Gianpiero Lotito, founder and CEO of Europe’s tenth highest valued start-up FacilityLive, has met with Jyrki Katainen, Vice-President of the European Commission for Jobs, Growth, Investment and Competitiveness. The discussion mainly focused around the creation of the next ‘unicorn’ generation in Europe.

The meeting took place just after Mr Katainen announced a new investment vehicle seeded with €410M of public money to help start-ups reach €1B ‘unicorn’ status in Europe. FacilityLive is also a founding member of the European Tech Alliance. MrLotito has previously said that Europe is just 5 to 10 years away from producing a giant on the scale of Google or Amazon.

GianpieroLotito, Founder & CEO of FacilityLive, said: “We talked about many topics which are on the European digital agenda today. Chief amongst them the European digital ecosystems of the future, how start-ups can benefit from public procurement, and how artificial intelligence will be applied in Europe. We also spoke about our idea of Small Valleys, digital ecosystems that are ideal for Europe, that we are trying to grow in Pavia, in Italy, as a model.

“We tried to express the unique point of view that European start-ups have towards technology innovation and we found an interlocutor who was not only attentive and prepared, but also curious to know what Europe is trying to express in this field. He was also interested to hear about the mindset of young companies, start-ups and those who aspire to become European and global players tomorrow, a sign that Europe is paying more attention to the entrepreneurial mindset.

“The formation of new European technological thought will be crucial in the near future to create a European Digital Industry that will make the continent and the individual countries more competitive globally.

“At FacilityLive we are counting on making an ongoing contribution to this thought – as we have been doing for years as one of the continent’s highest valued technology startups. We are proud to pave the way once again through this kind of opportunity, and the exchange of views with Mr Katainen has been extremely interesting.”