Aavuus, a Finnish building infrastructure for orbital safety, has raised Pre-Seed funding from Maki.vc.  Aavuus is building a global network of ground-based laser stations designed to push object tracking in Low Earth Orbit well beyond the limits of today’s commercial systems, unlocking a level of precision and detection capability the market has not had access to before. The result is faster, far more precise orbital data that gives operators a stronger basis for space situational awareness and collision avoidance.  Aavuus is addressing a growing operational challenge as space becomes harder to use safely.  ESA estimates that more than 1.2 million debris objects over 1 cm are already in orbit, while only a fraction are regularly tracked.  The 1–10 cm debris population is a critical blind spot for operators — too small and numerous to be routinely tracked by existing systems, yet large enough to disable or destroy a satellite on impact. In the busiest low-Earth orbits, collision avoidance is already routine, and the gap between what operators need and what current systems provide is widening. Aavuus is built to close it.  Aavuus is a spinout from the Finnish Geospatial Research Institute, bringing rare institutional expertise in satellite laser ranging and space geodesy to a problem that has so far outpaced commercial tracking capabilities.   The team has been further strengthened with the appointment of former US Army Aerospace Defence Officer Brian Dunne as Chief Commercial Officer,  whose hands-on experience combating aerospace threats positions the company to address growing demand from the defence sector.  According to Joonas Jokela, CEO, Aavuus: "This funding allows us to move from development work into execution. Our focus now is building the MVP, proving performance, and starting to work with customers who need better debris tracking data in real operations." Wilson Tukiainen, Maki.vc, shared:  "The space economy is adding satellites faster than existing systems can keep up, and the gap between current tracking capabilities and what operators actually need is widening. The Aavuus team brings deep expertise in laser ranging and space geodesy to a problem that is becoming impossible to ignore. We believe they are building infrastructure that orbital safety will  increasingly depend on."  Aavuus’ immediate focus is building its first MVP and getting that capability into the hands of early customers. 

Deeptech energy startup Granarium Technologies, spun out from VTT, has raised over €1 million Pre-Seed funding. BSV Ventures and Beamline led the round, with participation from FiBAN (Finnish Business Angels Network), EstBAN and LatBAN.  VTT has transferred the underlying technology and IP to the newly established company. Grid volatility is increasing across Europe, while EU requirements, including grid codes and resilience frameworks, are tightening. The transition to renewable energy and electrification is creating structural demand for fast-response power storage, with UBS forecasting global energy storage demand to grow by approximately 40 per cent year over year in 2026. Granarium’s renewable energy storage technology is built on a nanocellulose-based material platform that binds biocarbon structures for power storage, enabling up to 80 per cent lower production capital expenditure in safe, scalable, and locally producible systems.  “A key structural shift is that storage is no longer just ‘backup power’ – it is becoming core grid infrastructure. Granarium is the perfect addition to our portfolio because the company is solving a massive global challenge in a safe and scalable way. We were also impressed with the company’s technology and experience, as well as the capacity to use local raw materials to make the production process sustainable and inexpensive,” says Jana Budkovskaja, Partner at BSV Ventures.  The company has secured pilot customers and key value chain partners and is preparing to launch its first pilots within six months of funding, focusing on process industries and continuously running production operations. Initial commercial production will begin at a small industrial scale, with capacity to deliver up to 50 units per year, forming the basis for rapid scale-up through industrial partnerships and international market expansion.  “Our approach supports Europe’s strategic goals of reducing dependency on critical raw materials and building local, resilient energy infrastructure. The new technology offers an easily scalable, self-sufficient solution that removes complex logistics chains and enables simple production using locally sourced materials. Deployment is as simple as installing a battery,” says Granarium CEO Paula Viinamäki.  Granarium’s first-of-its-kind technology can upcycle waste materials to create 100 per cent renewable supercapacitors that store electricity. The system acts as a fast-response layer within energy systems, complementing batteries and addressing short-duration power needs such as grid balancing, frequency response, and industrial power quality. The devices help manage peak loads, improve power quality, and manage distributed power generation.  “Granarium demonstrates how successful technology transfer can turn advanced bio-based materials into real industrial solutions for secure and resilient energy storage,” says Atte Virtanen, Vice President, Advanced bio-based materials at VTT.   Granarium will use the funding to industrialise its patented renewable supercapacitor technology for grid stabilisation and industrial applications, both increasingly challenged by electrification, renewable integration, and power quality demands.  Lead image: Granarium team members: Vesa Kunnari, Paula Viinamaki and Otto Ville-Kaukoniemi. Photo: uncredited. 

Finnish spacetech company ICEYE has raised €450 million in a primary Series F funding round led by General Atlantic, at a valuation of over €10 billion. Together with a secondary placement, the total Series F funding round exceeds €1 billion.  ICEYE delivers persistent monitoring capabilities to detect and respond to changes anywhere on Earth and owns the world's largest and most advanced SAR (synthetic aperture radar) satellite constellation. Its constellations serve customers in defence and intelligence, environmental monitoring, insurance and emergency management. We enable fast decisions that contribute to a safer future. Seven governments to date across Europe have procured sovereign satellite systems from ICEYE. The company recently delivered a fully operational sovereign space system to the Polish Armed Forces, from contract signing to operational capability in 12 months, among the fastest sovereign space deployments in history. The model is now being replicated across Europe, the Middle East and Asia, and the pace is accelerating. Additional investors include Solidium, Tesi, Varma, Ilmarinen, Lifeline Ventures, as well as Nokia from Finland, Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) and TCV.  According to Rafal Modrzewski, Co-Founder & CEO of ICEYE, sovereign intelligence from space is entering a new era and the window to build it is now. "ICEYE has built the world's most advanced, proven capability to meet that demand. This funding enables us to accelerate the delivery of new capabilities to governments and customers faster than ever before."  Sascha Günther, Managing Director, Head of DACH, and Co-Head of EMEA Technology at General Atlantic, said: “ICEYE has fundamentally redefined Earth observation. The company pioneered the shift to next-generation, agile satellite fleets that deliver greater strategic capability with far greater cost efficiency – and today operates the world’s largest and most advanced SAR constellation on a vertically integrated platform. Rafal and the team are taking breakthrough technology from innovation to commercial and operational success at scale, and we believe global structural demand for ICEYE’s intelligence will continue to accelerate." Nokia joins the funding round as a new strategic investor.  Justin Hotard, President and CEO of Nokia, said: “Modern defence increasingly depends on combining trusted connectivity with real-time visibility. Nokia and ICEYE bring complementary strengths that can help advance Europe’s defence, resilience and technological sovereignty. This combination will become increasingly important as governments and industries look to build more secure, aware and adaptable critical systems.” This Series F follows a period of significant momentum for ICEYE. In 2025, ICEYE scaled growth, profitability, and cash generation simultaneously - crossing over €250 million in revenue, and over €100 million in EBITDA, while building a contracted backlog of over €1.5 billion. Production is now doubling, from 50 satellites per year today to a target of 100 annually by 2028 and beyond, supported by a matching launch cadence. Proceeds from the funding round will drive the expansion of ICEYE’s global footprint and deepen its intelligence capabilities, positioning the company to meet growing demand and deliver sovereign intelligence systems and data to governments and customers at a new scale. 

