Swiss-based AI startup Zenline AI has secured $1.6 million in pre-seed funding to bring intelligent assortment decision-making to European retail. Zenline AI develops artificial intelligence that combines margin data with market trends to deliver automated, product-level recommendations, from pricing actions to assortment consolidation. Retail teams use Zenline to support new product launches, rationalisation efforts, and the ongoing optimization of existing listings. Arber Sejdiji, CEO of Zenline AI, shared: We build AI agents that think like assortment decision-makers, but operate in seconds. Our mission is to empower European retailers to compete profitably again. Given how critical and shopper-centric assortment is, a retailer can win by increasing its top line and building a competitive edge against Amazon and Temu, because customers will easily find what they are looking for, consciously or not. The co-founder combines retail expertise with AI acumen, shaped at BCG, P&G, ETH Zurich, and the University of Cambridge. Since early 2025, European retailers have been using Zenline AI, which now analyses more than one million SKUs. Its focus is on speed, delivering rapid insights and execution. Zenline’s AI agents generate actionable recommendations for each product or category, drawing on margin data, competitive signals, social trends, and shopper behaviour. The system pinpoints assortment gaps, flags cannibalisation risks, and suggests concrete optimization steps. Built in collaboration with retail teams, Zenline’s AI works even without internal retailer data, ensuring a strong operational fit. The round was led by Seedcamp, with participation from Yellow, First Momentum, and Arc Investors. Zenline’s mission is to help European retail compete again by enabling smarter, AI-driven assortment decisions. Sia Houchangnia, Partner at Seedcamp, said: Zenline hits a nerve in retail tech. The future of category management is AI-powered. Until now, retailers lacked the foundation to make the most important decisions: what a strong assortment actually looks like. The team combines deep expertise in agentic systems and retail, and we’ve been genuinely impressed by their speed of execution. They have rethought assortment logic from the ground up to deliver immediate value to their first customers. This is exactly the kind of talent and solution coming out of Europe that we’re excited to back. With the new funding, Zenline plans to accelerate product development, refine its AI model, and expand into additional verticals.

Previse Systems, a leading provider of next-generation Energy Trading & Risk Management (ETRM) software, has secured growth capital from Lightrock to accelerate its expansion and support the rising demand from energy companies facing increasingly complex market exposures. Previse Systems provides a modern, cloud-native ETRM solution designed for the demands of today’s energy markets. Rapid load growth, renewable intermittency, and bi-directional generation have driven greater price volatility and sharply higher intraday trading volumes. To stay competitive, energy companies now need to process and respond to massive data sets in real time, both to capture opportunities and to manage risks. Previse Coral addresses this challenge with a scalable, high-performance architecture that adapts to different portfolios and operating models. It enables market participants to process extreme intraday trading volumes, launch new products quickly, and manage the heavy data demands of volatile markets, while keeping infrastructure costs and operational complexity low. Asbjørn Hansen, Chief Executive Officer of Previse Systems, commented: The partnership with Lightrock marks a significant milestone for Previse Systems. Their investment underscores the confidence in our innovative technology and our ability to address the complexities of modern energy markets. With this support, we are well-positioned to enhance our capabilities, scale our solutions, and provide unparalleled value to our clients as they navigate the challenges of the energy transition. Lightrock has provided equity financing in return for a minority stake in Previse Systems. This strategic investment will strengthen the company’s ability to deliver innovative solutions, mature its operations, and expand its market presence. Lightrock will utilise its networks and value creation capabilities to support Previse Systems' growth in close collaboration with the company’s founders, who retain control of the business. Nigel McCleave, Partner at Lightrock, commented: We were drawn to Previse because of the market opportunity, differentiated technology platform, and success working with a diverse set of impressive customers. However, what excites us most is the quality of the team, their collaborative and transparent approach, and their core commitment to put customers first. We look forward to supporting them as they continue building Previse’s next chapter. Founded in 2019 by ETRM industry veterans, today Previse Systems already serves more than 20 customers, among them top-tier energy companies. With the funding from Lightrock, Previse aims to double down on its product development and partnership with existing clients, expand its reach across new product lines, and strengthen its operational and geographic footprint. 

London-based AI-powered travel agency Holiwise has raised a €1.45 million pre-seed in an oversubscribed round backed by senior executives from global firms including Bank of America, Barclays, Google, and Goldman Sachs. The raise was led by Bobby Previti (Head of SSA & Covered Bond Trading at Bank of America), and joined by Ulf Nilsson (Nordics & Eastern Europe CEO at DHL), who is also joining Holiwise’s board, Sabri El Jailani and Filippo Zorzoli (Barclays Investment Bank), and Houman Ashrafzadeh (Founder of Padium and Co-founder of Urban Greens). Unlike traditional travel agencies that rely on human agents, or online travel agencies that force travellers to piece together fragmented bookings, Holiwise uses proprietary deep learning and dynamic packaging models to create personalised trips in seconds. Users can personalise trips by mood, budget, location or timeframe, and book entire packages, including flights, accommodation and activities, with a single click. Holiwise was created to solve the frustrations of fragmented and time-consuming travel planning. The founding team, with backgrounds in finance, software engineering, and product development at global companies, set out to combine the scale of technology with the personalisation of a human travel agent. Drawing on extensive travel experience and strong technical expertise, they built Holiwise to reinvent how premium trips are discovered, planned, and booked. Albin Eriksson Lippe, CEO and Co-Founder of Holiwise, shared: We’ve identified a clear gap in the market between mainstream online travel agencies and high-end travel concierges. Premium travellers are underserved, often forced to choose between impersonal, self-serve booking platforms or expensive concierge services that are slow to access. Holiwise is building an AI travel agent that combines the convenience of technology with the quality of a tailored luxury experience. It can instantly plan and book complete personalised itineraries, including synchronised flights, premium stays, and curated experiences for individuals or groups. For discerning travellers, startups, and SMEs, Holiwise also offers a complimentary invite-only premium membership. Premium members gain access to a private platform with insider rates on more than one million global stays, often at prices far below mainstream sites. They also benefit from priority concierge support for flights, accommodation, restaurants, and more, plus tailored travel recommendations powered by Holiwise’s models. The platform is already live with tens of thousands of monthly users, with over 80 per cent of customers returning to book again. Bobby Previti, lead investor, comments: I agree with the founders’ vision that there is a gap in the market for premium travellers. Holiwise is taking an innovative approach to solve the problem, with an exceptional team that understands the problem well. I strongly believe that the team is in the right place at the right time, working towards a vision that I’m keen to support. The pre-seed round comes as Holiwise integrates with major travel industry platforms, including HBX Group, a leading B2B traveltech ecosystem, and Amadeus, the world’s largest global distribution system. These partnerships give users real-time access to flights, stays, and experiences across more than 10,000 destinations. The new capital, combined with these partnerships, will accelerate the development of Holiwise’s AI travel agent and dynamic packaging models, expand platform features, and scale its premium concierge service.

