From a resurgence of tech across Europe to the advancing artificial intelligence industry to institutional growth in the digital assets sector, VCs have shared their thoughts on what is in store for the tech industry in 2026.
Europe will crack the compute market – David Grimm, AlbionVC
“2026 will be the year the UK and Europe produce a genuine cluster of breakout compute companies. We are moving beyond isolated wins to a definitive wave.
“AI’s compute demands are now growing faster than GPU-based architectures can scale. Hyperscalers are running into hard limits on power, cooling and bandwidth, forcing them to consider fundamentally new ways of moving data and executing models.
“This creates the first major opening in years for European startups building differentiated compute technologies.
“Across the UK, France, Germany, the Nordics and Switzerland, highly technical founders are emerging from world-class universities, industry hubs, and the growing semiconductor, quantum and photonics ecosystems.
“In 2026, expect to see several of these teams raise meaningful rounds, land tier-one customers and establish themselves as credible players in the global compute landscape. The monopoly on compute innovation is over.”
Institutional embrace of digital assets – Kibriya Rahman, AlbionVC
“Looking ahead to 2026, the most exciting part of the digital assets market is the shift toward real institutional use cases.
“Investment has moved beyond bitcoin price cycles and is now focused on utility, fundamentals and credible applications in areas such as stablecoins and decentralised finance, supported by stronger engagement from financial institutions, governments and regulators.
“The UK is particularly well positioned, with deep technical founder talent, regulatory clarity, and growing enterprise demand. A key milestone for the year will be which early pilots move into production. Tokenised funds, real-estate transactions and next-generation payment systems are all transitioning from experimentation to implementation.
“Those who turn pilots into production-grade platforms will define the next chapter of institutional digital assets.”
The year of autonomous workflows – Thomas Cuvelier, RTP Global
“2026 will be the year of autonomous workflows, where enterprises will shift from ‘AI features’ to AI workers handling entire processes.
“This will see AI-native disruptors give software incumbents across a range of industries a shock.
“With embedded automation from day one, AI-native startups are showing an ability to onboard customers at previously unthinkable speeds and offer software with simplified workflows and greater cost-saving potential.
“Incumbents can’t match this without undertaking the costly and time-intensive process of rebuilding their systems around AI.
“From an innovation perspective, I’m closely monitoring self-correcting workflows, secure memory and multi-agent collaboration as exciting nascent AI applications that startups will commercialise further in 2026.”
Early-stage innovation and bigger ecosystems in Europe – Sandeep Bakshi, Prosus Ventures
“In 2026, Europe’s tech ecosystem will enter a growth moment, with its own set of tech champions fuelling innovation pipelines much like PayPal did in Silicon Valley.
This momentum is set to have a profound impact on early-stage companies and the regional venture ecosystem overall, as more talent stays local, encouraged by renewed optimism and the prospect of building global leaders from Europe. As a result, in 2026 we will see continued optimism and more European tech competing on the world stage.
Ultimately, this is about leveraging successful European tech companies as talent and founder incubators, building globally scalable businesses, aligning policy and investment to founder needs, and creating a feedback loop of innovation and capital.
The next phase of enterprise adoption of AI – Ivan Nikkhoo, Navigate Ventures
“Adoption is moving quickly at the initial exploration level, but the more meaningful change is only beginning.
Enterprises are now moving past pilots and starting to integrate AI into workflows that have not changed for many years.
That is where the acceleration will occur. At the same time, the investment landscape is widening. AI funding was highly concentrated during 2025, and it is beginning to expand to include more new companies.
Early-stage founders will still face long fundraising cycles and low conversion rates, but the broader enterprise market is preparing for real deployment as AI becomes central to how systems operate.”
