Invest Europe in the Media: May 2026

May featured strong European private equity and venture capital coverage highlighting the industry's contribution to growth, employment and competitiveness, with Invest Europe data and insights featured in 30 articles helping to inform reporting across the media.

Strong returns continue to underpin the investment case for Europe

Several outlets drew on Invest Europe performance data to highlight the long-term attractiveness of European private markets, including strong buyout and venture capital returns that continue to compete with, and in some cases outperform, global peers.

• Epicenter – "Can Nordic scale-ups become unicorns without leaving Europe?"

• Financial Market – "Private Equity – The complement, not the substitute for the stock market"

Private capital and Europe's strategic competitiveness

Defence, AI and technological sovereignty featured prominently in discussions around Europe's future competitiveness. Coverage highlighted the growing role of private capital in supporting strategic sectors critical to Europe's economic security and innovation ambitions.

• Private Equity International – "Side letter: Trafalgar revisited"

• Real Deals – "Defence investments shrunk between 2024 and 2025, finds Invest Europe"

Financing Europe's innovators and scale-ups

A recurring theme was Europe's need to mobilise more long-term capital for innovation, deep tech and venture-backed growth. Coverage explored fundraising challenges, pension fund participation and initiatives designed to help European companies scale while remaining in Europe.

• Preqin – "The European Commission aims to supercharge deeptech scale-ups"

• Les Echos – "Venture capital: European funds raise less capital, but invest more"

European private markets show resilience and renewed momentum

Coverage of Invest Europe’s annual activity data published on May 7th highlighted a strong year for fundraising and investment, with PE and VC demonstrating resilience despite geopolitical and economic uncertainty. International investors, particularly from North America, continued to see Europe as an attractive investment destination.

• Tech.eu – "Investing in Europe: Private Equity Activity 2025 Report highlights strong fundraising and investment performance"

• Tech Funding News – "Europe’s private markets raised €147bn last year, driven by North American appetite"

PE- and VC-backed portfolio companies continue to create jobs across Europe

Employment and job creation remained one of the clearest demonstrations of the industry's impact. Invest Europe’s latest Private Equity at Work report, published April 30th, showed PE- and VC-backed companies created more than 295,000 jobs in 2024, marking a seventh consecutive year of net job creation and significantly outperforming the wider European economy.

• Private Equity International – "Future proof: Are you creating quality jobs?"

• Tech.eu – "PE- and VC-backed firms grow jobs 4%, 4x faster than Europe in 2024"

Central and Eastern Europe attracts growing attention

Coverage in Poland and Romania highlighted the increasing importance of private equity and venture capital for economic development, innovation and job creation. Invest Europe data was used to demonstrate record investment levels, strong employment growth and the significant untapped potential of mobilising more domestic institutional capital, particularly from pension funds.

• XYZ – "PE and VC are transforming the job market. Millions of workers in Europe and thousands in Poland"

• Ziarul Financiar – "Private equity investments as a share of GDP are at their best level, and Romania is a regional leader"