OrganOx, the Oxford-based medtech company behind pioneering liver perfusion technology that has transformed transplant outcomes worldwide, has been acquired in a deal valued at approximately $1.5 billion. The transaction also delivered BGF’s biggest return to date, generating £175 million in proceeds, a 10x money multiple on its original investment, and an IRR of around 69 per cent. Founded out of the University of Oxford, OrganOx developed the world’s first fully automated device for liver preservation, metra, which enables donor livers to be maintained in a functioning state outside the human body for up to 24 hours. The technology, used in more than 6,000 liver transplants to date, has significantly increased the number of viable organs available for transplant and improved patient outcomes. With BGF’s support, OrganOx has scaled into a world-leading medtech company. Following its acquisition, it will continue to operate from Oxford as a standalone division of global healthcare group Terumo Corporation. Tim Rea, co-head of early stage investing at BGF and a member of the OrganOx board since 2019, said: OrganOx has transformed liver transplantation and built a world-class position in medtech. In a sector where institutional capital is constrained, this exit highlights the importance and potential of patient growth capital, and a willingness to back innovation before it is de-risked — something many investors find difficult to do in this still nascent market. BGF was built to deploy capital into underserved parts of the investment market. In early stage medtech, we have gone further by deliberately backing companies with significant hardware and manufacturing complexity. Our capital and commercial expertise made us ideally placed to take on this challenge and OrganOx is a powerful example of why that strategy matters. BGF first invested in OrganOx in 2019 and has provided seven rounds of investment, including a £20 million commitment earlier this year. BGF participated in each of the funding rounds following its initial investment and is the company’s largest shareholder. Other early backers of the company included Longwall Ventures and Oxford Investment Consultants. In its later growth stages, the company secured backing from Lauxera Capital Partners (US/FR), HealthQuest (US), and additional supporters. Oern R. Stuge, MD, MBA, and Executive Chairman of OrganOx, said: Today’s announced transaction is expected to expand the adoption of our transplantation technology platform by leveraging Terumo’s global infrastructure to benefit more patients around the globe. Thank you to BGF who have shown conviction and support as an investor and board member since their first investment. Their capital and leadership have enabled the value creation inherent in today’s announced $1.5bn transaction. Andy Gregory, CEO of BGF, said that achieving a ten-figure valuation marks one of the UK’s largest medtech exits. He highlighted the OrganOx team’s remarkable achievement and stressed that the success is all the more significant because it directly benefits patient outcomes: By combining early and growth-stage investing across multiple sectors, BGF has created the right blend to deliver strong, sustainable and repeatable returns. Our ambition now is for more capital to flow into the UK’s most promising companies — whether through co-investments with international, specialist investors, or domestic sources.

Bunq, the Dutch challenger bank, has been hit with a €2.6 million fine for “serious deficiencies” in its anti-money laundering controls. Bunq is the latest challenger bank to be hit with a fine relating to anti-money laundering control failings, following Monzo and Starling Bank. The Dutch central bank (DNB), which imposed the fine on Bunq on May 6, said: “DNB imposes an administrative fine because Bunq did not sufficiently follow up on signals and irregularities in four customer files, resulting in money laundering risks not being detected or not being detected in time.” Bunq, which has over 17m users, said it did not agree with the decision and has made a formal objection. The four cases relate to a period between January 2021 and May 2022, as the bank probed Bunq’s compliance with the Dutch Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorist Financing Act. The DNB said the high-risk files examined showed that Bunq was deficient in following up on its transaction monitoring alerts.  As a result, it said, signals of possible financial crime were not investigated in sufficient depth, if at all.  The bank said Bunq was also unable to demonstrate why transactions with similar characteristics were reported to the country’s financial intelligence unit in one case and not in the other.  As a result, the bank said there was a risk that unusual transactions were not detected, or not detected in time and that they were not reported, or not reported in time.  The bank said the fine was due to Bunq’s “non-compliance”. The bank said that between 2018 and 2023, it carried out several examinations into Bunq’s compliance with the Act, where various instances of non-compliance with the Act were identified. The bank said it had already taken enforcement action on several occasions, including imposing a fine on Bunq, but it had not resulted in sustained compliance with the Act by Bunq.Bunq said: "At Bunq, we take our role as gatekeeper very seriously. We use the most advanced technology and continuously strengthen our systems - including in response to these 4 cases from 2021–2022. “That being said, we don’t agree with DNB’s decision and have formally objected. Since this is now an ongoing case, we can’t comment further, but we remain confident in our position."

Paragraf, the UK-based company leading the way in mass-producing graphene-based electronics using industry-standard semiconductor processes, has completed a $55 million Series C funding round. The funding will speed up the scaling of Paragraf’s manufacturing capabilities and increase production capacity, paving the way for graphene electronics to enter mass markets. Paragraf’s technology fits smoothly into the existing semiconductor ecosystem, offering customers ready-to-use solutions as well as a platform for developing custom applications tailored to their needs. Graphene’s unique properties enable devices to perform faster, more accurately and with lower energy consumption than silicon-based alternatives, especially in extreme environments, from cryogenic systems in quantum computing to high-temperature and high-radiation applications in an array of industries. In molecular sensing, Paragraf’s Graphene Molecular Sensors (GMS) are being developed for liquid and gas detection, enabling early disease diagnosis as well as applications in healthcare, agritech, food production, chemical manufacturing, and consumer products. More broadly, graphene-based technologies are unlocking new possibilities across many sectors. Dr Simon Thomas, Co-Founder and CEO of Paragraf, said:  This investment is a strong signal of confidence in Paragraf and our mission in the face of global economic uncertainty. This new funding will enable us to expand production of faster, more energy-efficient technologies to the scale required by major commercial opportunities. In what is a particularly challenging funding environment, we’ve attracted strong interest and are pleased to have secured the backing of both new and existing partners who share our vision for transforming electronics with graphene. The company runs three facilities, two in Cambridgeshire, UK, and one in San Diego, US, following its 2023 acquisition of a US company. Paragraf is now expanding its presence across the US, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. 

The European Investment Bank (EIB) Group has launched the TechEU Platform (this initiative is unrelated to Tech.eu), a new programme dedicated to accelerating innovation across Europe. The Platform will connect start-ups, scale-ups, and innovators with the right mix of financing and expertise to drive growth and bring breakthrough technologies to market. Offering a full suite of financial instruments and advisory services, TechEU is designed to support high-risk projects at every stage, from early idea to commercialization. Backed by a fast-track financing system, the programme aims to mobilise €250 billion in investment by 2027 and ensure that businesses receive timely responses to their financing proposals. As a one-stop shop, the TechEU Platform gives entrepreneurs streamlined access to capital and expert guidance to turn innovation into impact. The new TechEU Platform features an Investment Readiness Checker, an easy-to-use online tool that helps European start-ups and scale-ups in cleantech, life sciences, and digital technologies discover how the EIB Group can support their growth. Launching on 27 August, the Checker is the first step in a platform that will expand with more ecosystem partners and financing options. Merete Clausen, EIF Deputy Chief Executive, shared: One of our top priorities is ensuring that European innovators receive the financing they need to start up, scale and thrive in Europe, driving growth across the European economy. That’s why we are launching the TechEU Platform, which will streamline access to a variety of financing instruments.  As one of the largest financing initiatives for innovation in Europe, the programme is designed to ease funding constraints for scale-ups and to support around 1,000 additional innovators and tech champions each year. Backed by €70 billion in EIB Group equity, quasi-equity, loans, and guarantees between 2025 and 2027, TechEU is expected to mobilise at least €250 billion in investments across the continent. The Platform also serves as a comprehensive resource for companies, streamlining access to all EIB and EIF financial support tools throughout the innovation growth cycle, including advisory services provided before initial public offerings (IPOs). The TechEU Programme focuses on cleantech, health tech, digitalisation and artificial intelligence, defence, space tech and critical raw materials. The first wave of financing concentrates on cleantech, aiming to mobilise €18 billion in investments and reinforcing Europe’s leadership in this sector.

