The European VC (EUVC)
This Week in European Tech with Dan, Mads & Lomax
The European VC (EUVC)
•December 8, 2025•45 min
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The European VC (EUVC)•Dec 8, 2025
Key Takeaways
- •Bending Spoons uses debt‑heavy roll‑ups of legacy digital assets.
- •Italian talent drives cost‑efficient restructuring of acquired U.S. tech firms.
- •Brexit reduced UK trade intensity, harming goods exports.
- •German auto sector stalls due to rigid labor laws.
Pulse Analysis
The Upside panel opened with a deep dive into Bending Spoons, the Milan‑based software holding that has turned roll‑up theory into practice. By leveraging low‑cost European debt and a disciplined acquisition model, the firm has snapped up underperforming U.S. brands such as Evernote, Hopin and Eventbrite. The real differentiator, however, is its Italian talent engine: high‑paid graduates inherit the acquired products, impose a lean "get‑shit‑done" culture, and deliver cash‑cow performance while maintaining a 4.7 Glassdoor rating. This hybrid private‑equity and operating‑company approach illustrates how European tech can compete on scale without sacrificing execution speed.
The conversation then shifted to Brexit’s lingering economic fallout. Recent NBER data show the UK’s trade intensity—exports and imports as a share of GDP—has fallen 6‑8% relative to its G7 peers, with goods trade bearing the brunt of the decline. While services remain a bright spot, they cannot offset the erosion of goods flows to the EU and the wider world. Panelists argued that a re‑engagement via a customs union or other trade‑facilitating mechanism could restore market access, lower compliance costs, and reignite growth, but political inertia makes such a reversal uncertain.
Finally, the hosts examined Europe’s broader industrial strain, focusing on Germany’s auto sector. Rigid labor regulations and entrenched union board seats hinder plant closures and cost‑cutting, leaving manufacturers unable to match Chinese self‑reliance strategies that prioritize domestic supply chains and semiconductor sovereignty. The panel warned that without cultural and regulatory reforms, Europe risks falling behind in innovation, from automotive to AI, and that the current “protect‑everything” mindset may delay the structural changes needed for a competitive recovery.
Episode Description
Welcome back to another episode of Upside at the EUVC Podcast, where Dan Bowyer, Mads Jensen of SuperSeed, Lomax Ward of Outsized Ventures, and Andrew Scott of 7percent Ventures to break down the real stories behind the headlines shaping European tech and venture.
From Bending Spoons’ audacious European rollup strategy, to Brexit’s economic hangover, to the existential challenges facing Volkswagen, to Google vs. OpenAI’s new “Code Red”, and finally whether Europe has had its long-overdue shock moment — this episode goes wide, fast, and deep.
This is Upside, where the takes are sharp, the macro is messy, and the optimism is… conditional.
What’s covered:
02:00 The valuation reset, debt-fuelled M&A, and the Italian PE–VC hybrid model
04:00 Arbitrage: firing US teams, rehiring elite Italian engineers
06:00 Do rollups really work? Tech debt, distribution, and execution risk
07:00 Brexit revisited: GDP losses, trade collapse, and political reality
08:00 The myth of “you can’t know the counterfactual” — and why you actually can
10:00 Will the UK rejoin the customs union? And would Europe even take us back?
12:00 Europe’s manufacturing crisis: Porsche, Volkswagen, BYD and the end of German exceptionalism
15:00 China’s shift: stop importing, start replicating
17:00 Welfare-state complacency and the European stagnation problem
20:00 The bitter truth about Europe’s carbon “success story”
22:00 How to actually fix European tech: R&D, immigration, procurement, capital markets
24:00 Why 0.02% pension allocation to VC is Europe’s biggest structural handicap
26:00 Should we “Farage-pill” Europe into a tech-first agenda?
33:00 Distribution vs. loyalty: why consumers don’t care about brand
36:00 Who wins the cost base war: Google, Amazon, Meta, or OpenAI?
38:00 Anthropic’s IPO plans and what they signal about the private capital cycle
42:00 Deals of the Week: Black Forest Labs, ICEYE, Expedition Growth Capital
44:00 Robotics is the next AI wave — and the picks-and-shovels startups emerging now
Show Notes
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