The AI fintech Vickii has been acquired by the finanzen.net Group, a German financial portal and parent company of the neo-broker finanzen.net ZERO.  Vickii began as a student project in Münster. At just 20 years old, Jai Bheeman, Lukas Söllner, and Alexander Brils founded the fintech while still at university, with the ambition to rethink investing for a digital generation. From the outset, the idea was clear: investing must be intuitive, easy to understand and personalised – and artificial intelligence is the key to scaling this experience. Over time, early prototypes evolved into a powerful AI engine that simplifies complex market data and supports better investment decisions. Vickii grew to a high-five-figure user base and raised more than €2 million from investors, laying the foundation for a successful exit.  With this acquisition, Vickii’s technology and team will scale their impact within a European platform reaching millions of users. “When we founded Vickii, our mission was to make investing clearer and easier for everyone. With the finanzen.net Group, we can now take this mission onto a much bigger stage,” says Jai Bheeman, CTO of Vickii. The integration provides an ideal environment to accelerate this vision: access to millions of users, an execution-driven business model rather than subscriptions or advertising, and a flexible setup that enables AI features to be brought to market faster, more data-driven and effectively. “We never doubted our vision – this acquisition shows that we were right,” adds Alexander Brils, CPO of Vickii.  “A (neo)broker had long been the logical exit route. That the right opportunity has emerged now was not something we could have predicted. With finanzen.net ZERO, we can realise our ideas faster and at greater scale, in an excellent environment.” With the acquisition of Vickii, the finanzen.net Group is deliberately strengthening its expertise in user-centric, AI-powered financial content and brokerage. The existing technologies and competencies will be gradually integrated into the finanzen.net portal and the group’s own broker, finanzen.net ZERO. The aim is to offer investors clearer support for decision-making throughout the entire user journey – from information and analysis to concrete investment decisions. “AI, when used pragmatically, can create significant value for users. We want to provide our readers with more clearly structured information and give our investors a better orientation. The Vickii team strengthens us precisely in this user-focused application of artificial intelligence,” says Muhamad Chahrour, CEO of the finanzen.net Group. The Vickii founders will continue to contribute their expertise to the development and advancement of AI-supported products and content within the finanzen.net Group.  The parties have agreed not to disclose the financial details of the transaction. Lead image: Jai Bheeman, Lukas Söllner, Alexander Brils. Photo: uncredited.

Green concrete startup Carbonaide has raised €3.7 million to transform the concrete industry through carbon dioxide curing and permanent CO₂ storage. Carbonaide’s technology has been in commercial production since 2024. In 2025, Carbonaide entered into agreements with two Finnish companies, concrete producer Lakan Betoni and concrete element manufacturer Lipa-Betoni, to install its technology in their factories.  Production with the Carbonaide systems begins in both facilities in early 2026.  In January 2026, Carbonaide also sold the first certified carbon credits created through its mineralisation. The round was led by Carbonaide’s existing owners, Vantaan Energia, Redstone, and Ihantola Invest, and joined by a group of private investment companies and investors, including Zero Carbon Future Group, Product Ecology Holding B.V., Helkama Kiinteistöt, and Ikorni Invest. “With a lifetime focus on decarbonising construction, I am very excited by Carbonaide’s potential. Now that the technology is ready to scale, we are thrilled to support the growth of the company and also to partner with Carbonaide to supply carbon data for low-carbon products,” says Panu Pasanen, CEO of One Click LCA and investor through Zero Carbon Future Group. The new funding will support Carbonaide’s international expansion and boost R&D activity towards new applications, making carbon-negative concrete profitable. The funding will be used to drive progress across three core areas: Expansion of customer acquisition by strengthening the company’s global sales organisation and marketing efforts. Further development of the Carbonaide Service Platform – a cloud-based software platform for managing CO₂ flow, carbon measurements and carbon credit issuance that will serve as the backbone of our solution. Accelerated R&D beyond precast concrete – fast-tracking the development of Carbonaide’s roadmap extension, starting with next-generation carbon dioxide curing for concrete element production. This will pave the way for applications in ready-mix and other concrete types. “With this momentum, we are well-positioned to scale our technology, expand our CO₂ partner network, and continue turning concrete factories into carbon sinks,” says Tapio Vehmas, CEO of Carbonaide. “There is clear demand in the construction industry for solutions that reduce emissions, showing that the industry is turning towards a low-carbon built environment.”

The former CEO of bankrupt battery maker Northvolt said it was “emotionally tough" raising funds for his new venture, after the demise  of the Swedish battery maker, which collapsed with debts of $5.8bn. Peter Carlsson, the co-founder and former CEO of Northvolt, launched a new startup last year that leverages AI to help the manufacturing process just months after Northvolt, which raised billions of dollars in equity and debt, collapsed. Carlsson's new venture, called Aris Machina, has attracted investment from angels along with investors such as Earlybird and Village Global, according to Aris Machina. Speaking about the process of raising money after the collapse of Northvolt, Carlsson said: “That was not easy at all. You felt incredibly guilty towards the people who lost a lot of money. It is important to recognise that the Northvolt journey was not a VC journey. We built Northvolt first with industrial investments and then later on with big funds like Goldman Sachs. Emotionally, it was tough.” Carlsson was speaking at the GoWest VC conference in Gothenburg, along with Siddharth Khullar, who launched Aris Machina with Carlsson and is its CEO. Khullar previously headed up Northvolt's AI offering. Carlsson also said there was a “big curiosity” about Aris Machina, in which he owns a stake of between 25 and 50 per cent in, when he began selling it into the market. Carlsson said: “Overall, I think there has been a pretty big curiosity and interest in what we are doing.” Carlsson said many potential Aris Machina customers know that AI is going to disrupt the way they are working, but don’t know how. Khullar said: “In my experience, both the investor conversations and customer conversations have been incredibly toned in the way that ‘tell us everything you learned’.”  Speaking about Nortvolt, Carlsson said: “It’s been a very tough year, I think incredibly challenging.  As you’ve been 24/7 working on building this company that you dedicated your entire effort.” Carlsson also said that if Norhvolt had been able use the operating system developed by Aris Machina, it would have helped the battery maker. Also speaking at the conference was Michiel Scheffer, president of the board, European Innovation Council, the EU body for identifying funding, and scaling disruptive tech across the bloc. Last year, the EU unveiled its €5bn ScaleUp Europe Fund designed to address the long-term issue of the shortage of late-stage growth capital across the EU. Speaking of the fund, Scheffer said it had €3bn committed from private investors. But he called out the absence of investment from Germany and France. He said: "It’s still very much a Nordic affair, if you take the Netherlands as a Nordic country as well." He said the first investment from the fund should take place in the summer of this year. Scheffer also said he was surprised by Ursula von der Leyen officially announcing the launch of Eu Inc at Davos last week. He added: "I was at Davos last week and was surprised Ursula von der Leyen took the most radical position possible on the 28th regime, the 28th regime as a regulation  and not as a directive.” Photo: Stockholm School of Economics