Today sees the release of the Linux Foundation’s World of Open Source Europe Report 2025.  The report spotlights emerging trends and priorities in the European open source software (OSS) ecosystem, drawing on a quantitative survey and 14 qualitative interviews with experts from private companies, government agencies, and non-profit organisations.  The study surveyed 316 European participants from a broad mix of organisations, ranging from micro-enterprises (20,000). Respondents came from IT providers (39 per cent), industry-specific end users (42 per cent), and academic, non-profit, or government bodies (19 per cent). Most held IT-related roles (66 per cent), with cross-industry IT vendors making up the largest group (29 per cent). The findings reveal an ecosystem in transition, where OSS adoption is widespread yet organisational open source maturity varies significantly, and where shifting geopolitical realities have elevated OSS from a technical consideration to a strategic imperative for digital sovereignty and strategic autonomy. I spoke to Gabriele Columbro, General Manager of Linux Foundation Europe, to discuss some of the themes and findings of the report, as well as the broader ecosystem and the opportunity for European open source innovation. European organisations exhibit a spectrum of open source maturity levels  While European organisations show a growing awareness of the benefits of OSS, in practice they exhibit a spectrum of open source maturity levels. 14 per cent are very active and 28 per cent are moderately active in contributing to the OSS projects they depend on, while 30 per cent of organisations are passive consumers who use OSS but do not contribute back or rely on third-parties. Research last month highlighted that the chronic under-investment in open source technologies creates systemic risks, exposing Europe to (amongst other things) cybersecurity threats, supply chain vulnerabilities, and strategic dependencies on non-European technology providers. Too many critical projects are maintained by one or two people, often unpaid.  We’ve seen efforts like Germany’s Sovereign Tech Agency or our Alpha-Omega project under the OpenSSF to spread the burden. Now, experts are calling for an EU-level sovereign tech fund — something the Linux Foundation has supported. According to Columbro: “Consolidation is key. Fragmented efforts need to be pulled together because ultimately we’re all sustaining the same critical infrastructure.” Canonical offers a way forward. It launched a “giving back” fund in April 2025, which is committed to donating $120,000 over 12 months to smaller OSS projects that they depend on using thanks.dev.  Europe loves open source in principle — but the money still flows to the US Companies invest in OSS through various mechanisms, including employing OSS contributors and maintainers, FOSS Funds, and sponsoring foundations, among others. However, despite the critical importance of OSS to companies, commercial investments in OSS remain limited. Columbro is based in San Francisco, where he contends the commercial open source model is well understood in the US:  "Companies with this model get superior exit valuations — about 7x at IPO, 14x in M&A. Around 12 per cent of commercial open source companies reach IPO, which is higher than their proprietary counterparts. That’s why 65 per cent of VC-backed investment in open source still happens in the US, not in Europe.” Columbro sees a number of reasons for this. First, history: the US has a tradition of risk-taking and 20 years of proven returns on commercial open source.  Second, the policy and fiscal climate: most exits still happen in the US, so European founders often move their companies there. And third, there’s a cultural gap: “Europe loves open source in principle, but executives don’t always see its strategic value.” Key barriers to OSS adoption and contribution The report shows that 86 per cent of employees love and contribute to open source, but only around 60 per cent of executives recognise it strategically. That’s a big organisational gap. So what contributes to this lack of adoption and contribution? According to the Linux Foundations research, its combination of economic, legal, and technical barriers. The key barriers for OSS adoption are the lack of technical support (40 per cent), licensing and intellectual property concerns (35 per cent), and a lack of understanding of the non-technical value of OSS (34 per cent).  Meanwhile, the key barriers for contributions to OSS projects are legal and licensing concerns (31 per cent), uncertainty about the return on investment (ROI) of contributing to OSS projects (28 per cent), and the fear of leaking proprietary intellectual property (24 per cent). According to Columbro,  building credible commercial endeavours on top of open source is essential if Europe wants to be a strong player in the digital autonomy conversation. “There’s progress — continuous investment and encouraging trends — but also real gaps. Executives don’t always fully grasp the strategic value of open source, and investment levels are still lacking.” Top-down championing of OSS by senior decision-makers, particularly in the C-suite, and the implementation of a formal OSS strategy are key enablers of organisational OSS adoption and contributions. Significantly, 76 per cent of respondents say that engaging in OSS projects better positions their organisation to attract technical talent. Researchers contend that organisations that publicly embrace OSS find themselves better positioned to attract top-tier technical talent, as well as attract and retain talent in organisations in non IT-native sectors. Talented developers gravitate towards open source-friendly organisations, enhancing these companies’ technical capabilities and open source maturity. A handful of sectors and industries are leading the way  Companies in a number of trailblazer industries — including telecommunications, energy, and financial services — have embraced OSS as a strategic advantage, where they not only contribute to OSS projects that they depend on but proactively collaborate together on the development of OSS, open standards, open data, and increasingly also on open AI models. Europe doesn’t yet have an OpenAI-scale champion Europe’s open source startup ecosystem demonstrates remarkable vitality, particularly in the AI sector. Paris has emerged as an open source startup hub, with startups like Mistral AI, Probabl, and Plakar exemplifying the talent and entrepreneurial spirit of France and more broadly Europe’s open source community. However, the European innovation finance ecosystem presents substantial barriers to the scaling up of open source startups.  Columbro contends that the AI race is moving so fast that Europe might be better served leapfrogging. Foundational models may well become commoditised. Even OpenAI, after Sam Altman said he might be on the “wrong side” of open source six months ago — has released some open models. The real question is: where in the value chain is the real value? “Digital sovereignty doesn’t mean “not built here.” It means “not marketed and commercialised here.” That’s the bigger issue — Europe buys American, not European, even when open source is available. So the opportunity is in building higher-level tools and services tailored to European needs: multilingual capabilities, cultural differences, regulatory requirements. That’s where Europe can truly differentiate.” Can we stop European open source startups from being absorbed into the US? Columbro asserts that we need to catalyse a broader championing of open source — but not in a self-serving way, and not by splitting it into “European open source” versus “American open source” or “Chinese open source.”  “Open source is one of the few truly global ways to collaborate left, even as policy debates heat up.” Second, consolidation. Europe has an amazing SMB ecosystem, but to credibly compete with global giants, we need fewer fragmented efforts and more scale. According to Columbro, if you’re a large enterprise buyer, it’s easier to purchase from a big American vendor than manage a supply chain of dozens of smaller European players. Third, investment. Some European VCs are investing in open source, but it’s nowhere near as sustained or consolidated as it needs to be. Finally, there’s policy. Fiscal and regulatory frameworks matter and if founders don’t see a clear, attractive path to exit in Europe, they’ll continue moving abroad.  “Europe doesn’t need to rebuild everything, but it does need to consolidate technologies and pool investments so startups can credibly compete. And of course, fiscal policies must give founders a reason to scale here rather than relocate-" Fragmenting open source by region risks weakening Europe’s strategic advantage The Linux Foundation is known for community building and, in doing so, provides critical lessons for the wider European tech ecosystem. Columbro contends that successful projects balance different constituencies. Open source wouldn’t be where it is today without individual contributors driven by passion and technical excellence— but also without companies contributing developers, resources, and funding. Sometimes these groups have different motivations.  “Our role at the Linux Foundation is to provide governance structures that keep the playing field level and make sure both sides see value. Increasingly, governments and the public sector also need to be part of the equation, especially in the context of digital sovereignty.” Second, scarcity drives collaboration. He recounts that when he started talking to Wall Street ten years ago about sharing intellectual property, the reaction was… less than warm. But as pressures from big tech, fintech, and crypto increased, banks realised open source was essential to their digital transformation — just like cloud and AI. "Europe can apply the same lesson. Even if it doesn’t have a big tech scene like the US, it has global vertical industries—finance, telecom, and automotive. These industries are cornerstones of Europe’s economy and have global reach. If they invest more heavily in open source and partner with startups and SMEs, Europe could create a much stronger ecosystem.” And one important reminder: these industries are global “Deutsche Bank, for example, won’t use “European open source” in Europe and “American open source” in the US. Fragmenting open source by region only creates more complexity. Keeping it global is key."