Munich EVTOL company ERC System today announces the launch of “Victor”, a dual-use heavy-lift cargo UAS (Uncrewed Aircraft System) designed for critical missions in fields such as defence, commercial logistics, and disaster response.  Presented publicly at ILA Berlin 2026, Victor aims to close a military capability gap through a scalable, deployable solution for infrastructure-independent, uncrewed aerial logistics capable of carrying payloads over 200 kg. I spoke to Maximilian Oligschläger, ERC’s Chief Commercial Officer, to learn more. From medical air mobility to military logistics Founded in 2020, ERC System develops electrified aviation solutions for critical missions. The company’s hybrid-electric aircraft take off vertically like helicopters, but fly forward wing-borne, like aeroplanes. They provide high speeds, long ranges, and cost-efficient operations for cargo,  patient, and passenger transport as well as uncrewed utility applications.   Victor builds on ERC’s experience designing, building, and flying some of the European Union’s largest electrified aircraft, positioning the company for commercial entry in 2028.  ERC’s product portfolio includes Victor, an uncrewed hybrid-electric lift-and-cruise eVTOL aircraft designed for logistics missions, and Charlie, a crewed eVTOL developed for patient and passenger transport. Victor is scheduled to enter service in 2028, with Charlie expected to follow in 2030. Check out our earlier interview with ERC System CEO Dr David Löbl.  Through its Charlie programme, ERC has already developed and tested multiple full-scale, full-mass prototypes. Before Victor, there was the full-size, full-mass prototype Romeo, in which the company began flight testing its full-size Romeo prototype in November 2025.  Operated remotely in an uncrewed configuration, Romeo has a take-off weight of approximately 2.7 tonnes and is believed to be the heaviest uncrewed eVTOL currently flying in the EU, based on publicly available information. It follows the earlier Echo demonstrator, which validated core capabilities such as controlled lift-off and stable hover while providing valuable system-level data for subsequent aircraft development. According to Oligschläger: “When we first came out of stealth, and people saw what we were building, we were approached by various defence stakeholders. They found the technology interesting because, just like in the civilian market, an eVTOL aircraft can operate at low cost." He explained that for military users, low maintenance requirements and the ability to fit into containers are also very important. “At the same time, with everything happening politically, we started asking ourselves how we could contribute using the technology we were already developing.  We realised we were in a strong position to build such an aircraft. Development costs are significantly lower than for a crewed aircraft, which meant Victor could reach the market around three years earlier.” Targeting Europe's missing logistics capability Victor is designed to address a critical gap in defence logistics recognised across Europe. While small drones can carry payloads below 50 kg and crewed aircraft can transport larger loads, there is currently no widely available, cost-effective uncrewed platform capable of delivering payloads exceeding 200 kg over long distances at high speed. This leaves military operators with few options when ground transport is blocked, and crewed flights are considered too risky. Designed for infrastructure-independent operations, Victor can transport up to 250 kg of payload over distances of up to 300 kilometres at a cruise speed of 250 km/h. Its hybrid-electric lift-and-cruise architecture combines vertical take-off and landing with efficient wing-borne flight, enabling access to austere locations while delivering greater speed, range and cargo throughput than conventional multicopter systems. The aircraft can carry up to two pallets and perform cargo-drop deliveries, eliminating the need to land in hostile or otherwise unsuitable environments. Oligschläger explained that “Victor also benefits from everything we've already built. And so will Charlie as the next step. We use the same suppliers, the same production approach and, in many cases, the same customer relationships.” Further, because Victor is fully uncrewed, its development costs are substantially lower than those of a crewed aircraft, enabling the company to bring the platform to market around three years earlier. Victor’s operating costs are also approximately 70 per cent lower than those of a small helicopter, according to Oligschläger. “When customers buy an aircraft, they look at lifetime operating costs rather than purchase price alone. We can’t disclose exact figures, but both acquisition and operating costs are significantly lower than those of comparable helicopters,” he said. Dual-use logistics, civilian certification ERC has set 2028 as the target for first deliveries, a challenging goal only few European companies would be able to achieve.  “We are confident about our timeline, given our 6-year experience building some of the  heaviest electrified aircraft in the EU,”  Oligschläger explained.  “Combined with strategic partnerships, particularly focused on industrialisation, we believe we have the capabilities to help close the gap quickly.”   With Victor, ERC System is pursuing a civil certification pathway that can also be recognised by military operators. The platform is initially focused on logistics missions, including transporting spare parts, equipment and supplies to remote or hard-to-access locations. In the longer term, it could also support casualty evacuation missions — without the cost and risk of a crewed aircraft. Beyond defence logistics, ERC sees early demand across offshore and coastal logistics, critical infrastructure maintenance, remote industrial operations, and emergency response.  Many of the organisations already working with ERC System on its Charlie platform could also become Victor customers. In terms of defence, most missions are expected to take place behind the front line rather than directly in combat zones, but operating in contested environments still raises challenges, particularly around GPS jamming, spoofing and other forms of electronic warfare that can disrupt navigation and communications. The company has therefore had to consider how the aircraft can maintain reliable operations in environments where satellite navigation cannot be assumed. According to Oligschläger, Victor already has some characteristics that help. It's capable of flying at around 250 kilometres per hour which allows it to reduce exposure to certain threats. “At the same time, Victor needs to remain affordable. It's a logistics asset. We don't want it to be as expensive as a helicopter. In a worst-case scenario, operators must be willing to lose the aircraft without losing a massively expensive platform.” “The European eVTOL industry is not dead” The 2010s saw a wave of enthusiasm around eVTOLs, which were widely touted as the future of urban mobility, regional air travel, and cargo transport. However, the demise of German eVTOL pioneers like air-taxi companies Volocopter and Lilium highlighted just how difficult it is to develop, certify, manufacture and finance an entirely new class of aircraft. Oligschläger argues, however, that the setbacks faced by some high-profile air taxi ventures should not be mistaken for a broader failure of the technology. Instead, he believes the market is maturing, with demand increasingly concentrated around practical, mission-driven applications. “The most important thing is that the European eVTOL industry is not dead. Victor is the first product where I've genuinely felt strong product-market fit. Customers are approaching us asking when it will be available rather than needing to be convinced why they need it. That changes the dynamic completely. It doesn't feel like we're pushing technology onto the market. Instead, we're responding to a capability gap that customers have already identified for themselves.” Oligschläger attributes ERC Systems’ success to a number of factors: “First, we started later. Companies such as Lilium and Volocopter had to prove the technology itself. Today, customers already understand the potential. Second, we brought in strategic investors early. IABG contributes expertise as well as capital. Third, we've focused on critical missions that already exist today, such as patient transport and military logistics. These are services that society already depends on.” Further, Victor is a stepping stone towards Charlie. Rather than jumping immediately to a large crewed aircraft, its building experience, production capability and customer relationships gradually. Oligschläger acknowledges that the industry has learned some hard lessons. “There have been a lot of lessons learned. We initially wanted to build a fully electric aircraft, but we shifted to a hybrid-electric approach because we realised range and speed still matter. An aircraft with limited endurance and lengthy charging times simply isn't practical for many of the use cases we're targeting,” he said. “The uncrewed eVTOL sector is still a relatively new market that has only really emerged in the last few years. Before that, most companies were focused on crewed eVTOLs.” Meanwhile, smaller uncrewed VTOL aircraft are demonstrating strong commercial and operational momentum in mission-critical applications. Companies such as Wingcopter, which specialises in medical and cargo deliveries, and Quantum Systems , whose aircraft are used for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions, have shown that there is significant demand for VTOL platforms where they solve clear operational problems. Building Europe's eVTOL ecosystem More broadly, though, Europe has lacked the same level of government support that we've seen in the United States. Oligschläger asserts: “Policymakers didn't fully appreciate the importance of building this industry early enough. I've spent a lot of time talking with both German and European politicians. I ask them a simple question: do we want this industry in Europe? Because if we don't actively support it, we risk losing it to the United States and China.” ERC Systems wants the government to help foster an ecosystem of innovation and successful commercialisation: “This isn't just about funding companies. Building an industry means creating regulations, training pilots and operators, establishing maintenance networks and creating an ecosystem around the technology. The US has been much more proactive in saying, "We want this industry, and we're prepared to support it." The positive thing is that this is starting to change. Over the last few months, we've seen growing political recognition of the opportunity. Competition is healthy. We need multiple successful companies if we're going to build a sustainable industry.” From here, ERC System’s goal is to enter service by 2028. It’s currently focused on manufacturing, suppliers, and potential construction sites, and, together with its investor, IABG, is evaluating where and how it should build the aircraft. “We're not vertically integrated. We won't manufacture every component ourselves. We source major systems and focus on assembly, which makes scaling more manageable,” shared Oligschläger. Whether ERC System can deliver on its ambitious 2028 timeline remains to be seen. But as Europe looks to strengthen both its industrial base and defence capabilities, the market for autonomous heavy-lift aircraft appears far more tangible today than the air-taxi dreams that once dominated the conversation.

