Hosts: Dan Bowyer, Lomax Ward, Mads Jensen

Episode summary

This week we cover Trump’s Greenland rhetoric and the broader implications for NATO, European defence spending, and sovereignty. Then we dive into the tech and markets that (quietly) moved: Meta’s acquisition of Manus, Octopus/“Kraken” spinning out as a major energy-software player, Discord’s IPO momentum, Revolut’s Turkey expansion via license acquisition, and why UK pensions are underperforming (plus what reform could actually fix). We finish with a big CES-driven AI corner—Nvidia’s autonomous-driving stack “Alpamayo,” the China compute/memory bottleneck, AMD vs Nvidia software moats, Grok’s enormous fundraise, and why Claude Code is showing up even inside Google.

Topics
00:37 OpenAI “Health ChatGPT” launches (not in Europe) — what’s the deal?
02:26 FDA signals faster AI regulation: “move at the speed of Silicon Valley”
08:10 Trump + Greenland: history, Thule, and where’s the grift?
11:29 Pax Americana cracks
16:10 France: ban social media under-15s
18:21 EU regulation vs US deregulation: wedge widens
21:06 Meta buying Manus
22:27 Kraken (Octopus) spinout: big UK tech hiding in plain sight
25:02 IPO watch: Discord momentum + how it monetises
26:15 Revolut → Turkey via FUPS: buying access and licenses globally
29:19 UK pensions: underperformance + pushback on forced private allocations
31:57 Why pensions underperform
39:09 German dentists pension lawsuit + “shrimp farm VC” cautionary tale
40:27 Markets: FTSE hits 10,000 + quietly outperforms S&P
43:15 Biotech rebound + psychedelics
47:02 CES 2026...
48:05 Nvidia’s “Alpamayo”: full autonomy stack + open models/data
50:34 Nvidia vertical apps vs chips: execution risk outside core semis
52:07 China + H200s: memory bottlenecks and geopolitics of compute supply
53:20 AMD vs Nvidia: the CUDA/software moat
54:35 Grok raises: $20B at $230B
56:44 Claude Code: adoption even inside Google
57:25 Deals of the week: Faculty exit to Accenture
59:47 Biographica raises to build next-gen crop tech

Notable moments / quotables

• “The only people using cash or violence to negotiate are mobsters.” (12:32)
• “It’s super easy to get autonomy to 99%… the last 1% takes 10 years.” (48:52, referenced)
• “Much better to pay 2% to deliver 15% than 0.1% to deliver 1%.” (30:25)

Deal of the week

• Lomax: Faculty reportedly sold to Accenture (UK AI/enterprise decision intelligence)
• Dan: Kraken spun out of Octopus Energy (energy metering + grid/flows platform)
• Mads: Biographica raises to build technology for next-gen, more resilient crops

Guests: Dan Bowyer, Mads Jensen, Lomax Ward and Dan Gray

Part 1 — 2025 predictions: what hit, what missed?

02:59 — OpenAI “dethroned”: debate, but mostly “yes”

04:47 — China/Taiwan “decisive year”: mostly no

05:46 — Defence tech surge: yes

06:46 — Europe/UK tech sovereignty: yes-ish but hard to measure

07:25 — Space enabling tech keeps attracting capital: yes

07:30 — US recession H2 2025: nope

09:07 — Stock correction early 2025: correct-ish

09:45 — M&A rebounds: yes

10:24 — IPO window reopens: yes-ish

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Part 2 — 2026 predictions (with yardsticks)

11:29 — (1) Dan Gray: “European Re-industrialisation”

Big industrial families + family offices start allocating more directly into innovation (seen around Munich/TUM).

13:11 — (2) Dan Bowyer: “Apple wins personal AI”

Dan bets 2026 is Apple’s “Siri actually works” year—especially via on-device models + partnerships (Google mentioned).

16:35 — (3) Mads: “3 major tech IPOs”

From this list: SpaceX, Databricks, Canva, Anduril, Anthropic — pick 3/5.
Mads goes big on Anthropic growth + enterprise leadership.
Dan Gray adds: IPOs cluster; post-IPO M&A often spikes; real test is 6–9 months later.