seed+speed Ventures, the Berlin-based early-stage fund led by Carsten Maschmeyer and Alexander Kölpin, has closed its fundraising at €90 million.  The original planned target size for this third fund was €30  million. With investor approval, the hard cap was increased twice.  seed+speed III will invest in European B2B and enterprise software companies at the pre-seed and seed stages, with initial ticket sizes ranging from €500,000 to €1.5 million. For each startup, the fund can provide several million euros in follow-on capital.  With the new fund, seed+speed Ventures aims to focus on the secure rollout and use of AI in everyday business operations — from security, data protection, and governance to quality, cost control, and measurable productivity.  The investor base includes institutional investors such as banks and foundations, media groups, family offices, industrial holdings,  professionals from the legal and tax sectors, real estate entrepreneurs, and high-net-worth individuals.  Carsten Maschmeyer, Managing Partner at seed+speed Ventures, contends that “If Europe wants to compete in the global AI race, we urgently need to drive innovation.  We firmly believe in AI from Europe.” “There are strong, innovative founders here with an inventor’s mindset and world-class technology. What is often missing, unfortunately, is the power to build large companies from it, and that’s where add value. We’re especially proud that several successful founders from our first two seed+speed funds have since joined us as investors following their exits. That is a strong signal of trust.” According to Alexander Kölpin, Managing Partner of seed+speed Ventures, the question is no longer whether companies will use AI, but how they use it to remain competitive.  “We invest in Pre-Seed and Seed teams that build AI as a core technology,  as well as in companies that provide tools to use AI safely and effectively.  With €90  million, we have created a strong early-stage vehicle for enterprise AI in Europe. We  invest deliberately at the earliest stages and back founders with follow-on fundraising,  go-to-market execution, and sales-led scaling, so European technology becomes solutions that set international standards.”  Fundraising for seed+speed III began in summer 2024. For the first time, the new fund is open to European startups outside the DACH region.  Since then, the investment team has already invested in 13 startups, including:  • Orq.ai, based in Amsterdam (Netherlands), is a Generative AI  collaboration/LLMOps platform that helps teams develop, test, deploy, and monitor AI agents securely in production. • RIIICO, based in Düsseldorf (Germany), is an AI-based software platform that helps industrial companies create a digital 3D model of their existing factories,  enabling them to plan and execute factory expansions, new production lines,  and other conversion projects four times faster and more flexibly than before.  Customers already include well-known automotive manufacturers. • Optimuse, based in Vienna (Austria), is an AI platform for building engineering,  retrofit projects, and operations. It shows planners of new and existing buildings early on which technical options reduce costs and emissions the most. • Eleven Dynamics, based in Solothurn (Switzerland), provides automated inline metrology and quality assurance for manufacturing, helping companies reduce cycle times while improving quality. Customers include BMW, Audi, and Sauber  Motorsport.

Stockholm-based Funnel, the marketing intelligence platform, has secured an $80 million debt facility from HSBC Innovation Banking and Hercules Capital. The financing includes a revolving credit facility from HSBC Innovation Banking and a junior term loan from Hercules Capital, bringing together two lenders focused on supporting growth-stage technology companies. Founded in 2014 by Fredrik Skantze and Per Made, Funnel provides a marketing intelligence platform used by global brands such as Adidas and Sony, as well as marketing agencies including Publicis and Havas. The platform enables organisations to collect, structure, visualise, and analyse data from more than 600 marketing platforms. As part of its transition toward an AI-first platform, Funnel is developing advanced agentic measurement capabilities. The company recently launched Data Chat, a conversational analytics feature that allows users to interact with marketing data using natural language. Commenting on the funding, Funnel CEO Fredrik Skantze said the facility reflects the company’s financial maturity and will help accelerate AI development and expand analytics capabilities for marketers. The new facility refinances a previous $58 million debt arrangement and provides additional capital to support product development, international expansion, and progress toward profitability, as well as operational efficiency improvements as the platform scales.

