Ukraine offers a rare combination: deep technical talent, a startup ecosystem tested under extreme conditions, digital-first public infrastructure, supportive regulation, and urgent national demand that accelerates adoption cycles. For investor Serhiy Tokarev, co-founder and general partner at investment firm ROOSH, that urgency has reshaped an entire sector.  The full-scale war pushed Ukraine’s healthcare system to its limits, forcing doctors, engineers, and founders to build fast, scalable solutions for some of the most complex challenges imaginable: trauma care, mental health, rehabilitation, logistics, and access. “In Ukraine, health innovation isn’t optional — it’s urgent,” he asserts.  “And what emerged is one of the world’s most unexpected healthtech frontiers — rooted in necessity, driven by endurance, and scaling fast.” The state of Ukrainian healthtech In 2024, the top ten startup funding rounds in Ukraine — across all sectors — raised over $300 million. One of the standout healthtech deals was Esper Bionics, which secured $5 million in a round led by YZR Capital. Behind these headline rounds sits a maturing ecosystem. Local incubators and international backers such as the UVCA https://uvca.eu and the Ukrainian Startup Fund provide funding, mentorship, and infrastructure to help founders scale. Local VCs, including u.ventures and Horizon Capital, as well as global initiatives such as Google for Startups and USAID-backed programs, continue to support Ukrainian innovation. At ROOSH Investment Group, Tokarev says the team has seen firsthand how critical early backing can be. That insight inspired him to launch the Tokarev Foundation and its healthtech mentorship program, Generation H. Image: Ovul fertility tracker. Its first winner, Ovul , is developing a saliva-based hormone tracker that detects fertility in five seconds. “It’s a powerful example,” Tokarev says, “of the kind of innovation emerging from Ukraine’s healthtech ecosystem.” A digital health system already in motion Even before Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the country was digitising healthcare. Platforms like Helsi allow users to book doctor appointments, access online consultations, and receive electronic prescriptions. Today, Helsi counts over 29 million registered patients and facilitates more than 200,000 bookings daily. “The infrastructure was already there,” Tokarev notes. “The war simply accelerated adoption.” Health product marketplace Liki24 operates as a marketplace that aggregates products from multiple pharmacies and optimises for price, speed, and availability. Its proven it's possible to scale during wartime. By 2023, 35 to 40 per cent of revenue came from the EU. Today, it’s 70 per cent. Revenue in Ukraine has still grown twofold since the invasion, and Liki24 raised €9 million this year, bringing its total funding to €19 million. Three sectors shaped by urgency Mental health at national scale Nearly 10 million Ukrainians — including 1.4 million children — are at risk of developing mental health conditions as a result of the war. “Traditional counselling alone cannot meet this demand,” Tokarev says. Kyiv-based therapy marketplace Mindly pivoted rapidly during wartime, offering remote mental health support. Within three weeks, it reached over 3,000 users and hosted more than 1,000 therapy sessions. The company is now expanding into Poland to serve displaced Ukrainians abroad. There’s also the use of VR as a tool to help clinicians extend their reach under extreme system strain. Luminify is an immersive VR system created by healthtech Aspichi that translates evidence-based approaches such as cognitive behavioural therapy, mindfulness, and trauma therapy into guided mixed-reality experiences delivered through headsets. In Ukraine, Luminify has already been used by more than 1 million people across rehabilitation settings, effectively serving as a large-scale test of a clinician-extension model in crisis conditions. It's also been proven successful in post-rehab care in the US. “Solutions built for the most demanding scenarios,” Tokarev says, “are naturally competitive globally.” Rehabilitation and prosthetics  The war on Ukraine has dramatically increased demand for rehabilitation and prosthetics. In the US, 1,558 military personnel lost a limb due to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Shockingly, Ukraine is facing a future with between 20,000 and 50,000 amputees, according to the military personnel human rights organisation Pryncyp. Yet prosthetics are traditionally costly, uncomfortable to wear, require lengthy rehabilitation and in the case of growing children, frequent replacements. SYLA is developing an AI-enhanced bionic prosthetic knee that utilises advanced algorithms to dynamically adjust to the user's walking pace, ensuring a seamless transition from slow walks to brisk runs.   