Europe wants to lead in AI, defence, and infrastructure. The question is whether it can actually execute.

In this episode of Upside, Dan Bowyer (SuperSeed) and Lomax Ward (Outsized Ventures), joined by Andrew J Scott (7percent Ventures), unpack a week where ambition and reality are starting to diverge.

Mistral raises $830M to build sovereign AI infrastructure. Poolside’s $2B round collapses after losing compute access. And UK defence tech founders are leaving—not for lack of ideas, but for lack of contracts.

Across all of this, one pattern emerges:
Europe isn’t short on capability. It’s short on systems that work.

Key topics:

Why Europe’s capital problem starts earlier than growth
Mistral’s infrastructure bet and what it signals
Poolside, CoreWeave, and the fragility of compute access
The UK defence tech bottleneck: funding vs procurement
Palantir, trust, and the case for sovereign software

If you’re building in AI, defence, or deep tech, this is where the constraints actually are.

Timestamps

00:00 Intro and the week’s themes03:00 News roundup: space, IPOs and market signals08:00 Mistral’s $830M raise and sovereign AI infrastructure15:00 Poolside, CoreWeave and compute dependency risk23:00 Palantir, the NHS and the trust gap31:00 UK defence tech and founder flight40:00 Procurement vs capital: where companies stall42:00 Predictions: local AI vs hyperscalers50:00 Deals of the week

E719 | Europe Is Writing the Cheques. The System Still Doesn’t Work.

EUVC

E719 | Europe Is Writing the Cheques. The System Still Doesn’t Work.