Kyiv B2C edtech platform Kodree has secured $10 million in user acquisition financing (UA) from financial services firm PvX Partners. Kodree is the first product from Rist Labs, a co-founding studio launched by the founders of Ukrainian edtech company Mate academy – Roman Apostol, Anna Apostol and Max Lysak – focused on building AI-powered B2C products for Tier-1 global markets.  A subscription-based edtech platform, Kodree provides structured learning paths supported by an AI assistant that suggests solutions and provides feedback, alongside a community-driven learning experience designed to build skills through hands-on exercises, real-world projects and group collaboration. With users in 185 countries, the platform helps those looking to make a career switch to develop in-demand skills for new opportunities, while also supporting professionals seeking to upskill and perform better in their current roles.  Led by Kodree CEO and former Mate Academy Head of Product Oleksandr Bartosiuk, the platform operates as a separate company with its own P&L. “About 80 per cent of the learning process in Kodree is hands-on practice. The AI assistant helps users move faster by suggesting solutions, checking answers, and providing feedback along the way. We don’t believe in passive learning through watching YouTube videos — it creates an illusion of knowledge but doesn’t build real skills,” Bartosiuk said.  Kodree’s parent company, Mate academy, is an established edtech company in the Ukrainian tech ecosystem known for its AI-powered learning platform that helps users develop skills for both technical and non-technical roles and build careers in IT and beyond. The company operates across multiple markets and is supported by a robust product and engineering team.  According to Mate academy co-founder Max Lysak, launching Rist Labs is a natural extension of the team’s internal product experiments. “At Mate academy, we’ve constantly experimented with new product ideas. Over time, this evolved into a dedicated R&D direction. Rist Labs gives us a way to systematically build new global products,” Lysak said. The company will use the credit facility to scale marketing efforts and accelerate global user acquisition.  PvX is a financial services platform specialising in cohort financing and market intelligence for consumer applications. Backed by General Catalyst, PvX provides businesses with non-dilutive, scalable capital. 

Qdrant, an open-source vector search engine, has closed a $50 million Series B funding round led by AVP, with participation from Bosch Ventures, Unusual Ventures, Spark Capital, and 42CAP. Vector search initially emerged as a technique for retrieving nearest neighbours from dense embeddings within relatively static datasets. However, modern AI systems operate under more dynamic conditions. Retrieval is now often embedded in agent-based workflows that execute large numbers of queries across multiple data types while interacting with continuously evolving datasets. Applications such as retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), semantic search, and agent-based reasoning require retrieval systems capable of operating reliably at production scale. Tools designed primarily for single-vector similarity or built on legacy indexing architectures can struggle under these demands. Qdrant has been developed to address these changing requirements. Built in Rust, the system treats retrieval as a set of modular components (including indexing, scoring, filtering, and ranking) that engineers can configure and combine. This composable approach enables teams to work with dense and sparse vectors, metadata filters, multi-vector representations, and custom scoring functions while controlling how these elements affect relevance, latency, and cost. By exposing these options, the platform allows search performance to be adjusted to priorities such as accuracy, speed, or efficiency without requiring major architectural changes as workloads evolve. AndréZayarni, CEO and co-founder of Qdrant, said that many vector databases were originally designed simply to store dense embeddings and retrieve nearest neighbours, capabilities that are now considered a basic requirement: Production AI systems need a search engine where every aspect of retrieval - how you index, score, filter, and balance latency against precision - is a composable decision. That's what we've built, and what developers and enterprises are looking for as they scale internal and external AI workloads. This funding accelerates our ability to make it the standard. The new funding will support the further development and adoption of Qdrant’s composable vector search platform as infrastructure for production AI systems.

Estonian-founded SkySelect, an AI-powered procurement platform transforming how airlines and maintenance providers source aircraft parts, has secured $9 million in funding.  Airlines face mounting pressure to modernise legacy procurement systems that leave them holding approximately $50 billion in excess parts inventory globally.  When aircraft are grounded due to missing components, airlines scramble to procure parts through manual, fragmented processes that can take days or weeks. Aircraft-on-ground (AOG) incidents, where a plane is grounded waiting for parts, cost airlines around $30 billion each year. Airlines also carry more than $10 billion in excess inventory. Advancements in procurement technology are enabling airlines and maintenance, repair, and overhaul organisations (MROs) to reduce the number of shipments by up to 30 per cent while keeping fewer parts in stock. This minimises logistics costs and reduces carbon emissions, making operations more sustainable. SkySelect pioneered the application of AI to aviation parts procurement before AI became ubiquitous in marketplace technology.  Unlike generalised large language models, SkySelect's platform employs specialised AI to match aircraft part requests with optimal suppliers across its network of thousands of vendors worldwide, providing real-time market visibility. This targeted approach enables just-in-time procurement, building operational resilience while reducing the need for costly safety stock. The company also partners with major ERP solution providers to streamline the end-to-end part procurement process through seamless integrations.  Since its launch, SkySelect has processed over $6 billion in transactions, with $1.3 billion completed in 2025 alone. The company is currently landing approximately one new major client per month, with recent additions including JetBlue, Sun Country Airlines, Air Transport Services Group, Widerøe, and Vueling. Verb Ventures and RockCreek co-led the round, with participation from SmartCap Green Fund, funded by the European Union NextGenerationEU, and existing investors Bain Capital Ventures and Lux Capital. Erkki Brakmann, Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of SkySelect, shared: "Legacy procurement systems and processes are fundamentally broken. Airlines invest over $40 billion annually in aircraft parts while simultaneously carrying $50 billion in excess inventory — a massive inefficiency that our AI-driven platform directly addresses. This growth funding validates both our early-mover advantage in applying AI to aviation procurement and the tangible value we're delivering to customers." Alexander Chikunov, founding partner at Verb Ventures, says: "SkySelect exemplifies the kind of B2B platform we back: a platform that brings transparency to opaque supply chains through data and automation. This new funding positions SkySelect to capture a larger share of the $40 billion aircraft materials market."  Anahita Smeets, Managing Director at RockCreek, says: "RockCreek invests in AI and innovative companies that deliver both economic value and operational resilience. SkySelect addresses a critical bottleneck in aviation by using AI to match supply and demand for parts. With airlines facing billions in losses from aircraft-on-ground delays and excess inventory, we believe SkySelect's platform offers a compelling solution at scale." The investment will be used to enhance its AI sourcing and procurement optimisation tools, helping airlines and MROs build a more reliable, predictable, and sustainable supply chain. SkySelect plans to hire across product development, data science, and customer success in its USA, India, and Estonia offices. Lead image: Karen Harms.

