Growth Equity Update October 2026 (Rothschild & Co)

Summary

• The EU launched the Scale Up Europe Fund in June 2026 with c€5bn funding to fill the late-stage funding gap for European tech companies.p.1
• US growth equity fundraising reached $440bn in the first nine months of 2026, which is 2.7x the amount raised at 9m 2025.p.1
• European growth equity fundraising reached $66.9bn across 500 deals of $20m or more in the first nine months of 2026.p.8
• Artificial Intelligence dominated US fundraising, securing $311bn across 122 deals to represent 71% of total funds raised.p.6
• Europe experienced a sharp rise in mega-deals, recording twelve $1bn+ raises in the first nine months of 2026 compared to two in 9m 2025.p.8
• UK data centre operator Nscale completed a $3.36bn raise via convertible loan notes in September 2026.p.4

Key insights

1. The Scaleup Europe Fund directly invests from Series B onward with ticket sizes of c€100m to catalyse funding rounds of several hundred € millions.p.1
2. Six companies—OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, Prometheus, Databricks, and Safe Superintelligence—accounted for 58% of all US growth equity fundraising in the first nine months of 2026.p.6
3. Defense fundraising expanded rapidly across both markets, reaching $14.8bn year-to-date in the US and $5.7bn in Europe.p.1
4. European AI fundraising reached $14.1bn in 9m 2026, leading all sectors with 21% of total funds raised.p.9
5. Nscale's $3.36bn convertible loan note round stands as the second-largest growth equity raise in European history behind Mistral's $3.5bn round.p.4
6. According to the Bank of America survey, 59% of fund managers would require 10-year Treasury yields to reach 6% or higher before shifting allocation from stocks to bonds.p.11
7. The US recorded 69 growth equity raises of $100m or more in September 2026, making it the largest month by deal volume in three years.p.13