19:08 — (4) Lomax: “Biotech comes back from the dead”

Biotech rally underway (XBI up hard off lows).

24:39 — (5) Dan Gray: “Politics kills the 28th regime”

He doubts a single EU incorporation regime survives politics, but suggests a workaround:

28:51 — (6) Mads: “Chinese open-source AI hits 60% of downloads”

Notes China open-source share ~44% by end of 2025 (per the conversation), and cites growing adoption of open-source models in startups.

30:11 — (7) Lomax: “Longevity clinics go from boutique → (somewhat) mainstream”

Thesis: preventative, subscription-style health scales (Neko, Function Health examples).

33:31 — (8) Mads: “EU expands tariffs on Chinese goods beyond EVs”

Europe stops pretending tariffs are morally evil, and starts protecting industrial base more aggressively (supply chain breadth and/or higher rates).

34:50 — (9) Mads: “No AGI in 2026”

AGI definition mess continues.

40:19 — (10) Lomax: “Cyber becomes a clear and present threat”

AI lowers cost of recon, phishing, persistence; cyber as statecraft sits below “war thresholds.”

43:14 — Bonus (Mads): Robotaxis

Waymo keeps lead in the West (incl. London expansion/testing), Tesla makes progress but stays behind.

With European VCs Lomax, Mads, Andrew and Dan

2025 year-in-review for European tech: capital, unicorns, geopolitics, AI, health, defence, and space space spaaaace.

01:25 – European tech in numbers

• $45bn into European startups (flat vs 2023–24, still ~½ of 2021 peak).
• 28 new unicorns in 2025 (up from 14 in 2024).
• US dominates: ~$250bn private tech funding.
• VC fundraising still tight (~$10bn into European funds).
• Exits are back: Wiz–Google, Klarna IPO, SMG IPO.

04:16 – 2025 in one sentence

• Dan: “Extreme volatility.”
• Lomax: “The final nail in globalisation.”
• Mads: “China became a true peer to the US.”
• Andrew: “Shipping fast beat gold-plated tech.”

05:49 – Most exciting tech moments

• Mads: Claude Code, Chinese open-source AI, ASML–Mistral deal.
• Lomax: Wiz’s $32bn cash exit.
• Andrew: 6G moves from lab to real specs.

08:39 – Darwin Awards (biggest screw-ups)

• Dan: Meta / Zuckerberg.
• Lomax: The entire EU institutional stack.
• Mads: Europe exporting founders to the US (incentive failure).
• Andrew: Rachel Reeves & UK growth policy.

11:59 – What smart people got wrong

• Mads: GPU bans didn’t stop China—backfired.
• Lomax: AI bubble didn’t burst.
• Dan: Investors piling blindly into defence.
• Andrew: LLMs are “dial-up,” not the endgame.

16:42 – Why 2025 was a good year

• Europe got a massive wake-up call (Dan).
• 4 new European decacorns (Lomax).
• Founders kept building despite chaos (Mads).
• VC rediscovered deep tech & hardware (Andrew).

21:23 – Geopolitics: a less naive world

• Globalisation fragmenting into blocs.
• Trust replaced by “trust but verify.”
• Sovereignty = opportunity for European founders (AI, defence, energy).

34:30 – AI Corner: the year AI got real

• DeepSeek shock wipes ~$600bn off Nvidia (Jan).
• Claude Code: $1bn ARR in ~6 months.
• Google Gemini comeback beats rivals on benchmarks.
• China dominates open-source AI.
• Rise of VLAs (Vision-Language-Action models) → physical AI, robotics.
• Big question for 2026: “Are we the horses?”

47:44 – Health & bio highlights

• GLP-1s everywhere: diabetes → cardio, kidney, neuro.
• Sales ~$62bn, heading toward $120bn+.
• Preventative health clinics scale (Function, Neko).
• Biotech rebounds; AI-designed drugs hit Phase 2.
• Psychedelics back: AbbVie deal, mental health momentum.