For years, Europe’s energy debate has focused on increased supply — more renewables, more grid capacity, more infrastructure. But as electrification accelerates, from heat pumps to EVs, the real challenge is shifting from how we generate power to how we use it. Peaks and troughs in demand still force the system to overbuild, waste clean energy, and rely on fossil backup, even when renewable generation is abundant. At the same time, the technologies meant to make homes “smart” remain fragmented with lower adoption than in other parts of the world. This leaves millions of connected devices in our homes, yet very little real, automated control over when and how energy is actually consumed. Tewke is a London-based climate-tech and smart-home company whose flagship product, Tap, replaces the traditional light switch with an AI-enhanced interface for lighting control, energy management, and environmental sensing.  Through the Tewke app, you can control lighting and connected devices remotely and set up automation based on routines or sensor triggers. Built-in sensors and software analyse energy usage and offer recommendations to reduce waste and save on costs. Tap can also track home environmental factors like air quality, humidity and CO₂, helping you understand and improve your home health. Tewke is led by serial entrepreneurs Piers Daniell and Rowan Dixon.   Piers Daniell founded Fluidata (now FluidOne) in his bedroom in 2006, growing it to over 150 employees before exiting in 2019. Sir James Wates is Chairman of Tewke and former Chairman of the Wates Group, one of the largest family-owned construction, development, and property services companies in the UK. As his company grew, Daniell shared, “We operated out of 18 data centres, and at certain times of day, the national grid would actually pay those data centres to go offline. That’s when the idea of demand-side control really landed for me: if you could change demand in millions of homes, you could have a massive impact on energy consumption.” When he eventually exited that business, he realised that no one had truly solved demand-side control at a granular, home level. “ You had companies like Octopus playing around the edges, but not really controlling demand in detail.” The nuclear-scale prize of shifting household demand The potential impact for demand control is enormous, according to Daniell: “If everyone ran their washing machines or dishwashers at three in the morning, we could use all that excess energy and flatten peak demand,” Daniell said. “I once read an estimate that Europe could save the equivalent output of around 200 nuclear power stations just through better demand management.” At the same time, Daniell‘s personal experience with home automation exposed a different but related problem: usability. “I was living in a home with a high-end automation system, Control4. It was powerful but incredibly hard to use,” he said. “My in-laws once babysat and sat in the dark all night because they turned the system off and couldn’t work out how to turn it back on. Everyone has similar stories — people unplug smart plugs, forget passwords, get logged out of apps.”  — This is also my experience. Whenever we get a cat sitter, we come home to find every smart device unplugged from the wall, despite how simple we make Google Home instructions. Daniell realised that if home technology was going to scale, it had to be “usable by absolutely everyone, not just tech enthusiasts,” he said. “So those two worlds came together: intelligent energy control and genuinely usable home technology. But I needed serious technical firepower to build it — that’s where Rowan came in.” Dixon was studying Design Engineering at Imperial Collegeand working in Microsoft R&D when Piers approached him.   He shared:  “At that stage, it was basically a napkin sketch, but the ambition was very clear. The goal wasn’t just to build a ‘smart home’ — it was to remove human error from energy use.” Why the light switch is the most powerful interface in the home The team opted for the light switch because, according to Daniell, it's the most universal interface in the home. “A three-year-old can use it. A grandparent can use it. Babysitters, builders, visitors — everyone understands it,” Daniell said. Dixon added: “We realised that if you control the light switch and the socket, you essentially control all the energy in the home.” They also insisted on physical buttons. This means that if the internet goes down or software fails, the lights still have to work. Re-engineering the wall: power, sensors, and a modular brain The Tewke product has three layers: The frame for aesthetic customisation,  The wired core that replaces the switch, and, A magnetically attached display module that contains the sensors and compute. Each device contains nine sensors: Doppler radar for presence detection, a microphone, temperature, humidity, air pressure, ambient light, volatile organic compounds, CO₂, and voltage and current sensing.  Together, they give a real-time picture of environmental conditions and occupancy. Historically, IoT has been fragmented: one device for air quality, another for temperature, another for motion, each with its own apps and ecosystems. Tewke provides a single, integrated platform that could actually reason about what’s happening in a space.  If you ever need to upgrade the intelligence, you don’t need to rewire the wall — you just replace the module. One of the hardest technical challenges is that a light switch is in series with the load: when the light is off, the power is off. Yet you want sensors, processors, radios and a screen to remain powered.  “We developed and patented a way to do this with and without a neutral wire, explained Dixon. This is critical in Europe, where many homes don’t have neutrals at the switch. Turning lighting control into energy intelligence More than just a great smart lighting solution, Tap provides real-time energy cost tracking to empower users to make efficient energy use choices, helping them to shift the use of energy-heavy appliances, like the dishwasher, washing machine, tumble dryer or EV charger, to much lower cost times of the day. Paired with a variable energy Tariff, Tap helps users to make informed decisions that could save them considerable money on their energy bills.  The sensors feed into on-device AI that learns behavioural patterns rather than relying on fixed schedules. It understands when rooms are used, how air quality changes, and how people move through the space, and it automatically adapts lighting, heating, and ventilation. Adding a natural language layer to the wall While the physical light switch remains the most universal interface in the home, Tewke includes TewkeAI, a built-in voice interface that allows residents to control lighting, energy use and home settings through natural language, without relying on external assistants or cloud-only processing. Unlike traditional smart speakers that act as a separate layer in the room, TewkeAI is embedded directly into the wall switch itself, combining microphones, on-device AI and contextual awareness from Tap’s sensor stack. For Daniell, this is about removing yet another source of friction. “If a three-year-old, a grandparent and a visitor can all use a light switch, voice should work the same way,” he said. “You shouldn’t have to remember commands or wake words. You should just be able to say what you want to happen in the room.” Because Tap already understands occupancy, light levels, air quality and routines, voice becomes contextual rather than generic. A request like “make it cosy in here” can translate into a specific lighting scene, temperature adjustment and ventilation change, while “I’m going to sleep” can trigger an energy-optimised night mode across the home. Privacy first from the get-go According to Daniell, “being invited into someone’s home is a privilege." "We keep as much processing on-device as possible. When data leaves the device, it’s anonymised. We don’t know whose home it is or where it is — only that “a room like this” has certain characteristics. That still allows us to train models and improve performance, without compromising personal privacy. We’re European, and we take European privacy values seriously.” In turn, TewkeAI processes voice locally wherever possible, keeping raw audio in the home and using anonymised data only to improve models. Future features will allow users to manage activities such as home security, media and thermostat control, all of which will be activated in the background, without the need for further hardware or configuration. From electricians to landlords, social housing, and hotels Tewke’s initial customers are homeowners via electricians and installers. After appearing on Grand Designs, (a UK architecture TV show) the team saw a big spike in consumer interest, which helped build its partner network.  Dixon explained: “Our model is that you buy through an electrician — they source it, install it, and become an extended sales and education channel.” Tewke is also seeing strong interest from landlords, social housing providers, student accommodation operators, and hotels. The same hardware works across residential and commercial use cases, which is important for scale. Presence detection alone is hugely valuable: turning heating and lighting off automatically when rooms are empty, pre-heating before check-in, monitoring air quality, and even detecting vaping or unusual activity in hotel rooms. “Like building six companies at once” In explaining why the company chose to manufacture in the UK despite the added complexity, Daniell points to the strategic value of control. “We’re full-stack: electronics, mechanical engineering, industrial design, software, AI — all in-house,” he said. “It’s like building six companies at once, but it gives us total control over quality and roadmap.” The company employs around 16 full-time people and has grown largely through bootstrapping, supplemented by a small group of angel investors. According to Daniell, that constraint has shaped not just the pace of growth but also the company’s culture. “It forces discipline,” he said. “If we’d raised €10 million on day one, we’d have spent it — and probably built something worse. Tewke’s long-term vision is to position the home within the smart grid.  Think white goods, heating systems, EV chargers — coordinated automatically so demand shifts to the cheapest and greenest times. Your washing machine runs when renewable generation is high. Your heating pre-warms your home when energy is abundant. Piers Daniell contends that in this case, “Instead of everyone having to invest in huge capex like batteries and solar, we optimise what already exists. Shift demand, don’t just add supply. If we can flatten peak load, we reduce the need for massive new power stations.” In the long run, while we start with hardware, we expect to be seen as a software and energy-intelligence company. The light switch is just the gateway — but it’s the most familiar gateway in the world.”