Last week, we tracked more than 35 tech funding deals worth over €404 million, and over 15 exits, M&A transactions, rumours, and related news stories across Europe.Click to read the rest of the news.

Danish startup Interhuman AI, a startup building the first social intelligence layer for AI systems, has raised a €2 million pre-seed funding round. Interhuman AI is creating a world where tech finally understands humans. Not just our words, but the millions of subtle signals beneath the surface.  This will transform the next generation of conversational AI by allowing it to develop human-like social awareness by understanding facial expressions, body language, and voice tonality.  Interhuman AI combines computer vision, audio analysis, psychology, and behavioral science to translate raw human cues into social signals. These signals can then be interpreted in context to make human-AI interactions more natural and meaningful. A smile while leaning forward can signal engagement, while the same smile paired with leaning back might suggest something entirely different. This social awareness can be added to any AI system by adding just a few lines of code.  In training and coaching, AI with social intelligence could feel more natural and personalised, adapting to each learner’s unique style and challenges. In digital health, it could respond with greater empathy, tailoring support to our needs in real time. In sales, it could help professionals understand not just what they say, but how they say it, offering feedback on clarity, confidence, and empathy. And in customer service, it could finally give us AI support bots that truly get us, responding better to frustration and hesitation. The global AI market is expanding rapidly. Yet while AI systems are becoming skilled at processing words, they miss up to 93 per cent of non-verbal communication. That’s a major gap, especially since half of the $757B AI market involves human-AI interaction, and 40 per cent of those interactions would improve if AI could understand non-verbal cues. Paula Petcu, co-founder of Interhuman AI, comments: The global AI market is growing fast. However, to realise the full potential of AI solutions, it needs to take into consideration all aspects of human behaviour. AI isn’t just about efficiency and workflow optimisation - it is about human interaction. Without the solution that we are building, we think that AI developers will continue to struggle to deliver impactful solutions that allow for human-Al understanding, resulting in failure and disappointment with what AI can do. The investment round was led by the Nordic VC fund PSV Tech, with participation from EIFO (Export and Investment Fund of Denmark), Antler, the Yope Foundation, and high-profile angels from Ada Ventures.  Alexander Viterbo-Horten, Partner at PSV Tech, comments: We’re only just beginning to see what happens when social intelligence is built into AI. This breakthrough has the potential to transform healthcare, education, and any sector where human-AI interaction matters. Research already shows that automating behavioral coding with AI makes mental health diagnostics far more reliable, while avoiding the bias that comes with manual coding. Interhuman AI is leading this shift with rare technical depth, scientific rigor, and the ambition to unlock this frontier. The investment in Interhuman AI is the third AI investment out of three in PSV Tech’s Fund II, which they launched in May this year. This only illustrates that Denmark and the Nordics are taking the lead on AI in Europe. Interhuman AI was founded in Copenhagen by a team that brings together deep AI expertise, startup experience, and strong academic research backgrounds. They are supported by advisors with expertise in psychology, user experience, business development, and artificial intelligence. Mathias Kaasgaard, Investment Manager at EIFO, said: Interhuman AI is not just another fast AI-language model business. It is the next and meaningful step in the evolving AI-industry. With its technology deeply rooted in the scientific discoveries in the AI and computer scientific environment at DTU, the company demonstrates what stronghold we have in the AI ecosystem in Denmark and how we can contribute to European innovation within new and transformative technologies. This is technology that will make a difference, and we believe that the founder team is extraordinarily well equipped to make it happen. That is why EIFO is in on this. Michael Wiatr, Partner at Antler, emphasized that Interhuman AI is adding a human dimension to artificial intelligence: In a world increasingly dominated by AI, empowering new technologies to understand the wealth of non-verbal communication that we take for granted will be transformational. Interhuman AI has a world-class founding team who combine technical expertise with a real passion and determination to make AI more socially aware. We are delighted to have backed them and have every confidence in their future success. The company will use this funding to build a platform and API to give companies access to their socially aware AI and models core. The investment will also be used to scale development and expand a team of AI engineers.

This week we tracked more than 35 tech funding deals worth over €404 million, and over 15 exits, M&A transactions, rumours, and related news stories across Europe. If email is more your thing, you can always subscribe to our newsletter and receive a more robust version of this round-up delivered to your inbox. Either way, let's get you up to speed. ? Notable and big funding rounds ??Fresh £125M for GoFibre to expand connectivity in rural Scotland ?? Investment app Midas lands $80M Series B, the country’s biggest fintech deal ?? Stark raises $62M for weaponised drone systems, backed by Sequoia and Peter Thiel ?? Loft Dynamics raises $24M Series B to redefine pilot training with VR simulators ??‍?? Noteworthy acquisitions and mergers ??  Starling Bank snaps up UK accounting startup Ember ?? Advent to acquire Swiss chipmaker U-Blox in $1.3B deal ?? US quantum computing firm Strangeworks expands European presence with Quantagonia acquisition ?? Visma strengthens foothold in DACH with AI-driven acquisitions of milia.io and Taxy.io ? Interesting moves from investors ? Clean Growth Fund raises one-third of £150M fund target ? Norrsken Evolve launches €57M fund to back "impact tech" ?? Spintop Ventures strengthens Nordic expansion with new Danish office and Principal ?️ In other (important) news ? N26 co-founder Valentin Stalf exits CEO role following investor row ?? Brex aims to crack EU market with partnership-led approach ?Digital bank targeting Turkish diaspora to launch in UK ? Monzo mirrors Revolut and Klarna with plan to launch mobile service ? Recommended reads and listens ?? Doncaster is the UK's AI hub you've never heard of ? Why most AI drug discovery startups struggle — and how Turbine plans to beat the odds ☀️ Cyprus: A rising Mediterranean hub for tech and innovation ? Inside Nemo: the six-week sprint that turned inclusive banking research into a working fintech prototype ? European tech startups to watch ?? Seabound receives £1.1M grant from UK Government ?? Meshed raises £950,000 for AI insurance broker for SMEs ?? WePositive.Energy secures €350,000 to tackle grid congestion with AI ?? RedMimicry secures Seed funding to scale cyberattack emulation platform ?? Lignufy secures €40,000 investment to digitize timber trade in Europe

A digital bank targeting the estimated near one million Turkish diaspora living in the UK is launching in the UK. Called RUUT, the challenger bank will offer retail and business accounts, including cards and remittances. The brains behind the venture are Moka United, the fintech subsidiary of İşbank, Turkey’s largest privately-owned bank, and UK fintech Algbra Labs, which is providing the tech. RUUT is an existing brand that has been created to help the Turkish diaspora in Europe make easy money transfers to Turkey.   A beta version of RUUT has already been built in Germany, but the UK banking offering is set to be more comprehensive. The UK offering will target the Turkish diaspora in the UK, which numbers close to one million people, according to estimates. RUUT will offer its financial products through regulated financial infrastructure partnerships. RUUT plans to offer its services across 27 EU countries. Halim Memiş, CEO of Moka United and RUUT, said: ”Through RUUT, we aim to deliver inclusive, user-friendly, and trusted digital banking experiences — beginning in the UK."