56:51 – Defence & space

• Modern warfare now rewards fast shipping founders.
• Global launch cadence: every ~1.5 days.
• Space shifts from experimentation → permanent infrastructure.
• Blue Origin finally launches New Glenn; SpaceX eyes Mars (again).

Upside is a weekly pod that looks at the global news headlines and works out what really matters for European tech, venture, startups and investing.

With European VCs - Lomax Ward, Dan Bowyer and Mads Jensen

What’s on the docket this week:

•SpaceX mega-raise / IPO noise: “what are you really buying?”

•“Europe’s euro success”: North–South polarity flipping

•China’s $1T+ goods trade surplus + what it means for Europe

•US defence spend reality check

•AI corner: chips, models, and AI bubble chatter

00:44 — Is DeepMind a “UK business”?

02:07 — Sovereignty is back baby!

•In defence / strategic sectors, cap table sovereignty now affects outcomes.

•Mentioned: UK rules requiring government consent in certain sectors (context: national security screening).

03:18 — DeepMind × UK DSIT partnership

•New partnership + UK research lab expansion; tied to the AI Security Institute and public services.

06:20 — AI tutor moment (education-focused Gemini)

•Vision: curriculum-grounded AI tutor as a once-in-a-generation lever for education.

08:56 — SpaceX: IPO in 2026? Raise ~ $30B? Valuation talk: $1.5T

•Why IPO now if private markets still open? Answer: scale + capital needs + timing.

◦Starlink: fast-growing, high-margin connectivity “golden goose”

14:18 — The “rest of the valuation”: orbital data centres thesis

•Speculative upside: compute in orbit (solar intensity, cooling, vacuum data transmission).

•Reality check: today’s revenue is tiny; power + mass constraints are brutal.

•Europe lens: founder talent often needs the US ecosystem to build at this frontier.

20:02 — Europe gets hit from both sides: US + China

•US signals Western Europe is lower priority; more warmth to Central/Eastern Europe (per discussion).

•China’s exports keep powering ahead; tariffs leak via third-country routing.

25:45 — Musk vs EU + the single-market problem

•Musk lobs political grenades after X/EU regulatory action (context: DSA).

•Core structural issue raised: no true EU single market in financial services → higher friction + lost productivity.

29:17 — Defence spending

•Warning to VCs: commitments don’t equal budgets landing now.

•Startup mismatch: defence procurement cycles vs 18–24 month funding cadence.

32:19 — AI corner: “bubble” talk + positioning

•Institutions trimming exposure at the margin, but not fleeing.

•View expressed: still upside runway, despite concentration and risk-off hedging.

33:44 — Europe W: Mistral open-sources DevStral 2 (coding model)

•Narrative: Europe “back in the open-source game.”

•Contrast: Meta reportedly leaning toward a closed model strategy (“Avocado” mentioned).

35:23 — Chips geopolitics: Nvidia H200s, China domestic ramp

•Thesis: export controls accelerate Chinese domestic chip ecosystems.

•Mentions: Huawei Ascend; Moore Threads momentum (plus broader “self-reliance” logic).

38:18 — Deal of the week: Unconventional AI — $475M seed

Upside #69 - For the real news behind the headlines affecting European venture, startups and investing. Every week Mads, Lomax, Andrew and myself (Dan) get together and chat.

Bending Spoons

01:27 Berkshire-like roll-up; mostly debt-funded; big integration/tech-debt execution risk.

3:30 “US→Italy arbitrage”—cut expensive US costs, rebuild with top Italian talent + high-efficiency culture; cash-cow ops; high employee satisfaction.

05:13 Success likely hinges on better distribution/ops than previous owners.

Brexit + Europe’s challenges

07:01 “trade intensity” vs G7—UK uniquely diverging down since 2019; services don’t offset goods loss.

09:20 Labour red lines may shift; customs union helps goods but politically messy (standards).

11:02 IKEA label anecdote → regulatory complexity.

12:30 VW/Europe: China competition + governance/union constraints; Europe slow to reform; supply-chain ripple risks.