The UK’s sustainable grocery delivery service, Modern Milkman, has raised £10 million in a funding round led by Salica Investments, bringing its total funding to more than £60 million. Founded in 2019 by Simon Mellin, Modern Milkman began as a local milk delivery service and has since expanded into a national operation. The company operates an optimized supply chain, sourcing fresh produce from independent British suppliers. Its app-based platform supports automated routing and order processing to align deliveries with demand and reduce waste. Groceries and breakfast items are delivered up to three times per week in reusable glass bottles and returnable containers, supporting a closed-loop system that reduces single-use packaging. Mellin said Modern Milkman offers a distinctive and convenient service for households across the UK, adding that the new investment will support the development of more integrated doorstep services. He noted that the company’s growth and customer satisfaction reflect strong demand for sustainable alternatives, positioning the business to scale while helping households reduce their environmental impact. Modern Milkman now serves more than 100,000 households across the UK and expanded into the US in January 2024 through a strategic acquisition. The investment will support the continued development of Modern Milkman’s doorstep delivery model and logistics platform, with plans to introduce additional integrated services aimed at making sustainable choices more accessible and convenient for customers.

b2venture has closed its Fund V at €150 million, reaching the hard cap and marking the firm’s largest early-stage fund to date. The fund is supported by a mix of long-standing and new limited partners, including family offices, institutional investors, and high-net-worth individuals. Several investors have committed across multiple fund generations, reflecting continued support for b2venture’s investment approach. New institutional investors include asset manager Flexstone and Swiss pension fund Stiftung Abendrot, alongside portfolio entrepreneurs, operators, and long-standing angel investors such as Thomas Hagemann (SevenSenders) and Joachim Schoss. Supporting Europe’s next generation of technology companies Fund V will invest in around 35 early-stage startups across Europe, following an industry-agnostic strategy with a focus on scalable, defensible technologies. The fund has already made several investments, including Nautica Technologies, Hive Robotics, Augmented Industries, and Assemblean. These investments reflect b2venture’s focus on deep technology, AI, robotics, manufacturing, automation, and infrastructure companies shaping Europe’s future. b2venture’s investment approach is centred on long-term collaboration with founders. Fund V continues the firm’s intergenerational model, in which founders may become investors after exiting their companies and contribute experience, networks, and capital to subsequent generations of entrepreneurs. The firm’s continuity across five fund generations reflects the durability of this long-term, community-based approach. Jan-Hendrik Bürk, Partner at b2venture, explained that venture capital is fundamentally a people-driven business, highlighting the firm’s angel network as a key differentiator in sourcing, selecting, and supporting founders building category-defining companies. With Fund V, we are strengthening this model to support the next generation of European tech champions with true domain knowledge, not just capital, Bürk said. Over the past two decades, b2venture has supported a range of European technology companies, including DeepL, 1KOMMA5°, Raisin, SumUp, Nelly, and Urban Sports Club. The firm has backed at least one unicorn in each fund generation and has been involved in 11 IPOs and more than 30 trade sales. In 2025, b2venture recorded one IPO with Navan and completed several portfolio exits, including Araris Biotech, Beekeeper, and Neptune, which was acquired by OpenAI. A community-driven investment model and generational transition b2venture integrates a network of more than 350 experienced angel investors who contribute both capital and operational expertise alongside the firm’s institutional approach. In 2024, b2venture strengthened its team by appointing Mathias Ockenfels as Partner, while long-standing Partner Jochen Gutbrod transitioned into the firm’s Super Angels network. b2venture has operated across multiple market cycles, from the early internet era to the current expansion of AI. Throughout this period, the firm has maintained a consistent focus on long-term relationships, continuity, and disciplined investing. Fund V continues this approach, emphasising sustained partnerships based on trust and a long-term perspective.

