It’s not a storm — it’s the climate
It’s not a storm — it’s the climate
Europe has the Capital: We need more Ambition
1 October 2026
Summary:
Europe has the capital.
The harder question is whether we have the structures, incentives and long-term perspective to put that capital to work.
In the latest episode of the Protect Europe Podcast, and our first “in person”, I sat down with Saara-Sofia Sirén the Managing Director of the Finnish Pension Alliance and Marko Kyyrönen, my fellow GP at Sparkmind Capital.
We started with a simple question: What is holding European capital allocators back? That simple framing opened up exactly the conversation we needed to have.
We explore:
Finland’s pension reform and what greater flexibility for investors could mean for equities and private markets
Why more pension capital does not automatically mean better outcomes – pension institutions still have to balance risk and return and protect future pensioners
The gap between Europe’s strong research and technology base and the capital required to scale companies from promising businesses into global category leaders
Why institutional investors need stronger evidence of European companies scaling, raising larger rounds and building credible paths to global leadership
Regulation, permitting and predictability – including why an investor needs to know whether a project will take six months or six years to get approved
Europe’s dependence on external energy, manufacturing and supply chains, and the implications for economic and strategic resilience
Why stronger European capital markets and more financing vehicles are needed to support growth companies
What Europe might learn from Finland and from the long-term thinking behind Norway’s sovereign wealth model