Dear all,

Have you ever carved on skis or a snowboard? There is that one moment when you lean in so far it feels like flying over the snow. It is (somewhat) risky, but it is also the point of highest impact.

In many organisations, we never reach that point. A culture of fear and cover-your-ass behaviour holds us back. You need multiple approvals for small decisions, six-eyes principles, endless committees. I believe we need to push the organisations we work in much harder — especially those driving innovation in Europe.

It is like drifting a car. You push the system right to the edge of control, to the last point where you can still steer. You wouldn’t do this in a hospital or a nuclear plant, of course. But in most organisations, we could drift more, let go of control, and replace fear with courage.

Drifting comes naturally to founders and operators in startups. But it takes far more courage to drift inside established organisations.

Last week, I met several leaders who do exactly that.

The Max Planck Society — a beacon of German science for over 100 years, with 85 institutes and 30 Nobel laureates. In that world, publishing and professorships are everything. Yet Bram Wijlands, Christoph Hüls, and Uli Mahr from Max Planck Innovation are carving a new path. Their MAXpreneurs program encourages scientists to leave the safety of academia and found Deep Tech startups. They organise funding for scientists and help them spin out. The results speak for themselves: startups of the Max Planck Society have raised over €225 million in venture capital and created nearly 10,000 jobs. I can imagine not everyone inside the Max Planck Society loves seeing researchers drift off the academic track, but with 160 spin-offs, they clearly know how to do this.

And then there’s Aumovio, a spin-off from Continental. While most European OEMs pull R&D back in-house, CEO Philipp Hirschheyd and his team open up — drifting the other way. With open innovation leaders Otmar Schreiner and Jürgen Bilo, Aumovio collaborates with startups to improve its products and processes at scale. If you have technology to make cars more connected, safer, or more fun, they are one of the best addresses in Europe. A friend from the venture clienting world once told me, “Getting an automotive company to work with startups is like undrilling a steel rope under pressure and rewiring it.” Somehow, Aumovio found a way to do just that.

While Aumovio is drifting in the right direction, at the Ionos Summit last week, Andreas Nauerz, CPO of Ionos, captured the essence of this mindset perfectly:

“The AI gap is cultural, not technical. Every company will have access to the same models — what separates winners is organisational courage.” 

He spoke about the shift toward open-source and domain-specific models (showing off a voice-controlled drone), physical AI, and quantum AI. Again, it’s not about technology but about the courage to drift.

Lastly, came an encounter from the other end of the spectrum. I was standing at a bar with Thomas Jarzombek, State Secretary for State Modernisation, when a representative of the Federal Chamber of Notaries pitched to us that notaries are “indispensable to protect investors and founders.” Thomas, one of the people in the German government who understands startups best, seemed unconvinced. I certainly was not. As one of our international investors said during our last fundraise: 

“A German startup has to be significantly better than any other European one before I invest — because of the notary bureaucracy.”

One can only hope the notaries in Germany, too, learn to drift.

Wishing you a courageous week — with enough drift,

Martin

➔ Read CEO Oskari Jaakkola on Cactos' debut as a traditional electricity company

🇪🇺 The European Innovation Council (EIC) has launched its 2026 Work Programme:

€1.424 billion in funding under Horizon Europe to support breakthrough technologies from early research to market scale-up.

Eligibility

Technology Areas

Three Main Funding Schemes

➔ For full details, read the complete EIC Work Programme 2026 here

➔ Join the EIC’s Online Info Day on 13 November 2025 (09:30–16:45 CET)

Europe’s energy landscape is evolving rapidly, driven by the demand for reliable, cost-effective, and innovative solutions. 

⚡ Introducing DTM Energy — Europe’s No. 1 Energy Deep Tech Marketplace

DTM Energy enables leading corporate buyers to forge partnerships with bold energy builders and investors to accelerate breakthrough technologies in energy storage, novel fuels, energy procurement, and energy frontier applications – with AI cutting through all as a cross theme.

Plus, by joining, you can influence European energy regulation on carbon pricing, market design, and renewables. DTM Energy is shaping a more resilient European energy future.

What to Expect:

➔ Join the community powering this transition at DTM Energy or reply directly to this email if you want to partner up

This week's ecosystem gift is a one-on-one 30-minute mentoring session with Wojciech Walniczek, partner at OTB Ventures. 

Wojciech’s journey is one of those career arcs you can’t help but admire: he started as a consultant at McKinsey, became a startup operator, and then switched sides to join venture capital.

OTB Ventures is a pan-European venture capital firm, based in Warsaw. The VC invests in early-growth Deep Tech startups in the fields of enterprise AI & automation, SpaceTech, FinTech infrastructure and cybersecurity.

Its $185M fund includes public backing from the European Investment Fund (EIF) and the InvestEU Fund, with the NATO Innovation Fund (NIF) also listed as an LP alongside private investors.

Wojciech leads OTB Ventures’ space and defence investments and can offer valuable perspectives on fundraising, pitching, and Deep Tech strategy from the investor’s side – insights you could explore in your mentoring session.

➔ Make sure to register your interest here.

Last Week’s Winner: Congratulations, Timo Valtonen! You've won a one-on-one mentoring session with Elisheva Marcus on PR + Comms. We’ll be putting you in touch shortly.