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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Financial Times and Statista have unveiled the 10th edition of the FT1000: Europe’s Fastest Growing Companies, confirming Estonia's position as a powerhouse for financial innovation. Leading the national charge for the second consecutive year is Tallinn-based fintech Wallester, which has surged into the Top 40 of the overall European ranking. Securing the 38th position globally (up from 48th in 2025) and ranking as the #1 fastest-growing fintech in Europe, Wallester’s trajectory highlights a broader shift in the financial sector: the move toward embedded finance and modular payment infrastructure. The FT1000 evaluates 1,000 European companies based on revenue compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over a three-year period. The 2025 ranking considered data between 2021 and 2024. Since its launch in 2017, the ranking has become one of Europe’s reference benchmarks for scale-up growth. Sustaining hyper-growth in a volatile market Wallester’s inclusion in the FT1000 is not a one-time spike but a sustained scaling effort. Since its founding in 2016, the company has transitioned from a localised startup to a pan-European infrastructure provider. The data behind the growth: Compound Annual Growth: The company achieved a CAGR of 178.9% over the latest ranking period. Revenue Velocity: From a 2021 revenue of €790,267, Wallester grew to €9,140,000 by the end of 2023, and reached €17.2 million in audited revenue in 2024, representing 87% year-over-year growth. Job Creation: Reflecting its operational scale, the team has expanded from just three employees in 2020 to over 200 across offices in Estonia, Latvia, France, and the UK. "Being recognised by the Financial Times as Europe’s fastest-growing fintech is an important milestone for our company," said Sergei Astafjev, CEO and Co-Founder of Wallester. "Over the past several years, we have focused on building robust financial infrastructure – investing in technology, compliance, and operational resilience. As embedded finance becomes increasingly important for businesses across Europe, platforms that combine scalability with regulatory strength will play a key role in the next stage of fintech development." An entrance into the "Elite Club" Wallester’s performance mirrors its recent success in the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Central Europe, where it placed 6th overall with a 2,070% four-year growth rate. By consistently ranking at the top of both the Deloitte and Financial Times lists, Wallester has joined an elite tier of European "scale-ups" that have successfully moved past the initial startup phase into established market leadership. In 2025, the company underscored this maturation by moving its headquarters to a brand-new office in Estonia, establishing a presence in Cannes, France, and complementing offices in Latvia and the United Kingdom. Powering the future of European payments While many fintechs faced a "funding winter" in recent years, Wallester’s growth was driven by its dual-pillar product strategy: Wallester White-Label: A card issuing and embedded finance infrastructure solution enabling companies to launch branded Visa card programs without the regulatory burden of obtaining their own licenses. Wallester Business: A corporate expense management platform providing virtual and physical Visa cards for SMEs. The company’s 2025 roadmap saw the launch of 24/7 instant currency exchange across ten currencies and direct accounting integrations with Xero and QuickBooks – features that have turned its Wallester Business platform into a primary tool for European SMEs navigating cross-border trade. As the highest-ranked Estonian company on the FT1000 for two years running, Wallester continues to be a primary driver of the Baltic "innovation momentum," helping the region punch well above its weight on the global stage.

