We are proud to have contributed to Hello Tomorrow's 2026 Semiconductor Innovation Report, alongside Lawrence Lundy-Bryan from our team and contributors from ASML, M Ventures, Supernova, Paragraf, Vaire, DIAMFAB, SpiNNcloud, Akhetonics and SiPearl.
One pattern frames the whole report. Europe holds 38% of the world's sensor and actuator startups and 32% of photonics and optoelectronics. We invent this technology. Then 78% of European semiconductor startups stay parked at TRL 1 to 5, still in the lab, while only 3% reach deployment. The ones that break through are often bought by someone else.
The funding data tells the same story. Europe produces a quarter of the world's semiconductor startups and captures 7% of the funding. Median lifetime funding per European startup is 6.6 million dollars. In China it is 25.2 million.
The report is clear that the missing piece is not early-stage capital, and it is not science. It is the industrial pull that turns a lab result into something a customer has already agreed to buy. In the US that pull comes from the hyperscalers. In China it comes from state procurement. Europe's version is research-led, which produces excellent startups and a very quiet demand signal.
The encouraging part is that Europe already owns the tools to fix this. The report points to three: co-development with industry at TRL 3 to 6, so a startup earns the industrial reference it needs to raise growth capital; corporate venture capital reaching down to TRL 1 to 5, so a corporate can act as strategic early adopter and anchor customer; and pre-competitive consortia, so companies can share the cost of infrastructure without giving up their competitive position. The catch is timing. Today these instruments arrive after commercial validation, once the terms have already been set by others. The opportunity is to bring them forward.
That is exactly the mechanism we are building at Cloudberry VC. Not just a cheque, but a specialist seed fund with a platform around it, and an LP base of strategics who can be a founder's first real customer, co-development partner, and supplier. That base already includes Siemens, GlobalFoundries, Radiant Opto-electronics, and semiconductor industry veterans who have built and scaled companies before, with more to come. Seed money on its own does not create industrial pull. Seed money next to the right industrial partners does.
The window is open now. Europe still has a real opening in photonics, wide-bandgap semiconductors and other domains where advantages have not yet entrenched. Unusually for this industry, where leads typically compound over decades, these contests remain open. Each closes at a different pace, and each rewards whoever moves first.