London-based Pallma AI, the security layer for agentic enterprise systems, has completed a $1.6 million pre-seed round led by Marathon Venture Capital, with participation from technology leaders from AWS, Meta, Google, and others. Enterprise adoption of AI is accelerating as large language models and autonomous AI agents move from pilot programs into core operational roles. Many organisations are expected to deploy agentic applications in the near term, increasing reliance on systems that can operate with limited human supervision. As AI agents take on greater responsibility, this shift also introduces new security and risk considerations. Existing security tools were not designed to manage the probabilistic and adaptive behavior of autonomous systems, which can be vulnerable to prompt manipulation, unintended data exposure, or excessive autonomy. When these systems process sensitive data or are authorised to take actions, errors or misuse can lead to significant operational and security impacts. Pallma AI addresses these challenges by providing a centralised layer of security, visibility, and control for AI agents. Pavlos Mitsoulis, co-founder and CEO of Pallma AI, explains that the company is building an AI-native security platform designed to protect AI-powered applications by identifying threats in real time and continuously strengthening the security of autonomous systems. The platform integrates with existing enterprise technology stacks, collects application and system data, and uses AI models to monitor, detect, and mitigate risks such as prompt injection, unintended data exposure, and unsafe agent behaviour in real time. Co-founder and CTO Dionysis Varelas added that the platform combines real-time threat detection with actionable guidance and automated response capabilities, extending beyond a purely passive security approach. We develop advanced AI models to identify vulnerabilities before malicious actors can exploit them and recommend necessary fixes, ensuring AI applications remain continuously hardened against emerging threats, Varelas said. With the new funding, Pallma AI plans to expand its team, accelerate product development, and support growing demand for its AI-powered enterprise security platform.

German climatetech startup Co-reactive has completed a €6.5 million seed financing round led by HTGF, with participation from NRW.Bank, HBG Ventures, AFI Ventures, Evercurious VC, and a group of experienced climate-tech business angels. Additional support is provided through public funding programs, including the Federal Funding for Industry and Climate (BIK) from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy. Founded in 2024, Co-reactive develops a continuous CO₂ mineralisation process that converts captured CO₂ and natural minerals, such as olivine or metallurgical slags (EAF & BOF), into CO₂-negative supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs). These materials enable a reduction in clinker content and associated emissions while maintaining or improving compressive strength and durability. The technology is designed as a drop-in solution that can be integrated into existing cement and construction material production processes. The company collaborates across the value chain with CO₂ and raw material suppliers, cement and concrete producers, and certification bodies to support the transition from pilot facilities to industrial-scale plants in the 100–300 kiloton range. Through this approach, Co-reactive addresses key challenges in the cement industry, including the high emissions intensity of cement production (responsible for around eight percent of global CO₂ emissions), and the increasing scarcity of conventional cement substitutes due to the coal phase-out and structural changes in the steel industry. With the seed financing, Co-reactive plans to scale its laboratory and pilot activities to a continuous demonstration plant with a capacity of approximately 1,000 tons per year by Q2 2026. In parallel, the company is working with industrial partners to prepare first-of-a-kind plants at the tens-of-thousands-of-tons scale, which from 2027 onward are intended to mineralise biogenic or process-related CO₂ streams directly at cement and steel production sites.

London-based GoCanopy has raised €2.1 million in seed funding to support the development of its AI-powered operating system for institutional real estate investors. The round was led by ISAI, with participation from BNP Paribas Développement, Yellow, and a group of angel investors. Institutional real estate investors manage large volumes of deals, tenant, and financial data that are often fragmented across emails, documents, spreadsheets, and teams. This fragmentation can limit the creation of a unified system of record and reduce the ability to systematically leverage historical information for investment and asset management decisions. GoCanopy addresses this challenge through a centralised, AI-driven platform that extracts and structures data from internal documents such as offering memoranda, rent rolls, and asset management reports. Using human-in-the-loop AI workflows, the platform consolidates unstructured information into a shared institutional knowledge base that evolves as new data is added. Founded in 2023 by William He and Yash Pabbisetti, GoCanopy develops institutional-grade AI tools for real estate investment teams. The platform supports core investment workflows, including deal screening, underwriting, and investment committee preparation, while also enabling asset management functions such as lease expiry monitoring, rent review tracking, and identification of leasing opportunities. All insights remain traceable to source documents to support transparency and governance requirements. WilliamHe, Co-founder and CEO of GoCanopy, said his experience in real estate investing showed how fragmented data limits value creation, and that advances in AI now make it possible to consolidate institutional intelligence and unlock additional revenue opportunities. The new funding will be used to further develop the enterprise platform and support international expansion, including opening an office in London alongside Paris and growing the company’s commercial and engineering teams.