Lviv-based ComeBack Mobility develops crutches with sensor-equipped nozzles and a companion app that tracks movement and provides real-time feedback. Clinical tests suggest rehabilitation times can be reduced to six weeks. The company has already expanded into the US. There’s also the development of necessary rehab support. Image: BetterMe. Ukrainian health and wellness platform BetterMe has over 150 million users globally. Its partnered with Esper Bionics, a manufacturer of bionic prostheses, and Future for Ukraine, a charitable foundation that provides prosthetics for Ukrainian military abroad, developing Limb Loss Workouts within the BetterMe: Health Coaching app.  The app offers 200 targeted training workshops for upper- and lower-limb loss. Each workout video features five amputees with different prostheses demonstrating every move.  Public health data and logistics War conditions have exposed the importance of tracking injuries, managing medicine supply chains, and digitising hospital systems. Startups building AI diagnostics, medical record platforms, and supply-chain software have been able to pilot in real-world stress environments. “In Ukraine,” Tokarev explains, “you can validate solutions under extreme conditions. If they work here, they work anywhere.” While some investors are reluctant to support Ukrainian startups due to potential business continuity challenges, Tokarev urges, “If you're an investor looking for the future of global healthcare, it’s time to look here.”

French AI startup Mistral has struck a multi-year deal with consulting giant Accenture to help companies deploy AI technology and customise their AI offering. The deal comes as AI companies like Mistral, Europe’s most prominent AI model firm, look to boost revenues by attracting businesses to move from experimenting with AI to long-term deployment. Mistral’s bet is that AI's future rests in offering businesses flexibility to customise and tailor AI systems to their needs. The deal will see Mistral, valued at around €11.7bn, make its AI models, known for their open-source approach, available to Accenture. The two companies will also co-develop AI products and help clients deploy AI in line with regional requirements. They will also launch certification and training programmes for clients while Accenture employees will have access to Mistral's AI Studio, which allows users to quickly develop AI agents and applications. Mistral, mainly known for developing AI models, is looking to position itself with a full-stack infrastructure offering. Its other clients include SAP, Cisco and ASML Holdings. Mauro Macchi, CEO for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa at Accenture, said: “Our clients are looking for AI solutions that combine world-class performance with the complete ownership that Mistral AI’s technology offers enterprises. By partnering with Mistral AI, a leading global innovator, we bring together sovereign models and the capability to scale technology across industries, geographies and business functions. Our go-to-market collaboration will enable enterprises in Europe and around the world to accelerate reinvention with AI, securely and deeply connected to strategic priorities.” Arthur Mensch, CEO, co-founder, Mistral, added: “We are proud to partner with Accenture, whose international reach and industry depth make them an ideal partner to continue driving AI transformations for enterprises at scale. Together, we will help organisations deploy AI that meets their needs for performance, control, and customisation. This collaboration marks an important milestone for industries around the world to realise the ROI of AI.”

