Good morning and HNY everybody!

We’re ten days in and feels like the year has started ages ago. So many events happening so quickly, which in normal times would have taken months or even years cycles - and now crammed in a 1-3 days. Every day feels like watching history being written in real time - it’s a crazy world.

Today, we’ve got an awesome interview with Rainer, one the five GPs of Germany’s largest VC fund, HV Capital. Some quote bangers:

The whole piece is absolutely worth it, scroll down for it.

Also today - how many IPOs were in Europe in 2025 and how a16z’s 15B compare to European peers. And many other stories - as always, hit reply with thoughts and comments

Enjoy,
Dragos

We are doing an interview series for taking the pulse of the startup market through the eyes of the investors. This week - Rainer Märkle - GP at HV Capital, the largest venture capital firm in Germany. For those who don’t know already, HV was founded in 2000 as a corporate venture arm of the Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, became an independent firm in 2010 and rebranded to HV Capital in 2020.

2025 was such a busy year: 20 new investments with more than €200m deployed only in 2025, our portfolio in on track to raise more than €2bn this year alone.

Highlights are some technology breakthroughs, unprecedented operational growth and financing rounds such as n8n and Quantum Systems.

European tech and funding is entering a decade of disruptive transformation and unprecedented opportunities.

I do not expect major corrections (other than in late-stage AI) but rather more tailwind for more opportunities - and capital to follow those.

HV Capital comes in strictly before the American multi-stage platforms who come on board in follow-on rounds after us.

And we are the strong first generalist investor after specialized seed funds, helping companies to really scale.

A clear and strong position to be in, only possible with our 25 year / 280 investments done network.

Definitely driving returns for us, just look at portfolio companies such as Quantum Systems

How could I not say AI and deep tech?

But we see Unicorns growing up in our portfolio in Consumer, Fintech and other sectors as well.

We do not see any structural disadvantages for most sectors.

Germany is not quite there yet, but some strong initiatives are started.

Munich.

Unparalleled combination of universities, talent pool, industry, ecosystem and capital.

I would not say we are in an AI bubble, but I assume I sleep better as an early/growth investor in AI than the very late-stage guys.

And please let me know once you hear about that major shift over the next three years, we will definitely invest.

It would be unfair to mention specific names here, but definitely in the areas of deep tech and AI.

Now, that is already mainstream again, so very curious what will come out in 2026.

We are fast learners, so after passing on n8n in the early stages we invested in the early growth stage.

I guess it is also a clear example of where the world is heading: very short cycles, incredibly high momentum, the world changes so fast.

Everybody in our industry will remember that day when chatGPT launched and how it changed everything upside down.

Always be very careful of not resting on merits and just staying on your path, but rather be closely tracking and responding to where new topics are moving.

You can read all the interviews here. Who else would you like us to do next? Hit reply with your favorits!

Looking back at what Sunday CET readers clicked on last year, I thought it’d be interesting to put out the list with what you engaged the most:

What do I want to do this year?

The silver line is cutting through noise, and provide clarity about what matters - what’s actually happening, changing and what to do next.

I would like to write more. Last year I did a record number of cheat sheets - I have so many ideas I want to delve more on, need to find the right rhythm and proper motivation for it.

Interviews were a good add-on, which you seemed to click with. Will double down on them.

The objective is to be useful - the war for attention is high these days, and truly appreciate the time every single one of you takes to open, share or comment.

I like that my work is inspirational for people making media for a living - those guys make for a constant loyal audience. 😀

More signal. Less noise. Clarity. Opinion.

Not least, enjoy it. Doing Sunday CET every weekend is part of my routine and of who I am and I truly love putting it together.

Looking over the numbers, the engagement is consistent - and I would like to thank you all for that.

What do you want to see more out of Sunday CET?

🇬🇧 Biographica (AI for developing new agri crop traits ) - seed
🇮🇹 ​Principled Intelligence​ (AI for safety and compliance) - pre-seed
🇪🇪 ​Rollo Robotics​ (autonomous monowheel security robot) - seed
🇩🇰 ​Sparrow Quantum​ (photonic quantum tech components) - series A
🇩🇪 UMH (real-time industrial data hub) - seed

We add more signals on Linkedin and keep a religious track of what’s interesting in Europe on Nordic9.

