Europe’s AI startups have a structural worry. The companies selling them model access are also shipping the products built on top of it. Legal drafting, customer support, coding, sales outreach: every layer above the model is now contested ground.
At OpenAI’s developer day in London, one of its European executives acknowledged the friction rather than denying it. Tricia Troth, who leads go-to-market for startups in EMEA, said there is tension with some European clients where OpenAI launches rival products, and that the company tries to bring those startups inside rather than leave them exposed.
Legora as the test case
She pointed to Swedish legaltech company Legora. OpenAI released Astra for Law this year, a dedicated legal offering that sits precisely where Legora’s customers work. Troth said the two companies co-developed a legal plug-in together and framed OpenAI’s role as catalyst rather than competitor.
That argument is doing a lot of work. A startup that builds on one model provider inherits that provider’s roadmap, and when the roadmap turns toward your vertical, the partnership has to substitute for a defensive moat.
The programmes behind the partnership talk
OpenAI’s startup team is staffed with former founders, early startup employees and ex-investors. It offers model access, engineering and fine-tuning help, marketing and customer acquisition support, and introductions to capital. The range runs from pre-funding companies up to scaleups such as Lovable and Legora. Troth declined to name the venture firms it partners with, describing the relationships only as spanning tier-one funds, incubators, accelerators and academia.
European founders will judge the claim on whether the application layer stays open to them once the giants have a product of their own to sell.