In 2025, European tech investment reached €72 billion, making it the second-strongest year of the past three. Within this landscape, the Netherlands ranked fourth, behind the UK, Germany, and France, with €6.9 billion raised. Capital was primarily directed toward energy and semiconductor projects, reflecting the capital-intensive nature of infrastructure and hardware investments. Cloud and software also featured prominently among the biggest rounds, highlighting sustained investment in digital infrastructure and core platforms. Outside these leading segments, e-commerce activity was largely shaped by a single late-year deal, while fintech funding was distributed across several mid- to large-sized rounds rather than driven by one outlier. Healthtech formed a secondary layer of activity, supported by multiple financings during the year. Overall, the largest Dutch deals were concentrated in a handful of strategic sectors (particularly energy, semiconductors, cloud, and software) underscoring the Netherlands’ growing role in infrastructure and deeptech financing, while continued activity across fintech, healthcare, and emerging technologies points to a broadly diversified ecosystem (for more detailed analyses of the European technology ecosystem, check out Tech.eu’s annual report: European Tech 2025–The Big Picture). Here are the 10 companies that raised the most in 2025. Amount raised in 2025: €1B NXP Semiconductors develops high-performance mixed-signal and standard products that enable secure connections and intelligent systems. NXP serves key markets including automotive, industrial, IoT, mobile, and communications infrastructure. Known for its leadership in secure connectivity and as a co-inventor of near-field communication (NFC) technology, the company focuses on advancing intelligent edge solutions that make systems safer, more secure, and more energy-efficient worldwide. In 2025, NXP Semiconductors secured a €1 billion loan from the European Investment Bank (EIB) to support the development of the European chip ecosystem in line with the EU Chips Act, Dutch Semicon Valley, and the Netherlands’ National Technology Strategy, aiming to strengthen the EU semiconductor market and ensure a more competitive chip supply. Amount raised in 2025: $1B Nebius Group is a technology company that builds full-stack cloud infrastructure for the global AI industry. The company provides AI-centric cloud platforms, large-scale GPU clusters, and data-centre solutions that help developers and enterprises train, deploy, and scale artificial intelligence applications. Nebius secured $1 billion in convertible notes in 2025 for AI cloud platform development. Amount raised in 2025: €800M Your.World is an online services platform formed by Strikwerda Investments that acquires, develops, and empowers companies, helping businesses build and grow their digital presence. The company operates a decentralised buy-and-build model through its Your.Online and Your.Cloud groups offering services such as web presence, hosting, digital trust, connectivity, and digital transformation. In 2025, Your.World secured €800 million to drive further acquisitions and strategic investments. Amount raised in 2025: €430M Picnic is an online supermarket founded in 2015 that delivers groceries directly to customers’ homes through an app-only model. The company operates without physical stores, using centralised logistics and a fully electric delivery fleet to offer fresh products at low prices and free home delivery. Active across the Netherlands, Germany, and France, Picnic combines technology, data-driven planning, and sustainable operations to make grocery shopping simple, affordable, and convenient. In 2025, Picnic raised €430 million to strengthen and expand its presence in Germany. Amount raised in 2025: €350M Lion Storage, part of Return and specialising in energy storage, focuses on the development and construction of large-scale battery energy storage systems directly connected to the high-voltage grid. The company aims to accelerate the energy transition by delivering reliable, efficient, and long-duration storage solutions that support a more sustainable and resilient power system. In 2025, Lion Storage secured €350 million in financing for ‘Mufasa’, one of Europe’s largest battery storage projects. Amount raised in 2025: €300M Return is an energy infrastructure company specialising in large-scale battery energy storage systems and flexibility services. The company builds, owns, and operates storage assets that help balance electricity supply and demand, integrate renewable energy, and improve grid stability. Return raised €300 million in growth capital in 2025, to scale battery storage capacity. Amount raised in 2025: €250M SkyNRG is a sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) company founded in 2009 that focuses on sourcing, supplying, and producing high-integrity SAF to help airlines and corporates reduce the carbon footprint of air travel. SkyNRG works with global partners to scale SAF production, develop dedicated fuel plants, and make sustainable aviation a viable alternative to fossil jet fuel, supporting the aviation sector’s transition toward lower-emission flying. SkyNRG secured €250 million in 2025 to build SAF plants in the Netherlands, Sweden, and the US. Amount raised in 2025: €207.7M Finom is a fintech company that provides an all-in-one financial platform for freelancers, entrepreneurs, and SMEs, combining business accounts, payments, invoicing, and expense management in a mobile-first solution. Designed to simplify business finance, Finom merges traditional banking-like services with modern technology, enabling companies across multiple European markets to manage their finances efficiently and securely. In 2025, Finom raised €207.7 million across two funding rounds to support strategic acquisitions aimed at expanding its customer base and product offering, as well as to fund broader growth initiatives, including hiring and increased internal use of AI. Amount raised in 2025: €126M Treasury is a financial services company that positions itself as a euro-denominated Bitcoin treasury. The firm aims to bridge traditional finance with digital capital by offering a transparent, liquid, and institutional-grade vehicle centred on Bitcoin as a “digital gold” benchmark. Its strategy focuses on accumulating and structuring Bitcoin exposure for investors, with the ambition to become one of Europe’s leading Bitcoin treasury platforms. In 2025, Treasury secured €126 million to support the acceleration of its capital markets strategy, including Bitcoin accumulation and yield-generation activities. Amount raised in 2025: €100M Factris is a fintech company that provides invoice factoring and working-capital solutions for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Through its technology platform and personalised services, the company enables businesses to convert unpaid invoices into immediate cash flow, while also offering debt management and credit insurance. Operating across multiple European markets, Factris aims to make financing more accessible and flexible for growing companies. In 2025, Factris secured €100 million for financing SME factoring across Europe.