Switzerland’s tech ecosystem in 2025 showed strong resilience and continued specialisation in deep technology, life sciences, climate innovation, and industrial AI. Startups across the country attracted €3.3 billion in funding through hundreds of rounds, reinforcing Switzerland’s position as one of Europe’s most capital-efficient innovation hubs. Investment was largely concentrated in science-driven and technically complex sectors, with healthcare and biotechnology representing the largest share of activity. Climate and energy technologies also secured substantial funding, reflecting increasing investor focus on decarbonization and energy infrastructure. The ecosystem is characterised by a strong early-stage pipeline and close collaboration between startups, research institutions, and global investors. As demand for deeptech, healthcare, and climate solutions continues to grow globally, Switzerland remains well-positioned to play a significant role in developing and scaling the next generation of high-impact technologies (for more detailed analyses of the European technology ecosystem, check out Tech.eu’s annual report: European Tech 2025 – The Big Picture). Here are the 10 companies that raised the most in 2025. Amount raised in 2025: $378M Energy Vault is an energy storage technology company that develops and deploys utility-scale solutions designed to support the transition to renewable energy. Its technologies include gravity-based storage systems, battery storage, and hybrid hydrogen solutions, combined with software platforms that help utilities and industrial customers manage and optimise energy assets. Founded in 2017, the company is known for its gravity energy storage technology, which stores electricity by lifting heavy composite blocks using cranes and releasing the stored energy when the blocks are lowered to generate power for the grid. In 2025, Energy Vault secured $378 million across three funding rounds to support the continued development and deployment of its energy storage projects. Amount raised in 2025: €150M Teylor is a fintech company developing technology to digitise and automate lending for small and medium-sized businesses. Founded in 2018, the company provides a digital platform that helps banks, financial institutions, and investors streamline credit processes, from loan applications and risk assessment to financing and management. Its software enables lenders to launch and scale digital credit products while giving SMEs faster and simpler access to funding. In addition to its software platform, Teylor also operates lending and private debt solutions to finance business loans directly. Teylor has secured €150 million in 2025 to expand its factoring business across seven European markets and further develop technology-driven financing solutions for small and medium-sized enterprises. Amount raised in 2025: $162M Climeworks is a climate technology company that develops direct air capture (DAC) systems to remove carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere. Founded in 2009, the company designs, builds, and operates large-scale carbon removal plants that capture CO₂ from ambient air and permanently store it underground. Climeworks provides carbon removal services to businesses and organisations aiming to achieve net-zero emissions and improve climate impact. In 2025, Climeworks secured a $162 million equity funding round to support the expansion of its operations and the development of next-generation direct air capture (DAC) technology. Amount raised in 2025: $150M Distalmotion is a medtech company developing robotic surgery technology designed to expand access to minimally invasive procedures. Founded in 2012 as a spin-off from EPFL in Lausanne, Distalmotion developed the DEXTER® Robotic Surgery System, a surgical robot designed to integrate into existing operating rooms. The technology supports minimally invasive procedures in areas such as general surgery, gynaecology, and urology while aiming to make robotic surgery more accessible for hospitals and surgeons. Distalmotion has closed a $150 million round to accelerate US adoption of its DEXTER robotic surgery system and support ongoing clinical research and product development. Amount raised in 2025: $130M Auterion is a software company developing operating systems and AI-powered platforms for autonomous drones and robotic systems. The company builds a common software stack that allows unmanned aerial and ground vehicles from different manufacturers to operate together and be managed as coordinated fleets. Its core technology, AuterionOS, provides flight control, mission planning, data analysis, and fleet management tools for enterprise and defence applications. In 2025, Auterion secured $130 million in funding to scale production of AI-powered coordinated drone systems and expand its AuterionOS and Nemyx platforms globally. Amount raised in 2025: $130M GlycoEra is a biotechnology company developing precision therapies for autoimmune diseases using glycoengineering and protein-degradation technologies. The company builds biologic medicines designed to selectively target and degrade disease-causing circulating proteins such as autoantibodies. Its platform enables the rapid and selective removal of pathogenic proteins without broadly suppressing the immune system, with the goal of improving safety and treatment outcomes for patients with autoimmune and other protein-driven diseases. GlycoEra has closed a $130 million Series B round to advance its lead extracellular protein degrader into clinical trials, bring a second program to the clinic, and expand its pipeline of precision therapies for autoimmune diseases. Amount raised in 2025: €106.2M Oculis is a company focused on developing innovative treatments for eye and neuro-ophthalmic diseases. The company develops non-invasive topical therapies, including advanced eye-drop formulations designed to treat conditions affecting both the front and back of the eye. Through proprietary drug-delivery technologies and research in ophthalmology and neurology, Oculis aims to improve vision and quality of life for patients worldwide. Oculis secured a €106.2 million loan facility in 2025 to support the development of new treatments for eye diseases. Amount raised in 2025: $120M CeQur is a medical device company developing technologies to simplify insulin delivery for people living with diabetes. The company focuses on wearable insulin delivery solutions that replace multiple daily injections with a discreet patch-based system. Its main product, CeQur Simplicity, is a wearable insulin patch designed to deliver rapid-acting mealtime insulin in a simple, injection-free format. CeQur’s technology aims to improve adherence to insulin therapy and help patients manage blood glucose levels more easily in everyday life. In 2025, CeQur secured $120 million to scale diabetes management solutions. Amount raised in 2025: $105M Ecorobotix is an agritech company developing AI-powered precision farming technology designed to make crop care more efficient and sustainable. The company builds ultra-high-precision spraying systems that use computer vision and artificial intelligence to detect weeds and treat crops plant by plant. Its flagship technology enables farmers to apply crop protection products only where needed, significantly reducing chemical use while improving yields and lowering environmental impact. In 2025, Ecorobotix secured $105 million to accelerate growth. Amount raised in 2025: $100M Neural Concept is an AI software company developing engineering intelligence platforms for product design and development. Founded in 2018 as a spin-off from EPFL in Lausanne, the company embeds deep learning and generative AI into engineering workflows to help teams design, simulate, and optimise products faster. Its platform enables engineers to analyse complex physical systems, explore design alternatives, and accelerate product development across industries such as automotive, aerospace, energy, and electronics. In 2025, Neural Concept raised $100 million to further develop its AI engineering platform and expand enterprise AI adoption across advanced industrial workflows.