Merchantee, a company developing AI-driven marketplace intelligence tools for e-commerce sellers, has raised €1.8 million in funding. The round was led by Reflex Capital, with participation from Czech Founders VC and Lighthouse Ventures. The company plans to use the funding to accelerate product development, expand support for additional e-commerce marketplaces, and support its growth across Europe. Expansion efforts will initially focus on Poland and Germany, with further launches planned in France, the Netherlands, and Italy. As e-commerce marketplaces continue to account for an increasing share of online retail sales, merchants are managing growing levels of complexity across multiple platforms. Sellers must continuously adjust pricing, promotions, advertising campaigns, and product visibility while balancing profitability and operational constraints. According to Merchantee, many businesses still rely on manual processes or disconnected software tools, making it difficult to react quickly to market changes. Merchantee has developed a platform that combines marketplace monitoring, pricing intelligence, and automated decision-making. The system consolidates catalogue, pricing, and campaign data across supported marketplaces and uses AI to recommend and execute actions such as repricing products, selecting promotional campaigns, and optimising catalogue performance. The platform operates at the individual product level and can adjust pricing at regular intervals based on market conditions, while adhering to rules defined by the seller. It also helps merchants identify high-performing products, emerging opportunities, and underperforming inventory. According to founder and CEO Jakub Vraspír, the company is focused on helping sellers manage the growing complexity of marketplace commerce without requiring significant increases in headcount or operational resources. Scaling marketplace sales requires thousands of decisions across pricing, campaigns, and promotions. Merchantee is designed to automate those decisions and help sellers compete more effectively across multiple marketplaces, Vraspír said. The company is already used by hundreds of sellers and digital commerce teams, including brands such as Philips, Lindt, SodaStream, and Vilgain. Alongside geographic expansion, Merchantee plans to add support for marketplaces including eMag, BOL, and Cdiscount, increasing the number of integrated platforms available to customers. The company is also developing new capabilities that will allow its AI system to autonomously determine the most effective execution strategy based on merchant objectives, such as choosing between promotional discounts and paid marketplace visibility. Longer term, Merchantee is exploring agent-to-agent commerce models, where AI systems can communicate and execute marketplace strategies with minimal manual intervention.

Technology exports from Turkiye jumped nearly 40 cent year-on-year to over $5bn, while startup investment in Turkiye has also increased, figures show. The disclosure of the figures comes as Turkiye brings a large national delegation to London Tech Week, which is running this week. The value of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) exports out of Turkiye hit approximately $5.3 billion in 2024, up 37.8 per cent year-on-year, according to figures from KPMG. The figures are the latest full-year figures available. ICT exports include software products, IT services, telecommunications services, digital solutions, hardware and equipment exported to markets including the EU, its primary market, Asia, North America and the Middle East and North Africa. According to the Turkish Investment and Finance Office, the reason for the increase in ICT exports was attributed to a large and growing R&D ecosystem, growing numbers of technology companies and technoparks in Turkiye and an increasing engineering workforce, with a large share of its workforce under 35. Other figures show that Turkiye’s startup investment deal volume jumped 423 per cent on the year to 2024 to $2.6bn, figures from KPMG show. The reason for the increase is down to a recovery in global markets, complemented by a shift towards larger deal sizes, experts say. Deals above $500 million accounted for a significantly higher proportion of total value compared to the previous year. Financial investors, particularly private equity, have played an increasing role in driving higher transaction values. Investment activity was concentrated in sectors such as services, energy, manufacturing, and technology. Among the companies presenting on Turkiye’s s Stage at London Tech Week are AloTech, Turkiye’s largest cloud contact-centre platform, Privia Security, a cybersecurity specialist, and broadAngle, a software development agency. Invest in Turkiye is organising Turkiye's presence at London Tech Week. Speaking at London Tech Week, İlhan Bağören, board member of the Service Exporters’ Association (HİB), said: “Turkiye’s technology sector is increasingly competing on a global stage. Our companies are expanding internationally, attracting investment and building partnerships."

Belgian startup Duely has raised €1.1 million to expand its AI-native legal services business focused on mergers and acquisitions. The round was led by Scalefund and Golden Egg Check, with participation from ML6 and a group of angel investors from the Belgian and UK technology, finance, and M&A sectors. Originally founded as an API-first technology company, Duely developed AI capabilities for virtual data rooms, the platforms used to manage documents during M&A transactions. Its proprietary AI technology is designed to automate and streamline a range of document-intensive tasks commonly involved in M&A processes, helping organisations manage and analyse transaction-related information more efficiently. In early 2026, the company expanded beyond software and began delivering legal services directly to clients, positioning itself as an AI-native legal service provider for M&A transactions. Today, it supports activities including data room preparation, legal due diligence, and transaction-related document review, combining AI-driven workflows with legal expertise and oversight. Duely's client base includes organisations such as Corporatewise, FincoEnergies, team.blue, and Sofindev. The company plans to use the new capital to accelerate growth across Europe, further develop its AI platform, and strengthen its position in the emerging market for AI-native professional services. Rather than licensing software to law firms, Duely applies its technology directly to the delivery of legal services, aiming to increase efficiency across the M&A process while expanding its presence within the European M&A ecosystem.