Following our previous announcements, we are excited to unveil a new group of confirmed speakers for the Tech.eu Summit London 2026. The Tech.eu Summit London 2026 will take place on 21–22 April 2026 at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre in London, bringing together senior leaders, founders and investors who are actively shaping the future of technology across Europe and beyond. This latest wave of speakers further reinforces the summit’s commitment to practical, real-world innovation, featuring representatives from global fintech leaders, deeptech-focused investors, AI-driven startups and internationally active venture capital firms, including executives from Wise, NATO Innovation Fund, Upvest, 2150 and a broad range of other technology-focused organisations. Meet the new speakers Alexis Frentz - Elaia / Partner Ali Servet Eyuboglu - AITech Builders / Founder Burcu Agma - Connectmind AI / Co-Founder Christian Hernandez Gallardo - 2150 / Partner & Co-Founder David Ordonez - NATO Innovation Fund / Deep Tech Investor Doruk Mutlu - Evam / CEO Firat Isbecer - Commencis / Co- Founder and CEO Magali Van Bulck - Wise / Head of Policy & Government Relations (EMEA) Max Schertel - finmid / Co-founder and CEO Symmie Swil - Upvest / UK General Manager Here are the speakers we have previously announced for the Tech.eu Summit London 2026 What’s on the agenda Across two days, the summit will take an in-depth look at the forces and breakthrough innovations redefining business, society and technology on a global scale. Core themes for the 2026 edition include artificial intelligence, fintech, climate tech, deeptech and other fast-evolving sectors that are reshaping how companies are created, financed and scaled internationally. Through keynote presentations, panel discussions and focused conversations, attendees will gain first-hand insights from leading investors, startup founders and technology executives on how they are responding to today’s market dynamics, from deploying advanced AI and deeptech solutions to building resilient, sustainability-led business models and next-generation financial infrastructure. Secure your place at the Tech.eu Summit 2026 Early Bird tickets are available for a limited time. Secure your place and join one of Europe’s leading gatherings for founders, investors, operators and ecosystem leaders. Start networking via the Tech.eu Events App All attendees will gain full access to the Tech.eu Events App, allowing them to start connecting with fellow participants before the summit, schedule meetings in advance, browse the agenda as soon as it’s published, and receive live updates throughout the event. More updates coming soon Further speakers, session highlights, and the complete programme agenda will be revealed in the coming weeks as we continue to carefully curate a strong and diverse lineup for the Tech.eu Summit London 2026, ensuring a wide range of perspectives from leading founders, investors, and technology experts across Europe and beyond, and providing attendees with unparalleled opportunities for learning, networking, and discovering the latest trends shaping the future of technology. We invite you to London this April for two days dedicated to innovation, knowledge sharing, and building valuable relationships. We look forward to seeing you there!

