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Europe’s New Innovation Model: Inside 28Digital’s Venture Platform Vision

In this interview, Diva Tommei, Chief Innovation & Investment Officer at 28Digital, outlines why Europe needs venture platforms rather than more standalone venture funds. She explains how 28Digital has built a full-stack innovation ecosystem that supports founders from education through international scaling — including Master’s programmes, researcher pre-venture support, startup incubation, open innovation with corporates, access-to-finance services, and soft-landing programmes for global expansion.

Tommei emphasises that today’s startups require far more than “smart capital”: they need regulatory guidance, market access, mentorship, and diversified funding strategies. This is why 28Digital is launching its own fund initiatives as part of a broader public–private venture platform model.

A significant theme of the conversation is Europe’s fragmentation. Tommei highlights the importance of the proposed “28th regime”, a unified regulatory and operational framework that would allow startups to scale across Europe as if it were a single market — simplifying taxation, certification, and data governance.

She also discusses how LPs increasingly value ecosystem-backed strategies that create defensibility, diversification, and long-term resilience. For Tommei, success by 2030 means Europe embracing a distinctly European innovation model — one grounded in public purpose and collaboration — and creating a landscape where founders scale as European startups, not as isolated national ventures.

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