The road to Doncaster from London is a good and fast one, but one less travelled. South Yorkshire’s new city has struggled to prevail since the area’s mining industry was decimated in the 1980s. Visitors tend to visit from across Yorkshire, but that is about to change. Doncaster is ten miles away from Orgreave, a village primarily known for the Battle of Orgreave, a violent confrontation during the 1984-85 UK miners' strike between striking miners and police that is considered a pivotal event in the history of the UK. While the coking plant is now closed and a housing estate stands on the site, the event remains a significant part of the village's history and is the subject of ongoing campaigns for justice and inquiry, more than 40 years later.Hope, however, is open for this hitherto benighted and beleaguered area with an arts festival backing up recent announcements for its regeneration, an event that is just as important as entrepreneurship and local council support. Artbomb UK in the city The recent Artbomb UK festival centred in the city’s beautiful and inclusive Unitarian Church, is Doncaster’s festival of experimental art, ‘urgent ideas’ and collective imagination. ​Taking over shops, streets and unexpected spaces, ArtBomb 2025 brought together artists, performers, thought leaders, communities and dreamers to explore how we live, and how we might live better. This year’s theme, A Meaningful Use of Time, invited audiences to slow down and tune in. “Experimentation, arts and creativity are critical in building energy, community and innovation. It’s not always pretty and never formulaic but curious people muck about, find solutions and entertain themselves in between the cracks - be they lesser used buildings, marginalised communities or making tools do things they may never have been intended for,” said Mike Stubbs, Creative Director, Artbomb UK. While visitors at Artbomb 2025 may have been encouraged to slow down, Doncaster is ploughing ahead and fast. It has long been a place that makes and moves things. Its rail engineering heritage, freight corridors and manufacturing know-how have shaped the economy for more than a century. What’s new is the way those strengths are being recombined with digital capability and fresh investment to create a modern tech hub—one rooted in real industries, not just glossy co-working spaces. A visible signal of intent is Gateway One, the city’s flagship digital tech hub now under construction beside Doncaster railway station. Backed by £32 million, the five-storey, 52,000 sq ft Grade-A building is designed to be net-zero in operation. The council and local partners position it as both a front door for incoming companies and a scale-up home for local startups, with completion targeted for early 2027. In other words: a permanent anchor for digital and AI businesses, in the most connected part of the city centre. “Doncaster has innovation in its DNA from building the iconic Flying Scotsman to nurturing engineering legend Sir Nigel Gresley. Today, the city is writing a new chapter, recovering from deindustrialisation with bold ambition and more than £50 million invested in regeneration and restoration. “At the heart of this transformation is our new AI hub, anchoring Doncaster’s emergence as a northern powerhouse for artificial intelligence, digital innovation and future-ready growth,” said Damian Allen, CEO, Doncaster City Council. Wider South Yorkshire strategy The Digital Tech Hub is not a standalone bet. It slots into a wider South Yorkshire strategy to grow high-value, innovation-led sectors. In 2023 the region was named the UK’s first Advanced Manufacturing Investment Zone, a long-term programme designed to catalyse R&D, attract private investment and create jobs across Sheffield, Rotherham, Barnsley and, crucially, Doncaster. The zone builds on the area’s established strengths in making practical, engineered solutions (from clean energy to next-gen mobility) and provides a framework for incentives, sites and skills. For Doncaster’s tech ecosystem, that matters: it means a pipeline of firms and projects that need software, data, automation, and AI applied to real-world problems.  The city’s logistics superpower is another distinctive asset. iPort Doncaster—marketed as the UK’s most advanced multimodal logistics hub—brings 24/7 distribution capability, a rail freight terminal and millions of square feet of Grade-A space within minutes of the motorway network.  This is where warehouse automation, computer vision, telematics, and optimisation software stop being buzzwords and start cutting costs and carbon for household-name tenants. Inward-investment teams now pitch Doncaster as the place where logisticians meet data scientists—backed up by real kit, not slideware. Skills are the lifeblood of any tech hub, and here too Doncaster has been building quietly but deliberately. University Campus Doncaster runs higher technical pathways in data analytics and cybersecurity as part of the South Yorkshire Institute of Technology and has been investing in hands-on facilities such as a new gaming hub for game development and esports.  At 13–18, Doncaster UTC (the city’s university technical college) leans into engineering and digital, with industry partners ranging from the AMRC to rail manufacturers—giving young people earlier exposure to real-world projects and employers. None of this is flashy; all of it builds the vocational spine that scaling tech companies need. Rail still runs through the story - literally. The former National College for High Speed Rail site at Lakeside, which closed in 2023, is being repurposed by Network Rail as an education and training centre.  That keeps advanced transport and systems engineering skills anchored locally, and dovetails with the city’s digital ambitions in signalling, predictive maintenance, and rail automation. The move also reassures employers that specialist training will be available at scale, right in Doncaster.  Connectivity, of course, is table stakes for a tech hub. Doncaster’s mainline rail links are strong, but the city is also working to restore its international gateway. Doncaster Sheffield Airport (DSA) closed in 2022; since then, the council and regional mayor have pushed a “South Yorkshire Airport City” plan to reopen the site as a sustainable aviation hub. In April 2025 the UK government backed a £30 million devolved funding investment to support the reopening, projecting thousands of jobs and billions in economic impact by 2050. Local leaders remain publicly committed to a spring 2026 relaunch, which would plug Doncaster’s tech-enabled logistics, aerospace services and business travel back into global flows. For founders and investors, that’s a signal: growth here will be connected. There’s also something subtler - civic momentum. Doncaster’s elevation to city status in 2022 wasn’t just a new letterhead; it unlocked political leverage and a sense of identity that’s useful when courting capital and talent. Place-branding doesn’t write code, but it does help a recruiter close a mid-career engineer who wants both an interesting job and a place with a future.  Doncaster’s tech proposition on the ground First, it’s applied. Unlike pure-play software clusters, Doncaster’s tech is naturally fused to sectors it already leads: logistics, rail, advanced manufacturing and public-sector digital. Startups have immediate problem sets—warehouse robotics deployments that must work with night-shift crews; rail asset monitoring that has to earn its keep by cutting downtime; fleet electrification that requires data-driven routing and charging. That creates early revenue opportunities and deep moats for companies that can productise domain expertise. Second, it’s collaborative. The Digital Tech Hub is designed as a hinge between the city centre, the station and employers—convening meetups, hack days and accelerator activity while offering grow-on space so companies don’t have to move to scale. Tactically, that’s smart: long commutes to innovation assets sap momentum. Keeping engineers, product managers and customers within a short walk reduces friction and makes serendipity routine.  Third, it’s skills-forward. The Institute of Technology model puts higher technical education on a practical footing, with industry-shaped curricula and equipment. Pair that with the UTC, the retooled rail training centre and adult-learning pathways at Doncaster College, and you get a pipeline that can serve both startups and corporates. For founders, that means less time fighting the talent market alone and more time building.  Fourth, it’s place-based, not parachuted-in. The iPort, Doncaster North and other industrial sites are long-horizon platforms for experimentation with AI-enabled operations, low-carbon tech and Industry 4.0. When a council talks about an “AI Growth Zone,” it lands differently if it can point to a 500-acre logistics park with an on-site rail terminal, buildings going up, and firms committed to trialling new tools in live environments.  Challenges remain Every emerging hub must avoid becoming a commuter satellite that exports its best people each morning; the solution is to keep stacking high-quality roles locally, which the Digital Tech Hub aims to do. Access to seed and angel capital outside the “Golden Triangle” is always tighter; here, the Investment Zone’s signalling effect and the region’s manufacturing investors can help. And while city status helps perception, sustained delivery—on time, on budget—will matter more than slogans. The airport timeline will be watched closely by employers weighing relocation. Still, the direction of travel is clear. Doncaster isn’t trying to clone someone else’s tech cluster; it’s building one that fits its DNA. If you’re a founder working on applied AI for logistics, a railtech scale-up seeking a training and testbed ecosystem, or a corporate digitising supply chains, this is a city where engineers can look out the window and see the systems they’re improving.  And as the Digital Tech Hub opens, the Investment Zone deepens, and international connectivity comes back online, Doncaster’s value proposition will only get sharper: an affordable, connected, industry-anchored home for tech companies that want to ship product, not just pitch decks. In short: the emergence is real. It’s anchored in assets you can visit, programmes that are funded, and a skills pipeline that is being steadily built. For once, 'tech hub’ isn’t a press release—it’s a plan being poured in concrete, wired with fibre, and populated with teams who build things that work.

