The larger point is: you can't replace a healthy investment ecosystem with grants. A government fund is itself representative of a lack of ambition. If the EU actually wants its own SV, they're going to have to address regulation, not throw money around.

The real problems startups face in the EU are labor and tax laws. Companies can't use equity as compensation (which is a big lure for talent) and it's extremely hard to fire people (which makes pivoting or dealing with general market changes impossible for small companies). Pro-employee policies are necessarily anti-employer. Smaller, more innovative, companies have a harder time surviving such policies. So long as there is greater risk in EU companies, investors will take their money elsewhere.