Delfos Energy, an AI company building “virtual engineer” technology for the energy industry, today announced that it now supports more than 1,000 energy sites across Europe, alongside the close of a €3 million Seed extension round. The round includes new investment from Vox Capital/COPEL, existing investors include Headline, Contrarian Ventures, DOMO VC and EDP Ventures. Delfos Energy has now raised a total of €10 million. Delfos Energy builds applied AI for renewable and energy infrastructure operators - helping them run assets more efficiently, reliably and at scale. Its platform acts as a continuously operating virtual engineer: it ingests operational data in real time, detects abnormal behaviour and early-stage failures, interprets complex signals in context, and turns them into prioritised, actionable recommendations for engineering, operations and executive teams. Since 2017, Delfos Energy has applied machine learning in production environments across energy systems, combining deep domain expertise with production-grade AI. Rather than simply surfacing data or triggering alerts, Delfos Energy is designed to solve an execution and decision-making problem: helping teams understand what matters most, why it matters, and what to do next - even across large, distributed fleets. Unlike traditional monitoring and analytics tools that stop at dashboards, alarms or generic anomaly flags, Delfos Energy replicates the work of an experienced performance engineer. The platform: Interprets operational signals, not just detects them. Provides context and prioritisation across sites and assets. Suggests recommended actions, including what to do, when to do it and why. Helps teams move from “something looks off” to “here’s the likely cause and the best next step” faster Delfos Energy also provides natural-language interfaces, including tools such as WhatsApp, so teams can query complex operational data in plain language, lowering the barrier to adoption across organisations. The company now supports more than 1,000 energy sites across over 10 countries.  According to Guilherme Studart, CEO and co-founder of Delfos Energy: “The energy transition will only succeed if existing infrastructure runs far more efficiently and reliably than it does today. Delfos Energy uses AI to capture and scale the knowledge of experienced engineers - translating complex operational signals into clear priorities and actions at a time when expertise is being lost.” The Seed extension will be used to consolidate Delfos Energy’s AI Suite, deepening deployments across key energy transition markets and continuing expansion into adjacent energy transition verticals, including energy storage Once Delfos Energy reaches sufficient scale and maturity in Europe, the company expects the US to represent its next natural market.

Elaia has closed its third deep tech seed fund (DTS3) at €134 million, double the size of its previous deep tech seed funds. The fund is developed in partnership with leading European research institutions, including PSL, INRIA, CNRS, the Barcelona  Supercomputing Centre, and the Max Planck Foundation. Since its first close of €60 million in March 2024, DTS3 has already deployed capital across 11  portfolio companies in computing, life sciences, and industrial innovation. DTS3 will invest between €1 million and €13 million in pre-seed and seed-stage B2B startups across Europe, partnering with founders at the earliest stages.  Since inception, DTS3 has backed companies with global ambition addressing fundamental bottlenecks in next-generation infrastructure, such as:  Proxima Fusion (Germany): Stellarator-based fusion power plants to provide clean, safe,  and limitless baseload energy, positioning Europe as a leader in commercial fusion by the  2030s.  GetVocal (France): Fully auditable conversational AI agents for enterprise customer support, enabling companies to build trustworthy hybrid human-AI workforces with real-time oversight and transparent governance.  Biophta (France): A topical ophthalmic insert to replace daily eye drops and invasive injections with a simple, patient-friendly solution for conditions like glaucoma and macular edema.  According to Anne-Sophie Carrese, Partner at Elaia, DTS3 builds on a partnership model that the Firm pioneered through the PSL Innovation Fund and Elaia Alpha II Fund, which has already produced notable outcomes, including Aqemia, Alice&Bob, and Mablink Bioscience, which was acquired by Eli Lilly. “These partnerships with Europe's top research institutions give us early visibility into breakthrough technologies and exceptional founding teams. After nearly two decades backing deep tech  founders, we're seeing an acceleration of innovation that rivals any ecosystem in the world. From  Zurich to Paris with hubs emerging across the continent, European deep tech is reaching escape  velocity.” According to Xavier Lazarus, Managing Partner at Elaia: "DTS3 reflects our international ambition: we're backing founders across Europe, and our growing investor network reflects this geographic mix. We're in an intense deployment phase and eager to meet ambitious entrepreneurs  building Europe's next generation of deep tech companies."  With 11 investments completed and strong momentum, DTS3 will continue deploying capital throughout 2026 across three core pillars: the future of computing (AI, cybersecurity,  semiconductor/photonics, quantum), the future of industry (physical AI, robotics, material, energy), and the future of life sciences (biotech, digital health, medical devices).

Neuramancer AI Solutions GmbH (formerly Neuraforge) has closed a €1.7 million pre-seed funding round led by Vanagon Ventures, with participation from Bayern Kapital and a group of additional venture capital firms and business angels. The investment consortium also includes the Nuremberg-based ZOHO.VC and family office Lightfield Equity. In addition, the founding team is supported by senior executives from the financial services and big-tech sectors, as well as experienced platform founders acting as business angels. Deepfakes and other forms of AI-generated media manipulation are increasingly recognised as a risk for both businesses and society. According to the German Insurance Association (GdV), insurance fraud results in billions of euros in damages each year, with generative AI contributing to new forms of manipulation, such as altered damage images and manipulated video calls. As AI models continue to improve, identifying such forgeries is becoming more challenging. Based on several years of research, Neuramancer has developed a detection technology designed to identify statistical irregularities in image and video noise. The system focuses on structural artifacts rather than semantic content, which the company says enables it to detect manipulations that may be difficult to identify using conventional AI-based detection methods. In addition to detection, the platform generates forensic analysis reports that show how and where media may have been altered, providing insights that can support fraud investigation and prevention. Co-founder Anika Gruner said the market for deepfake detection is still in its early stages but is expected to grow significantly in the coming years, while regulatory requirements for transparent and trustworthy AI systems are also increasing. While many providers rely on intransparent black-box models, we pursue a scientifically grounded, fully transparent approach. For us, it is clear: European, explainable AI will become a strategic competitive advantage for companies that need to protect themselves against synthetic manipulation. The new funding will be used to scale Neuramancer’s deepfake detection platform, expand the company’s team, and support commercialisation and market expansion, with an initial focus on the insurance industry.

