European companies are looking for new levers to accelerate their transformation, strengthen their economic sovereignty and build lasting growth. One strategic pool remains largely untapped: the talent that came out of the startup and scale-up ecosystem.
These profiles grew up in demanding environments where fast execution, a results culture and product innovation are daily reflexes. Today they express a clear ambition: to put their energy and expertise at the service of more structured, more concrete projects with real impact.
That ambition still struggles to translate into reality.
According to a study run by Sonnar in partnership with Institut Choiseul, across a panel of 215 talents from the European tech sector, only 6.1% have moved from Venture Capital to Private Equity.
A tech generation that has come of age, looking for tangible impact on the real economy
The people surveyed are, for the most part, experienced professionals: 85% have more than five years of experience and 71% currently hold leadership, management or strategic expert roles.
Beyond the prestige of their backgrounds, what emerges is a genuine shift in what they are looking for. This generation, which helped build the flagships of European tech, now wants to take part in more tangible transformation:
- 70% of respondents say their main professional driver is to generate a tangible impact on the economy: creating jobs, growing companies, contributing to the reshoring of strategic industries, or supporting the modernisation of industrial players.
- They show growing interest in projects that combine ambition, responsibility, local roots and long-term stability.
Private Equity: a strategic environment that tech talent still finds hard to read
Private Equity offers the right conditions for that new professional project: mature companies to transform, entrepreneurial paths inside existing businesses (growing SMEs and mid-caps, succession, digitalisation), and a structured strategic framework.
Yet the bridges between the two worlds remain too weak. Only 6.1% of the talents surveyed have moved from Venture Capital to Private Equity, and fewer than 5% in the other direction. Movement remains marginal, despite converging challenges around steering, innovation and sustainable growth.
And yet 26% of respondents say they are considering such a move in the medium term, a sign of growing appetite for more tangible paths anchored in structured environments.
The gap between intent and reality comes down to clearly identified obstacles:
- A cultural disconnect (63.7%) between the management codes of tech and those of more traditional companies,
- A difficulty adapting on both sides (57.1%), given radically different environments in terms of pace, governance and process,
- A lack of suitable or visible entry points (37.3%), such as transition programmes, mentoring or hybrid assignments,
- An undervaluation of startup experience in conventional recruitment processes (27.8%).
Three levers to build bridges between VC and PE
Faced with this situation, the study by Sonnar and Institut Choiseul does not stop at the diagnosis. It puts forward concrete actions to help skills circulate between two ecosystems that have everything to gain from moving closer.
1. Rethink recruitment practices
Tech talent is often confined to "VC only" or "startup only" tracks, out of habit or because their transferability is not understood. HR teams and search firms urgently need a more agnostic reading of career paths, recognising execution capability, organisational agility and a results mindset as skills that work just as well in PE-backed companies.
2. Roll out secondment assignments
Modelled on consulting firms, these temporary immersions of six to twelve months would let profiles from VC or tech take part in PE projects, inside funds or in portfolio companies, and vice versa. The benefit runs both ways: talent gradually gets used to new environments, while SMEs gain steering methods born of fast growth, and startups and scale-ups gain sound practices in cost control and profitability.
3. Strengthen targeted training
Tech skills such as product, data and go-to-market strategy are usually well mastered by these profiles, but they sometimes lack the fundamentals of Private Equity: financial structuring, LBO mechanics, consolidated governance. Short modules of four to six weeks can close that gap without interrupting their career. Such training would gain from being offered by the funds themselves, alongside business schools or industry bodies.
A turning point to reconcile innovation and solidity
The signals are there. Tech talent wants to step out of hypergrowth and invest its expertise in steadier models. On the other side, PE-backed companies need people able to accelerate their modernisation, digitalise their offering and structure their organisation.
Bringing these two worlds together is a strategic issue for the whole European economy. It is no longer about setting agility against rigour, or innovation against profitability, but about making them work together.
