The Sifted hand Daily newsletter sparked a timely debate this week. Mimi Billing reported that SNÖ Ventures - the Oslo VC backed by Peter Thiel in 2021, with portfolio bets like Sky Mavis and Aris Machina - has decided not to raise a third fund.

The reason? The same structural pressure many mid-size funds in Europe are now feeling: too small to compete with the giants, too large to stay nimble.

This mirrors a warning Oliver Holle voiced last year: venture capital may be drifting into a barbell model.
On one side: small, specialist funds with sharp theses.
On the other hand, mega-funds with deep pockets and a global reach.
And the middle? Increasingly squeezed out.

The discussion reminded me of something my MBA professor, Thomas Straub, emphasised often: European business culture is built on governance, purpose, and long-term stewardship. His research frames organisational success not as a race, but as a multi-generational strategy.

This mindset has shaped some of Europe’s most enduring champions.
Think of Bosch, Zeiss, the Carlsberg Foundation, or Novo Nordisk.
These are organisations forged not through blitzscaling and burn, but through reinvestment, mission-driven governance, and patient capital that can think in decades, not quarters.

Which raises an uncomfortable question for Europe’s startup ecosystem:

Do we truly want to imitate Silicon Valley’s speed-at-all-costs model or is our comparative advantage something different entirely?

Perhaps Europe doesn’t need to pick a side in the venture barbell.
Maybe the real opportunity lies in designing our own hybrid:

  • specialist micro-VCs with sharp domain expertise, paired with
  • evergreen capital from families, foundations, and sovereign funds, whose time horizons match the realities of deep tech, climate, health, and industrial innovation.

In this model, the middle doesn’t disappear; it evolves.

The real tension isn’t blitzscaling versus patient capital.
It’s whether Europe can blend the two into a system that rewards both bold experimentation and durable value creation.

It’s a paradox worth embracing and one that might define whether Europe produces the next generation of global champions.

Curious to see who else sees it this way.