EU starts investment funds to support blockchain companies with expected up to 400 million euros
EU Grunge Flag by Nicolas Raymond via Flickr.com. License: Creative Commons
To prevent startups around blockchain and artificial intelligence from moving from Europe to the USA or Asia, the European Union sponsors 100 million euros. These should become the foundation of a 400 million euro fund that will support companies from 2020. In the following year, the amount should increase significantly again ..
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After China has shown it, the European Union (EU) must of course add. The European Investment Fund (EIF) recently announced in a blog post to set up an investment fund that should promote startups in the blockchain and AI area with a total of up to 400 million euros.
It is clear, according to the post, “that technologies such as blockchain and artificial intelligence will change our lives.“It is less known to“ how much of this technology in Europe is invented. From Maastricht via Berlin to Tallinn, at the universities, in the research center and in the startup scene, some of the smartest heads invent products that promise to change everything, from medicine about defense until then, how we save information.”
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These innovators already receive strong support in Europe. With blockchain investments of $ 674 million, Europe is the second strongest blockchain region after the United States (with $ 1.1 billion), but before China (with $ 31 million). The funding for artificial intelligence, which will be achieved this year, will reach $ 5.2 billion. Most of this money, however, flows into research and proof-of-concepts. Europe is lagging behind in the promotion of companies that want to grow up. Only a small handful of investors promotes blockchain projects in Europe, which is rather little compared to the fifty US funds in the United States. Therefore, Europe often does not succeed in keeping the talents and startups that ultimately receive money from US financiers, working for US companies and creating jobs and economic growth on other continents.
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That should now change under the leadership of the European Commission. Together with it, the European investment fund provides 100 million euros for investors who support products and services related to blockchain and artificial intelligence. Based on this foundation stone, the fund expects that private investors will invest a further 300 million euros in such projects. Since it is also possible that banks act as co-investors, the capital that will flow from 2020 can increase even further.
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The business magazine Sifted.The EU therefore even goes so far to title that the EU would start a “2 billion euro fund”. According to him, the fund in 2020 begins with the 400 million euros mentioned, but from 2021 should increase to 1-2 billion euros below the Inveu program. The magazine explains that this is an attempt to help Europe to catch up with the USA and China. With a total of $ 34 billion in capital injections from investors, Europe records new records this year, but only half of what is invested in Asian companies and only a third of what flows into capital in the United States. Europe has fallen behind in artificial intelligence: less than 10 percent of the investment in this area has been benefited in European companies since 2011.
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