Fusion energy company Proxima Fusion has signed an agreement with the Free State of Bavaria, RWE, and Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) to put the world’s first commercial stellarator fusion power plant on the grid in Europe.   This agreement marks Europe’s first major step toward commercial fusion power, as the continent’s leadership in fusion research moves into industrial deployment. The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) outlines a roadmap to commercial fusion in Europe that begins with building demonstration stellarator Alpha near the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) in Garching. When operational in the 2030s, Alpha will become the first stellarator to demonstrate net energy gain, meaning its plasma will generate more energy than it consumes. The demonstration stellarator will additionally allow Proxima and its partners to test and validate key fusion technologies under real-world conditions and in shorter development cycles, accelerating the path to building the first stellarator fusion power plant, Stellaris. The Stellaris commercial power plant is planned for the site of a former nuclear fission power plant in Gundremmingen, currently being decommissioned by RWE. Alpha and Stellaris will together create thousands of jobs and supplier contracts for European manufacturers and engineers, from construction and manufacturing to advanced electrical, magnet systems, and more.  The long-term aim is to make fusion an integral part of Europe’s energy system, reduce dependence on imported energy, and, for the first time, apply Europe’s fusion expertise to a grid-connected commercial project. Under the MoU, the Free State of Bavaria, Proxima Fusion, RWE and IPP will work together on site selection, permitting and regulatory processes, project structure, and financing. IPP will lead on plasma physics and the scientific leadership of demonstration stellarator Alpha. Proxima Fusion will lead on engineering, public procurement processes, and construction. RWE will contribute its extensive experience in the construction and operation of complex power plant facilities, as well as its strong global industrial network. Proxima intends to finance approximately 20 per cent of the project's total costs through private international investors. Subject to federal funding, the Free State of Bavaria has indicated a potential state co-financing contribution of 20 per cent. RWE has also signalled its willingness to participate financially within the framework of the MoU. All four partners are pooling their efforts to maximize chances of success in securing federal funding under the High-Tech Agenda Germany. According to Francesco Sciortino, Co-Founder and CEO, Proxima Fusion, the MoU marks the starting point of an industrial ecosystem that consolidates existing and new know-how in Europe and anchors value creation here. "This marks the beginning of a long-term industrial growth trajectory over the coming decades, creating new export opportunities for Germany and Europe. With Alpha in Garching and Stellaris in Gundremmingen, we are, for the first time in Europe, connecting world-class research, privately financed and publicly supported high-tech innovation, and its industrial implementation at a single location. Bavaria is therefore evolving from a research hub into a foundational location for the fusion industry. This is a strong and internationally visible signal that Europe is actively shaping its own energy future.” Dr Markus Krebber, CEO of RWE AG, said: “The potential of fusion technology for the energy supply of the future is enormous. Thanks to an excellent research landscape and the startups that have emerged from it, such as Proxima Fusion, Germany can take on a key role."

A UK AI infrastructure startup founded by Cambridge neuroscientists offering a counter view to the “monoculture” that believes superintelligence will come from a single “God-like” AI model running on identical chips has come out of stealth, raising over $10m in funding. Called Callosum, the startup has raised $10.25m from European VC Plural and ARIA (the Advanced Research and Invention Agency), the UK government body charged with unlocking scientific and technological breakthroughs, along with several angel investors. Callosum is building software that enables different AI models to work together across chips from various manufacturers, saying it makes it “faster” and “cheaper" to solve hard, real-world problems at scale. The UK startup is also making a play about its sovereign credentials amid the global AI race. It says: “Rather than forcing every task onto identical hardware, its platform orchestrates components into a system that interacts, communicates and collaborates, reducing dependence on any single provider.” Callosum is challenging the assumption that AI development and greater intelligence will come through scaling a single AI model on identical chips, a process which demands high energy and capital costs and concentrates power in the hands of the likes of Nvidia, OpenAI and Anthropic. The startup points out that real-world problems are heterogeneous, complex and require different capabilities. It points to the example of the human brain saying it didn’t develop by copying one neuron billions of times but evolved to be efficient, flexible and resilient by combining many different types of cells, signals and specialised circuits. Callosum believes the future of AI, like the brain, won’t  rest in running bigger models on more of the same chip, but with different models optimised as a system, running across different chip types. It says tech is bearing fruit, saying it is more accurate and better performing than rivals. The startup was founded by Danyal Akarca and Jascha Achterberg, who met during their PhDs at Cambridge University, working on the intersection of the brain, computing and AI. Their research has been published in several Nature journals and the founders have collaborated with Google DeepMind. Akarca said: “Big labs are currently betting that one model will rule them all. We think that's wrong and our work proves this. Nature shows that real intelligence emerges from many systems working together. "We’ve brought together incredible talent to enable a paradigm shift in how we build intelligent systems to solve real-world problems, with the infrastructure to make that possible, on any chip, anywhere in the world.” Achterberg said: "Everyone assumed chip diversity was a disadvantage to be managed. We saw the opposite, that it's an advantage to be exploited. "We're not optimising one algorithm on top of the existing stack. We're using software to control all the levers across the entire system, extracting benefits from diversity that others dismiss. Plural understands this mission and we're excited to build alongside them." The startup says it will use the funding to expand its London-based team and scale its software. The startup will be using ARIA’s new test lab for startups to prove their AI chips can compete against Nvidia. ARIA is committing £50m to the facility, called the Scaling Inference Lab. The lab aims to provide a shortcut to commercialise new technologies.

