An evening among the stars of AI at the Natural History Museum.
Under the 130-year-old blue whale skeleton, venture capitalist Matt Miller took to the stage, beaming in his black Prada tuxedo. High-fiving his colleague as he walked on, the American had prepared for this moment for months, having summoned Europe’s tech elite together for an unusually ostentatious event. This was the party Europe had been waiting for. This, Miller announced, was the inaugural Legends Gala.
The room buzzed with the excitable energy of freshers; freshers who had all raised hundreds of millions of pounds. Inside the central hall of London’s Natural History Museum, Miller had gathered around 400 of Europe’s most decorated tech talents. Also, somewhat inexplicably, Stormzy, and a small sprinkling of other European creatives.
‘Anyone who is anyone was there. Literally, it was the best guest list. Ever,’ said Harry Stebbings, a bicep-wielding podcaster turned venture capitalist.
The calibre of the crowd was, in truth, undeniable; this was peak LinkedIn celebrity. Among them, execs from Europe’s AI darlings like Legora, ElevenLabs and Lovable, which are each valued at billions of dollars. Top investors from the US and the Middle East had also flown in. The tightly controlled invite list had been circulated in advance. To preserve ‘legend’ quality, the host had begun by inviting around 150 trusted individuals; each then recommended a selection of other premium invitees. From there, the group huddled to decide who from the shortlist should get an invite – only the most ‘high-quality people’ made it.
As the guests streamed in past the giant oyster bar, they were met by the gentle hum of classical music. Some founders, more accustomed to black tees than black tie, still had the labels attached to their suits, purchased specially for the occasion. The women were in – as the official term goes – ‘full glam’.
This may sound normal for the big-buck-swinging world of venture capital. But this was not an ordinary tech gathering, at least not by European standards. It’s not that the European tech crowd doesn’t party. It’s that it doesn’t tend to party like this (there was even an app for guests). Nor does it usually party all together. Tech operators tend to huddle in close-knit dinners scattered across Stockholm, Berlin and Paris, rather than congeal in one mass gathering. The Legends Gala marked an unusual level of pomp for our humble continent.
But the opulent venue, the dress code, the exclusive guest list, the sheer Stormzy of it all, was intentional. It was curated to make a statement, to scream one message: Europe is worthy. The tech ecosystem here is booming. Don’t listen to the naysayers who claim European startups are lagging.
‘There’s this narrative coming from the States that’s like European tech is so far behind,’ Miller told me. ‘It’s very hard for the community here to be receiving all that negative feedback all the time. “Where are the exits? Where’s the IPO?” Blah blah blah blah.’
The problem, Miller thinks, is that Europe’s tech scene is criminally underrated. Founders here don’t get the international recognition – or valuations – they deserve. It’s wrong to belittle Europe, argues Miller, who moved from California to London five years ago with Sequoia, one of the world’s most famous investment funds. Indeed, Miller’s thesis is that ‘Europe is in the best shape it’s ever been.’ This is a legendary ecosystem that needs, more than anything, to recognise its own legend status.
‘I wanted something that was just like the very best in one room… [to] change a little bit of the narrative,’ he added. This was about ‘celebrating the world’s creators with European elegance and American flair,’ per the invite.
Miller’s new fund, Evantic, picked up the tab. He didn’t want sponsors because it would ‘dilute the quality,’ he explained. Sadly, he declined to say how much he spent on the gala. He did, however, confirm that Stormzy was not paid to attend, and that he apparently flew back from Barbados for the event: ‘He was ecstatic to be there.’
The Legends Gala comes at a distinct moment in Europe’s $3 trillion tech industry. Although the continent generally punches above its weight, there is a sinking feeling that it’s being left behind by American and Chinese tech giants.
Cynics would highlight the following downers: Europe’s artificial intelligence prowess is still being dwarfed by Silicon Valley giants such as OpenAI and Anthropic. US tech media has retreated from Europe in the past six months; their audiences seemingly uninterested in our comparatively meek startups. European founders keep getting on planes to San Francisco to build their companies there instead. And the depth of investors’ pockets in Europe is still paltry relative to the US or China.
