Good morning there,
The markets have always had a weakness for a good acronym.
FAANG packaged Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google into a neat narrative of tech dominance. More recently, Silicon Valley has been pushing for “MANGOS” (Meta, Anthropic, Nvidia, Google, OpenAI and SpaceX) to capture the AI era in a single, punchy label.
These acronyms are, of course, a bit silly. But they turn messy, competitive reality into a story markets can rally around. Which raises an awkward question for Europe: why has it never managed to produce one? Here’s a suggestion: BRIOCHE.
Bolt, Revolut, Iceye, Oura, Celonis, Helsing, ElevenLabs. A slightly indulgent but undeniably strong lineup spanning mobility, fintech, defence, enterprise software, AI and wearables — from Tallinn to Munich, Helsinki to London.
And before anyone gets too precious about it: yes, it’s imperfect. That’s the point.
Some will say the ingredients are wrong. Others will argue key names are missing. Mistral? Synthesia? Spotify? Fine. Swap them in. Improve it. Break it apart.
Because for all the talk of “European champions”, there’s still no shared shorthand for the companies actually building them.
So go ahead: tear BRIOCHE apart. What’s wrong with it and what would you replace it with? As always, I'm keen to hear your thoughts.
Elsewhere today:
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