Today, Luminance launched the largest update to its Legal-Grade AI platform in the company’s ten-year history. The new architecture retains negotiation history and legal decision-making across all enterprise contracts, addressing a long-standing gap in contract systems that captured outcomes but lost the context behind decisions. Luminance’s platform now connects the context for contract negotiations, workflows, and analysis across the entire enterprise portfolio.   Founded in 2015 and developed by AI experts from the University of Cambridge, Luminance’s Legal-Grade AI redefines enterprise decision-making, turning contracts from an administrative burden into strategic intelligence. The value of specialisation I spoke to Graham Sills, co-founder and Director of AI, last year at Web Summit, who told me, “I’m very glad we specialised early.  “Our advantage is that we’ve spent a decade building deep legal expertise and domain-specific models.  This means that if your entire product depends on a general model whose licensing or capabilities change, it creates real business risk.  Specialisation gives us a much stronger foundation.” The problem that started it all: Highlighters in law firms Regarding the impetus for the founding of Luminance, he recalled,  “Some of my friends had studied law and were very excited to go and work in big law firms. They’d spent a huge amount of money and effort on their education, and in their first few years they were basically given a highlighter pen and told to read contracts all day, every day.” He thought it was a “terrible waste of talent and time”, and it felt like a problem that technology could solve.  “At the time we wouldn’t even have called it AI, but that’s how we ended up building a company focused on specialised legal AI.” The ‘legal brain’ of the organisation Luminance’s multi-agent platform automates entire workflows, from creation and negotiation to risk review and compliance. It understands clauses, evaluates legal and commercial impact, takes action,  and learns from every negotiation, becoming increasingly attuned to your business.  Today, Luminance is used by over a thousand organisations worldwide.  Sills shared:  "We think of it as the ‘legal brain’ of the organisation — everything you would normally go to your general counsel for, you can now access through AI agents, supported by humans.” For example, if you want to understand how something like Trump’s tariffs affect your business, traditionally that would take weeks — reading different contracts, working with analysts, pulling everything together. With Luminance, it can take minutes.” There’s also negotiation. For simpler agreements like NDAs or service contracts, Luminance has shown that two AI agents can actually negotiate with each other.  “We’re not quite ready as a society to remove humans from the loop entirely, but a huge amount of the work can already be automated.” Sills shared a customer anecdote: a customer returned from holiday and realised he was supposed to review a master service agreement, with a deadline in 2 hours. Normally, that would have taken four or five hours at least. According to Sills: “He put the document through Luminance, checked it against his company’s risk criteria, and within about five minutes had enough confidence to make a decision and sign. That kind of time saving is transformative.” For a decade, Luminance has cut contract negotiation time by 70-80 per cent. With this relaunch, that jumps to 90 per cent.  Further, these capabilities have expanded with the new upgrade. With institutional contract knowledge now available throughout the enterprise, legal teams can regain over 30 per cent of their time. Solving ‘enterprise amnesia’ According to Eleanor Lightbody, CEO of Luminance: “Enterprise amnesia is real, and it's costly. Whenever it’s time to renegotiate a contract, executives ask: Who agreed to this, and why?  Current AI systems are helpful at the moment, but become disconnected over time. Our new platform remembers, reasons, and stays with the work in perpetuity, which distinguishes it from anything else on the market.”  In 2025, the company's global revenue doubled for the second year, with North America growing 127 per cent YOY, including its first eight-figure enterprise deal.  To support this growth, Luminance’s headcount grew by over 40 per cent across the  UK, Europe, Australia, and the United States. Over the past 12 months, Luminance analysed 18M+  contracts across jurisdictions and industries. Luminance’s new Legal-Grade AI launches in beta to design partners, with broader availability from  February 25.

When four engineering students at TU Delft shared a simple idea in 2013, they had no clue it would change how millions of students study worldwide. Marnix, Lucas, Sander, and Jacques noticed something unfair: students with lots of friends could easily swap great study notes, while others struggled alone. They started by carrying external hard drives from room to room, sharing notes with classmates. That small act of helping each other became Studocu, a platform that now serves 60 million students every month across more than 100 countries. From Dorm Room to Global Impact Studocu started with a clear mission: to make education accessible to everyone. The founders believed quality education helps you excel in life, but only when everyone has access to the same resources. What began as a handful of lecture notes from one Dutch university has grown into a massive library of over 50 million study documents from more than 120,000 schools worldwide. Students upload around 50,000 new notes every day, about one new document every second. From 15 million users in 2021 to 60 million monthly users today, Studocu proves that students everywhere want to learn together and help each other succeed. The Library That Never Sleeps Studocu is built around student-shared study materials. When you search by your school and course, you can find notes, summaries, and practice problems that match what you're learning. One person's summary can save someone else hours, and seeing a topic explained differently can make it click. But a big library can feel overwhelming. That's why Studocu also offers AI tools to help students pull out key ideas faster. Study Smarter, Not Harder: The AI Revolution A recent survey by Copyleaks showed that 90% of students are turning to AI to help manage their schoolwork. Studocu recognized this need and integrated powerful AI tools directly into its platform. Instant Summaries: Upload a dense 40-page textbook chapter, and Studocu AI breaks it down into a clear, organized summary in seconds, extracting key points so you don't have to re-read the same paragraph three times. Study Assistant: Think of this as a tutor who's always awake. As you read through a document, you can ask the Study Assistant to explain a concept, simplify a definition, or provide an example. Active Recall with Quizzes: Studocu AI turns your notes into interactive quizzes, scanning your uploaded content and generating multiple-choice questions to test your knowledge immediately. Mock Exams: Practice Like It's the Real Thing The most anxiety-inducing part of school is the exam itself. Studocu's Mock Exam feature lets you generate a tailored practice test based entirely on your course materials. Upload your lecture slides or notes, click "Mock Exam," and the AI creates a balanced test with multiple-choice, short-answer, and essay questions. You take it under a timer, simulating real exam pressure. After you submit, you get detailed feedback showing what you missed and why, so you know exactly what to study next. Trusted by Students and Recognized Globally Studocu was recently named one of the World's Top EdTech Companies of 2025 by TIME and Statista. The platform currently holds a 4.2-star rating on Trustpilot based on nearly 10,000 reviews, with students consistently citing the quality of shared resources as a major factor in their academic success. Grow Smarter Together Studocu is built around a simple idea: students learn better when they support each other. Shared notes can save time, and AI tools help you turn messy materials into something you can actually review. If you feel stuck, you don't have to start from zero. Summary Studocu is a massive online study group where millions of students share lecture notes, summaries, and practice problems for specific courses. Unlike ChatGPT, Studocu AI focuses exclusively on student-shared documents and your files, keeping answers tied to real academic material. The platform is mostly free and works for all subjects, from engineering to physics, with real-time collaboration support. If you don't have notes to upload, search the library by your university and course to find materials from students who've taken the same class.

