If you ask me, what I have seen so far in 2026 is that the Atlantic is wider than ever for founders. US investors are hunting for outliers; they want the Blitzscaling narrative where $10M in capital buys a 10x market land grab. If your US deck doesn't scream vision and velocity, you’re seen as thinking too small.

And this is not something new.

This has been a case for a while.

In Europe, the 2026 vibe has shifted toward "Sovereign Deep Tech" and capital efficiency. With the EU's new €1.4B EIC fund favouring strategic independence, a European investor will shred a "vision-only" deck. They want to see manufacturability, regulatory compliance (MiCA/GDPR-2), and a path to EBITDA positivity. If you pitch a US-style burn-to-win model in Berlin or Paris right now, you’ll be flagged as a high-risk liability.

I advise founders to use this cheat sheet:

• US Pitch: Focus on the TAM Expansion (How your product creates a new $50B market).

• EU Pitch: Focus on the unit economics (how your $1 is more efficient than the competitor's $5).