Built to last - foreword 2026 EU|BIC Impact Report

Building for Scale

The regional infrastructure for European startup and scale-up internationalisation

Europe has never lacked entrepreneurial talent. Across our regions, innovative companies are developing breakthrough technologies, pioneering sustainable solutions, and creating new business models that address some of society’s most pressing challenges. Yet innovation alone is rarely enough to build globally competitive businesses. For Europe’s scale-ups, internationalisation is no longer an option. It is a necessity. But it remains a big challenge, still.

Unlike companies originating from larger, more homogeneous markets, European businesses frequently need to expand internationally much earlier in their growth journey. To achieve the scale necessary to compete globally, they must simultaneously manage rapid growth, operational complexity, and cross-border expansion. This creates a unique set of pressures that can slow growth, increase risk, and limit the full potential of Europe’s innovation ecosystem.

The European Commission’s Startup and Scaleup Strategy tried to respond to this struggle with a concrete agenda, and the 28th Regime seeks to address some barriers to growth. The debate about what to do is active and serious.

This report is EBN’s contribution to that conversation: a record of what works, told through the companies and regions that proved it.

The EU|BIC community now extends to more than 110 quality-certified organisations and 70 associates across 40 countries. Our four mission commitments define what EU|BICs do every day: regional sustainable economic development, quality business innovation support, access to finance, and internationalisation. Last year, our community supported 66,757 companies, helped raise more than €1 billion, and contributed to the creation of 15,885 jobs. EU|BIC-supported companies survive longer than average: 85% three-year survival rate and 78.2% five-year survival rate, against a European average of 58% and 45%, respectively. This success is achieved through sustained, proximity-based support, delivered to quality-certified standards. Behind these numbers are individual decisions made close to the ground, in regions, by people who are committed to making a difference.

This report documents nine of those outcomes, from eight countries, across four dimensions of the internationalisation challenge. They are nine of the 180 stories that could have been told from within this community. Each is evidence for the same argument: that place-based innovation support, delivered by trusted organisations embedded in their regions, is one of the most effective tools Europe has for closing the gap between what its companies could achieve and what they currently do. Each is also a story of a region that kept what it built.

I invite you to read these stories not simply as examples of success, but as evidence of what Europe can achieve when we give our scale-ups the tools, networks and confidence to grow beyond borders while remaining rooted in the regions that helped them thrive.