Spain is struggling to stop the unicorn stampede. The perception is unanimous among local venture capital funds, as became clear during the panel “The Unicorn Formula: Decoding High-Growth Investments” on day two of South Summit, held at La Nave, in Madrid. Despite a growing number of seed-stage investors and world-class founders across Southern Europe, most unicorns born in the region still end up raising their follow-on rounds—and often relocating—in the United States.
Stephan de Moraes, managing partner at Indico Capital, offered the sharpest diagnosis: “The problem in Europe is not talent, or science, or even the number of VC firms: it’s the lack of capital.” Most late-stage rounds in Europe are still led by US funds, who bring deeper pockets, faster decision-making, and higher risk appetite. “Every Spanish unicorn starts off as Spanish and ends up American,” he said.
The discussion also touched on the rise of so-called “dragon hunters”—funds that aim for exits between $100M–$500M instead of billion-dollar valuations. De Moraes dismissed the trend as a coping mechanism for missed unicorn opportunities: “It’s a false dichotomy. Everyone wants massive returns—but only some funds have the size and firepower to back companies all the way.” In his view, smaller European funds cannot afford to take big bets because they fear not raising their next fund—a pressure rarely seen in Silicon Valley.
Execution is emerging as the new moat. As AI-native startups post record growth, traditional SaaS benchmarks now look outdated. “The playbook is being rewritten,” said Thomas Bigagli, partner at Plug and Play Ventures. Both he and other participants agreed that defensibility now depends less on tech and more on speed, a great team and execution.
As for the message to European policymakers and LPs was clear: the continent is not lacking ambition — it’s lacking ammunition. Until local institutional capital is willing to back venture funds at scale, the unicorn exodus is unlikely to slow down. In the words of Stephan de Moraes: “Culture follows incentives. If we want to keep our unicorns, we need to fix the top of the funnel.”