Evaro, an NHS-licensed digital healthcare platform, has closed a $25 million Series A funding round led by AlbionVC, with participation from Simplyhealth Ventures, Exceptional Ventures, Cornerstone VC, and BBI. Founded by medical professionals, the company provides embeddable prescribing and pharmacy infrastructure that enables consumer brands to offer regulated digital healthcare services directly to their customers. The platform supports treatment across more than 80 conditions and has served over two million patients to date, working with a range of consumer brands. Evaro’s infrastructure includes asynchronous consultations, remote diagnostics, prescribing, dispensing, and aftercare, and can be integrated into existing digital platforms within a short timeframe. For partners, the model enables the addition of healthcare services with limited implementation effort, while supporting new revenue streams and deeper customer engagement. Dr Thuria Wenbar, CEO and co-founder of Evaro, explained that the company has developed infrastructure that allows trusted consumer brands to offer safe, regulated healthcare for common conditions without building their own systems. The funding comes amid increasing pressure on primary care in the UK, driven by extended waiting times for GP appointments. Evaro aims to help address this demand by expanding access to regulated digital healthcare services. Looking ahead, the company plans to broaden its reach and further develop its healthcare-as-a-service offering in the UK market.

Paraglide, an agentic AI product for accounts receivable (AR), has raised a $5 million seed round co-led by Bessemer Venture Partners and DN Capital, with participation from Born Capital and The Nordic Web Ventures.  Built for high-volume B2B finance teams, Paraglide deploys AI agents that automate two-way billing communication across the AR lifecycle. The agents respond to customers’ billing questions, chase overdue invoices, and take action across the financial stack to reduce Days Sales Outstanding (DSO) and improve cash flow.  Unlike traditional AR tools that rely on one-way, templated payment reminders that customers often ignore. Paraglide’s AI agents manage full two-way conversations with customers, replying and following up on existing threads in a personal and contextual way at scale.  Paraglide was founded by the former CFO and Head of Engineering of GetAccept (YCW16), which raised more than $30 million across its Series A and B rounds, Rasmus Areskoug, and Andreas Åström. Having experienced the operational burden of accounts receivable firsthand, the founders set out to modernise one of finance’s most persistent pain points.  Paraglide is already seeing strong early traction among mid-market and enterprise companies, with customers such as Choco, Ardoq, and Spiideo, and partnerships with the revenue automation company Chargebee. Initial customers report a 34 per cent reduction in DSO and achieving financial inbox-zero within the first week of onboarding.  Rasmus Areskoug, Co-founder and CEO of Paraglide, commented:  “As a former CFO, I’ve seen finance teams drowning in billing queries and tirelessly chasing invoices with reminders that customers ignore. AI agents have already transformed customer support by automating high-volume, conversational work. That same shift is now coming to accounts receivable, where agents can handle billing conversations end to end and help businesses get paid on time.”  According to Alex Ferrara at Bessemer Venture Partners: "Paraglide's AI agent helps reduce DSOs and frees the finance team up to work on more valuable, higher-level strategic projects."  According to Thomas Rubens at DN Capital, this is the year of the 'System of Action,' where AI agents move beyond observation to execute complex workflows with high-level context.  “Paraglide is defining this category by solving a critical organisational pain point, reducing DSO, and we are thrilled to back a team that combines unparalleled experience with technological velocity to fundamentally change how companies unlock cash and drive growth.”  The funding will support Paraglide’s expansion across Europe as demand for agentic automation in finance operations grows. 

ZOHO.VC, the venture capital arm of ZOLLHOF – Tech Incubator, has completed the first closing of its inaugural fund, securing 70 per cent of its target volume ten months ahead of the final closing. The fund’s limited partners include entrepreneurial families and startup founders. The fund focuses on pre-seed and seed investments in technology-driven startups and combines capital with technical expertise and access to ZOLLHOF’s network of corporate partners, technology experts, and co-investors. Its investment strategy targets early-stage companies connected to the ZOLLHOF ecosystem, including startups emerging from its incubation programme, designated a “Startup Factory” by the German Federal Government, as well as selected co-investment opportunities. ZOHO.VC places a particular focus on deeptech companies and university spin-offs across both software and hardware. Alongside the fundraising process, the team has already completed five investments, including Merge Labs. The fund’s current volume of approximately €7 million represents an initial milestone. In response to ongoing demand and a growing pipeline, partners Benjamin Bauer and Dennis Kirpensteijn, together with Principal Nicolas Sievers, plan to expand the fund beyond its original target in 2026, with the objective of supporting teams addressing significant technological and societal challenges.

Estonian-founded project management platform Scoro has acquired the Estonian AI-driven expense and bill management company Envoice.  Professional services firms have long managed time and costs in separate, siloed systems. This fragmentation often forces businesses to rely on month-end reporting to understand their margins. By combining Scoro’s control over projects, budgets, time, and resources with Envoice’s control over spend, companies can bridge this visibility gap and capture every project cost as work is done, avoiding month-end surprises that impact the bottom line. Visibility and real-time insights are vital in an era of razor-thin margins and heightened competition as AI disrupts the very services these firms sell.  The acquisition brings together two complementary solutions: Scoro’s comprehensive project management capabilities and Envoice’s world-class AI-powered bill and expense automation. While Scoro and Envoice will continue to operate as separate products, together they offer professional services firms a significantly more efficient way to manage project-related expenses, with real-time insights into profitability. Integration is already live between the two products. Receipts get automatically linked to both projects and purchase orders at the point of capture, making project cost reporting faster and more reliable. Further enhancements will be rolled out over the next two months to fully automate data exchange. Fred Krieger, Founder and CEO of Scoro, said: "Service businesses live and die by their margins, and yet external expenses are not always accounted for in project tracking because they sit in disconnected systems. Envoice has built a truly innovative solution for automating bookkeeping, bill capture and expense approvals. Together, we ensure no cost goes unlogged, fulfilling our vision of an AI-powered future where repetitive manual tasks are outsourced to AI and automation is applied across the full project lifecycle, from planning and delivery to financial control.” According to Jaanus Põder, Founder and CEO of Envoice: " Scoro is the perfect match for our next chapter. For our customers and partners, business will continue as usual, but with the backing of Scoro, we can now accelerate our roadmap and bring new capabilities to market much faster."

