European tech companies create new EU lobbying group, headed by Skype co-founder

Oct 27 saw the launch of European Tech Alliance, which aims to represent Europe’s technology ‘scale-ups’ to influence policymaking at European Union governments and institutions. Headed by Skype co-founder Niklas Zennström, now the founder and CEO of VC firm Atomico, the brand new lobbying group intends to “share their experience of building their businesses in Europe with policymakers” and “contribute to the Commission’s Digital Single Market strategy“.

The European tech companies that are backing the new association include King, Spotify, Rovio, BlaBlaCar, AVG, Made.com, Supercell, SwiftKey, Klarna and The Allegro Group. European Tech Alliance president Zennström says. “We have formed an alliance to share our collective experience with policymakers and challenge mindsets about Europe, technology, and the Internet. There are so many European tech company success stories. We think we will be able to help European leaders understand that Europe is good at tech and show how policymakers can clear the way for the tech industry to grow further.”