Reports already place the fund behind Germany’s The Exploration Company and the Paris-based Mistral AI. Europe is ready to back deep-tech businesses in the bloc with a new funding mechanism aimed at helping the region catch up with US and China. The Commission said on Tuesday (4 August) that its $5bn Scaleup Europe Fund has passed its final legal hurdles and is ready to start operating at full capacity. The multibillion-euro fund was initially announced back in October 2025, and is designed to build on the ‘choose Europe to start and scale’ strategy launched earlier that year. It’s the largest fund of…