Our mission at Slush is to help founders change the world. To fulfill that mission, we first
need to understand the real challenges founders face.
The Startup Struggle Survey 2025 is our second edition of grassroots-level into the most pressing challenges of
building a startup in Europe. With over 600 responses from early-stage founders across the continent, this report capture captures the pulse of Europe's startup community—the most pressing challenges, the sources of optimism, and the realities of building a company in today’s landscape.
What we’re most interested in are the seemingly mundane, everyday friction points that hinder progress: the things
that don't make headlines, but hold companies back. While some struggles are timeless—capital, hiring, growth—others shift subtly each year. This report is a snapshot of the present. It’s our way of understanding what founders are up against in this moment.
And what became immediately clear is this: the biggest struggles in 2025 are existential—funding and growth.
Our research highlights a shifting landscape of founder pain points. Fundraising is still the top concern for 58.1% of founders, though slightly down from last year’s 63%. But what’s more striking is the surge in concerns around revenue growth, which jumped nearly 16 percentage points year-over-year. It signals a growing struggle: even when capital is raised, turning that capital into sustainable growth is far from straightforward.
Customer acquisition held steady at just over 50%, showing that despite evolving tactics and tools, acquiring and
retaining users continues to be a stubborn hurdle.
These numbers reflect what we hear daily: the rules of the game may be changing, but the stakes have never been
higher.
As we build Slush 2025, our focus is clear: to tackle the real problems founders face and to curate an environment
where breakthrough ideas get the momentum they deserve. Because helping founders change the world means starting with what holds them back.
Fundraising & Investor relations
Fundraising remains the most pressing challenge for founders in 2025, though slightly less dominant than last year.
Only 18% of founders state that it would be easy for them to raise funding right now if they wanted to, while 57% actively disagree—marking a 7.6 percentage point increase in those who find it harder to raise capital compared to 2024.
Forming investor relationships is getting tougher in 2025, with a 6.6 percentage point drop in founders reporting
challenges connecting with new investors compared to 2024.
Forming investor relationships is getting tougher in 2025, with a 6.6 percentage point drop in founders reporting challenges connecting with new investors compared to 2024.
Founders consistently point to a core tension: in a market where generating growth is difficult, it’s even harder to raise capital—because growth is exactly what investors expect. That creates a paradox. Founders face a mounting pressure to demonstrate a clear path to profitability and capital efficiency, rather than just chasing rapid expansion.
European founders also face regional headwinds.
European investors are perceived as more risk-averse than their U.S. counterparts—especially in deeptech, where long cycles and uncertain returns scare off more conservative capital. And in the AI space, oversaturation has made it harder than ever to stand out.
In 2025, founders are clearly navigating a tougher, slower, and more selective investment climate.
Customer Acquisition & Revenue Growth
While 68% of founders say it's easy to identify new prospects, only 30% say it's easy to convert them. The gap
between visibility and traction is where momentum dies.
Limited resources force constant trade-offs between building the product and executing effective go-to-market strategies. As one founder put it, “Nobody seems to know how to do GTM. It’s all trial and error.”
The growth landscape has shifted. Rising customer acquisition costs, intensifying competition, and rapidly evolving market expectations are making revenue growth harder to achieve—and even harder to sustain.
“Everything that worked 10 years ago doesn’t necessarily work today.”
In 2025, startups must be more strategic than ever—refining their value propositions, optimizing conversion funnels, and focusing not just on acquisition, but on retention and building companies that last.
Hiring & Talent
Despite the spotlight often falling on funding and growth, talent remains a quiet but persistent challenge.
In 2025, 20% of founders report difficulty attracting technical talent, and 12% report the same for non-technical roles—numbers nearly identical to last year.
The consistency in these numbers doesn’t mean the challenge is small—it means it's stubborn. For technical roles,
especially in AI, competition is fierce. Startups are going head- to-head with tech giants that offer high salaries, extensive perks, and the perception of long- term stability.
But beyond skills and salaries, founders are increasingly focused on mindset. It’s a struggle to find people who not only have the technical know-how but also the cultural alignment, drive, and accountability required in an early-stage team.
“I care about attitude—skills can be taught.”
So, the challenge is twofold: hiring fast enough to support growth, while maintaining a high bar for motivation,
ownership, and cultural fit. And in some cases, founders pointed to a deeper issue: “There seems to be a lack of ambition to grow new globally competitive businesses.”
In 2025, the talent challenge isn’t just about hiring—it’s about finding people who believe in the mission, thrive in
uncertainty, and are ready to help push the company forward.
