What stood out is not the symbolism but the intent: parts of the German government finally recognise that resilience now depends on cross-regional cooperation, not domestic insulation. AsiaBerlin and the CVC & OI Summit 2025 are becoming instruments for that shift.
The mood this year was clear.
Exchange is no longer enough. Coordination is now a survival strategy.
A Reality Check from AsiaBerlin 2025
The discussions with Dr Bärbel Kofler, Karena Belin, and Marten Rauschenberg reflected something Europe rarely sees: openness, clarity, and a willingness to build together rather than admire the complexity of the problem.
Europe needs deeper access to Asia’s corporate engines and venture ecosystems.
Asia needs faster, de-risked pathways into European markets.
And both need a forum where strategy, venture, and policy are treated as parts of one system — not three unrelated domains.
That’s the architecture we’ve been building:
* structured and outcome-oriented conversations * curated senior communities * partnerships that continue after the event, not end there
AsiaBerlin embodies the right ingredients: creativity, diversity, and systems thinking. It is less a showcase and more a functional connector — rare in Europe, and badly needed.
Europe’s Next Chapter Depends on Alignment
The last two Inside CVC discussions landed on a shared diagnosis.
Resilience in Europe will not come from more regulation or more guarded markets. It will come from clarity, strategic alignment, and coalitions that operate at scale.
Philipp Müller laid out the uncomfortable truth: Europe’s supply chains, energy systems, digital infrastructure, and industrial capabilities have greater external dependencies than policymakers like to admit. Transparency is the first step toward resilience.
Yaron Flint pushed the corporate side: too many European companies operate through opportunistic innovation — scattered pilots, episodic investments, no coherent system.
To compete globally, companies need long-term partnership architecture, not episodic experiments. Europe has the capabilities. What it lacks is synchronisation — across corporates, government, venture, and international partners.
🎧 Latest Inside CVC episodes:
- Philipp Müller — Resilience Over Sovereignty - Yaron Flint — Strategic Partnerships Over Scattered Pilots
Today and tomorrow, we will host the CVC / Open Innovation Summit Europe in Berlin — in partnership with BorgWarner, High-Tech Gründerfonds, MANN+HUMMEL, Signal Iduna Gruppe, Wayra by Telefonica, UNITE Berlin, AsiaBerlin, and partners from across the continent.
This is not a networking event. It is a closed working session for leaders reshaping their organizations at the intersection of strategy, venture, and geopolitics.
Berlin will convene leaders building:
AI-driven industrial transformation
Energy and infrastructure resilience
Sovereignty-aligned investment strategies
New operating bridges between venture, M&A, and ecosystem design
If Miami confronted the big questions, Berlin forces action.
🎟 If you still want to join, reply to this e-mail — SVP-level and above only
Not in Europe this week?
If you’re based in the U.S. or want to continue the conversation on transatlantic strategy, sign up for the Save the Date for the CVC / OI Summit US Edition in Miami. This is where we build the bridges that move systems, not just markets.
Closing: Europe at Five to Midnight
Let’s be direct. Europe is at five to midnight. The US is scaling. Asia is coordinating at speed. Europe is still negotiating its own starting line.
If Europe fails to align — corporates with policymakers, ventures with industry, Europe with global partners — the outcome is predictable: erosion of competitiveness first, loss of relevance next.
Fragmentation is now an existential risk. Coordination is the only strategy that continues to move the needle. The encouraging part: the people and institutions capable of shifting Europe’s trajectory are already in the room. AsiaBerlin showed that. The Summit in Berlin will make it unavoidable.
But Europe must wake up — to its dependencies, to the global tempo, and to the reality that the next decade will not reward hesitation.
If Europe wants to matter in 2030 and beyond, the alignment must start now.
Not someday. Not after another consultation round.
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