Oska Health, a hybrid care provider combining personal health coaches with AI, has raised €11 million in seed funding to scale its continuous care model for high-risk, chronically ill patients. The round was led by Capricorn Partners and SwissHealth Ventures, with participation from Revent, Calm Storm, LBBW Venture Capital, BMH, GoHub Ventures, and Aurum Impact. Chronic diseases present significant challenges for healthcare systems worldwide. Although medical care is generally well organised, gaps often remain between doctor visits, when many patients struggle to sustain behaviour changes that support better health outcomes. Around 50% of chronically ill patients do not take medications as prescribed, and about 80% do not maintain long-term lifestyle changes. Oska Health aims to address these gaps by providing personalised digital support between medical appointments. The company focuses on multimorbid patients—individuals living with multiple chronic conditions such as chronic kidney disease (CKD), diabetes, and hypertension—affecting millions across Europe. Its model combines human coaching with AI-enabled care delivery to support patients at scale. Certified health coaches provide continuous support via video calls, chat, and a dedicated digital therapy app, helping patients with questions related to nutrition, physical activity, and medication. The goal is to translate physicians’ recommendations into everyday practice, strengthen health literacy, and reduce complications and avoidable hospitalisations. CEO and co-founder Niklas Best emphasised that effective chronic care is driven by everyday habits rather than occasional medical consultations: We combine human support with AI to close this gap. Our technology supports our coaches, reduces administrative burden, and makes high-quality chronic care scalable. The new capital will be used to accelerate the expansion of Oska’s AI-powered care infrastructure, which augments care teams and has supported chronically ill patients for more than three years.

Founders House has officially launched in Helsinki, bringing a highly successful Swedish “founder factory” to Finland.  Founders House Helsinki is a highly selective workspace and community for Finland’s most ambitious startup founders. The launch follows the success of Founders House Stockholm, which has become a cornerstone of the Swedish technology ecosystem and a launchpad for more than 80 companies in its first year.  Founders House Helsinki aims to produce more globally significant technology companies that contribute directly to Finland’s long-term GDP growth. Located on the top floor of central Helsinki’s iconic Sähkötalo building, Founders House Helsinki offers over 600 square metres of workspace for up to 15 founding teams or solo founders.  Founders House Helsinki provides selected founders with a free workplace that enables full focus on company building, without taking any equity.  The value is built on curation and direct daily access to top-tier investors, serial founders and operators. The mission is to consistently produce global-scale companies, driving national economic growth and ensuring Finnish startups scale and compete at the global level. The model is simple: curate exceptional founders, bring them together in a shared physical space, and create the conditions for ambitious companies to be built faster. The first residents include founders with backgrounds from Forbes 30 under 30, Oura, BCG, Supercell, and ICEYE.  Residents are selected via a competitive open call, inviting applications from founders currently based in Finland or those seeking to relocate to Finland to build their next global technology venture. In 2026, the Sähkötalo building will become a new hub for Finnish economic growth. Founders House will be joined by Slush and Wave Ventures, both relocating to the same building and creating an exceptional density of talent, capital, and operational experience in a single location. Founders House Helsinki is co-founded by Camilla Komulainen, former Slush leader, together with Johannes Korpela, exited founder and CEO of Wave Ventures. Both have seen firsthand how strongly the environment and peer community influence founder success. “Our goal is that the companies built at Founders House have a GDP-level impact on Finland and Europe,” says Camilla Komulainen, co-founder of Founders House Helsinki.  “We are building an environment where global ambition is the daily standard and where the next industry giants will be built.” “The Stockholm model proved that when you centralise the best founders, they push each other to move faster and think bigger. We are bringing that same intensity to the centre of Helsinki to make sure founders have the peer support and pressure required to succeed globally,” says Johannes Korpela, Co-Founder of Founders House Helsinki. Founders House Helsinki is backed by a group of Nordic investors, operators, and ecosystem organisations, e.g. Slush, Illusian, Business Helsinki, Sitra, the City of Helsinki and leading Nordic VC’s, including Lifeline Ventures. “Finland has exceptional talent, but the strongest companies are built when ambitious founders are surrounded by peers who challenge them, learn from them, and push them forward every single day. Founders House creates that kind of environment, where high standards, speed, and global ambition are embedded in the daily work and help teams grow faster and stronger from the very beginning,” says Marianne Vikkula, Head of Wolt.  “Great teams are the foundation of Europe’s global success. Founders House creates a setting where founders support each other, raise the bar together, and execute faster in the moments that matter most. We’ve seen this play out in the Finnish gaming industry: a tight-knit community is exactly what a small population needs to become a global powerhouse. That’s a model Europe should invest in,” says Ilkka Paananen, co-founder and CEO of Supercell.

