Last quarter, I argued that Europe’s rise to match the US in agrifoodtech funding and to lead in deal flow was less a case of Europe thriving than of Europe “falling less quickly” than the US. I warned that the EU AI Act, whilst ambitious in its aims, risked tethering its innovators to a regulatory anchor and turning Brussels into a spectator to history’s most important technological revolution. My message was that ambition without pragmatism becomes self-defeating. As a recovering lawyer, I spent a large part of my career trying to save clients from the law of unintended consequences in the face of corporate and financial regulation. That background has left me wondering whether Europe’s instinct for regulatory overreach might, perversely, create opportunity for tech startups. I still think the AI Act needs refinement if Europe wants to avoid an outbreak of administrative paralysis. However, my review of the AI Act and other EU regulations most likely to affect corporate activity in the agrifood sector leads me to conclude that the AI Act may also help create a structural moat for deep-tech startups: a “Brussels moat”. ‘Europe’s instinct for regulatory overreach might, perversely, create opportunity for tech startups’ I previously argued that the AI Act could be a major constraint on European innovation. This is true because law moves much more slowly than technology, and regulation inevitably fails to keep pace with technological change. Yet the AI Act will also push the market towards systems that are documented, auditable and…
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