Why European VCs Must Bridge to the US (Just Like Their Founders)
It's not just startups crossing the Atlantic anymore—and the irony is, Europe's actually winning
When we talk about European companies "bridging to the US," we usually mean founders opening offices in San Francisco or relocating entirely to access deeper markets and capital. But there's another bridge being built—one that's less visible but equally critical: European GPs crossing the Atlantic to find LPs.
The numbers tell a stark story. European VC fundraising is down nearly 60% in 2025, with only €9.3bn raised through November—down from €22bn last year and over 70% below the 2022 peak, according to Anne Sraders at Sifted.
Many analysts point to cyclical factors: the "denominator effect" as public market gains make alternative assets look proportionally larger in portfolios, leading LPs to pull back. As PitchBook's Navina Rajan suggests, this could simply be a matter of timing.
But the reality is more uncomfortable than that.
The Tragic Irony: Winning Without Capital
Here's what makes this particularly maddening: Europe is actually outperforming.
Recent data shows European venture funds are delivering stronger returns than their US counterparts across multiple vintage years.
The portfolio companies are working. The exits are happening. The fund performance is there.
And yet European GPs can't raise capital at home.
It's the equivalent of having a Premier League-winning team that can't get local sponsorship deals. The performance is demonstrable, the quality is evident, but the infrastructure to support it simply doesn't exist.
This isn't a "our funds don't work" problem. This is a "we don't have anyone to sell them to" problem.
The LP Problem Europe Won't Talk About
Unlike the US, Europe simply doesn't have the LP infrastructure to sustain a thriving venture ecosystem—regardless of performance.
Consider the structural differences:
University endowments: The US has hundreds of multi-billion-dollar university endowments with decades-long investment horizons and sophisticated alternative investment programs. Harvard's endowment alone is $53bn. Europe has... essentially none of comparable scale or mandate.
Pension funds: US pension funds allocate 10%+ to venture capital. European pension funds? Less than 0.1%.
Family offices: Only 15% of Germany's largest family offices invest in technology at all. The rest remain in traditional assets, real estate, or simply cash.
This isn't a liquidity issue. This isn't a "wait for the cycle to turn" issue. This is a "we don't have enough people willing to write venture checks" issue—even when the asset class is demonstrably working.
European GPs now face the same challenge as founders: exceptional deal flow, strong investment talent, and proven performance—but an LP base that's structurally insufficient to support the asset class at scale.
So they're doing what founders did: they're bridging.
We’re flying to Texas to meet family offices. To California to pitch pension funds and endowments. To the Middle East and Asia to access sovereign wealth and strategic capital. I spend 50% of my time on planes because the alternative is not raising capital at all.
And the truly bitter pill? Many of these international LPs are investing in European GPs precisely because the performance data is strong. They can see what European institutional investors apparently cannot: that European venture is working.
The Bottom Line
The 60% decline in European VC fundraising isn't just about denominator effects or market timing. It's about fundamental infrastructure failing to support a demonstrably successful asset class.
This isn't about performance. The returns are there. This is about having no one home to invest in them.
Just as European founders learned they couldn't rely solely on European customers and capital, European GPs are learning the same lesson about LPs—even as they deliver returns that prove the model works.
The bridge to the US isn't just for startups anymore. Until Europe builds the LP infrastructure that innovation ecosystems require—diverse, long-term, sophisticated capital sources—its best fund managers will keep building those bridges themselves, paradoxically raising international capital to back European innovation that outperforms global benchmarks.
The question isn't whether European venture will survive. It will. The question is whether Europe will build the infrastructure to capture the upside of its own success, or continue watching international LPs profit from what should be a homegrown win.
