European start-ups, or rather European scale-ups, have been making quite a splash in recent days, with a series of news stories contributing to the overall picture of the real importance of innovative European companies on the global stage.
The news is: ASML investing in Mistral, Klarna listing on Wall Street, Bending Spoons buying Vimeo, Proxima Fusion extending its round to €200 million.
ASML is a very important Dutch company because it is effectively the only manufacturer of advanced microchip production machines, including the most powerful ones needed for AI, such as those made by Nvidia. ASML is so important that it has often been involved in industrial espionage cases, such as those involving former employees who attempted to steal information for Russia earlier this year and for China in 2023. ASML is listed on the Amsterdam and New York stock exchanges, recorded sales of €28.3 billion in 2024, invests €4.3 billion in research and development, was founded in 1984, has over 44,000 employees of 148 different nationalities and has over 60 locations worldwide with its headquarters in the Netherlands. ASML has invested €1.7 billion in French scale-up Mistral, which operates in the field of artificial intelligence and is considered OpenAI’s European competitor, thus becoming the main shareholder in the company, which has reached a valuation of €11.7 billion, compared to €5.8 billion just one year earlier.
This is not the first investment or acquisition for ASML, whose extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines are unique in the world and are currently the most advanced for chip production. The Veldhoven-based company has a rather intense track record: in 2000, it bought Silicon Valley Group; in 2006, Brion Technologies; in 2012, Cymer; in 2016 Hermes Microvision, in 2016 it invested a billion euros in Carl Zeist SMT, in 2019 it acquired Mapper Lithography, in 2020 it bought Berliner Gas Group, and in 2023 it was the turn of the debt investment in Smart Photonics. However, the Mistral transaction is very significant because it comes as a very clear signal that European technological synergies are being created with the aim of joining forces to energise the continent’s strategy in support of artificial intelligence. This is a signal coming from businesses, which are quicker than governments and institutions to understand the urgency of taking action, and it is a signal that governments and institutions must clearly grasp and act upon. Following completion of the approval process for the 28th regime, the EU-INC project aims to define a single company model valid throughout the EU that can promote the creation of innovative businesses, their growth and their ability to raise capital (we wrote about it here, where you will also find a link to actively participate in the campaign).
Klarna’s debut on the New York Stock Exchange was another important signal because the Swedish scale-up offering fintech services completed a long-awaited journey, closing its first day of trading with a market value of more than $17 billion. This figure represents a return to growth for the fintech company, which in 2022, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the resulting financial turmoil, saw its business falter and its value fall to £6.7 billion.
The list of acquisitions made by Italian company Bending Spoons is also long, including deals over the years involving Brightcove, Evernote, Meetup, Komoot, Remini and WeTransfer.
Now it is the turn of Vimeo, the video platform that mainly targets the business market and which the Italian scale-up has purchased for a total of $1.38 billion. “The transaction, which was unanimously approved by Vimeo’s Board of Directors, is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2025, subject to customary closing conditions and approvals, including approval by Vimeo’s shareholders and obtaining the necessary regulatory approvals. Upon completion of the transaction, Vimeo will become a private company and its shares will no longer be listed on any public stock exchange.”
This overview concludes with the Proxima Fusion’s recent announcement of the extension of its Series A round to €200 million. Proxima Fusion is one of the most promising European scale-ups active in the development of technologies leading to the construction of nuclear fusion power plants, a field of research that promises to profoundly change the energy sector and the world itself, as nuclear fusion will produce clean energy, without emissions or waste, at increasingly lower costs. Furthermore, it sees Europe excelling on a global level, as it is currently the region with the most expertise, resources, capabilities, technologies and investments, as Francesco Sciortino, CEO of Proxima Fusion, rightly points out in an interview to Startupbusiness . (in the photo taken from the ASML website, a chip manufacturing machine is loaded onto a cargo plane)
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