For the past five years we have been hosting Europe100 with our partners at Founders Forum Group, a gathering that brings together top founders and some of the greatest minds who care about Europe. This year we met in Tuscany, and the spirit of community and drive blew me away. I left inspired and with a sense of inevitability… 15 years ago the European tech ecosystem was nascent; ambitious founders were asking themselves what it would take to build $1B companies in Europe. Fast-forward to today: @Klarna just went public at $15B, @elevenlabsio raised $100M at $6B, and @lovable_dev set a record reaching $100M in revenue in 8 months – the fastest for any software company anywhere on the planet. We have proven that we can build world class companies in Europe. Now we need to show that we can build companies that go all the way – generational businesses that can thrive and compound for decades to come. Spending time with this group this weekend made me think that’s inevitable. “It’s not zero-sum,” one leading founder said this weekend. “The U.S. can win, AND Europe can win. We can have more Silicon Valleys.” It was fitting that we gathered in Tuscany, home of the renaissance, Michelangelo and Galileo, where art, science and engineering came together to push civilization forward. It’s fair to say that AI is igniting a new renaissance in the European tech ecosystem. Founders are ambitious, companies are growing and thriving, and talent density is higher than ever before. Thank you to all the founders who make Europe100 special. As a final thought, I can’t help but wonder… if Da Vinci lived today, would he be a European tech founder?