Milan-based Cleafy, a cybersecurity company focused on the banking sector, has raised €12 million in a Series B funding round co-led by United Ventures and eCAPITAL, bringing the company’s total funding to €22 million. Traditional security and anti-fraud systems often operate in silos, analysing isolated signals or individual transactions using predefined rules. As a result, banks frequently respond to fraud only after it has occurred, leading to financial losses, operational disruption, and reputational risks. Many attacks, however, could potentially be prevented if the underlying infrastructure and intent behind them were identified earlier. Cleafy aims to address this challenge with a platform designed to analyse how attacks originate, evolve, and spread across digital channels and internal systems. By combining data from web, mobile, backend, and network sources with real-time threat intelligence, the platform identifies malicious infrastructure, attacker behaviour, and emerging attack patterns at an early stage. With the introduction of Cleafy for Workforce, the company has also extended this approach to detecting insider threats and compromised accounts within corporate environments. While fraudsters weaponize AI to scale attacks at machine speed, European banks are fighting back with outdated, reactive tools. We built Cleafy to change this equation fundamentally, reconstructing how attacks form and stopping them weeks before they can cause damage. Our zero customer churn over more than a decade proves this approach works, said Matteo Bogana, CEO and co-founder at Cleafy. The funding round comes as new European regulations, including the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) and cybersecurity requirements introduced under NIS2, raise expectations for digital resilience across the financial sector. With the new investment, Cleafy plans to accelerate the development of its predictive security capabilities, expand global threat analysis, and strengthen its presence in key banking markets across Europe and Latin America.

The Tech.eu Summit London 2026 is set to take place on 21–22 April 2026 at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre in London, bringing together leading founders, investors and technology professionals from across Europe and beyond for two days of in-depth discussions, practical insights and meaningful connections. As the event draws closer, here is a closer look at what attendees can expect. Who is the summit for The summit is designed for founders, investors and technology professionals who are actively building and scaling technology companies in Europe. Rather than offering a broad survey of the industry, the agenda is built around execution: what is working in the market today, where the risks are, and how Europe's leading builders are navigating an increasingly complex environment. What will be discussed Sessions across the two days will cover a wide range of themes that reflect the current priorities and pressure points of the European technology ecosystem. Artificial intelligence will be a central thread throughout the event, but the focus will go beyond the generative AI narrative. Discussions will examine what it actually takes to build defensible AI businesses in 2026, from infrastructure and enterprise adoption to agents, compliance, return on investment and long-term competitive positioning. Sessions will also explore AI's role in addressing major societal and industrial challenges, and what an AI-first operating model means in practice for founders and investors alike. Europe's global competitiveness will also be a recurring theme. Conversations will address how Europe can strengthen its position internationally, covering the regulatory environment, investment dynamics, technology sovereignty, and the policy initiatives aimed at making the region more attractive for founders and capital. The evolving venture landscape is another area the summit will explore in depth. From AI-native companies doing more with less to the rise of new fund structures and emerging manager strategies, sessions will look at how the investor-founder relationship is changing. Topics will include defensibility in the age of AI, shifting return timelines, persistent funding gaps, and the data signals that indicate when a company is ready to scale, move toward profitability or pursue an exit. Fintech will be examined through the lens of resilience and reinvention. The European and UK fintech landscape will be discussed in terms of growth challenges, regulatory dynamics and recent M&A and IPO activity, alongside the reasons why Europe remains both one of the most demanding and most defensible markets in which to scale a financial technology business. Deep tech and industrial transformation will be highlighted through a focus on the next wave of innovation across robotics, autonomy, advanced manufacturing, infrastructure and energy. Sessions will address the commercialisation realities of deep tech, the capital intensity involved, and the growing gap between funding activity and enterprise readiness. Sector transformation and real-world adoption will bring together perspectives from across healthtech, smart cities, critical infrastructure, security and industrial AI, examining where software and AI are creating measurable impact and what it actually takes to deploy these technologies at scale. Speakers announced so far We have already announced a number of speakers for the summit, with confirmed names coming from organisations including OpenAI, Wise, 2150, NATO Innovation Fund, Notion Capital, Oxa, Upvest and PolyAI. The lineup spans venture capital, artificial intelligence, fintech and deep tech, reflecting the breadth of topics that will be covered across the two days. Further speakers will be announced in the coming weeks. Networking and the Tech.eu Events App Beyond the sessions, the summit is designed to facilitate meaningful connections across two full days. All registered attendees will have access to the Tech.eu Events App, available on both the App Store and Google Play, which allows participants to browse attendee profiles, schedule meetings in advance, explore the full agenda and manage their personal timetable. The app will also be used for on-site access via QR code check-in. Secure your place Tickets for the Tech.eu Summit London 2026 are available now. You can secure your place here. We look forward to welcoming you in London on 21–22 April. Partners Pavilion Partner Gold Partner Silver Partners   Supporting Partner Community Partners           

AIRMO, a space tech startup developing advanced greenhouse gas monitoring technology, has announced a €5 million seed round to support its first satellite mission planned for 2027 and the expansion of its airborne coverage. The round was led by Ananda Impact Ventures, with participation from Unconventional Ventures, kopa ventures, Desai Ventures, Hypernova / New Venture Securities, and two EQT Partners acting as strategic investors (Matthias Fackler and Francesco Starache). Existing investors Antler, Findus Ventures, E2MC, and Pilabs also joined the round. Based in Berlin and Luxembourg and supported by the European Space Agency, AIRMO has developed an active spaceborne greenhouse gas monitoring instrument that combines a SWIR imager with micro-LIDAR. The company says this is the first time a sensor of this type and power has been miniaturised for use on a small satellite. According to AIRMO, the technology delivers roughly twice the accuracy of existing systems, enabling the detection of methane leaks as small as a car from orbit. Methane emissions are estimated to account for around 30 per cent of global warming, yet many leaks remain unreported, creating both environmental and economic challenges for energy operators. Daria Stepanova, CEO of AIRMO, said the company’s mission is to help operators identify and stop greenhouse gas losses, starting with methane. She noted that the newly developed instrument enables the company to move beyond validation toward continuous monitoring and that the planned satellite launch represents an important step toward AIRMO’s goal of monitoring millions of energy assets worldwide. AIRMO’s technology is already deployed in commercial drone and aircraft monitoring missions across Europe, Central Asia, and the MENA region. The company reports that major energy companies, including Uniper, Total, and ESCE, are using the system for energy infrastructure monitoring. Commenting on the investment, Alina Bassi, Principal at Ananda Impact Ventures, said reducing methane leakage is currently one of the most effective ways to decarbonise the energy sector. She added that AIRMO’s high-precision space-based emissions measurement could help address long-standing transparency challenges and noted the firm has supported the team since its early stages as it works toward its first satellite launch. The funding will support AIRMO’s move from pilot projects to scaled commercial operations, including its first satellite launch in 2027. The company also plans to expand airborne monitoring across Europe, MENA, and Central Asia and establish a local presence in the MENA region.