The other problem is self-evident: there isn’t really ‘one’ European tech scene; instead, there is a mismatch of languages, regulation and geographies, which makes it exceedingly difficult for startups to do business beyond their natural borders.
The fear here is that ‘the frontier AI revolution is happening somewhere else,’ as one European VC put it. The US is ‘100x-ing, while Europe is 10x-ing.’ The technologies that power all our lives – social media, iPhones, payment networks – were also built and operated overseas. We are not, cynics argue, in control of our own tech destinies, and so we are not in control of the future of humanity.
This perceived lack of influence was summed up rather memorably by one tech investor recently, who tweeted: ‘Have you noticed basically no one from EU venture or tech is in the pedo island files? In one respect, phew, but it also tells you how few serious players there are in Europe.’
But not everyone has succumbed to the gloom. Leave it to the Americans to bring some much-needed optimism and glitz to revive the mood. Cue Miller and the gala – a spoonful of medicine aimed at stalling the insecurity infecting Europe’s startup ecosystem.
Here’s the elevator pitch that Miller’s side offers: Europe produces dozens of ‘unicorns’ (billion-dollar startups) each year, it has sprouted a new cohort of AI superstars, and is home to world-class education and engineering hubs. Funding has also picked up again after a post-pandemic slump. In other words, ‘Europe is putting up great companies and has tremendous talent doing incredible things,’ Miller tells me.
This party was ‘needed,’ according to Stebbings, to help Europe get its mojo back. ‘Europe needs to be fucking positive about what we have… we’re probably quite bad at celebrating ourselves,’ he said.
Miller, it should be noted, is an influential figure in local tech circles. As a VC, his job is to pick winning companies to invest in, and then reap the benefits. Having spent over a decade at world-leader Sequoia, he boasts a strong pedigree. His move to Europe was symbolic, and lent the ecosystem a certain credibility.
Miller’s departure from Sequoia last year was sudden. It followed the removal of his short-lived board seat at Klarna, a Sequoia portfolio company and one of the world’s biggest fintechs.
He’s now his own boss. Last year, he launched his own $350 million fund, Evantic, and assembled 150 ‘legends’ who advise and support the fund. In the lexicon of venture capital, hyperboles like ‘visionary’, ‘disruptive’, ‘game-changing’, ‘world-class’ and ‘rock star’ are commonplace. Miller’s preferred sobriquet just happens to be ‘legend’.
Evantic is Miller’s first creation, a cross-Atlantic fund headquartered in London that’s already made a string of notable investments. The Legends Gala was, in effect, Miller’s launch as a solo player, and a signal that Evantic wants a seat at the table. This was ‘great marketing for his firm,’ one guest said. The evening put Miller at the centre of the social architecture that underpins VC.
Still, Miller stresses that this party wasn’t really about him. ‘I tried really hard to not make it about me… there was not an Evantic logo anywhere… I only spoke for five minutes,’ he said. ‘I’m not trying to put myself into the limelight.’
It was a simple equation, he says: ‘If I invest in the ecosystem, the ecosystem gets better and then it helps me win.’
Back at the party, attendees were nearly delirious at the quality of the invitees. ‘People couldn’t quite believe it was happening,’ says Seb Johnson, who runs Scaling Europe, a podcast on European tech. ‘It was like a networking event on steroids. It was like a tech wedding.’
Another guest spotted former F1 driver Nico Rosberg, who now runs his own fund. People were so frantically networking they didn’t eat the food, Miller told me. ‘They were so excited to be meeting new people.’ By the end of the evening, everybody was starving and grabbing hamburgers like crazy.’ There was intentionally no sit-down dinner to ensure optimal mingling.
The party was only briefly interrupted by an awards ceremony. Miller selected three individuals in the European community to thank, and gifted them bespoke Prada jackets.
The dancefloor got going once Haitian rapper Wyclef Jean began playing. At one point, he came off stage and performed directly for Stormzy, who was stood with Miller. Included on Wyclef’s set list was Shakira’s Hips Don’t Lie. Radio 1 DJ Pete Tong also played.
Miller left sometime after midnight, having boogied the night away. As he says, ‘I love music, I love to dance. I don’t take myself too seriously… I wanted people to dance.’