Deep Science Ventures has funded the third cohort of its Venture Science Doctorate programme, which empowers a new archetype of Venture Scientist to solve neglected health and planetary challenges. Starting this April, the next cohort of five venture scientists will be supported by a funding consortium led by SPRIND, Germany’s Federal  Agency for Breakthrough Innovation, and joined for the first time by the  investment and philanthropy platform Builders Vision.  The programme is a pioneering model of entrepreneurship-focused doctoral training, offering participants a unique level of investment and freedom through an all-expenses-paid package that covers tuition, stipends, travel, and research consumables. The scientists are given total autonomy to select and define their own research topics.  With access to a global network of more than 30 world-class labs, the candidates are not tied to any single institution, allowing them to iterate on their ideas and move fluidly between laboratory environments to follow the science wherever it leads. Starting with a target societal outcome and with a goal to create a high-impact company removes the financial risk often associated with high-risk research and entrepreneurship. Past Doctoral Fellows are addressing such global challenges  as boosting longevity for two billion women by staving off menopause-related diseases; scaling energy transition through deuterium-based fusion reactors that can last ten times longer than current solutions; and extending the lifespan of all humans by triggering endogenous protein signalling. Dr Thane Campbell, Dean of Education at Deep Science Ventures, said: "The  Venture Science Doctorate is a new piece of industrial infrastructure.  Together with SPRIND and Builders Vision, we are proving that when you  strip away the bureaucratic constraints of traditional academia and give  the world’s most talented individuals the freedom to focus on outcomes,  PhDs can solve global challenges." Barbara Diehl, Chief Partnership Officer at SPRIND, said: "At SPRIND, our mission is to find and fund the breakthroughs that will shape our future,  and that requires a new breed of innovator, which the current system does not produce in sufficient enough numbers to meet the world's toughest challenges." Dr Xiao Recio-Blanco, Program Officer at Builders Vision Philanthropy, said: "Protecting and strengthening the resilience of ocean ecosystems is a key focus for Builders Vision, and achieving this requires scaling innovative solutions that advance a sustainable blue economy. By joining this consortium, we’re recognising that a new blueprint for doctoral training can help develop Venture Scientists who drive market creation and growth across this emerging sector. Lead image: Freepik.

Berlin-based finperks has closed a $4 million pre-seed funding round led by Motive Partners and seed+speed Ventures. The company is developing API infrastructure for the global prepaid market, including gift cards, eCash, and prepaid cards, a sector projected to reach $4.24 trillion by 2035. Demand for digital rewards, cashback, and employee benefits continues to grow, but the infrastructure supporting prepaid products remains fragmented. Banks, fintech companies, and HR platforms seeking to offer these services often need to integrate with multiple providers across issuing, brand partnerships, settlement, and compliance, which can slow product launches and limit regional availability. finperks aims to simplify this process by providing a single API that gives partners access to more than 1,000 brands across Europe. Through a single integration, organisations can offer services such as brand-funded cashback deposited directly into bank accounts, digital employee benefits including Germany’s €50-per-month tax-free “Sachbezug,” and instant digital gift cards embedded within financial products. Banks need cashback to retain and engage users. HR Platforms need benefits as a logical extension to upsell clients. None of them want to build prepaid infrastructure. They want to plug into it, said Sebastian Seifert, co-founder and co-CEO. Six months after launch, finperks has already integrated with several platforms. Payment app Flizpay uses finperks to offer brand-funded cashback paid directly into users’ bank accounts at the point of purchase. HR platforms Recardy and Paylo use the system to distribute Germany’s tax-free employee benefits without requiring additional infrastructure. The new funding will be used to expand the company’s engineering team, strengthen brand partnerships, and scale operations across additional European markets.

