Post Written by Vasily Alekseenko

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There’s a massive shift happening in global innovation right now — and most people aren’t even paying attention. If you’re a founder in Europe, the headlines this week should make you pause.

The EU just announced a plan to “cut red tape” and create a Scaleup Europe Fund to attract more startups and VC money. Sounds great in theory. But let’s not pretend we didn’t see this coming. Europe’s been struggling for years — and the data is damning.

📉 Europe’s unicorn production is embarrassingly low. The EU creates far fewer billion-dollar startups than the US or China, and the ones that do make it rarely scale fast enough to matter globally. According to the Wall Street Journal, “Europe has a fifth of the venture capital of the US in dollar terms” and productivity is now under 80% of US levels.

So yes, finally admitting there’s a problem is progress — but is a new fund and 48-hour company formation promise really going to solve the cultural, structural, and financial gaps holding the continent back?

🤖 Meanwhile, the US isn’t sleeping — even if the markets are momentarily flat. U.S. productivity is double that of the UK and Eurozone since 2010, and AI-led innovation is only accelerating the gap. Venture capital flows are still stronger, infrastructure is better, and the sheer size of U.S. equity markets gives founders and investors more room to breathe — and scale.

But here’s the real plot twist… 🧬

🇨🇳 China might just leapfrog everyone in biotech.

This week, a string of announcements showed U.S. VCs racing to secure rights to Chinese-developed drug molecules. These aren’t copycat formulas — we’re talking world-class innovation coming out of labs in Beijing and Shanghai. One example? Pfizer just inked a $6B deal with China’s 3Sbio for cancer treatment rights .

Chinese biotechs are faster, leaner, and scrappier — and with a surplus of PhDs and lower costs, they’re turning promising academic research into treatments before many Western firms even wake up. As Lux Capital’s David Yang put it: “The half-life of a good idea in biotech has been shortened. If you have a good idea, you better act on it quickly.”

🔥 Here’s the punchline: Everyone is talking about AI, but the biotech gold rush might become the next frontier war — and China is no longer the underdog.

💡 What founders should take away from all this:

1. Europe is trying — but it’s late to its own party. The regulatory cuts and new funds are welcome, but the systemic issues (cross-border friction, weak capital markets, risk-averse culture) won’t disappear overnight.

2. The US still wins on scale, capital, and productivity. Even with political uncertainty and short-term market dips, the fundamentals are too strong to ignore. AI, relaxed regulations, and VC density keep the innovation engine humming.

3. China is now a serious innovation player. Especially in biotech, where Western VCs are now chasing Chinese founders for IP. That’s a shift no one saw coming five years ago.

If you’re a founder in Europe reading this, you have two options: complain about lack of capital and overregulation — or build something so good the capital comes to you. But stop pretending the playing field is even. It’s not.

If you’re in the US or the UK, don’t get comfortable either. Founders in Shanghai are skipping sleep while you’re doing founder brunch.

And if you’re an investor? Maybe it’s time to look outside your backyard.