23:00 Ecosystem fix: more R&D, talent/immigration, cut red tape, govt as buyer; biggest issue = late-stage capital/pensions.

AI Corner
32:20 OpenAI “code red” on Google; distribution battle; OpenAI focusing on product vs ads/monetisation.

36:03 Winners = product + distribution + cost at scale (Google infra/TPUs advantage).

39:03 Anthropic IPO rumours (2026) debated: access to bigger pools vs “top of cycle” cynicism.

Deal of the week
41:54 Black Forest Labs — $300m at $3.25bn; image-model leader; strong ARR rumoured.

43:13 ICEYE — €200m at ~€2.5bn; SAR satellites; defence demand.

44:05 Expedition Growth Capital fundraise — €323m.

44:23 Neurocore — ~$2.5m; platform tooling for robotics ML teams.

Upside #68 w/ Robin Haak (Robin Capital), Lomax (Outsized), Mads and Dan (SuperSeed).

Topics: Germany’s slowdown • Social media bans • UK budget • Solo GPs • N26 • Europe vs Big Tech • AI Corner

01:21 – Robin’s Background

100+ investments, 8 unicorns. Co-founded SmartRecruiters → sold to SAP ($100M ARR). Former GP at Revaya (€600M AUM). Now building a 50-year solo GP franchise.

03:58 – Social Media Ban for Under-16s

Mads: EU Parliament pushes advisory resolution; strong evidence social media harms teen mental health, especially girls.

06:39 – US Says “Go Easy on Big Tech”

Lomax: US Commerce voices warn EU that tech regulation ties into trade/tariff negotiations. Don’t conflate antitrust with child safety—two different battles.

10:00 – UK Budget

Improved EMI stock options - More flexible EIS / VCT rules. Nice to hear a Chancellor talk about startups & innovation.

12:17 – EU Space Surveillance

ESA launches its first military space programme (€1B). Far behind the US, but a step toward defence autonomy.

13:19 – N26 Troubles

Regulatory caps slowed growth for years, BaFin repeatedly intervened. Leadership now reshuffling. Big question: Would N26 be Revolut-sized if founded outside Germany?

18:49 – German Economy Reality Check

GDP still below 2019 levels. Insolvencies highest in a decade. Restaurants down 20–40%. Years of underinvestment in tech, infrastructure, energy. Early nuclear shutdown = higher energy costs, fallback to coal.

25:04 – Why No Nuclear Return?

Public wants it (~75%). Politics block it; ideology > pragmatism.

27:07 – German Decline Impact on Startups

ESOP improved (still heavy tax). Bureaucracy is brutal: notaries, translations, delays. Many founders incorporate Delaware C-Corp + German GmbH.

Solo GP / Part-Time VC Trend

34:21 – The Movement

US led the way: Elad Gil, Auren, Buckley.

Three types: Lifelong solo GPs. Solo-to-multi-GP founders. Part-time solo GPs (e.g., 11 Labs’ Carlos Reiner). It works at $15–30M scale; Fund II usually becomes full-time.

40:10 – OpenAI, Google & Anthropic

OpenAI may need $200B+ by 2030. Google’s Gemini 3 beating OpenAI on many benchmarks. Monetisation gap: only ~5% of ChatGPT users pay. Warren Buffett buying Google is a signal?

44:57 – The Scary Bit: God-AI

Robin cites Eric Schmidt: If an adversary builds god-AI first, “we might have to bomb it.”

This week in Upside #67 Mads returns from Slush with 24 one-to-ones under his belt and a head full of insights. Dan and Lomax dig into Germany’s €35B space strategy, the surprising data behind immigrant-founded unicorns, and Europe’s defence-IPO boom. They break down Vinted’s huge secondary, the EU’s attempt to kill cookie banners, and the UK’s sudden wave of AI investment initiatives.

In AI Corner: why 70% of AI startups now ship on open-source models, Google’s new TPU-trained Gemini 3, and another blowout quarter from Nvidia. Plus: Deal of the Week — Voize, the AI tool transforming nursing-home documentation.