Radiant (formerly Neamine) has been selected to participate in Hexa’s Carbon Zero acceleration programme and has closed a €2 million funding round, with minority participation from the business angel networks Tiresias Angels and Selim Cherif. Industrial heat accounts for more than 70 per cent of total industrial energy consumption, yet it remains largely dependent on fossil fuels. One of the main reasons is the limited economic competitiveness of low-carbon heat solutions, which often requires industrial operators to balance cost pressures with decarbonisation objectives. Radiant is addressing this challenge by developing a solar thermal solution tailored to industrial applications. Its system integrates next-generation heliostats, a proprietary receiver, and thermal energy storage to deliver configurations adapted to specific industrial needs. The technology is capable of supplying heat at temperatures between 200°C and 1,000°C, with thermal power outputs ranging from 2 to 50 megawatts, while maintaining a high degree of operational control. According to Alexandre Meurisse, CTO of Radiant, the company’s core technology builds on 15 years of research and development conducted at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and enables the production of hot air at temperatures exceeding 1,000°C, above current industry standards. Thomas Delhon, CEO of Radiant, added that the solution offers heat-intensive industries a practical way to reduce emissions while maintaining stable energy costs. In practice, Radiant’s technology replaces fossil-fuel-based equipment such as gas burners and oil-fired boilers with a solar-based heat source adapted to industrial processes. Companies in sectors such as asphalt, glass, and cement have expressed interest in applying the solution to equipment, including kilns and dryers. The new funding will support the construction of Radiant’s first industrial demonstrator in Le Mans, intended to validate the scalability of the technology and the company’s ability to deploy the solution efficiently at industrial sites. Participation in Hexa’s Carbon Zero programme will also provide Radiant with additional support as it continues to develop its industrial solar thermal solution. Over time, the company plans to expand its activities internationally and scale the deployment of its technology to support the broader decarbonisation of industrial heat production.

Stockholm-based Brickanta, an agentic AI platform for the construction industry, has closed an $8 million seed funding round led by Northzone. The round includes participation from global sports figures, founders of Lovable and Tandem Health, angel investors affiliated with OpenAI, Google, and Meta, as well as continued backing from Y Combinator and SSE Business Lab. Brickanta is developing an AI-native operating system for construction, initially focused on pre-construction workflows such as bid analysis, cost estimation, and procurement, processes that play a central role in project outcomes. The platform combines AI with industry-specific data, standards, and documentation to help construction teams identify gaps, assess risk, and prepare procurement materials more efficiently than traditional tools. The company has onboarded hundreds of users and introduced its platform to construction teams across eleven countries on four continents. Customers connect their internal data to generate AI-driven analyses, with users reporting that early identification or accurate pricing of change orders can significantly influence project viability. Procurement teams are also able to generate category-specific RFP packages in minutes rather than days. Lucas Otterling, co-founder and CEO of Brickanta, noted that while the construction sector is often perceived as slow to adopt new technology, the company has seen strong engagement from a new generation of builders seeking AI tools designed around real-world construction workflows. Commenting on the investment, Pär-Jörgen Pärson, Partner at Northzone, said that productivity growth in the construction industry has lagged for decades and that AI has the potential to help manage the complexity of planning and execution, which often involves large volumes of critical documentation. Looking ahead, Brickanta plans to expand across Europe, leveraging shared building standards such as the Eurocodes. The company also intends to continue growing its engineering, product, and delivery teams, while maintaining close ties to Silicon Valley through Y Combinator, US-based angel investors, and partnerships with large language model developers.

Lunar, the Nordic digital challenger bank, has raised €46 million in fresh funding, with the funds geared towards growing its business customers and supporting the launch of a suite of new lending products.   Lunar, which has over one million users across the Nordics, has raised the funding from existing investors Heartland and Orbit Alliance and new investor 100A, a London-based fintech investor. Lunar did not disclose a valuation following its new funding, when asked by Tech.eu. Lunar was last valued at $2.2 billion in 2022. The latest funding round means that Lunar has raised €537m in total, according to Pitchbook. Ken Villum Klausen, founder and CEO of Lunar, said the funding would be used to grow its business customers, which currently stands at 40,000 users, in Denmark, Sweden and Norway.   On a target number for business customers by the end of 2026, he said: “I think we would be aiming for 100,000, that is one of the core ambitions for 2026."   He said business customer growth was currently stronger in Sweden than in Denmark. He added: “We can see that our strategy is working. More users are choosing paid subscriptions, and we are seeing strong momentum in our business customer base, reaching 40,000 business users in January."   The funding will also support the launch of a suite of lending products, including credit cards and overdrafts, in the second quarter of this year, said Villum Klausen. He said expansion would continue to focus on the Nordics, not beyond into wider Europe. In 2022, Lunar launched its Lunar Block in-app crypto platform in 2022, allowing users to buy and sell crypto coins directly.   In October last year, Lunar secured a crypto licence under the EU’s MiCA regulation. Villum Klausen said crypto was “doing OK”.   Last year, Lunar was hit by a string of executive departures including its co-founder and CTO, as it looks to cut management costs and become profitable in the long term.   Peter Andreasen, Lunar’s co-founder and chief investment officer, and Kåre Kjelstrøm, the CTO (chief technology officer) of Lunar, have both left. The two executives are understood to have left in the past few weeks.