Hyperscale cloud and AI data centre developer and operator Pure Data Centres Group, together with AVK, a provider of prime, standby and dispatchable power solutions for data centres and AI infrastructure, today announced the launch of Europe’s first, large-scale, 110 MW on-site microgrid, developed to support early‑phase site operational resilience. Located within Pure DC’s Dublin campus, the on‑site energy system provides dispatchable capacity to support data centre operations during the initial development phases, prior to full integration with the national electricity system, as grid connection capacity becomes available. Over time, the campus is intended to operate as part of a hybrid energy configuration, combining grid‑supplied electricity with on‑site infrastructure designed to enhance flexibility, resilience and system stability. While several microgrids are already in operation in the US, none have been in Europe until today. The deployment showcases the ability to use AVK’s microgrid technology for on-site power generation, and the transitional and complementary role it can play in supporting the delivery of strategically important digital infrastructure. This is particularly true in regions where grid reinforcement and renewable generation are being delivered on a phased basis under national planning frameworks. Pure DC’s microgrid consists of three interconnected energy centres, with each building generating up to 30MW of power. Energy Centre 1 (EC1) and EC2 will be fully operational by the end of 2026, with EC3 to follow at a later stage. The design includes Combined Heat and Power (CHP) capability, with infrastructure in place to enable heat recovery and potential future connection to district heating networks, subject to third‑party demand and regulatory approvals. Waste heat recovery systems are also used to improve operational efficiency within the energy centres. Future water management measures include rainwater harvesting and on‑site treatment, reducing reliance on mains water for engine‑related processes. The system is engineered to accommodate incremental changes in fuel composition, including hydrogen blending, supporting future decarbonisation of the gas network in line with national policy developments. Pure DC’s Battery Energy Storage System (BESS)  is integrated to manage load fluctuations and enhance operational efficiency, improving response times and enabling more optimal engine operation. The BESS is designed to support future renewable energy integration as part of a broader transition pathway. Pure DC’s Executive Chairman and interim CEO, Gary Wojtaszek, said: “The biggest barrier to deploying AI infrastructure in Europe today isn’t technology — it’s power. This microgrid proves that even the most constrained markets can unlock new digital capacity, giving Ireland the opportunity to lead Europe’s next chapter of AI infrastructure. The future of AI infrastructure will be built where energy and compute come together — and that’s exactly what we’re building at Pure.”  According to Ben Pritchard, CEO, AVK-SEG: “This project demonstrates how carefully designed onsite energy infrastructure can complement national energy planning frameworks.  This recognises that power is now the new differentiator for data centres, and that energy has shifted from being a utility to a strategic asset – shaping the location, design, economics and competitiveness for operators. The first of many in Europe, this microgrid has the capability to revolutionise the data centre power race as we know it – providing a complementary solution that will ease gridlock and pave the way for greater take-up of AI and cloud.”

Spotlight Pathology, a UK healthtech company, has raised  £1.4 million in seed investment to support its development of AI software that analyses digital pathology images to support clinicians in identifying blood cancers faster and consistently. Blood cancers are among the hardest to diagnose, often requiring multiple reviews by specialist pathologists. Delays can have serious consequences for patients, yet pathology departments across the UK are facing growing demand and a shortage of trained staff. Designed to slot into existing clinical workflows, Spotlight’s technology helps pathologists prioritise cases and reach decisions sooner - enabling patients to begin treatment earlier. Spotlight Pathology was founded by Dr Richard Byers, a Consultant Haematopathologist, and Dr Martin Fergie, an AI specialist with more than 15 years’ experience developing advanced algorithms for healthcare applications. The investment will support the company as it gains additional regulatory approvals and progresses through the first clinical in-use trials. According to Sam Perona, Chief Executive Officer of Spotlight Pathology, blood cancers can be extremely challenging to diagnose, and diagnostic delays can have devastating consequences for patients: “Our mission is to support pathologists with tools that fit seamlessly into existing workflows, helping them reach accurate diagnoses faster and with greater confidence. This investment gives us the momentum to move from development into real-world clinical settings. We’re excited to be scaling the business from Daresbury, working alongside partners across the North West and beyond, and to be strengthening our board with experienced leadership as we enter this next phase.” Sakura Holloway, Investment Director at the UK Innovation and Science Seed Fund, managed by Future Planet Capital, added: “Spotlight Pathology is a strong example of how UK university research can be translated into technologies that will transform patient outcomes. The team are addressing a critical challenge in blood cancer diagnosis, and with the right leadership and support in place, the company is well positioned to bring this technology into clinical settings. This investment reflects our conviction in both the team and the technology, and our commitment to backing spin-outs that apply advanced science to pressing healthcare challenges, improving productivity in the health system and delivering meaningful global patient impact." Lead image: Richard Byers, Sam Perona, and Martin Fergie. Photo: uncredited.

Revolut has been awarded a full UK banking licence, after regulators lifted restrictions on the UK challenger bank, which had lasted for an extended time. Revolut, valued at $75bn, today said it had received regulatory approval from the Bank of England's Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) to exit the mobilisation phase, and launch as a bank in the UK.   Nik Storonsky, co-founder and CEO of Revolut, said: “Launching our UK bank has been a long-term strategic priority for Revolut, and marks a significant moment in our journey.    "The UK is our home market and central to our growth. We look forward to introducing a full suite of banking services to our millions of UK customers, bringing the same innovative experience we already provide across the rest of Europe. This is a vital step in our mission to build the world’s first truly global bank.”   The winning of the licence draws to a close a 20 month process in which Revolut has been awaiting to get the full green light, after securing a licence with restrictions in July 2024. The period of restrictions usually lasts around 12 months. In this so-called “mobilisation phase” Revolut has been operating under banking restrictions, including a cap on deposits. Revolut applied for a UK banking licence in 2021. The licence win means that Revolut, which has 13m customers in the UK and 70m globally, will be able to begin offering accounts as a fully licenced bank in the UK for both retail and business customers. It enables Revolut to offer deposit accounts protected by the FSCS (Financial Services Compensation Scheme) on eligible deposits and paves the way for a wider range of services in the future, including lending and other products.   It will allow it to better compete with UK established banks like HSBC, Lloyds, and Barclays and, given that a UK banking licence is held in high regard, could help with other licence wins around the world.   Francesca Carlesi, UK CEO at Revolut, commented: “Becoming a bank in our home market marks a defining moment in our journey — a milestone achieved through relentless focus, discipline, and belief in what we’re building.    "Securing this licence lays the foundation for our next chapter: expanding into a broader suite of products, including credit, to sit alongside the innovative services our customers already rely on every day. This will now enable us to continue on our mission to deliver the most seamless, secure, and customer-centric banking experience for consumers across the UK.”