Deliverance AI, a UK-founded provider of enterprise AI infrastructure, has emerged from stealth, reporting £6 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR), more than 30 employees, and six enterprise customers within three months of incorporation. The company is developing what it describes as an Agentic Operating System (OS) designed to help governments, regulated industries, and large enterprises deploy and manage AI systems within their own environments. The platform is intended to address one of the key challenges facing enterprise AI adoption: the ability to govern, monitor, and control AI systems at scale. While many organisations have invested in AI infrastructure, cloud platforms, and pilot projects, Deliverance AI argues that enterprises still lack the operational framework required to manage AI as a production system. The company's platform provides a governed environment for AI agents, including model routing, audit trails, cost attribution, knowledge management, and monitoring capabilities. According to founder and CEO Mick McNeil, enterprise adoption of AI depends on giving organisations greater control over how models, data, and AI agents operate within their environments. Organisations with highly sensitive and valuable data need AI systems that operate within their own infrastructure and governance frameworks. Infrastructure alone does not deliver business outcomes. What enterprises need is an operating layer that allows them to run, govern, measure, and manage AI systems at scale, McNeil said. Deliverance AI is designed to support deployments in customer-controlled environments, including private cloud, on-premises, sovereign, and air-gapped infrastructure. The company says this approach is particularly relevant for organisations with strict requirements around data residency, regulatory compliance, and operational oversight. The platform's model-routing capabilities allow organisations to direct workloads across multiple AI models based on performance, cost, risk, and governance requirements. According to the company, this helps customers avoid dependence on a single model provider, cloud platform, or AI framework. Deliverance AI is working with HPE and NVIDIA to support enterprise AI deployments. The platform is already being used by enterprise customers across areas including professional services, sales operations, finance, and business process automation.

fonio.ai, a European provider of AI-powered customer communication solutions for small and medium-sized businesses, has raised $17 million in seed funding at a $140 million valuation. The round was led by 20VC, with participation from existing investors as well as founders and executives from companies including Synthesia, HubSpot, and Revolut. The funding follows a $3 million angel round completed in late 2025 and brings the company's total funding to more than $20 million. Founded by Daniel Keinrath and Matthias Gruber, fonio.ai develops AI agents designed to automate customer interactions for businesses that rely heavily on phone communication. The platform currently focuses on AI voice agents used for customer support, appointment booking, lead qualification, and outbound campaigns. In less than two years, fonio.ai has grown to serve more than 7,500 businesses, including Volkswagen, Storebox, and Brita. The platform currently automates more than two million customer calls each month and has established a presence across several European markets as well as Brazil. The company has developed its own technology stack covering areas such as speech recognition, turn detection, emotion recognition, and real-time orchestration. According to fonio.ai, the platform can autonomously manage and resolve most customer inquiries without requiring human intervention. With the new funding, the startup plans to expand beyond voice into a broader omnichannel platform. WhatsApp integration is already available, while email and chatbot capabilities are expected to be added in the coming months. fonio.ai is also developing additional AI-native business tools, including a proprietary calendar system and a CRM platform designed specifically for AI-driven customer interactions. The capital will also support its international expansion strategy. fonio.ai recently launched operations in the United Kingdom and the United States and plans to establish offices in key markets including New York, Munich, Milan, Paris, London, and Warsaw.

London-based startup Zaro has emerged from stealth with $5.1 million in pre-seed funding to develop a platform designed to unify enterprise AI tools, workflows, and data within a single adaptive workspace. The round was led by Cherry Ventures, with participation from angel investors including Thomas Wolf, co-founder of Hugging Face, GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke, Mandeep Singh, Charlie Songhurst, and former Convergence founders Marvin Purtorab and Andy Toulis. Founded by Michael Bajwa and Qian Zheng, Zaro is developing a platform designed to address the fragmentation of AI tools, applications, and data across organisations. Several members of Zaro's eight-person team previously worked at AI startup Convergence, where they developed AI agents before the technology entered the mainstream. Following Salesforce's acquisition of Convergence, members of the team contributed to the development of Agentforce, Salesforce's AI platform. Businesses often deploy AI agents, automation platforms, and workflow tools independently, creating disconnected systems where knowledge generated in one application is not retained or shared across the wider organisation. As a result, institutional knowledge remains fragmented and difficult to reuse. Zaro's platform is designed to provide a shared context layer that connects company data, decisions, workflows, and operational history. AI agents, applications, and workflows operate on top of this layer, allowing information generated through one process to inform future tasks and interactions across the organisation. We built agents that worked flawlessly in isolation and watched them struggle to work together. The intelligence never compounds because the context never carries over. Zaro is designed to address that challenge, said CEO and co-founder Michael Bajwa. Zaro combines a shared context layer with application-building tools and a marketplace of pre-configured workflows. The platform allows companies to create custom applications based on their own documents, meeting notes, operational processes, and business data. The company also uses a multi-model approach that routes routine tasks to lower-cost AI models while reserving more advanced models for complex workloads. According to Zaro, this can significantly reduce operating costs compared with deployments that rely exclusively on frontier models. Context compounds. Models become increasingly interchangeable over time, but the value created from an organisation's accumulated knowledge remains unique, said co-founder and CTO Qian Zheng. The platform is already being used internally by Zaro to manage functions including human resources, finance, and facilities operations. The new funding will support product development, team growth, and the expansion of the platform as Zaro prepares to bring its AI-native workspace to a broader group of enterprise customers.

UK-based agritech startup, Cordon Technologies, has secured the first close of a £1 million funding round led by British Design Fund (BDF) to accelerate the development and commercial rollout of its precision spraying system for farmers and growers. Cordon is developing a next-generation spraying system designed to help farmers dramatically reduce their use of pesticides and fertilisers. With the sector facing rising input costs, increasing regulatory pressure, and an urgent need to improve environmental outcomes, this is a growing priority across agriculture. The innovation was born from real-world frustration. Founder and CEO, Jamie Hutchinson, spent eight years running a vineyard in South West France, where he became increasingly frustrated by the limitations of conventional spraying equipment: “Today’s sprayers treat every part of the crop the same, regardless of what it actually needs. It’s a batch system that wastes chemicals, increases costs and contributes to unnecessary environmental impact. I knew there had to be a better way.” He went on to develop the Loop, Cordon’s dynamic mixing and precision-control system. The Loop enables farmers to adjust the concentration of multiple treatments simultaneously and in real time, ensuring each part of the crop receives exactly what it needs. This turns spraying from a batch process into a continuously controlled one. The result is a step-change in efficiency, reducing chemical use while improving accuracy, consistency and operational performance. The company has already gained early commercial traction in the UK vineyard sector, and aims to expand into vineyards across Europe and further afield, while also adapting its technology for a wider range of crops, including plant nurseries, vegetables, apples, and soft fruit. According to Hutchinson: “Farmers are under huge pressure to reduce chemical use without compromising yield or quality. Our mission is to give them the tools to do exactly that. The Loop makes precision spraying practical, scalable and operationally efficient, and this investment from British Design Fund will allow us to accelerate development and bring the technology to more growers, more quickly.” Damon Bonser, CEO of the British Design Fund, said: “Cordon is tackling an important operational challenge in agriculture with a well-considered technical approach. We are pleased to support the team as they continue developing their product and progressing their commercial plans.”