Countless resources and time are expended globally to research and advance novel therapies that end in clinical failure and no patient benefit.  Imagine a world where it is possible to predict any potential drug’s effect on translatable biological models yet unavailable for lab-based testing, while accurately representing patient biology.  Turbine is a biotech company that has built a biology-first, AI-powered “virtual lab” — the world’s first interpretable cell simulation platform.  Turbine’s Simulated Cell platform creates virtual cells that mimic molecular-level behaviour — modelled on real patient biology. It enables in silico experimentation to accelerate drug discovery and development across oncology and beyond. I spoke to Szabi Nagy, co-founder and CEO of Turbine, to learn more about the company's origin, product offering, and growth to a team of 60+ data scientists, computational and molecular biologists drawn from Budapest’s deep tech talent pool. Predicting drug performance before the first clinical trial The Simulated Cell platform models the fundamental protein signalling logic that decides cell fate and facilitates in silico experiments at scales that are impossible in the physical world. In other words, Turbine.ai constructs a digital twin of cellular systems—a biologically representative virtual model that mirrors real cells, enabling simulation and prediction in a controlled, iterative environment. As a result, billions of simulated experiments can be run in the time it takes to complete even a single test in a wet lab to empower the biopharma industry by identifying and confirming disease-driving mechanisms. And now, virtual cell models aren’t just for big pharma anymore. In April Turbine launched a virtual lab, which lets scientists use the company’s powerful cellular simulation technology to tackle some of the toughest R&D challenges – including understanding how a potential drug will perform in humans before embarking on a multi-million dollar clinical trial. For the first time, smaller biotech teams are jumping in and using it hands-on to run experiments faster, smarter, and in ways that just weren’t possible before. From origins in network science to machine learning Turbine actually started out not as an AI company, but as a network science company. The idea was to represent a cell as a network — nodes (proteins) connected by edges (interactions).  According to Nagy, “there’s a rich mathematical theory about how networks behave. Our thought was: can we represent biology as a dynamic network and simulate how it responds when something changes?” The advantage of this approach is interpretability. For example, if you administer a drug that inhibits a protein, you can see how the network predicts downstream effects — whether the cell survives, dies, or changes behaviour.  However, Nagy admits that while scientists loved this because they could intuitively understand the mechanism and generate hypotheses, the problem was scalability.  “These networks were built manually by experts reading literature and setting parameters. After a point, predictivity plateaued, because human bias was baked in.” That’s when the company turned to machine learning — and with its use became more predictive and flexible, able to model more drugs and diseases. But this didn’t always win over the scientists. Nagy admits, “We became more of a black box. Biologists hated that — they felt they couldn’t trust the predictions without understanding the reasoning.” Simulating biology is harder than training an LLM Simulating biology is no easy task. The team spent the first four of five years making the technology scale.  Nagy admits that, “biology is incredibly complex and happens at a microscopic scale, so our ability to generate data is limited.” The company grappled with challenges such as, how to represent biology at a level where you can learn something universal? Is it possible to create a model that can mimic many different types of cells and eventually tissues?  Then, when it comes to deep learning, there’s the challenge of finding an abstraction level where you can actually start training the model and simulating experiments in a way that’s useful, without trying to “boil the ocean” and spending decades and billions on data generation. Unlike LLMs, which can be trained to a reputable knowledge of words and grammar, “with cells you only get superficial snapshots. You have very little data and need to learn a very complex system.” The second challenge for the company was the sheer number of possible experiments.  Turbine began with a foundational machine learning model trained to learn fundamental rules of biology — such as how proteins interact with each other, and how molecules (like drugs or microenvironmental signals) acting on proteins can alter their function. The model is trained on data from real biological systems — including lab-based experiments, animal studies, and human samples. This typically consists of genomic information and protein-level measurements, most often transcriptomics, as it is easier to generate.  These snapshots give the model its training targets: how the cell looked before an intervention, and how it looked after. The model then infers the wiring that led from A to B, across millions of experiments. Where do biotech startups go wrong?  Drug discovery is often held up as one of AI’s most credible applications. When critics dismiss AI hype or “slop,” they still concede: at least it might help cure cancer. But turning promising science in the lab into a viable, commercial product that patients and healthcare systems will actually adopt is anything but straightforward. With Turbine’s years in the field, I was curious to hear Nagy’s view on why so many biotech startups struggle to turn scientific breakthroughs into commercial success. Nagy attributes it to four main factors:  Business model. Early AI drug discovery companies were funded by tech investors who thought Pharma would pay millions for better molecules. However, he contends that Pharma didn’t see it that way. “They saw these tools as point solutions in a long process, not something worth huge deals. So many companies had to pivot into biotech — building their own pipelines, because VCs wanted a path to returns.” Narrow focus. Most companies concentrated on molecule design. But most clinical failures aren’t because the molecule isn’t “good enough.” “They fail because of target choice, patient selection, biomarkers, or combination strategies. These are harder problems that many ignore.” Data dogma. According to Nagy, there’s a strong belief that “data equals value.” Companies raised hundreds of millions to generate proprietary datasets.  Nagy suggests that “AlphaFold showed the opposite: it didn’t create new data, it just applied better machine learning to existing public data. Data is useful, but not a moat.” Speed is not everything. Machine learning and AI are also correlating as bringing speed to drug discovery, but Nagy contends that this approach is misleading. “Faster to failure isn’t a business model. “Many failures don’t happen because the chemistry was too slow, but because drugs don’t benefit patients. Most failures occur in Phase II, when you need to show efficacy. Molecule design — AI or not — is rarely the bottleneck. The real issue is whether you picked the right target, patient population, and dose.” Rethinking pharma economics: fewer lab tests, less animal use, cheaper drug discovery Most biomedical digital twins today focus on patients — for trial design or treatment optimisation. Turbine is virtualising the steps leading to the patient: preclinical experiments and drug discovery workflows. Nagy asserts that over time these approaches will connect: “Imagine a patient digital twin generating hypotheses, which feed into our simulated cell or tissue models. You can then run experiments virtually to identify the best treatment strategy for that patient. That feeds back into the patient twin, creating a feedback loop.” Turbine’s platform is already used to guide the pipelines of pharma companies such as AstraZeneca, Ono Pharmaceutical, Cancer Research Horizons, and Bayer.  Turbine has applied simulations to almost 30 programs — from target identification to indication expansion.  Nagy explained: “We’ve shown that if you run simulations first and then test what the simulations suggest, you’re two to three times more likely to succeed in real experiments.That alone may not revolutionise a single step — but if you apply it across dozens of decision points, the cumulative effect is transformative.” Nagy contends that if platforms like Turbine succeed, instead of running endless lab experiments with limited predictive value, you’d have more computational scientists modelling experiments — and only confirming the most promising ones in the lab. That could reduce reliance on animal experiments, accelerate discovery, and change the economics of pharma.  “Today, only a few dozen large companies dominate because they’re best at managing clinical trials, approvals, and global commercialisation. If drug discovery itself becomes cheaper and more predictable, smaller players could innovate and still reach patients. That could expand innovation and potentially lower drug prices.” In August, Turbine entered into a one-year research partnership with MSD (Merck & Co.) to simulate otherwise hard-to-study cancer patient populations. The collaboration aims to uncover new therapeutic dependencies — insights that can help MSD prioritise drug targets, biomarkers, and combination strategies for validation in wet-lab experiments.

