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1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsMax Junestrand, co-founder and CEO of the Stockholm-based legal AI company Legora, argues that sovereignty claims made at the application layer are often a way for companies to avoid competing internationally. He still treats sovereignty as important in energy, defence and infrastructure. Investor Jeannette zu Fürstenberg of General Catalyst pushed the concern further down the stack, to energy and compute capacity. The exchange, reported by The Next Web from a session on Thursday, 8 October 2026, shows two coherent positions. It does not settle which one Europe should adopt.
What was said at Wave by Vento
The session, titled “The Compounding Bet,” took place at Wave by Vento in Turin. Zu Fürstenberg, president and managing director of General Catalyst, led the conversation. General Catalyst is an investor in Legora. The Next Web’s account is the only source for the exchange, so the wording below is the outlet’s reporting of what was said, not a transcript.
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The case against application-layer sovereignty
Junestrand’s core claim is about how software is sold. Enterprise and consumer applications reach customers across borders, so a strategy that protects a regional market at the application layer can work as a reason to stay home. He put it this way, as quoted by The Next Web:
“I think sovereignty in enterprise applications, or sovereignty in consumer apps, or sovereignty at the software layer is kind of an excuse for companies who are not bold enough to compete globally. Because the enterprise layer and the software layer is the global market.”
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He extended the same logic to legal AI, describing it as a market likely to produce one worldwide winner rather than a separate leader in each region. He also said the case for sovereignty does not transfer to every layer. According to the report, he named energy, defence and infrastructure as areas where sovereignty matters. The distinction is central to his position: the objection is to sovereignty as a shield for software companies, not to sovereignty as a principle.
The counterargument: energy and compute
Zu Fürstenberg located the strategic concern lower in the stack. She argued that Europe should own energy and compute capacity because AI could move economic value away from the continent. The quote reported by The Next Web reads:
“We are able to then really sort of lock down part of what otherwise would look like the involuntary transfer of wealth from Europe to the US or elsewhere in the world.”
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Her point concerns who captures value, not whether European software companies can win abroad. A country can host strong application companies and still send much of the economic return of AI to whoever controls the power plants, data centres and chips those applications run on.
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Where the two positions actually differ
Both speakers accept that some sovereignty matters. They disagree about where it matters and what it is for.
| Question | Junestrand’s position | Zu Fürstenberg’s position |
|---|---|---|
| Layer where sovereignty matters most | Energy, defence and infrastructure, as reported; not application software | Energy and compute capacity |
| Main risk named | Firms sheltered from global competition by regional protection of software | Economic value of AI flowing out of Europe |
| Intended outcome | Global commercial competitiveness for software companies | Local control and capture of value |
| Evidence offered | Market generalisation and company growth figures | Economic argument about value flows; no figures given in the report |
Read this way, the disagreement is less about sovereignty in general than about which layer carries the strategic weight. An application company can accept sovereign control of compute while still arguing that regional protection of its own product would be a mistake.
The figures in the discussion
Most of the numbers in the report come from the speakers themselves. They are useful as a picture of Legora’s claims and ambitions, but they have not been audited, and the outlet does not provide the underlying data for most of them.
| Figure | Attributed to | Status in the report |
|---|---|---|
| Services make up 70% of Europe’s GDP | Jeannette zu Fürstenberg | Statistical source not named; not independently verified here |
| About $1 million in revenue in October 2024 | Max Junestrand | Speaker remark; no audited accounts cited |
| Under 18 months to reach $100 million in revenue from about $1 million, then under six more months to reach $200 million | Max Junestrand | Event remarks as relayed by the outlet, not audited results |
| $300 million in revenue | Max Junestrand | Stated target and projection |
| About 90% of a software market going to the top player | Max Junestrand | His generalisation; no underlying market study given |
| $550 million funding round at a $15.6 billion valuation | Harvey, which the report calls Legora’s closest rival | Said to have closed in September 2026; time-sensitive, so check current reporting before reuse |
| 200 employees and 22 sales staff at the start of the year, planned 300 sales staff by year-end | Legora, via Max Junestrand | Company staffing figures and plan as stated at the event |
| Italy has more lawyers per person than anywhere else in Europe | Max Junestrand | Assertion; no comparative data cited |
The growth sequence is the most eye-catching figure, but it rests on one company’s account. Doubling from $100 million to $200 million in under six months is a claim about a single firm at a single moment, and it should be read as such.
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Product and productivity remarks
Junestrand also described how Legora works. According to the report, the company paused a sales push in mid-2024 to improve product quality. He said work that once took ten hours could take one with AI, and he said Legora uses several AI models for different tasks, describing one Claude model as good at drafting and one OpenAI model as good at fact-checking. These are his descriptions of his own product. The report offers no benchmark or comparative evaluation to test them.
What the evidence does and does not establish
- Established: Junestrand and zu Fürstenberg held opposing views on how sovereignty should apply across the technology stack, as reported by The Next Web on 9 October 2026 about an 8 October event.
- Not established: Whether software sovereignty in fact limits global competition. The report contains no policy text, market study or industry data on that question.
- Not established: Whether energy and compute ownership would capture more AI value for Europe. Zu Fürstenberg made the argument without the supporting figures.
- Speaker-attributed: Every company metric and market-share generalisation in the article.
Answering the broader question would require the event recording or the speakers’ written remarks, along with independent data on AI revenue, energy capacity and compute ownership across European and US markets.
How to judge a sovereignty proposal
When a proposal for sovereignty appears in follow-up coverage, these three questions separate the arguments that can be tested from those that are opinions.
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- Which layer? Ask whether the proposal covers application software, data, models, compute, or energy. Arguments about one layer often do not carry over to another.
- What is the intended outcome? A policy that protects domestic firms from competition is different from one that keeps economic returns in the country, even when both are labelled sovereignty.
- What evidence is offered? Separate speaker opinion, company-reported metrics and independent data. A figure from a company’s own event remarks supports a claim about that company, not about a market.
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