Europe’s founders are still willing to bet on growth, but many are no longer willing to bet on Brussels.
New data from Norrsken’s European Impact Index 2026 found that 85% of founders expect revenues to rise over the next 12 months and three in four plan to increase headcount. Among investors, one in two said Europe has become a more attractive place to invest over the past 12 months, compared with one in four who said it has become less attractive.
But the same survey also showed a growing exit risk. A stark one in three founders said they had considered relocating their company outside Europe in the past twelve months, including 15% who considered it seriously. Many pointed to high energy costs and other barriers that make it harder to compete globally. Almost four in ten said attracting top talent is harder in Europe than in the US.
The regulatory burden is also weighing on scale-up ambitions. More than half, or 52%, of founders said regulatory differences between EU countries have hindered their ability to scale across borders, up from 47.5% last year. Around 36% of investors rated the EU’s approach to innovation and entrepreneurship poorly or very poorly, while just 6% said the bloc prioritises it very well.
Energy sits at the center of the problem. Investors now see access to cheap and reliable power as a precondition for long-term competitiveness. According to the survey, 84% said they consider a company’s access to affordable, clean energy when assessing its long-term competitiveness, with almost six in ten calling it very important.
The money is following that conviction. Nearly 37% of investors named energy and electrification as their top sector for impact capital allocation, more than three times the next closest sector. The Norrsken/100 2026 list featured 26 clean energy and electrification startups, up 44% from 2025.
The companies mentioned include Metafuels in Switzerland, which is working to convert clean electricity into jet fuel, and RIFT and Enerin, based in the Netherlands and Norway, which are delivering high-temperature industrial heat from electrons instead of gas. The International Energy Agency projects $2.2 trillion will flow into clean energy and electrification this year, against $1.2 trillion into fossil fuels.
The takeaway for Europe is hard to miss. The market is rewarding companies that can build with cheap power, quick permits and open borders, but the continent still taxes that ambition with fragmented rules and a slow-moving administrative state.
Capital rewards clear rules. If the EU wants to keep founders and investment at home, it will need to act like a real single market rather than 27 competing ones. Otherwise, the next generation of European growth will simply move to where productivity, energy and regulation line up better.