Swedish early-stage venture capital firm Spintop Ventures has announced its expansion into Denmark with the opening of a permanent presence in Copenhagen, accompanied by the appointment of Jasenko Hadzic as Principal. The move is part of the firm’s broader strategy to deepen its pan-Nordic footprint and solidify its role as a long-term partner to the region’s most ambitious tech founders. Hadzic joins from Nordic VC BackingMinds, where he led investments in SaaS, cybersecurity, and energy. He brings a decade of experience spanning both VC and startup operations, including as co-founder of a fast-scaling startup and founder of community initiatives such as The Investor Series, CPHFTW, Angel Next, and the Nordic Startup Conference. “Jasenko brings a combined 10 years of experience within venture capital and scale-ups. He’s well-known in the Danish ecosystem and is passionate about pushing the Nordic’s forward – having formerly founded initiatives such as The Investor Series, CPHFTW, Angel Next and Nordic Startup Conference,” said Sami Niemi, Partner at Spintop Ventures. “His experience on the investment side and as a former co-founder of a fast-growing startup, will be a great complement to the team and a value-add to our portfolio companies.” Spintop says Hadzic will be based in Copenhagen, working closely with Senior Advisor Mads Mikkelsen, as the firm doubles down on its engagement with Denmark’s increasingly active startup ecosystem. “I’m genuinely excited to join the team at Spintop Ventures, where a founder mentality and hands-on approach are at the core of how we support our portfolio companies,” said Jasenko Hadzic. “This is reflected in our track record, long-term value creation and on the investment team itself, where every member brings firsthand experience as either a founder, operator or executive. In VC, this combination is unique and I believe we’re well-positioned to be the best partner for the most ambitious teams in the region.” Denmark’s startup scene has matured significantly over the past five years, bolstered by increased public-private partnerships, global interest in Copenhagen as a tech hub, and a wave of experienced entrepreneurs launching second and third ventures. According to Dealroom, Danish startups raised over €1.2 billion in 2023, and local VC activity has steadily increased despite broader European funding headwinds. Spintop’s commitment to Denmark mirrors a broader trend among Nordic funds seeking deeper national footprints within the region. Sweden and Finland remain the traditional engines of Nordic tech, but Denmark is emerging as a strategic priority for investors focused on sectors such as climate tech, SaaS, and digital health. The firm has raised four funds to date, with exits including portfolio companies acquired by Cisco, Klarna, Zynga, Bentley Systems, and Synopsys, as well as several public listings.

Today, Visma strengthens its offering to accountants and tax advisors in the DACH region with the acquisitions of milia.io and Taxy.io. This brings Visma’s acquisitions to ten so far this year, and more than 350 in total. milia.io offers an AI-powered platform for accounting offices which facilitates client collaboration and automates and standardises internal workflows. The all-in-one platform covers end-to-end workflows, thus significantly enhancing communication and collaboration with clients, and is easily integrated with leading accounting systems. Taxy.io pioneered the use of AI in tax advisory, and is already used by more than 1,500 tax firms and tax departments across Germany. Its AI tax assistant helps tax advisors respond efficiently and precisely to complex tax inquiries, and recently became the first digital assistant to pass the official tax advisor exam. milia.io was co-founded by Tilman Walch and Michel Menk in 2021. Becoming part of Visma marks the next step in realising milia.io’s vision, strengthening its position in AI-driven automation for tax and accounting firms while opening new opportunities for sustainable growth. According to Tilman Walch, CEO of milia.io: “Together with Visma, we can accelerate our roadmap and expand the value we deliver to customers. Our focus remains clear: making everyday work in tax and accounting easier and smarter. With Visma’s long-term perspective and our shared commitment to AI innovation, we can ensure that our customers benefit from continuous improvements and future-proof solutions.”  Taxy.io is a spin-off from RWTH Aachen University, and was co-founded by Daniel Kirch, Sven Peper and Steffen Kirchhoff in 2018. Peper and Kirch will continue to lead the company as co-CEO’s, while Kirchhoff stays on board as CTO. “Taxy.io’s mission is to help all entrepreneurs and companies tackle the burden of regulation. After seven years of scaling our business in Germany, serving thousands of tax and legal professionals and solving millions of tax cases with AI, we are happy to continue our growth story together with Visma as an international leader in tax, accounting and legal software“, says Kirch. “We are very excited to confirm our continued growth in Germany through these two acquisitions. milia.io and Taxy.io are leading the way in leveraging AI to automate, simplify and support the work of accountants and tax advisors, and will be perfect additions to our suite of software offerings in the DACH region”, says Ari-Pekka Salovaara, Chief Growth Officer at Visma. Visma is a leading provider of mission-critical business software, with revenue of € 2.8 billion in 2024, 17,500 employees and 2.1 million customers across Europe and Latin America.

Brex, the US spend management platform, will not pursue an all guns blazing approach to cracking the EU market, but will adopt a more measured, partnership-led approach, according to a Brex executive heavily involved in its international plans. Erica Dorfman, EVP of global financial products at Brex, said: “We are trying to do it in a really thoughtful way, in terms of going in with our partners and going in where we have known demand for the Brex product in the market. “Our goal is not to sort of jump in with a huge presence and see what money we can light on fire.” Brex made a name for itself selling corporate cards and expense management tools to fast-growing startups. Brex, last valued at $12.3bn in 2022, announced earlier this month that it was launching across the EU, having secured an EU Payment Institution licence. The licence allows it to sell its corporate cards and spend management products to businesses across the EU. The San Francisco-based startup has set up an office in the Netherlands, where it secured the licence, with a 12-strong team running across sales, operations and customer success.  The fintech said it would start onboarding select EU customers in the coming months, through a phased rollout and expects to be fully up and running in the EU in early 2026. Founded in 2017, Brex started out targeting startups but has since broadened out to larger enterprises, a strategy it will mirror across the EU, says Dorfman. Its clients include over 250 public companies, including Coinbase and Robinhood while Scale AI is also a client.It says it currently serves 1,500 customers with EU operations but, before securing the licence, Brex could only offer its spend management services to European companies with a US presence. Now it will no longer face that hurdle. Potential European startup competitors could be Spendesk, Pleo, Payhawk and Tradeshift. Describing the difference between the US and EU market, Dorfman said: “Europe is definitely a very, very different market. And each country in Europe certainly has its own nuances both from an acquisition standpoint as well as what different companies in those markets need. “There is a lot more fragmentation perhaps in the card market in Europe, but the core needs of the customer, to have a corporate card, to have expense management, to have constant currency where that makes sense, I think are all things that we have seen.” Nuances in the bloc include on regulation and also on employee spend and employee reimbursement. But Brex is hoping its EU launch will be kick-started by leveraging its partnerships with Navan, the US travel expense startup, and Zip, the US procurement startup. Dorfman said: “I think as we enter into the market, we are going to be doing so with some of our partners like Zip and Navan, who have customers in Europe who are looking to use our BrexPay for Navan and Brex for Zip which are deep integrations with our product and allow us to serve the companies that they are already marking as customers but who don’t have a corporate card.” Founded by Pedro Franceschi and fellow Y Combinator alum Henrique Dubugras, Brex’s revenue streams include transaction fees, foreign-exchange fees, and subscriptions. It is reported to hit $500m in annual revenues this year. Brex, which does not have a US banking licence but partners with a bank, will not be bringing its banking and bill pay services to the EU immediately. But hopes to in the future, pending on licences. The next market Brex is targeting is the UK. Dorfman adds: “There is a lot of overlap with our existing customer base in terms of types of business.”

