Novo Holdings and other private investors join European Commission to establish landmark Scaleup Fund

The Fund will take a leading market position in financing Europe’s highest- potential technology companies.

Novo Holdings today announced that it is among the founding investors setting up the new Scaleup Europe Fund, a multi‑billion‑euro growth initiative developed in partnership with the European Commission.

At the European Commission’s headquarters today, Commissioner for Startups, Research and Innovation, Ekaterina Zaharieva, welcomed leading private investors to jointly affirm their intention to set up the Scaleup Europe Fund and agree on a vision for what is set to become the largest pan-European scaleup fund, representing a flagship element of Europe’s Startup and Scaleup Strategy, as announced by President von der Leyen in the 2025 State of the Union address.

Scaling Europe’s next generation of growth companies
A key challenge for Europe’s long‑term competitiveness lies in its ability to finance and scale innovation. While Europe has built a strong pipeline of promising startups, a major hurdle is the ability to finance the scaleup phase of this new generation of high-potential companies. This limits the growth of globally competitive companies and prevents Europe from fully realising the economic, technological and employment benefits of its innovation capacity.

The Scaleup Europe Fund will help bridge this gap by investing in Europe’s highest‑potential growth companies across strategic technology sectors, including biotechnology, climate technology, quantum computing, artificial intelligence, among others. The Fund’s objective is twofold: to generate attractive long‑term returns while reinforcing Europe’s technology leadership and strategic autonomy.

Kasim Kutay, Chief Executive Officer, Novo Holdings, said:
“Europe has a deep reservoir of innovation and scientific excellence, but it too often lacks the scale of capital required to turn that potential into globally competitive enterprises. The Scaleup Europe Fund represents an important step in addressing this structural challenge. We are pleased to be among its founding investors and to contribute our experience in long‑term, purpose‑driven investing to help build globally competitive European companies of scale in strategic technology fields.”

Alongside the European Commission, the potential founding investors also include the European Investment Bank, CriteriaCaixa, Santander/Mouro Capital, the Wallenberg Foundation, the Danish Export and Investment Fund (EIFO), Compagnia San Paolo/Intesa, and APG (Netherlands).

The partnership between the European Commission and private investors provides a platform for scaling Europe’s most promising companies – combining access to capital with extensive networks, market reach and technical expertise.

Following today’s announcement, the founding investors will select a Fund Manager through a public call for expressions of interest to be launched shortly. The Fund is expected to begin operations in spring 2026 and will be open to additional investors beyond the founding investor group.

About Novo Holdings A/S
Novo Holdings is a holding and investment company that is responsible for managing the assets and the wealth of the Novo Nordisk Foundation. The purpose of Novo Holdings is to improve people’s health and the sustainability of society and the planet by generating attractive long-term returns on the assets of the Novo Nordisk Foundation. Wholly owned by the Novo Nordisk Foundation, Novo Holdings is the controlling shareholder of Novo Nordisk and Novonesis and manages an investment portfolio with a long-term return perspective. In addition to managing a broad portfolio of equities, bonds, real estate, infrastructure and private equity assets, Novo Holdings is a world-leading life sciences investor. Through its Seed, Venture, Growth, Planetary Health Investments and Principal Investments teams, Novo Holdings invests in life science companies at all stages of development. As of year-end 2024, Novo Holdings had total assets of EUR 142 billion.

About the Novo Nordisk Foundation
Established in Denmark in 1924, the Novo Nordisk Foundation is an enterprise foundation with philanthropic objectives. The vision of the Foundation is to improve people’s health and the sustainability of society and the planet. The Foundation’s mission is to progress research and innovation in the prevention and treatment of cardiometabolic and infectious diseases as well as to advance knowledge and solutions to support a green transformation of society.