London-based Alpa has raised $3.5 million in a pre-seed round led by Daphni, with participation from True Capital, 2100 Ventures, Firedrop, Oprtrs Club, Kima Ventures, and Sonorcap. Angel investors include Alexandre Yazdi (Voodoo founder) and Jerome Tafani (former Burger King France CEO and McDonald’s Europe CFO), who has joined the board. Hospitality remains one of Europe’s largest and most operationally complex sectors, yet financial visibility is often delayed, fragmented, and accounting-driven. Many restaurant groups only gain a clear understanding of profitability weeks after the month-end, which can slow operational decision-making. Recent research suggests that while 79 per cent of restaurants want real-time data, 27 per cent are unable to track basic key performance indicators. Co-founded by Anton Soulier and Jean-François Moy, Alpa is a fintech platform designed to address this gap. The company aims to enable restaurant operators to make decisions based on real-time profitability data rather than waiting weeks for monthly accounts to close. By integrating POS data, banking data, and native connections to food and beverage suppliers, Alpa generates a live operational profit and loss view without requiring traditional accounting, reconciliation, or bookkeeping workflows. The platform is built for operators rather than accountants, allowing hospitality businesses to monitor profitability during the month instead of after the books are closed. Hospitality runs on thin margins, but financial visibility still operates on monthly cycles. That gap creates massive inefficiency and destroys value. Alpa is built to close it by giving operators real-time financial clarity so they can make decisions during the month, not after it. We’re not replacing accounting systems; we’re building the operational financial layer they’ve always been missing, explained Anton Soulier, co-founder and CEO of Alpa. As vertical fintech continues to reshape financial services, Alpa is positioning itself as a category-focused platform for hospitality, combining real-time financial data, automation, AI, and native supply-chain connectivity to support profitability, control, and long-term scalability. The new funding will be used to strengthen Alpa’s core product and engineering capabilities, including its financial data infrastructure, native supplier integrations, automation, AI-driven classification, and operator-grade financial workflows. The company plans to invest primarily in engineering and product development to build a scalable, hospitality-native financial platform.

