Only 3.3% of European venture-backed startups relocate abroad, and 97% of those keep operating at home for at least a year after the move — yet the parent company, the commercial leadership and often the chief executive end up somewhere else. Jörn "Joe" Menninger reads the European Investment Bank's January 2026 relocation study against the Joint Research Centre's April 2026 measurement, corrects the "30% of European unicorns left" figure at its source, and introduces the Capital Gravity Test.

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Read the full episode notes on Startuprad.io

Why this episode matters: Europe's scale-up debate treats relocation as binary — a company stays or a company leaves. Both 2026 studies say that model is wrong. Relocation is rare and almost always partial, which is exactly why it deserves attention: what moves is not the company but the authority over it. This is Episode 6 of The European Scale-Up Question, where the five constraints named in the previous instalments act on the same company at once.

In this episode, we cover:

  • The Joint Research Centre's measurement of 16,595 European venture-backed startups: a 3.3% confirmed relocation rate, 4.3% as an upper bound, against 0.3–0.5% for a matched group that never raised venture capital
  • The European Investment Bank's 71 usable interviews, in which every relocating company kept its research and development inside the European Union
  • The Delaware flip explained: a new foreign parent, the original company becoming a wholly owned subsidiary, and the exit-tax problem in Germany, France and the Netherlands
  • Why the "close to 30% of European unicorns relocated" figure misdescribes its own source — and why the United States number is 32 of 147, not 30%
  • The Scaleup Europe Fund from establishment on 4 August 2026 to ICEYE, and to a co-lead role in Mistral's €3 billion Series D on 8 September
  • The Capital Gravity Test, and three predictions on record with stated confidence levels

The European Scale-Up Question — all parts:

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