Europe has world-class startup hubs. Zurich and Upper Bavaria are in the EU's top 5 of 241 regions. But on joint patents, Europe's hub network scores 0.40 against America's 0.68.

Europe's scale-up gap is not only a funding problem. It is also a deployment problem. Inside the procurement systems that block Europe from buying its own innovation at scale.

Europe creates strong startups but loses scale at the capital layer. This analysis explains the structural mechanics behind the European scale-up gap.