A recent report reveals that in the past 14-20 months, EIC Scaling Club members have achieved an average funding growth of 66.66 per cent. That is more than double the control group, which saw just 26 per cent growth in the same time period, according to the EIC Scaling Club Impact Report. Supporting Europe’s most promising deeptech scaleups The EIC Scaling Club is an initiative under the EIC Business Acceleration Services,  run in partnership by Tech Tour, Bpifrance (EuroQuity), Hello Tomorrow, Tech.eu (Webrazzi), EurA and IESE Business School.  The initiative is designed to support Europe’s most promising deeptech scale-ups by increasing visibility, providing access to networks, and offering targeted expert guidance. The program’s portfolio was selected from more than 300 nominations submitted by investors and EU Member State representatives from the EIC programme committee, identifying companies with strong potential to grow towards a €1 billion valuation. Benchmarking for critical comparison The 120 EIC Scaling Club members were benchmarked against 240 deep tech companies that were nominated for the program, eligible, and applied but were not selected due to capacity or geographic constraints. Funding growth refers to how much additional funding a company has raised since joining the Club. In total, the member companies have raised around €2.13 billion since joining the program. This brings the total raised to approximately €5.47 billion across the portfolio to date. The 120 companies in the Club represent an estimated combined valuation of €10-13 billion, with the top 20 companies alone accounting for €4-5 billion. “These results reflect the strength of Europe’s deep tech talent and the importance of sustained support for companies with the potential to scale globally,” said Patrik Sobocki, EIC Board Member and EIC Scaling Club Council Member. Providing high-quality support to them is essential for Europe’s long-term competitiveness. Top scaleups drive €1.67B in new funding across The top 20 companies in the portfolio have achieved 152 per cent funding growth, raising around €1.67 billion in new capital since joining the programme. Companies that raised the most since joining include:   Axelera AI, Netherlands (€361 million), Multiverse Computing, Spain (€254 million), PLD Space, Spain (€206 million), EnduroSat, Bulgaria (€143 million + more undisclosed), Vay Technology, Germany (€90 million), CorPower Ocean, Sweden (€77 million), and cylib, Germany (€63 million). Beyond funding, companies also report strong economic and market impact.The scaleups have created 2182 new jobs and closed 200 strategic partnerships. 76 per cent of members say they've attracted new clients, while 35 per cent have expanded their business outside the EU. “It is a privilege to serve these 120 companies. By continuously monitoring impact, engagement, and satisfaction, we commit to providing meaningful value as they pursue funding, growth, and international opportunities,” said William Stevens, EIC Scaling Club Coordinator, Tech Tour.

Legora, the collaborative AI platform for lawyers, today announced it has raised $550 million at a $5.55 billion valuation in a Series D funding round to accelerate its expansion across the United States. The round was led by Accel, with participation from existing investors Benchmark, Bessemer Venture Partners, General Catalyst, ICONIQ, Redpoint Ventures, and Y Combinator, as well as new investors, including Alkeon Capital, Bain Capital, Firstmark Capital, Menlo Ventures, Salesforce Ventures, Sands Capital and Starwood Capital.  The funding round coincides with Legora’s first anniversary in the United States and follows a series of major customer wins and partnerships, including White & Case, Cleary Gottlieb and Goodwin, underscoring the US as a core growth market as legal teams increasingly embed AI into their workflows at scale. Commenting on the funding and US expansion, Max Junestrand, CEO and Co-Founder of Legora, said: “Over the past year, the pace of adoption in the US has exceeded our expectations, as leading firms and in-house teams move decisively from experimentation to embedding AI across their organisations. This funding enables us to accelerate our US growth – investing in talent and infrastructure, strengthening our presence in key markets, and ensuring we can support customers on the ground as they integrate AI into their core workflows.” Less than a year after opening its first US office in New York in March 2025, Legora is expanding its footprint with new offices in Houston and Chicago – two of the country’s most significant legal and commercial hubs – alongside its existing presence in New York and Denver. The company expects to open additional local hubs and grow to more than 300 employees across its US offices by the end of 2026."Max and team are relentlessly focused on building the AI operating system for the legal industry,” said Arun Mathew, Partner at Accel. “As in other service industries, work is quickly shifting to end-to-end workflows run by agents, and more of that work is happening on Legora. We’re excited to partner with Legora as they enter this next stage of growth." Legora’s growth has been driven by its deeply collaborative approach to developing and deploying AI. The company works side by side with clients from the earliest stages of exploration through full-scale rollout and ongoing optimisation, positioning itself as a long-term partner as firms and in-house teams embed AI into mission-critical workflows.Over the past year, Legora has grown from 40 to 400 team members across Stockholm, London, New York, Denver, Sydney, and Bengaluru. The Legora platform supports tens of thousands of lawyers each day across 800 customers in more than 50 markets.Junestrand shared: “We’re incredibly grateful to the legal teams who trust us to support some of their most important work, and to the investors who continue to back our long-term vision. This support enables us to continue building technology that empowers lawyers through seamless collaboration between human expertise and machine intelligence.”