European innovation is... lacking. You can read it in the news or on twitter or wherever you get your daily dose of news-induced dopamine
The thing about European tech is that the moment you have a need for funding, you go to the US. Or get acquired. Or get acquired by US firm. It's easier to thrive in a place where entrepreneurship is more usual. Normal, if you will. The incentives are to hold down a normal job. The cultural norm is to hold down a normal job. Whatever we were taught in school? Get a normal job. Bert Hubert wrote it well: being entrepreneur is a risky affair in Europe, but it might be a de-risking in USA.

There is hope. Hope for Europe that is. First of all, there are companies that are innovative. We can talk about AI as in [[Mistralised]], we can talk about Origin or other Space-tech companies. Thanks to rather heavy regulation, privacy cautious tech is also blooming (say Plausible Analytics, Proton or Tuta).

There is also a lot of movement to change things. EU Inc initiative tries to simplify starting companies working across the continent. Mario Draghi's report called The future of European competitivness (pdf) identifies couple hundred measures all of which - if implemented - can help with innovation and business. And the new commission might implement at least few.

Fridrich-Ebert stiftung concentrated on their view to improve/build European digital ecosystem. Keep in mind their partisan tint, I like the idea of using public funds to develop FOSS projects. To use FOSS projects customers still need consultants who will guarantee integrity and so on, but the development might be at least partially funded by public funds to ensure interoperability and level of insurance in case the provider's business fails. And to be fair, there are approaches like that with NLnet funding (list of supported projects) which for example supports development of many ActivityPub projects like Mastodon and Lemmy, Marginalia Search and others.

There is a lot to do. Politicians have to implement changes to laws. Companies have to prioritise increasing margins over status quo (and paying key workers more). Society has to normalise entrepreneurship and not punish small business owners. Schools have to engage in creativity and problem solving. Entrepreneurs have to continue being entrepreneurs like Jan Rezab and Tomáš Čupr and not just enjoy their fruits of labour after the first sale. And workers have to dream big about their future enterprises.

There's a lot to fund. But as FT pointed out in Finding the money to make Europe great again, there is no other option than to invest money and be great again. That comes for both public and private funds.

Further reading: FT: Can Europe build it's first trillion dollar start-up? Bert Hub: Don't say 'Europe Must Invest in XYZ'