EUVC Awards: Recognising the Stewards of European Venture
European venture didn’t appear overnight.
EUVC Awards: Recognising the Stewards of European Venture
European venture didn’t appear overnight.
Individuals built the ecosystem by laying the foundations and setting its course early, before European venture became fashionable, scaled, or globally recognised. Firms then carried that work forward — professionalising it, scaling it, and turning early conviction into enduring institutions.
The EUVC Awards exist to recognise both.
They are designed to honour excellence in context, not noise. They recognise those whose impact compounds over time and strengthens the European venture ecosystem for the long term.
The Hall of Fame: Honouring Lifetime Contribution
The EUVC Hall of Fame recognises individuals whose careers reflect a lifetime of achievement in European venture capital.
This category celebrates people whose influence spans 10+ years, shaped by the investments they made, the founders they backed, the firms they built, and the ideas they advanced as Europe’s venture ecosystem took shape.
The Hall of Fame is not about a single breakout year or a headline fund. It recognises sustained contribution: leadership and impact that leaves the ecosystem stronger, broader, and more resilient.
Hall of Fame inductees are individuals who:
Deliver long-term investment impact across multiple market cycles
Shape Europe’s venture ecosystem through leadership and example
Influence how European venture thinks, operates, and evolves
Build legacies that extend far beyond their own firms
They don’t just succeed within European venture.
They help define it.
Past ‘Hall of Fame’ winners include:
2023 — Neil Reimer, a pioneer of European growth investing who helped scale later-stage capital across the continent
2024 — Robin Klein, a long-standing champion of founders and early-stage innovation whose influence reaches far beyond individual investments
Different paths. Enduring impact.
Hall of Fame recipients are selected by the judging panel.
Firm of the Year: Recognising Enduring Excellence
While individuals may lay the foundations, it is firms that institutionalise excellence over time.
European venture capital is built over decades, not cycles. Behind every enduring ecosystem are firms that do more than generate returns. They set standards, shape behaviour, and take responsibility for the long-term health of the industry.
The EUVC Firm of the Year Award exists to recognise those firms.
This accolade honours the long-standing, tried-and-true champions of European venture. They are the stewards who combine performance with principle, scale with responsibility, and success with contribution.
Excellence, Assessed in Context
Firm of the Year is not about a single fundraise or a moment of momentum. It is assessed from a holistic perspective, reflecting what excellence in European venture looks like today.
To ensure that excellence is judged fairly and meaningfully, the EUVC Awards separate Firm of the Year categories by fund size:
Funds under €200 million
Funds over €200 million
This structure acknowledges that excellence takes different forms at different levels of scale. It allows performance to be assessed in context, not abstraction — recognising that leadership, impact, and responsibility evolve as firms grow.
Across both categories, judges consider:
Financial and portfolio performance across cycles
Innovation in strategy, structure, or approach
Impact on the broader venture ecosystem, beyond individual investments
Commitment to diversity, transparency, and fairness
Strength of team and culture, and how that culture shows up in decision-making
This award recognises firms that play the long game, building trust with founders, limited partners, and peers, while helping define how European venture capital continues to evolve.
Past ‘Firm of the Year’ Winners
Previous recipients exemplify this standard:
2024 — Credo Ventures
2023 — Seedcamp
Each has demonstrated that sustained excellence comes from consistency, clarity of values, and a willingness to invest not just in companies, but in the ecosystem itself.
Why Nominations Matter
Unlike the Hall of Fame, Firm of the Year is shaped by the community.
The EUVC Awards are not defined by judges alone. Nominations ensure that the firms doing the real work — often quietly, often over many years — are visible, recognised, and held up as examples of what great looks like in European venture.
If you know a firm that:
Has delivered across market cycles
Leads with integrity as well as ambition
Strengthens the ecosystem while building top-tier portfolios
…this is your opportunity to put them forward.
Help Define Excellence in European Venture
Firm of the Year
is about recognising those who have earned their position through sustained contribution. Not noise. Not momentum. Long-term impact.
👉 Submit your nomination and help ensure the firms shaping Europe’s venture future are recognised.
Save the Date: EUVC Summit 2026
📅 Date: 22/04/2026
📍 London
Europe’s builders take the stage.
The EUVC Summit returns with founders, operators, VCs, and LPs focused on one question: how Europe wins.
From what it really takes to build category-defining companies in Europe, to how capital, conviction, and long-term alignment must evolve to compete globally — this is a working room, not a trends conference.
More details coming soon.
Love how the framework seperates firms by AUM to judge excellence in context. The reality that instituional building happens over decades gets glossed over in most VC discourse. I sat through pitch decks from emerging managers who confused short term momentum with compound impact. The split between individual Hall of Fame and Firm of the Year recogniton is pretty smart.
Do you mean Neil Rimer?