the share of late-stage rounds that European investors lead or hold. A company that moves from the $10 billion group toward $100 billion while staying under European ownership would be the clearest early evidence. A rise in pension or insurance allocations to venture capital, if it is reported, would be a second signal worth testing against the 1% estimate.
Until then, the accurate statement is that Europe has no VC-backed company at $1 trillion, that a speaker from Dealroom expects one to be created, and that the speaker thinks it may be early stage now. Those are three separate claims, and only the first is a current measurement.
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