How can public and private investors work together to unlock more early-stage investment while strengthening Europe's innovation ecosystem? In this session we will explore how angel co-investment schemes are helping to bridge funding gaps, de-risk investments, and attract a mix of public and private capital into high-potential startups.

Despite the ambitions of the Single Market, startups and investors continue to face regulatory and legal fragmentation when operating across borders. As Europe seeks to strengthen its competitiveness, the proposed 28th Regime offers a unique opportunity to simplify the rules governing innovative businesses and create a more seamless environment for entrepreneurship and investment. This session will bring together policymakers, investors, and ecosystem leaders to discuss how a harmonised European framework could reduce barriers to cross-border angel investing, support startup scaling, and improve access to capital across Member States. Drawing on policy developments and practical perspectives from the investment ecosystem, speakers will explore the opportunities, challenges, and key design considerations for building a truly integrated European market for startups and their investors.

Cross-border syndication fails not for lack of goodwill, but because no one is structurally accountable for DD that a foreign investor can trust. Where it has worked, larger syndicates were measurably less sensitive to distance-related costs and earned higher returns — syndicate structure, not one person's individual trustworthiness, solved this. Left informal, the role defaults to volunteer labour that doesn't scale and burns out. Two fictional BAN managers negotiate a real institutional dilemma live on stage: how to build a working cross-border investment corridor without one network becoming dependent on the other. Through five audience-voted decisions, the room debates leadership, governance, and reciprocity, then builds its own "Corridor Charter" — surfacing what EBAN should provide as shared infrastructure, and what BANs should own themselves.

Join the interactive discussion surrounding navigating negotiations between investors and startups, took place. This session offered attendees an in-depth look into the complexities of negotiating a term sheet during a fundraising round, providing valuable insights into the dynamics between founders and investors.

In coordination with EBAN, the Clarifai Project is building TAU20, an AI-powered platform designed to make impact investing faster, easier and more effective. Discover how startups can highlight the real impact they are making, and how you can leverage this tool to guide your investments based on key impact metrics that matter.

As Europe strengthens its defence capabilities, improving the efficiency of defence procurement has become a strategic priority. Fragmented national markets and complex procurement processes continue to limit interoperability, slow innovation, and reduce opportunities for European defence companies to scale across borders. This session will explore how aggregating demand and enhancing cross-border procurement can deliver greater efficiency, strengthen industrial cooperation, and accelerate the adoption of innovative defence technologies.

Europe is home to a growing number of innovative defence and dual-use startups. Yet, many continue to face significant challenges in accessing early-stage capital and connecting with investors who understand the sector. While public funding for defence innovation has expanded, mechanisms that effectively link angel investors and venture capital firms with promising defence startups remain fragmented and underdeveloped. This session will bring together investors, entrepreneurs, policymakers, and ecosystem leaders to examine the current gaps in Europe's defence investment landscape.