Founder Resilience
Behind every company is a founder carrying the weight of everything. And yet, motivation in 2025 remains strong.
68% of founders feel confident in their team’s ability to reach its full potential. 81% say they wouldn’t change their founding decision. And 87% say it’s important their work has a positive impact on the world. Founding a company is truly a passion job and the belief in doing meaningful work is more than just a nice-to-have.
Motivation appears to be strengthening overall, with a 6.8% increase in founders who strongly agree their drive to
build has grown. Even co-founder alignment is trending positively, with fewer founders saying they’d choose different people if starting over.
Still, the emotional toll is very real. One founder described it as “like running against a wall every day.” Others spoke
of the stress that comes from wearing too many hats, constantly navigating an uncertain future, and trying to balance purpose with the pressure to build a profitable business. One founder described their worst fear to be their business failing, however continuing to say: “But then again, I will never know if I don't try.”
In 2025, founder resilience isn’t about having all the answers—it’s about staying in the game, fueled by mission,
belief, and the drive to move forward, even when the path is unclear.
Is there hope for Europe?
For all the challenges outlined in this report, one question lingers: Is there hope for European tech?
The answer from founders is a resounding—if nuanced—yes.
There’s a quiet confidence brewing beneath the surface. Founders point to signs that Europe is maturing in all the right ways: a new wave of second-time founders reinvesting their capital and experience back into the ecosystem; a growing bench of VCs who don’t just bring money, but conviction; and an operator-to-founder flywheel that’s finally kicking in.
The optimism goes beyond infrastructure. Europe’s talent pool is elite—world-class researchers, engineers, and
product minds are staying here in Europe to build. Our universities and research institutions are producing cutting-edge work, especially in AI, biotech, and quantum. And more founders are thinking globally from Day 1—bolder, more technical, and more mission-driven than ever before.
What gives many hope is Europe’s deeper sense of purpose. Founders speak with pride about building companies
grounded in ethics, inclusion, and responsibility. There’s a belief that Europe can define a new kind of tech model: one that’s sustainable, values-driven, and globally competitive.
“We have the talent, the ethics, and the vision. Now the belief is catching up.”
That belief is tested by real concerns. Europe’s fragmented regulatory landscape is a recurring frustration—founders feel like they’re building five companies at once just to operate across borders. The mindset around risk is still too cautious. Deep tech startups struggle to find late-stage capital, and female founders still face systemic barriers to networks and visibility. For some, “European tech” still feels like an abstract idea, fractured across national lines.
And yet, resilience is a theme that runs throughout. In a world defined by uncertainty, European founders continue to build. They’re navigating bureaucracy, pushing through risk aversion, and rewriting the playbook
in real time. There’s hope in the momentum that’s building, even if the system isn’t perfect yet.
If the 2020s have proven anything, it’s that Europe is capable of adaptation. These struggles are real, but they are not excuses—they are a call to action.
Looking ahead
The Startup Struggle Survey 2025 is not just a snapshot of founder pain, it's a map of where support is needed
most. What we’ve heard from hundreds of founders across Europe is both sobering and energizing: the struggle is real, but so is the determination.
Founders are under immense pressure—to grow, to raise, to hire, to deliver—but they are not giving up.
They’re more mission-driven, more globally ambitious, and more focused than ever on building meaningful companies in a challenging world.
At Slush, we don’t believe in sugarcoating the founder journey. We believe in meeting it head-on—with speed,
velocity and a respect for the people building the future.
That’s why we exist.
Slush is the world’s leading startup event and the largest gathering of venture capital, bringing over $4 trillion in assets under management to Helsinki for one week. But more than that, it’s a platform for pushing the ecosystem forward—for asking the hard questions and creating space for the next wave of bold ideas.
In 2025, we’re doubling down on our goal: making Europe the best place to build and
scale companies.
Data Overview
This report is based on 607 responses from early-stage European startup founders collected in Q1 2025. The average company was founded in 2021, making them approximately 4 years old at the time of the survey. On average, founding teams consist of 2.5 founders, with 60.17% reporting at least one repeat founder.
Funding Stage
- No funding: 68.37%
- Seed: 23.39%
- Series A or later: 8.24%
Top Industries Represented
- Enterprise Software: 11.86%
- Deeptech: 7.91%
- Gaming: 6.10%
- Fintech & Insurance Tech: 5.93%
- Health & Wellbeing: 5.11%
This data reflects a diverse mix of industries, stages, and founder backgrounds—offering a grounded view into the realities of building a startup in Europe in 2025.