Stark, a German defence tech startup focused on weaponised drone systems, has raised $62 million in fresh funding, with Sequoia Capital leading the round. The investment reportedly values the company at $500 million, making it one of Europe’s fastest-scaling startups in the military technology sector. The funding round brings Stark’s total capital raised to $100 million since its founding in 2024. The company has also attracted backing from influential figures including Peter Thiel, the American-German billionaire and Palantir cofounder known for his interest in dual-use technologies. Sequoia Capital, which rarely backs European defence companies, has not yet publicly commented on the deal. Stark was founded by Florian Seibel, cofounder and CEO of German drone company Quantum Systems, which builds autonomous aerial systems for commercial and military clients. Stark’s mission is to develop and manufacture unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) designed for combat, a segment of the broader drone market that has gained increasing strategic attention amid global geopolitical instability and the war in Ukraine. In July 2025, Stark also expanded into the UK, opening a new drone production facility as part of a push into one of Europe’s most active defence markets. The UK has seen a spike in defence tech investment and government-backed procurement programmes, including new initiatives supporting sovereign drone capabilities. Stark’s fast-growing profile is emblematic of a broader shift in European venture capital, where defence and dual-use technologies, once considered off-limits, are increasingly receiving serious attention and funding. The war in Ukraine, heightened tensions across the Taiwan Strait, and renewed NATO defence pledges have accelerated interest in sovereign military capabilities and next-generation battlefield technologies. In a signal of its broader ambitions, Stark recently acquired Berlin-based Pleno, a startup specialising in autonomous navigation software, which it will use to enhance its drone swarming capabilities This includes startups working on AI-enabled surveillance, autonomous systems, and next-gen weapons platforms, areas where European founders are now playing catch-up to their US and Israeli counterparts. European governments have also signalled a shift in procurement and industrial policy. In Germany, Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s “Zeitenwende” doctrine has unlocked tens of billions of euros in defence spending, while the UK and France are both pushing for more homegrown innovation in military tech. With $100 million in total funding and a growing international footprint, Stark is now firmly positioned among Europe’s most heavily backed defence startups alongside names like Helsing, ARX Robotics, and the increasingly dual-use Quantum Systems. Image: Bildschirmfoto

Swiss VR Flight training company Loft Dynamics has raised a $24 million Series B funding round led by Friedkin with participation from Alaska Airlines and existing shareholders Sky Dayton and Craft Ventures, as well as UP.Partners.  The round brings Loft Dynamics’ total funding to $60 million and marks a major step forward in expanding its commercial airline offerings while continuing to grow its core helicopter business. Loft Dynamics developed the world’s only FAA- and EASA-qualified VR helicopter simulator, used by operators such as Airbus Helicopters, the Los Angeles Police Department and Air Greenland. With this latest investment, the company is applying its cutting-edge technology and regulatory credibility to transform airline pilot training at scale. “Pilot training hasn’t kept pace with the rest of aviation,” said Fabi Riesen, founder and CEO of Loft Dynamics. “We’re still sending trainees across the country to sit in $10-$20 million, warehouse-sized domes—technology that hasn’t evolved in decades. In an era of pilot shortages and increasing air mobility, that’s simply no longer sustainable. We’re building a new standard—one that’s far more realistic and accessible. High-quality, regular training leads to better pilots. And better pilots mean safer skies.” Loft Dynamics’ immediate focus is developing a fully integrated hardware and software system built to make pilot training safer, more effective, immersive and scalable. Initial offerings will include existing helicopter simulators and new full-motion Boeing 737 and Airbus A320 VR airliner simulators — up to 12 times smaller and a fraction of the cost of traditional full-flight simulators.  Loft’s new airliner simulators will include a multi-crew replica cockpit with all aircraft haptics, body and eye tracking, plus AI-powered training intelligence to measure pilot performance and deliver tailored feedback. It will also feature LofTWIN—a virtual demonstration mode that lets instructors record immersive lessons for pilots to replay at any time. These systems will enable pilots to train safely and regularly for any condition, including rare, high-risk scenarios and past aviation tragedies. To further increase training accessibility, Loft Dynamics is also developing a spatial computing–powered home training kit, allowing pilots to review sessions, access immersive content, and train remotely—from the base or their living room. As part of the investment, Dan Friedkin, chairman and CEO of Friedkin (as well as an accomplished pilot), will join Loft Dynamics’ board of directors, partnering closely with Series A investors Sky Dayton (partner at Craft Ventures, founder of Boingo Wireless, EarthLink and CloudKitchens) and Ben Marcus (co-founder and managing partner at UP.Partners), both of whom also serve on the board.  “Loft Dynamics is defining the next era of aviation training,” said Dan Friedkin.  “This investment enables them to scale their solution globally, fast-track innovation, meet an urgent industry need and elevate pilot safety in the process. Loft brings the vision and execution capability this moment demands.” “Through Alaska Star Ventures, our corporate venture capital arm, we are excited to support Loft Dynamics in bringing FAA-qualified VR technology to commercial airline training,” said Pasha Saleh, corporate development director, Alaska Airlines.  “This investment will not only enhance our industry-leading training program but also pave the way for future training solutions across the aviation industry.”

London-based hospitality CRM app Embargo is targeting Europe-wide growth with its new raise of $3.5 million in funding. The injection of capital was provided from a group of prominent angel investors as it looks to scale its AI-driven CRM and loyalty platform across Europe. The round attracted backing from investors including Paul Statham (founder of Condeco), Christo Georgiev (founder of myPOS), Hampton Finance (the Chantler family fund behind Meadow Foods), Mike Branney (founder of Oh Polly), Stephen Zinser, and Carl Christian Reiner. Founded in 2018 by Frederick Szydlowski and Tsewang Wangkang, Embargo offers a plug-and-play platform tailored for small and medium-sized hospitality businesses (SMEs), including coffee shops, bakeries, and restaurants. The startup helps operators drive customer retention, repeat sales, and digital engagement across in-store, collection, and delivery channels through loyalty programs and CRM tools that are traditionally only accessible to large restaurant chains. “Our mission is to level the playing field for hospitality SMEs keen to grow their revenues and scale – we do that by giving them access to the kind of tools typically reserved for global enterprises,” said co-founder Frederick Szydlowski. “This investment is not just a vote of confidence in our product and growth to date, but also in the scale of the opportunity ahead. With strong foundations, a growing international footprint, and a clear product roadmap, we’re perfectly positioned to become the go-to platform for hospitality businesses worldwide.” In a fragmented European market where SMEs represent around three quarters of hospitality businesses, the accessibility of such tools has lagged behind the US. Embargo is aiming to bridge that gap, offering what investor Oliver Chantler of Hampton Finance called a “sophisticated but easy to use” platform. “Embargo is closing a critical information gap in the food and hospitality sector, and we are excited to be part of its journey,” said Chantler. Embargo plans to use the fresh capital to further develop its AI and machine learning engine, which supports personalised marketing and retention strategies for merchants. It also intends to ramp up B2B sales and marketing, especially in existing markets, before launching in new geographies from 2026. Recent integrations with major US-based payment and POS providers such as Square and Lightspeed hint at a broader global strategy. “For the first time, we have the budget to fully leverage our product-market fit and significantly accelerate sales and marketing,” said co-founder Tsewang Wangkang. “We aim to more than double our growth year-over-year while maintaining a healthy business model and avoiding short-term artificial spikes that don’t deliver long-term value.”