Another Earth, a company developing AI-powered simulation and synthetic data for Earth observation, has raised a total of €3.5 million in funding. The round includes new investment from Wake-Up Capital alongside existing investors Rockstart, Inovexus, and Stamco AG, as well as support from the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) and Austria Wirtschaftsservice (AWS). Based in Vienna, Another Earth develops technology that generates synthetic satellite imagery and geospatial datasets using generative AI and 3D modelling. The platform enables organisations to train and test AI models for monitoring environmental change and analysing land, water, and infrastructure at scale. The company’s technology is designed to address a key challenge in Earth observation AI: limited access to high-quality training data. Traditional satellite imagery can be costly to obtain, particularly in remote regions, and preparing datasets often requires extensive manual labelling. By generating synthetic satellite data from scratch, Another Earth can automatically produce labelled and segmented datasets, enabling organisations to train AI models more efficiently while reducing the cost and potential bias associated with traditional data sources. Maya Pindeus, CEO and co-founder of Another Earth, said the planet is facing increasing challenges, including land degradation and climate-related disasters, and noted that artificial intelligence can help address these issues if it has access to the appropriate data. The biggest barrier to scaling Earth Observation AI is the scarcity and prohibitive cost of high-quality training data. With this funding, and our deployment into vital ecosystems spanning from Latin America to Africa, we are generating data where there is none. We are giving organisations the tools to transition from reactive crisis response to proactive, predictive intervention. Another Earth’s international expansion builds on its work in Sub-Saharan Africa, where its technology is used with GeoTerra Image to monitor the environmental impact of mining and industrial sites. The company is also expanding its Synthetic Data Platform in Brazil through a partnership with NovaTerra, focusing on applications such as deforestation monitoring, agricultural analysis, and climate-related risk assessment. The new funding will be used to accelerate the deployment of the company’s Synthetic Data Engine and expand its use in environmental monitoring and risk simulation. In particular, Another Earth plans to focus on applications across Brazil and Sub-Saharan Africa, generating high-resolution synthetic satellite data to support biodiversity monitoring, deforestation tracking, and environmental risk analysis in vulnerable ecosystems.

VC firm Samaipata has launched its third fund – Samaipata III – a €110 million vehicle aimed at backing early-stage tech startups building on the AI wave. Samaipata plans to invest in 25 to 30 early-stage companies, with the capacity to deploy up to €10 million per startup over time. The main focus is on AI-native businesses developing application-layer products that can scale internationally from day one. The fundraising process is already well advanced, reaching €70 million. Institutional anchor investors include Spain’s SETT (Spanish Society for Technological Transformation) and Germany’s KfW, as well as several prominent Spanish family offices.  The fund also includes, as investors, founders who were backed by Samaipata in its first two funds and are now reinvesting in the firm as their companies have grown.  Samaipata III will continue to capitalise on the firm’s Founder Success platform, designed to accelerate portfolio growth beyond capital alone.  Founders gain access to a network of Operating Partners with experience at companies such as Anthropic, Google, Airbnb, Spotify and N26, who bring strategic perspective and hands-on operational expertise at key stages of development. The firm also facilitates introductions to potential clients and talent, while leveraging partnerships with leading technology players, including Nvidia, Anthropic, Microsoft Azure and Google Gemini, to strengthen technical capabilities and commercial traction . Samaipata III will back projects that abstract the complexity of AI deployment for real-world use cases, primarily in B2B environments.  “Samaipata III is launching at a particularly relevant moment for the European tech ecosystem. AI is moving beyond the experimental phase and beginning to integrate into critical processes with tangible impact. We see a clear opportunity to invest in teams capable of applying this technology in complex markets and building globally relevant companies from Europe,” José del Barrio, founding partner at Samaipata. With an established European track record, Fund III builds on more than 44 investments across Spain and other key European markets, including the UK, France and Germany. Samaipata’s early-stage portfolio stands out, with 80 per cent of Fund I companies advancing to Series A and 60 per cent of Fund II companies reaching that stage within five years, backed by leading international later-stage venture capital firms such as Accel, Creandum and Index Ventures.  The portfolio includes companies such as Matera, Bigblue, Nory, Embat, VIVLA and Imperia. Deporvillage remains one of the firm’s most notable exits, sold to JD sports and achieving a 25x valuation increase from first ticket to exit.  “Samaipata understood the business from day one and brought strategic judgment at key moments. Beyond capital, their involvement helped us execute with greater confidence as we scaled and ultimately supported the sale of the company. That experience also led me to invest in the fund myself after seeing firsthand how they work with founders.” Xavier Pladellorens, co-founder of Deporvillage and investor in all three Samaipata funds.

Sybilion has closed a $4.2 million seed funding round to develop what it describes as a decision platform designed to help industrial companies respond earlier to market changes and manage margin exposure in volatile conditions. The round was co-led by Venturefriends and Semapa Next and follows the company’s $600,000 pre-seed round, announced a few months earlier, which was co-led by Vanagon Ventures and EWOR. Many manufacturers have access to historical data feeds, analyst reports, and internal forecasts, yet still find it difficult to determine which risk factors are most relevant for their operations at a given moment. Procurement, sales, and finance teams often rely on different data sources and reach different conclusions, and by the time decisions are aligned, market conditions may already have shifted, affecting margins. Even small timing discrepancies can have significant financial implications for companies operating with large cost bases. Sybilion aims to address this challenge by analysing external market signals and linking them directly to a company’s cost structures and product portfolios. Rather than delivering standalone forecasts, the platform is designed to support decision-making by outlining potential options, trade-offs, and associated risk boundaries. Dr. Bjol R. Frenkenberger, CEO and co-founder of Sybilion, noted that industrial companies typically have extensive data available but often lack clarity about which signals are most relevant and when decisions should be made. Our goal is to give decision-makers the information advantage so they can turn external world dynamics into confident action before uncertainty becomes cost. The system continuously processes a wide range of external indicators, including weather patterns, trade flows, freight rates, electricity futures, commodity prices, port congestion, industrial utilisation, and macroeconomic data, helping companies better understand the factors that may influence their operations. Looking ahead, Sybilion plans to further develop its mapping between external signals and product-level exposure, expand integrations through its “Sybilion Connect” system so actions can be embedded directly into client workflows, and extend its platform from insight delivery toward agentic planning support that helps teams determine the next steps under uncertain conditions.

