The EUVC Hall of Fame recognises individuals whose careers reflect a decade or more of sustained impact on European venture through the founders they backed, the firms they built and the ideas they advanced.
Sonali De Rycker’s 2025 induction reflects a career spent backing European founders before the continent’s potential was widely accepted. Since joining Accel in 2008, she has invested across consumer internet, software and fintech, including Spotify.
In her acceptance remarks, Sonali reflects on why she chose Europe when many around her were looking west, what the continent’s fragmentation revealed about its founders and how successive generations have strengthened the ecosystem.
Choosing Europe before it was obvious
Sonali chose to build her venture career in Europe when many of her peers believed the stronger opportunity was in the United States.
The European ecosystem was fragmented, lacked established support structures and was widely seen as decades behind Silicon Valley. Sonali saw founders creating companies without that scaffolding, developing the resilience, conviction and ambition needed to build against the odds.
Finding founders across a fragmented continent
Europe’s fragmentation creates complexity, but it also makes it possible to find exceptional founders beyond its most established technology centres.
For Sonali, the opportunity has never depended on founders coming from one city or fitting one established pattern. It comes from identifying people with the perspective, determination and ambition to build for a global market, wherever they begin.
How the ecosystem compounds
Sonali credits Europe’s progress to successive generations of founders recycling their experience, talent and capital into new companies.
As more founders build, scale and contribute back, they create the examples, networks and support that earlier generations did not have. This has helped technology ecosystems develop across more European cities and given new founders a stronger foundation from which to build.
Europe’s next platform shift
Sonali sees AI as another opportunity for European founders to create global leaders, particularly at the application layer.
Europe already has deep research and technical talent, alongside the product and commercial experience developed through earlier technology cycles. The opportunity is to combine those strengths and build companies for global markets from Europe.
Across her acceptance remarks, Sonali returns to the belief that has shaped her career: exceptional founders can emerge from anywhere in Europe, but backing them requires conviction and the commitment to stay the course.
