The European Startup Scene

Europe's start up ecosystem is maturing rapidly, with companies like Revolut, Lovable, and Legora demonstrating that world class technology businesses can be built and scaled on the continent. While The US remains the dominant force in venture backed software as home to the largest markets, the deepest capital pools, and the most ambitious exit culture, a growing number of European founders are choosing to build at home. Edward Keelan is a partner at Octopus Ventures, one of Europe's largest and most active venture capital firms, where he has spent over sixteen years leading the b to b software and enterprise AI fund. His portfolio spans seed through series c, with a focus on European founders building in AI, vertical SaaS, and enterprise software. This Longview experience gives him a rare perspective on what it takes to build enduring technology companies in Europe. In this episode, Edward joins Elena Baroda to discuss what separates great founders from the rest, how AI is reshaping the software landscape and threatening established players, the state of the European startup ecosystem and what it needs to compete globally, and what engineers and founders should be thinking about as the industry enters a new era. Elena Baroda focuses on GTM for developer tools and AI startups with experience in observability and building tools for MCP servers. She is based in Berlin. Welcome to Software Engineering Daily. Today's guest is Edward Keelan, a partner at Octopus Ventures. Great to have you on the pod, Edward. Yeah. They thank you so much for having me. It's a real privilege to have been, asked to be on the podcast, but also really nerve wracking as well. I feel like I don't know. A few people sort of frowning at at VCs already and engineers wondering what it is that we actually do. So I'm, yeah, I'm slightly nervous because we're going into different worlds than I'm used to. I think you'll be great. We already had a short chat before. So for those who don't really know Octopus Ventures, can you tell give people a bit of background? You're a very active one of the most active VC funds in Europe. You are also one of the largest VC funds in Europe, and you deploy around, like, 270,000,000 USD. So for you, it's in pounds, £200,000,000 a year because you're based in London. So tell us a bit about that. You've been there since 2008, and you've been leading the b to b software fund. Tell us about yourself, what got you into VC, and what is Octopus about? Yeah. I won't cover all eighteen years. Otherwise, that will probably take the entirety of the podcast, and and nobody needs to hear that. But yeah. So Octopus Ventures, we manage around about 1 and a half billion dollars. We're part of the Octopus Group. The Octopus Group is a b corp, and the sort of our purpose is really to invest in the ideas, industries, and people that are …