Swedish legal tech startup Legora has made its first acquisition, snapping up a Canadian legal AI startup, as it looks to expand its presence in North America. The acquisition for an undisclosed sum comes in the same week Swedish unicorn Legora announced its $550m Series D fund round, at a $5.5bn valuation.   Legora, a much-hyped AI platform for lawyers which supports lawyers in researching, reviewing and drafting legal work, has acquired Walter. Walter is a 10-strong team whose client roster includes law firms Fasken Martineau and McCarthy Tétrault. Walter bills itself as an “agent-native legal AI platform" for lawyers, which automates end-to-end legal workflows from email to finished document.   Legora, founded in 2023, said the acquisition marks a significant step in Legora's push towards fully agentic AI workflows where its platform can carry out complex, multi-step legal tasks end-to-end, including document research, editing, and client replies.    The deal will also help Legora expand its presence in Canada, as it looks to make its mark in North America, which it has earmarked as a key market.   Legora already has offices in New York and Denver, with planned openings in Houston and Chicago.   Max Junestrand, CEO and co-founder of Legora, said: “When we saw what the Walter team had built, we immediately recognised a shared philosophy around agent-native design. The Walter team have approached legal AI the same way we have – embedding closely with lawyers and designing agents to handle real, end-to-end workflows. Bringing our teams together allows us to scale that vision faster.”   Ryan Wilson, co-founder and CEO Walter, said: “When we met the Legora team, it was clear we had a shared vision for the future of agentic legal technology. “By joining Legora we can accelerate the realisation of that shared vision of end-to-end matter management with fleets of agents. “We’ve built both companies in close partnership with the legal teams actually doing the work. Working with our customers, not just for them – iterating on feedback until the product matches how legal work actually gets done. And we’ve both arrived at the same conclusion: the future of legal AI is agentic."

Living Models, a Paris–Berkeley startup, has raised $7 million in seed funding as it emerges from stealth to develop foundation models for biology trained on DNA, RNA, and multi-omics data aimed at improving understanding of biological systems. To support the next stage of development, the company has also secured access to a computing cluster of 120 NVIDIA B200 GPUs, which it plans to use to train its next generation of biological AI models. The company develops large-scale transformer models trained on genomic, transcriptomic, and other biological datasets to analyse patterns within living organisms. Operating in Paris and Berkeley, Living Models brings together researchers in artificial intelligence and plant science to apply machine learning to biological research and agricultural innovation. While artificial intelligence has already transformed sectors such as finance, software development, and content creation, its application in areas such as agriculture and food production remains at an earlier stage. Living Models is focusing on this area by applying AI techniques to biological data, particularly in plant science, where improving crop resilience and productivity is becoming increasingly important as climate pressures affect global agriculture. As part of its launch, the company introduced BOTANIC, a family of transformer models designed for plant biology. The models are trained on genomic sequences from multiple plant species and analyse genomic and other biological data to identify genetic markers associated with traits such as climate resilience and disease resistance. By predicting which genetic variants are worth testing, the technology aims to help seed and agricultural companies accelerate the development of new crop varieties. OpenAI trains on Reddit and Wikipedia to understand human language. We train on DNA, RNA, and gene expression to understand the language of life itself, said Cyril Véran, CEO and co-founder of Living Models. Traditional crop breeding cycles can take many years, partly due to the time required to identify promising genetic traits. By analysing genomic data computationally, Living Models aims to shorten the early stages of this process by helping researchers focus on the most relevant genetic variants before conducting field validation. In the longer term, Living Models plans to expand its work on foundation models for biological systems beyond plants. The company began with plant biology due to the availability of large genomic datasets, faster validation cycles compared with other life-science fields, and the growing need for technologies that support climate-resilient agriculture.