European pre-seed venture capital investor Pitchdrive has closed its fourth fund at €60 million, exceeding its initial €50 million target. The fund is fully backed by private investors, with no government or institutional capital. Pitchdrive said investor demand exceeded the original target, but the team chose to cap the fund size in order to maintain a concentrated portfolio and hands-on investment approach. Founded in 2020, Pitchdrive follows a "Co-founder Capital" model, combining funding with operational support from a network of experienced entrepreneurs, operators, and startup founders. The investor is chaired by Jonas Dhaenens, founder of team.blue, and was established by Boris Bogaert, Wim Derkinderen, and Koen Christiaens. The model is supported by a network of more than 20 entrepreneurs and executives from European technology companies, including team.blue, Deliverect, Lighthouse, Loop Earplugs, Showpad, Teamleader, Silverfin, and Foodbag. The network provides portfolio companies with strategic guidance, industry expertise, and access to the broader European startup ecosystem. The new fund will invest in approximately 25 to 30 early-stage startups across Europe and selected international markets. Its investment strategy is centred on companies that are either built around artificial intelligence or whose business models are being fundamentally reshaped by AI technologies. Pitchdrive plans to focus on three areas: AI-native software products, AI-enabled business categories, and software-driven physical industries such as robotics, mobility, and hardware. The investor said it will prioritise companies where AI is central to the business model rather than an add-on capability. According to Pitchdrive, the larger fund reflects changes in the early-stage market, where AI-native companies are scaling rapidly and increasingly require significant computing infrastructure rather than larger teams. Since its launch, Pitchdrive has invested in 70 startups across Europe. Its portfolio includes Henchman, which was acquired by LexisNexis, as well as Introw, Heltia, Happl, Axe, Ravical, Conveo, Foodamigos, and Gro. Alongside the fund announcement, Pitchdrive disclosed its participation in the $10 million pre-seed round of New York-based compliance AI startup Zerodrift, founded by serial entrepreneur Kumesh Aroomoogan. The investment reflects the investor's growing interest in backing AI-focused companies beyond Europe while maintaining its founder-led approach. Pitchdrive says its Co-founder Capital model is designed to provide founders with more than financial backing, combining early-stage capital with direct access to operators and entrepreneurs who have built and scaled technology companies across Europe.

Bending Spoons, the Italian tech conglomerate which typically acquires and tries to revive tech brands, has filed for an IPO in the US. Bending Spoons, which is highly acquisitive, has applied to list its shares on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “BSP” The timing of the offering, number of shares to be offered, and the price range for the proposed offering have not yet been determined, Bending Spoons said. Bending Spoons, founded in 2013, joins other European founded startups Oura, IQM Quantum Computers and Einride which are going public in the US. In its filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, details of Bending Spoons' finances were disclosed. It said it had over 500m monthly active users and more than nine million paying customers. Revenue grew from $387 million in 2023 to $1.31 billion in 2025, the filing states. It said it had made more than 50 acquisitions, which include AOL, Evernote and Brightcove. In October last year, Bending Spoons raised $710m in an equity fundraising round at an $11bn valuation. The equity round was led by T Rowe Price with participation from Baillie Gifford, Cox Enterprises, Durable Capital Partners, Fidelity and others.

Reading Football Club today announced a major strategic AI initiative with Stelia AI, powered by NVIDIA and Lenovo, bringing together professional sport and advanced computing to accelerate the practical application of artificial intelligence. The initiative will focus on the co-development of a Reading Football Club AI Centre of Excellence, designed to identify, develop and share best practice in applying AI and accelerating computing across football operations, performance analysis, fan engagement and commercial innovation. The initiative aims to ensure that advances in AI deliver tangible benefits for sport, the regional economy and the future workforce. The Centre will also support skills development, education and innovation across the wider Thames Valley, working with local schools, colleges, universities and technology organisations. Embedded in high-trust environments, Stelia’s full-stack operating system serves as the operational backbone for production-grade AI, making deployment trusted, governed and accountable at scale. It replaces fragmented tooling with a unified platform that enables teams to build workflows and agents quickly and cost-effectively without having to construct, integrate, or maintain the complex infrastructure underneath. As part of the initiative, Reading Football Club will use Stelia’s full-stack platform to support the development, testing and deployment of AI applications – leveraging accelerated compute infrastructure from NVIDIA and Lenovo. This will enable organisations to prototype real-world use cases and explore emerging approaches such as generative AI and agent-based systems within a practical, applied, and secure environment. Together, the organisations aim to establish a scalable model for deploying AI responsibly across both sport and enterprise. “This initiative brings together the best of sport, technology and community,” said Tim Kilpatrick, Chief Revenue Officer at Reading Football Club. “By working with Stelia, NVIDIA and Lenovo, we’re creating a platform that not only enhances how we operate as a football club, but also delivers real value to the Thames Valley business and education ecosystem. The AI Centre of Excellence will help translate innovation into practical outcomes, locally and beyond.” “Football is an ideal environment for applied AI – data-rich, fast-moving and outcomes-driven,” said Stuart Fenton, Head of AI at Reading Football Club. “We’re building an AI Centre of Excellence to focus on real-world use cases, from performance and analysis to operations and fan engagement, while also sharing insight and opportunity with educators and technology partners across the Thames Valley.”

The UK prime minister today reiterated the government’s intention of encouraging British startups to ”scale here” and “stay here”, as he announced plans to develop Britain’s sovereign compute offering, including a £400m chip plan. Speaking at London Tech Week, Keir Starmer said that Britain was “uniquely placed to lead” the AI revolution. His comments come as US semiconductor firm AMD announced a £2bn investment in the UK over the next five years and Dutch neocloud firm Nebius said it was committing £1.7bn to build out AI capacity in the UK. The prime minister said: “Britain is the third largest technology economy in the world. Our startups have raised close to half of all European investment in tech this year.” Starmer said Britain faced three choices on dealing with the rise of AI: either “stick our head in the sand”, “remove the guardrails completely” or the path of “backing British businesses creating the jobs and technologies of the future”. Starmer said: "Where British tech companies start here, scale here, and stay here.  “But the rewards of their success are felt in communities right across the country.
 And where government is active in its approach towards tech." The issue of British startups looking to deep-pocketed US investors to scale up is a long-running issue. Earlier this year, the government launched the £500m Sovereign AI fund, which is aimed at keeping the UK's best AI startups in the UK as they scale across the world. Today, Starmer announced plans to develop sovereign compute capability, including a “major new commitment to purchase specialist AI chips”, which was worth around £400m. The £400m commitment will see the government offer to buy AI chips from UK-based companies, in an attempt to encourage them to stay in the UK. It is part of a broader £1.1bn government hardware plan to build domestic AI compute capacity. In his speech, the PM also addressed the issue of AI safety, warning AI firms of their responsibility, highlighting government intervention into Elon Musk’s Grok earlier this year. Starmer said: “They allowed their tools to be used to create disgusting, explicit AI image. So we took them on. And all tech companies should know…If they fall short on their responsibility to keep people safe. We will act with the same decisiveness.” Image: Gemini

UK-based satellite manufacturer NewOrbit has raised $18.5 million in Series A funding to advance the commercialisation of Very Low Earth Orbit (VLEO), a region of near-Earth space between 200 and 300 kilometres above the planet that has historically remained inaccessible for commercial satellite operations. The oversubscribed round was led by Voyager Ventures, with participation from angel investors including David Kirk, former Chief Scientist at NVIDIA, Lawrence Leuschner, co-founder and former CEO of TIER Mobility, and family office Custos. Existing investors Atlantic.vc, Lifeline Ventures, LGF and Illusian also participated in the round. Founded in 2021 and headquartered in Reading, NewOrbit is developing satellites designed to operate in this orbital band, which has historically been used primarily for government and scientific missions, including spy satellites and the International Space Station. Operating closer to Earth allows satellites to capture higher-resolution imagery and provide lower-latency communications than conventional satellites in higher orbits. The company says its approach could enable drone-level imaging quality and direct-to-device connectivity at significantly lower cost than existing satellite constellations. Despite its advantages, VLEO has remained commercially challenging due to extreme environmental conditions. Atmospheric drag, atomic oxygen, and aerodynamic forces have historically made long-term operations difficult. To address these challenges, the company has developed purpose-built satellites equipped with proprietary propulsion technology designed to operate for up to five years in these conditions. Anatolii Papulov, CEO and co-founder of NewOrbit, said the company views very low Earth orbit as a largely untapped opportunity within the space economy: For decades, very low Earth orbit has been considered too challenging for commercial satellite operations. We believe it represents a significant opportunity for new services and applications that are not possible with existing orbital infrastructure. The funding will support the construction of NewOrbit's NEO Production Complex, a manufacturing facility planned for 2027. The site is expected to produce the company's first commercial satellite ahead of a planned launch in 2028 and increase production capacity as operations scale. The company is targeting applications including Earth observation and satellite-based connectivity, areas where operating closer to Earth could offer performance advantages over conventional orbital deployments.