We produce intel notes for the best investors in Europe every week - join them!

💲 Mega funds are back! a16z just raised a new family of funds totalling $15 billion:

An updated primer on a16z here, from where I got the below:

Worth noting that $15B is 6-7X the next biggest single European fundraising - Index Ventures that is. Below a list with the larger ones in Europe:

For the market, this widens the gap between mega funds and everyone else, as well as reinforcing Europe’s capital gap with the US. It’s power-law concentration - a small number of mega-funds now control a disproportionate share of deployable venture capital.

That means that what’s good is going to cost more, while in Europe the local LPs may gather more confidence and help local funds raise larger vehicles. Specialization and building specific edges will become more important than ever, as the local VC ecosystem will likely consolidate, with fewer but larger players dominating Series B/C funding, while early-stage seed rounds remain fragmented.

All in all, in Europe the barrier isn't the money anymore. It's the ambition to ask for it - capital is available for the best companies, in the favoured sectors, led by a small number of dominant firms. Everyone else competes around that gravity well.

📉 IPOs in Europe - do you know how many IPOs were in the main European hubs last year? I was working on some research materials this week and got curious about it. Here’s what I found:

Also looked up the US for a proper benchmark - 202 companies completed IPOs in 2025 on US public markets, with approximately $44 billion in gross proceeds.

😭 German investors are great - they have lost €1.1 billion of their money and are blaming everybody but themselves:

“A German pension fund whose foray into private markets led to losses that totalled half of the fund’s assets has begun legal proceedings against its former auditor, an adviser and its own managers to recover the damages.

The fund known by its German acronym VZB is suing Dusseldorf-based Apobank, the German unit of Forvis Mazars in Hamburg, the Berlin city government as well as nine former managers, according to a court filing seen by Bloomberg News.

VZB, which caters to more than 10,000 dentists in and around Berlin, has said it’s facing losses of about €1.1 billion ($1.3 billion) after many of its investments — including backing a shrimp farm — went bad. It had about €2.2 billion in assets under management at the end of 2024.”

🦾 Europe is quietly building a geopolitical AI hedge. It’s infrastructure that matters - more people should talk about this.

💲 Top hedge funds of 2025 and their returns:

🇪🇺 Inflation numbers in December:

ECB’s primary mandate is to keep it “close to, but below 2%” over the medium term. If inflation goes below 2% → ECB may consider holding or easing rates, unless other conditions (growth, wages, energy) push otherwise.

🚘 BYD outsold Tesla last year in Europe’s two largest electric-vehicle markets - Germany and the UK - as the Chinese automaker continues its rapid global expansion.

𖥂 AI-powered drones are at the center of a new arms race - Ukraine is ‘the place’.

📺 Lidl to drop broadcast TV ads in France complaining that the local regulatory risks are too high - they were sued by the government for deceptive advertising and lost. The Germans are France’s second-biggest advertiser, across all sectors and media

🏦 JPMorgan will take over Apple’s credit card program, ending Goldman Sachs’ disastrous push into consumer lending - JPM expects over $20B in card balances.

📊 OpenAI has launched a new ChatGPT feature in the US which can analyse people's medical records to give them better answers - not available in Europe or UK yet. As mainstream tools are moving toward personalized health guidance, this will expand the whole preventative health category, interesting to follow how the dedicated startups will go deeper to differentiate - my guess is that they’ll emphasize custom coaching with real-world feedback loops as well as do a more direct integration with clinical services.

👀 Reddit overtook TikTok as the fourth-most visited site in the UK - YT, FB and Instagram are the top three (the whole report is worth a look). Meanwhile, the EU intends to intensify its big tech focus in 2026, in regulatory moves that are expected to lead to renewed clashes with US big tech groups and President Donald Trump.

🤖 Traditional offshoring - moving human work to lower-cost regions - is being replaced by robotic offshoring, where machines increasingly perform both physical and cognitive tasks. Robotics adoption is accelerated by falling costs, AI-driven world models, and scalable infrastructure, enabling companies to deploy automated labor anywhere at lower long-term costs than human employees. link

🎙️ Good interview with Matt of Elevenlabs.

That’s all folks, have a wonderful week!

Great, will forward • Good • Meh

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