For years, manufacturers have experimented with Industry 4.0 — running pilots in predictive maintenance, production monitoring, and AI-driven optimisation. Yet many of these initiatives struggled to move beyond proof-of-concept. The underlying problem wasn’t a lack of ideas, but the difficulty of accessing and structuring machine data across complex factory environments. United Manufacturing Hub Systems (UMH) is building an open-source data platform designed to solve exactly that challenge. The company now counts manufacturing, food and beverage, and top-20 automotive suppliers among its customers, supporting deployments across more than 150 sites globally. Oh, and the company raised €5 million in January.  I spoke to Nikklas Hebborn, CCO of UMH, to learn more.  From venture investor to operator Before joining UMH operationally, Hebborn was a partner at Freigeist Capital, the German deep-tech venture firm founded by Frank Thelen. His background spans venture capital, consulting, and advisory roles with organisations including Bayer, Capgemini Invent, Roland Berger, and Kearney. Hebborn later transitioned from investor to operator, moving from backing United Manufacturing Hub as an early investor to joining the company’s leadership team. Founders who experienced the problem firsthand The company was founded by CEO Alexander Krüger and CTO Jeremy Theocharis. After graduating from RWTH Aachen University, the pair worked on digitalisation projects for large consultancies such as McKinsey, travelling globally — from Tokyo and Singapore to Atlanta — deploying industrial use cases directly on factory shop floors. Over several years of doing this work, they noticed a recurring challenge. Building the actual use case — whether a dashboard for energy monitoring, productivity tracking, or even deploying AI — represented only about 10 per cent of the work. The remaining 90 per cent involved collecting and preparing the data: gathering it in real time, ensuring it had the correct format and context, and maintaining sufficient quality. “That’s where most projects struggled,” explained Nikklas Hebborn. The real bottleneck in industrial digitalisation The founders realised that the real bottleneck wasn’t the applications themselves but the infrastructure required to reliably access industrial data. They therefore focused on building the underlying layer that connects operational technology (OT) — machines and sensors on the factory floor — with IT systems such as ERP platforms. The result was a platform built around what the company calls a Unified Namespace: a structured data environment that allows companies to move seamlessly from a site-level overview down to individual machines or even specific sensor readings. According to Hebborn, the founders’ deep industry experience was critical to shaping this approach. “Many startups identify a problem and then bring in domain expertise later,” he said. “Here it was the opposite — the founders lived with the problem for nearly a decade. They had personally experienced the pressure of delivering digitalisation projects under tight timelines while working on shop floors around the world. That deep understanding of the problem space was what convinced me to join.” UMH’s platform helps manufacturers collect and structure data from machines, sensors, and factory software systems. Modern factories run a mix of legacy equipment, industrial controllers, and enterprise software, all producing data in different formats. The platform gathers machine data via common industrial protocols and transforms it into a unified, real-time stream that feeds dashboards, analytics tools, manufacturing execution systems (MES), or AI models. A key concept behind the platform is the “Unified Namespace,” which acts as a single source of truth for factory data. Instead of each application pulling information separately from machines or databases, data is published once into a shared structure that authorised systems can access. This simplifies integration, improves transparency across production processes, and accelerates Industry 4.0 use cases such as predictive maintenance, energy optimisation, and production monitoring. Under the hood, the platform is designed as a modular infrastructure layer with tools to manage deployments across factories. UMH’s solution has two main components. The first is the infrastructure layer, configured through code via a large configuration file. On top sits a management console that acts as a control centre for deploying instances, connecting machines, building data bridges between systems, and defining data models. Hebborn explained: “One automotive supplier we work with has CNC machines worldwide. Each machine produces millions of data points, but only a handful are actually relevant. The raw outputs are often cryptic values like ‘DB3456’, which might represent temperature or pressure.” Within the console, companies create data models that translate these signals into contextualised, understandable information. The platform supports two interaction modes. Developers can configure deployments through YAML files — something Hebborn says AI tools can generate quickly when connecting hundreds of machines. For non-technical users, UMH also offers a visual drag-and-drop interface, which becomes important when deployments scale across dozens of sites. The value of open source and interoperability  A defining decision of UMH was to build the platform as open source, an unusual move in an industry dominated by large incumbents. “There are many big players here, from Siemens and Rockwell to the hyperscalers on the IT side trying to move industrial data into the cloud,” said Hebborn. “But customers increasingly want to own their software. If you want to stay competitive and become something like a Tesla in manufacturing, you need to be software-driven and vertically integrated. Open source allows companies to maintain that ownership.” The second reason, he explained, is interoperability. “ A typical factory floor might use Siemens machinery, Rockwell automation, and Microsoft cloud infrastructure. Companies need an independent layer in the middle that connects all of these ecosystems. To achieve that, the founders built its platform around an open-source model and cultivated a broad community around it. Today, more than 1,000 system integrators, consultants, and end users are using the community edition. “That effectively gives us hundreds of people constantly testing the product, identifying issues, and contributing feedback,” Hebborn said. “Many competitors develop a product internally and only receive feedback once it’s deployed at a customer. Our development cycle benefits from a much larger real-world testing base.” That community-driven approach has also helped drive organic adoption. “Interestingly, many customers actually discover us themselves,” he added. “Often, they first attempt to build their own solution internally. Eventually they realise how difficult it is to scale and then start looking for an infrastructure layer like ours.” Why the real challenge wasn’t the application Industry 4.0 and Industrial IoT have been discussed for years, but many companies have run pilots that have struggled to scale, and no dominant platform has emerged. According to Hebborn, what has changed over the past five to ten years is the availability and accessibility of machine data. “Ten years ago, getting data from industrial machines was difficult. Vendors like Siemens built closed ecosystems. Today, there are far more standardised protocols and APIs available to extract that data. Another shift is infrastructure. Production sites now have much better IT connectivity, including direct internet access on the shop floor. And finally, companies have already experimented with digitalisation.  Many consultancies sold digital transformation projects that led to numerous pilots and proof-of-concept use cases. Many of those didn’t scale, but the demand didn’t disappear.” Today, Hebborn sees companies with a“chessboard” of use cases they want to implement.  “They know the potential is there—they just lacked the underlying infrastructure layer to do it properly.” A  key decision for the company was focus. Its CTO has a strong opinion about this: we want to be the best data layer, not the best tool for everything, explained Hebborn. “For example, we don’t try to build our own visualisation tools. Customers can use platforms like Grafana, Power BI, or Snowflake. We simply ensure the data is structured and accessible so those tools can use it. If we tried to build every component ourselves—  visualisation, historians, analytics — the product would become too complex and we would risk turning into a consultancy.” Hebborn stresses that you can’t bluff in a factory environment.  “One example was HiPP, the infant nutrition company. When we first installed the system and showed them the dashboard, the management team asked, “Is this really our data on the screen?” They had never seen their production data presented in that way before." He found this surprising. "We weren’t building something as complex as an electric vehicle, we were simply connecting data that already existed on the shop floor. But clearly, this problem still hasn't been solved properly.” Another important element for UMH is training the customer team. It follows a “train-the-trainer” model where it trains one production specialist who then trains colleagues across the site and other facilities. Hebborn shared: “In one case we didn’t hear from the team for two or three months. But we could see them continuously developing new use cases internally — and eventually they expanded the deployment to additional sites.” Hebborn is modest about the company's success, sharing that while the company may not have hundreds of customers, "every customer we do have has expanded their deployment — and they’ve typically done so within twelve months." "In manufacturing, that is extremely fast. If we eventually reach three or four hundred companies and scale across their sites, that would already represent a very large business. We don’t need thousands of customers to build a major company. That’s the proof point we’re most proud of today.” UMH's next phase is about scaling through team expansion. Geographically, the team is not aggressively pushing international expansion yet as the DACH region already has a huge concentration of global manufacturing companies.  “Many of them operate internationally, so once we deploy locally, the solution often spreads across their global sites,” shared Hebborn.

Originally founded in Albania and headquartered in Finland, mental health startup Bliss has raised $270,000 in angel funding led by Keiretsu Forum, Finest Love VC, and Plug and Play to develop AI infrastructure designed to support culturally aware therapy services. The round combines angel investment and non-dilutive grants and represents the first Albanian-Finnish startup investment for the three investors. Read more in our interview with Bliss co-founder and CEO Jona Doda. Many mental health platforms and AI therapy tools are designed for monolingual and culturally homogeneous markets, even though more than 800 million people worldwide live outside their country of origin, where language and cultural context can play an important role in therapy. As the mental health technology market becomes increasingly competitive and more AI-based tools emerge, Bliss is focusing on culturally specialised, clinician-supervised systems rather than general-purpose AI solutions. The platform combines licensed therapists across more than 10 countries with AI-powered cultural and linguistic matching, connecting users with therapists who understand their language and cultural background while using AI systems designed to support, rather than replace, human care. Bliss founder Jona Doda said the company is focusing on the cultural dimension of therapy, noting that many existing AI mental health tools fail to account for cultural context. We’re not building another chatbot. We’re building AI that understands the cultural layer of mental health, because that’s where most systems fail. The company is also developing therapist-trained digital companions, AI systems designed to reflect a therapist’s style, tone, and approach, intended to extend human-led care. This approach differs from many AI therapy tools currently on the market, which often rely primarily on large language models integrated into conversational interfaces. With the new funding, the company plans to launch the first version of its therapist-trained AI companions, expand into additional diaspora markets, including the United States, scale partnerships with multinational employers, and further develop its AI governance and clinical oversight frameworks.