What would your life be like right now without electricity? You wake up in the dark. You can’t charge your phone or laptop or make a cup of coffee. The shower is cold. You head out to work and have to walk down six flights of stairs as the elevator isn’t running. The streets are chaotic because the traffic lights are out. The trains aren’t running, and you can’t access the platform anyway as you can’t validate your ticket to get through the gate. All digital signage is black. You can’t book a Bolt or get cash from the ATM. You can’t use Google Maps to find the safest walking route, check the news, or contact your friends. It lasts for hours and happens again and again. Now imagine this not as a one-off failure, but as a repeated feature of daily life during wartime. For many Ukrainians, this became a reality during Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Russia’s attacks on energy infrastructure Since the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022, Ukraine has faced more than 400 missile and drone attacks targeting its energy infrastructure, particularly during the winter months. Power stations, substations, district heating systems, and transmission lines became frontline targets intended to weaken civilian morale and economic stability. According to Ukrainian officials, the attacks have included 84 strikes on nuclear, thermal, and hydroelectric power plants. However, Ukrainians did what they have repeatedly done throughout the war — innovate and adapt. In the process, Ukraine has become Europe’s real-world laboratory for telecom and digital infrastructure resilience, while the EU is only now beginning to develop policy frameworks such as the Digital Networks Act (more on that later) aimed at strengthening European digital sovereignty against both natural disasters and hybrid threats. Learning from Ukraine’s telecom resilience On my last visit to Kyiv, I sat down with Karen Madoian, Key Expert for Strategic Communications for the EU Project "Digital Regulation Support to Ukraine" to learn about how Ukraine’s telecommunications sector survived, adapted, and in some areas strengthened despite wartime conditions. Ukraine shows Europe that telecom connectivity is as important as electricity resilience during major infrastructure crises. Mobile connectivity is vital not only for personal communication but also for emergency alerts, banking services, navigation, military coordination, medical support, and helping civilians locate heating and shelter during outages. According to Madoian, telecommunications is also important to counter disinformation at the local level and sustain public trust. Why decentralisation helped keep Ukraine connected ​It might surprise you to learn that despite Russian air strikes that destroyed the energy grid, Ukraine has maintained a remarkable 90 per cent telecommunications network uptime. According to Madoian, critical to this is the fact that Ukraine’s telecom sector is not dominated by simply its major players —Kyivstar, Vodafone Ukraine, and lifecell — but instead includes a large number of smaller local internet providers, many operating close to frontline communities. “That fragmentation ultimately became a strength, creating a more decentralised and adaptable system with fewer single points of failure. Local providers had the flexibility to adapt quickly and continue delivering services.” Madoian admits that the toughest challenge came during the winters, especially when there were major power outages. “Early in the invasion, if electricity went down, mobile communication would often go down too. At the beginning, there was often only partial coverage. If you were close to a transmission point, sometimes you could still get unreliable service. But over time, operators installed backup generators and additional power systems. International partners also helped provide backup infrastructure, especially in frontline regions. The war forced the telecom sector to adapt very quickly because people needed communications even during blackouts.” Ukraine’s 72-hour connectivity rule With the onset of large-scale attacks on energy infrastructure, the Ukrainian government introduced a clear requirement for internet providers and mobile operators to ensure uninterrupted communications for up to three days (72 hours) in the event of a power outage. Mobile operators must equip 25 per cent of their networks with generators to ensure they can operate for 72+ hours during power outages. The remainder of the mobile network must be able to run on backup batteries for 10 hours. These batteries operate on the same principle as power banks, powering the base stations during blackouts.  This standard became a catalyst for rapid network modernisation. Further, energy-independent tech like Passive Optical Network (PON) technology became particularly relevant. xPON technology delivers internet connectivity via fibre-optic infrastructure using network components that can be powered by batteries or generators during outages and can continue operating for up to 72 hours. As a result, such networks are significantly more resilient to power disruptions. As of the end of 2025, fibre-based FTTP networks accounted for 92.9 per cent of Ukraine’s fixed broadband infrastructure. In 2023, the Ministry of Digital Transformation launched an interactive map indicating which households retain internet access during power outages depending on their provider in every region of Ukraine. The Ukrainian Telecom Regulator, the National Commission for the State Regulation of Electronic Communications, Radio Frequency Spectrum and Postal Services (NСEС), plays a key role in state supervision and monitoring over the implementation of requirements for stability and resilience of the telecom infrastructure during power outages. From the first days of the full-scale invasion, NСEС contributed to shaping decisions and implementing measures aimed at ensuring the stability and resilience of Ukraine’s telecommunications infrastructure. It has also helped maintain a flexible and responsive regulatory environment capable of addressing the unprecedented challenges faced by the sector.  According to Liliia Malon, Chairwoman of the NCEC: “While no country can prepare for every challenge, Ukraine’s experience in maintaining telecommunications networks during Russia’s ongoing full-scale invasion shows that adaptability and innovation are key to ensuring connectivity under the most demanding conditions.”  Kyivstar's satellite connectivity breakthrough Ukraine also became a testing ground for next-generation satellite communications. Ukraine's largest mobile operator Kyivstar became the first in Europe to launch Starlink's direct-to-cell satellite technology, enabling millions to stay connected. The technology allowed regular 4G smartphones to connect directly to satellite networks without requiring additional hardware. While the initial service provides satellite SMS messaging, the roadmap expands to mobile data and voice capabilities during 2026. According to Kyivstar, by January 2026, more than 3 million Kyivstar subscribers had registered for the service and over 1.2 million SMS messages had been sent via satellite. Ukraine is also emerging as a pioneer in testing new satellite communication technologies, including Direct-to-Device (D2D) connectivity.  In emergency situations, D2D technology can provide critical communication capabilities for first responders and affected communities when terrestrial telecommunications infrastructure is damaged or in areas without mobile network coverage. Ukraine Enters the EU's Roaming Zone In January 2026, Ukraine became part of the EU’s “Roam Like at Home” zone, allowing its citizens to enjoy the same free roaming benefits that EU citizens have had since 2017. Ukrainian citizens can now use their mobile phones – including making calls, sending SMS and using mobile data – across all 27 EU Member States without incurring additional charges. Despite millions of Ukrainians moving abroad, many people continued using Ukrainian telecom providers.  According to Liliia Malon, Chairwoman of the NCEC: “Roam Like at Home” is not only about borderless connectivity and the freedom to communicate, which is especially important for Ukrainians staying connected while in the EU. It is a tangible sign of trust and Ukraine’s integration into the European digital space. This achievement reflects the successful cooperation of Ukrainian and EU institutions in the interests of our citizens and it brings us one step closer to the EU Single Digital Market.” Why investors are still backing Ukraine Despite the unprecedented challenges of the ongoing full-scale war of aggression, Ukraine’s telecom sector has remained competitive, resilient and dynamic, while preserving its financial stability. This resilience helps explain the continued interest of foreign investors.  The telecom sector in Ukraine even increased its revenues during the war. It demonstrated strong financial results in 2025, with total service revenues reaching €3.58 billion.  Capital investment in electronic communications reached €680 million, a 35 per cent increase compared to 2024 — a striking signal of long-term confidence in a country still at full-scale war.  Network coverage also expanded: fibre-optic internet access now reaches 17,099 settlements across Ukraine, 777 more than the previous year. Mobile operators continue actively to roll out new networks across the country, and 5G testing pilots were also launched. Ukrainian mobile operator lifecell was even acquired in 2024 by a consortium led by French billionaire Xavier Niel, through his NJJ group — proof of confidence in Ukraine’s telecom sector and long-term digital future despite the ongoing war. In 2025, Kyivstar became the first Ukrainian company to be listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market under the ticker symbol KYIV, providing international investors with direct access to Ukraine’s largest digital operator and underscoring confidence in the country’s long-term growth potential (Nasdaq).  Vodafone Ukraine has continued to expand its investment programme, announcing significant investments in critical infrastructure and advanced technologies. Among its flagship projects is the Kardesa submarine cable system in the Black Sea, which is expected to strengthen regional connectivity and enhance the resilience of digital infrastructure that links Ukraine to Europe and Asia. Europe's Connectivity Wake-Up Call Grid instability does not only stem from cyberattacks or deliberate sabotage. In April last year, a major energy outage hit Spain when a cascade of generator disconnections occurred after a voltage surge and loss of synchronisation in the grid, severing ties with France and collapsing the Iberian network. Millions were affected, with metros, trains, traffic signals, airports, and telecommunications all shut down. Some travellers were trapped in stations, and at least seven deaths were linked to the outage, including carbon monoxide poisoning from generators, a house fire, and failure of medical devices. The Iberian blackout warning Ukraine's experience might appear unique because it emerged during wartime. Yet recent events suggest that Europe faces many of the same vulnerabilities, even in peacetime. Learning at speed during crisis The technical solutions matter, but Madoian argues that Ukraine's biggest advantage was moving at speed. Ukraine learned very quickly that protecting critical infrastructure cannot wait until a crisis begins. Once the war escalated, the government immediately brought together telecom providers, regulators, and infrastructure operators to coordinate responses. He explained:  “We moved extremely fast because they understood there was no alternative. It was very much “learning by doing.” Once people realised the war would continue for a long time, the question became: how do we keep infrastructure functioning under this “new normal”? Providers had the freedom to experiment, adapt quickly, and introduce new solutions without excessive bureaucracy. However, there was also a very strong business motivation. Telecom companies understood that if they didn’t adapt, they simply wouldn’t survive.” These wartime lessons are increasingly shaping how European policymakers think about digital resilience and infrastructure preparedness. Strengthening Europe’s telecom infrastructure for future crises The proposed European Digital Networks Act (DNA) is expected to become one of the EU’s most significant telecom and digital infrastructure reforms in over a decade. It is designed to address growing concerns that Europe’s communications infrastructure is fragmented, underinvested, and insufficiently prepared for an era of geopolitical instability, cyber conflict, AI-driven data demand, and climate-related disruption. The DNA aims to modernise Europe’s telecom framework by encouraging greater investment in fibre, 5G, cloud infrastructure, subsea cables, satellite connectivity, edge computing, and cross-border digital resilience. The legislation is also expected to simplify regulation across member states and strengthen Europe’s technological sovereignty while linking telecom resilience with energy resilience and civil preparedness. However, the European Commission published the legislative proposal on 21 January 2026, and it is now entering the legislative process with the European Parliament and Council. It will likely take months, and maybe even years, before the final regulation is adopted and implemented. Europe’s need for a Starlink challenger The reliance on Starlink further highlights the need for a European challenger. In 2023, French telco Eutelsat merged with the UK’s OneWeb. It currently operates around 650 low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellites through the OneWeb constellation and is arguably the only ecosystem player that can realistically compete with Starlink in at least some markets. Fortunately, the EU’s sovereign satellite communications network IRIS² (Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite) is also underway. Backed by more than €10 billion in investment, it aims to deploy a constellation of around 290 satellites to provide secure communications for governments, defence, critical infrastructure, businesses, and citizens across Europe. However, the system is not expected to become operational until around 2030. Ultimately, Ukraine shows that telecom resilience is no longer simply an issue for the telecom sector, but a matter of civil protection, economic continuity, and national security. The question is whether Europe can absorb those lessons fast enough before its next crisis arrives.