03:15 — Slush Deep Dive
Mads on Helsinki’s neon-lit founder festival, matchmaking tables, and why Slush still beats Web Summit.

07:45 — Germany’s €35B Space Strategy
Why Berlin is going big on space-as-defence — and whether Europe can ever compete at scale.

12:10 — Immigrant Founders Powerhouse
The surprising stats: 50–90% of US unicorn founders are immigrants; half of the UK’s fastest-growing companies too.

26:10 — Cookies Out, AI Regulation Rolled Back
The EU’s Digital Omnibus: fewer cookie banners, looser GDPR for AI training, and a major regulatory U-turn.

46:40 — AI Corner: TPUs vs GPUs & Open Source Wins
70% of startups using open-source LLMs; Google’s TPU-trained Gemini 3 beats benchmarks; Nvidia still sold out through 2026.

Each week a small bunch of us try and makes sense of the latest news affecting European venture.

Upside #66 - The theme this week is back to tech sovereignty, what that really means, what’s trade, what’s security - and ultimately will we all become full stack nations?

01:04 – UK exit tax: what it was and why it was dropped
The mooted UK “exit tax” (tax on unrealised gains when leaving the country), why it would be disastrous for founders, political “pitch-rolling” before budgets, and Tom Blomfield’s alternative idea of taxing gains accrued while in the UK.

08:17 – State of AI (McKinsey / QuantumBlack report)
Quick take on enterprise AI: almost every large org says it’s using AI, mostly for agentic/workflow use cases, but only ~1% report mature deployment or meaningful bottom-line impact, implying a long runway but slower-than-hyped progress.

09:54 – Nexperia & Europe’s chip vulnerability
Deep dive into Nexperia’s role in Europe’s mid-tech auto chips, EU–China tensions, how wafers are made in Europe but packaged in China, and what that reveals about the fragility of the European automotive supply chain.

13:15 – Ripping out Huawei/ZTE from 5G
Discussion of the EU’s move to give legal force to removing Chinese vendors from 5G infrastructure, the huge retrofit costs for telcos (esp. German operators), and whether this is driven by trade, security, or both.

16:18 – Einride SPAC & Palantir / Alex Karp
Einride’s US SPAC at a $1.8B valuation vs the Nikola fiasco; Palantir’s soaring stock, Alex Karp’s persona and “word salad” style, his emphasis on privacy-centric data architectures for governments, and the tension between admiration for serious infra and discomfort with founder-power.

23:06 – AI market wobble & Michael Burry’s bearish case
The recent pull-back in Mag7/AI names (esp. Nvidia), and whether it’s a blip or bubble-pop; Burry’s big short on hyperscalers and AI plays, and his history as an early Cassandra of the GFC.

23:52 – Chinese open-source models & hyperscaler accounting games
How Chinese open-source models (e.g. Kimi K2) are catching frontier labs and threatening closed-source economics, plus Burry’s argument that hyperscalers are overstating profits by stretching GPU lifetimes (4→6 years) and front-loading capex based on optimistic AI revenue expectations.

33:28 – Tech sovereignty, AI-powered cyber attacks & kill switches
Anthropic’s disclosure of LLM-assisted cyber attacks using Claude Code via social engineering; concerns over remote kill switches in Chinese-made buses in UK/Scandi fleets; broader questions about dependence on Chinese vendors and the push for “full-stack” sovereignty.

41:45 – De-globalisation & the cost of going ‘full stack’
Debate over whether every region trying to do everything domestically is sustainable; loss of cheap-labour-driven low inflation, need for critical minerals and energy at home, and how much poorer or safer societies might become under techno-sovereignty.

47:49 – Deals of the Week: BillionToOne and Gamma
BillionToOne’s ~$4.5–5B IPO (YC 2017; strong European VC participation); Pfizer’s $10B acquisition of GLP-1 player Metsera and what it signals for biotech; Gamma’s $68M Series B at a $2.1B valuation as a potential disruptor of the traditional Office/Slides stack.