PhysicsX, a London startup using AI to transform engineering, compressing complex designs and simulation processes that once took months into seconds, has raised $300m at a $2.4bn valuation. The new valuation is more than double its previous valuation of nearly $1bn when it raised its $170m Series B round around 12 months ago. The startup has raised around $500m in total. The latest funding round was led by existing investor Singaporean sovereign wealth fund Temasek, with backing from existing investors Applied Materials, Nvidia, Atomico, General Catalyst and Siemens and new investors M&G and Intrepid Growth Partners. Founded by two former Formula 1 engineers, the startup is focused on leveraging AI to improve the designing of products across manufacturing and defence industries. PhysicsX is tapping into a market in which engineering and advanced manufacturing are hindered by resource and skill bottlenecks, struggling to keep pace with the increasing complexity and speed of change. PhysicsX, which employs around 350 people, is building into this gap with the conviction that AI-native engineering software can solve many of the most fundamental challenges inherent to hardware innovation.  The funding will be used to better develop its platform, AI research and expand in the US and open an office in Singapore. Jacomo Corbo, co-founder & CEO of PhysicsX, said: "Almost every hard problem in the physical economy — better aircraft, better chips, better engines, better energy systems — comes down to how fast and how well engineers and machine operators can work through the underlying physics. For decades, that has been the binding constraint on hardware innovation. Physics AI removes it.  “We are giving engineers the ability to explore thousands of designs where they once managed a handful, in seconds rather than weeks, across the most demanding industries in the world."

Last week, we tracked more than 55 tech funding deals worth over €2.3 billion and over 10 exits, M&A transactions, rumours, and related news stories across Europe. ? The top three industries that raised the most were analytics (€862.2 million), quantum (€415.7 million), and travel (€258.1 million). At the country level, ?? Belgium took first place (€859.7 billion), followed by ?? the UK (€624.9 million) and ?? Spain (€471.4 million). ❗ Now, let's get you up to speed on everything that happened last week, including your handy.csv file, allowing for an even more in-depth analysis. Have a great week! Funding deals by amount BELGIUM: Kpler receives $1B+ strategic growth equity investment from Sixth Street UK: Oxford Quantum Circuits lands “coming-of-age” £260M funding round SPAIN: Perk secures a €258M credit line to accelerate the global growth of its AI-native platform SPAIN: Factorial raises $150M Series D at $2.5B valuation to expand across Europe FRANCE: Quobly raises €115M Series A to commercialise silicon quantum computing SPAIN: Ona Therapeutics raises $86.6M in Series B funding UK: Wordsmith secures over £52M to bring legal work back in-house FRANCE: Innovafeed secures €51M to scale sustainable insect-based ingredients for animal and plant nutrition UK: IMU Biosciences raises £40M to change disease diagnosis SWEDEN: Endra raises $50M in Series A funding UK: Semble raises £30M Series C to expand its healthcare management platform UK: Apoha emerges from stealth with $36M to build “Liquid State Intelligence” for molecular behaviour GERMANY: Encosa raises €25M to bring battery storage to German SMEs UK: Fuse Energy secures €25M Series B extension as it plans 32,000 sq ft London HQ UK: Gigaton lands $26M to scale autonomous industrial control UK: Ex-Revolut alums' Tilt raises $26M as Europe searches for its live-commerce challenger NETHERLANDS: Invisix closes €20M seed round to transform chip metrology FRANCE: Innovorder secures €20M to accelerate European growth and AI development UK: Ex-DeepMind researchers raise £14.9M for Airspeed SWITZERLAND: GR3N raises €15.5M Series B to scale PET chemical recycling UK: Lloyds and Nationwide-backed AI fintech Aveni raises £12M UK: Gradient Labs raises fresh $13M POLAND: Ingenix raises €13M in seed extension funding UK: Flok Health lands $12.5M to grow its AI-operated healthcare platform UK: DEScycle secures over €10M in grant funding to scale critical metals recovery platform UK: Archestra.AI raises $10M to unlock next-gen agentic use case GERMANY: Freshflow receives $10M investment GERMANY: Bayshore raises $8M to turn compliance rules into code SWITZERLAND: Cense raises €6.5M in seed funding FRANCE: Backed by Mistral AI founders, NP Company secures €6M pre-seed to advance AI for engineering GERMANY: INXM raises €5.7M to tackle enterprise AI execution challenges HUNGARY: Kodesage raises $6.6M for AI-powered legacy software modernisation FRANCE: Noa raises €5M to create a premium online fitness brand BULGARIA: Paypercut secures €5M to scale cross-border payments in CEE SWEDEN: Oplane raises €4.5M to bring security to AI development teams SPAIN: Flipflow raises €3M to boost its agentic intelligence platform for retail UK: Circular11 secures €2.7M to turn low-grade plastic waste into building materials FRANCE: Upstream raises $3M to launch collaborative AI inbox backed by YC and Xavier Niel UK: AethexAI raises $3M to build voice AI infrastructure for Africa and the Middle East UK: Laverock Therapeutics awarded £2.2M through innovation grants DENMARK: Everyday^ closes €2.5M in a pre-seed round to develop intelligent home infrastructure across Europe SPAIN: Zazume secures €2.5M to grow rental property management business UK: Poindexter Labs raises £2M to improve training data for advanced AI SPAIN: Opereit raises $2.5M to tackle logistics’ trillion-euro problem with AI agents NETHERLANDS: New Dawn Bio raises €2.1M pre-seed round for cultured wood POLAND: Molfar raises €1.5M to bring tactical anti-drone radar systems closer to the frontline UK: Gnosis Health secures £1.1M to accelerate Parkinson’s care SPAIN: Used by Desigual, AWWG and Fútbol Emotion, Spanish AI fashion platform Modelia raises €1.03M SPAIN: DARWIN Biomed boosts its growth with a €1M funding round NETHERLANDS: SolarDew raises €800,000 to scale solar-powered drinking water tech ITALY: Vivilo raises €628,000 pre-seed round for AI-powered event content BELGIUM: Sensie raises €500,000 to bring real-time plant intelligence to greenhouse growers SWEDEN: Schibsted invests €300,000 in sharing economy service Hygglo SWITZERLAND: hephaistos.bio secures €161,000 to advance sustainable chemical manufacturing GERMANY: LVM Insurance is investing an undisclosed sum in travelträger GERMANY: Visionaries Club, Yellow, Plug & Play, Outlier Grove, and others are investing in ContextFab GERMANY: Zelara secures an undisclosed sum investment UKRAINE: Defensetech startup DoD Solution raised pre-seed investment from NETWORK.VC DEFENSE fund GERMANY: Behold Ventures and IBB Ventures, along with several business angels, are investing an undisclosed sum in Honig Games Exits and M&A activity SPAIN: Entravel Group acquires Moca Traveltech to expand across Spanish-speaking travel markets GERMANY: Berlin-founded Contentful snapped up by Salesforce UK: Vertice acquires Vendr to build AI-powered procurement intelligence platform SPAIN: CommerceClarity acquires Katalogo.ai UK: XFolio AI buys Absolute Payments to unify treasury and payments for UK corporates FRANCE: Ornikar acquires En Voiture Simone to outpace the competition SWEDEN: Eivora is acquired by Allabolag's owner AUSTRIA: Salesforce acquires Contentful SWITZERLAND: SEALSQ acquires majority stake in Wecan Group GERMANY: The Norwegian company UniSea is acquiring the Berlin-based maritime tech company Kaiko Systems FRANCE: Resilio acquires Greenoco and strengthens commitment to sustainable tech SWITZERLAND: Quantum Design completes acquisition of Qnami SPAIN: Barceló acquires 100% of Atrápalo to strengthen its digital business

BeatpulseLabs, a London-based AI data company transforming expert human judgment into high-fidelity training datasets for advanced multimodal AI models, has raised $1.8 million in pre-seed funding. The round was co-led by Araya Ventures and Lighthouse Ventures, with participation from Alumni Ventures and Avalancha Ventures. The funding announcement comes as BeatpulseLabs reports 10x revenue growth during the first half of 2026, reflecting increasing enterprise demand for high-quality, purpose-built AI training data. As enterprise adoption of multimodal AI accelerates, companies are facing a growing challenge: while access to raw data is abundant, creating datasets that accurately capture human expertise, context, and decision-making remains a significant bottleneck. BeatpulseLabs is addressing this gap by helping organisations transform domain-specific knowledge into production-ready training data. Founded by South African Jason Rieff and Bulgarian Nikolay Vitanov, BeatpulseLabs was created to address a fundamental limitation in artificial intelligence. Many multimodal models continue to be trained on poorly annotated or generic datasets, reducing their ability to perform reliably in real-world environments where context and nuanced human judgment matter. According to Vitanov, enterprise AI often encounters challenges when moving from controlled testing environments into real-world operations. He said BeatpulseLabs addresses this by creating training data that reflects how individual businesses actually function: We proved this approach in some of the most demanding multimodal domains such as music, video and speech. The same logic applies anywhere the margin for error is low, from robotics to knowledge work. Using generic training data is like letting a confident stranger make decisions for your business. We do not recommend it. BeatpulseLabs offers two integrated services: dataset preparation and dataset provision. The company transforms existing multimedia content libraries into enterprise-grade AI training datasets by cleaning, structuring, labelling, validating, enriching, and formatting raw speech, music, and video assets for machine learning applications. It also provides ready-made and custom rights-cleared datasets for organisations seeking high-quality training data without relying solely on their own content archives. These datasets are designed to support model training, fine-tuning, reinforcement learning, and evaluation, enabling AI systems to operate with greater accuracy, context awareness, and reliability. Rieff emphasised that the capabilities of AI systems are largely determined by the quality of their training data, noting that much of the data currently used is broad, inconsistently organised, and inadequately annotated for enterprise use cases. We are building the missing data layer by transforming raw multimedia content into structured, annotated, model-ready datasets that help AI systems understand context, not just patterns. The traditional approach of applying broad labels to large volumes of content is no longer sufficient for the next generation of AI. The funding will support BeatpulseLabs as it expands its platform and customer base amid growing demand for high-quality, domain-specific AI training data.