YOU(th) Health Tech, a digital health company focused on expanding preventive care globally, has announced $4.5 million in funding. The round was led by Callisto Health, with participation from caesar., adesso Ventures, Antler, Moonstone, and 1024 Ventures. Angel investors also joined, including Jean-Charles Samuelian, Founder and CEO of Alan and founding member of Mistral AI, and Patrick Andrae, Founder and CEO of HomeToGo. Growing interest in longevity among younger generations, combined with an ageing population, is driving increased demand for health screenings. However, research suggests that around 60 per cent of people avoid preventive tests due to friction at the point of screening, including long wait times, high costs, and cumbersome hardware. YOU(th) aims to address this gap by using smartphone sensor data and machine learning to simplify preventive screening. Through inputs such as face videos, voice recordings, eye and skin images, typing patterns, and step data, the platform can assess a user’s health status in under two minutes, identifying more than 50 digital biomarkers across over 10 organ systems. Filippo Nigro, founder and CEO of YOU(th), said the company’s mission is to expand access to preventive care to billions of people worldwide: Everyone talks about prevention, yet only about 8% screen at the optimal frequency because time, cost, and friction get in the way. We remove those barriers by turning everyday phone behaviour, selfies, voice, typing, into passive health screening, seamlessly connected to real healthcare. Prevention shouldn’t interrupt life; it should run inside it. By leveraging smartphones to reduce reliance on specialised hardware, needles, or clinic visits, YOU(th) aims to enable frequent, low-friction health checkups spanning cardiovascular, respiratory, cognitive, dermatological, metabolic, mental, and blood health. The platform is designed to estimate indicators such as blood pressure, oxygen saturation, respiratory symptom index, proxies for glucose, haemoglobin, and cholesterol, cognitive age, skin condition, and hydration levels. To support further development of the platform, YOU(th) plans to use the new funding to accelerate product development and expand its engineering, data science, and medical research teams.

London-based Kinfolk, an AI-native HR workforce operations platform, has raised a $7.2 million seed round led by AlbionVC, with participation from PROfounders Capital and existing investors Ascension and Emerge. Angel investors, including Tony Jamous, Founder and Executive Chairman of OysterHR, also participated. The latest round brings Kinfolk’s total funding to $8.5 million. HR and People Operations teams face growing productivity pressure as headcounts shrink and complexity rises. Much of their time is spent on repetitive administrative work, while legacy ticketing systems and basic AI chatbots often fall short, creating friction as companies scale. Kinfolk is positioning itself to address this gap with what it describes as a new Workforce Operations category, starting with HR and People Operations. The platform combines agentic AI in Slack, request management, lifecycle automation, and analytics to manage employee support and people programs end-to-end. Commenting on the challenge, Jeet Mukerji, co-founder and CEO of Kinfolk, said HR teams remain burdened by manual administrative work and outdated tools, often forced to choose between cumbersome ticketing systems and limited chatbots. We built Kinfolk to break this cycle. By shifting from manual coordination to autonomous execution, we enable HR teams to scale their operations and focus on the strategic work that drives company growth. We’re excited to give People teams the operating system they deserve, one that performs work instead of simply managing it, Mukerji added. By replacing fragmented tools and manual coordination with a unified system, Kinfolk aims to help organisations scale operations, deliver more consistent employee support, and increase team capacity without adding headcount. Unlike standard chatbots that primarily retrieve information, Kinfolk’s AI agents are designed to execute tasks autonomously across systems, including drafting documents, updating HRIS records, and managing employee lifecycle changes directly within Slack or Microsoft Teams. The shift from manual coordination to autonomous execution is intended to help HR teams scale operations while maintaining control. With the new funding, Kinfolk plans to accelerate its agentic AI platform development, expand enterprise readiness, extend beyond core HR into payroll and IT workflows, and scale its go-to-market teams to meet growing demand.

London-based SolveAI, a platform that enables employees to build compliant enterprise software without writing code, has raised a $45 million Series A led by GV alongside a previously undisclosed $5 million pre-seed round led by Accel. Northzone, Mantis VC, and NeverLift also participated, along with angel investors including Mike LoSapio, CISO of Palantir, Pushmeet Kohli, and Olivier Godement. As AI-powered low- and no-code tools gain traction, many remain geared toward developers, hobbyists, or small teams operating outside the constraints of large enterprises. Larger organisations typically require applications that integrate with legacy systems, run on existing infrastructure, comply with strict governance standards, and scale reliably. As a result, employees closest to day-to-day inefficiencies - across operations, sales, finance, and frontline roles - often lack the ability to build tools tailored to their workflows and data environments. This can leave companies reliant on outsourced custom software that is costly to maintain and slow to adapt. Founded in July 2025 by former Palantir engineer Steve Basher, SolveAI is designed to address this gap. The platform enables employees across departments to use natural language to generate proposals, designs, and fully functional applications that integrate with existing IT infrastructure and meet security and compliance requirements. It first produces a written proposal outlining the recommended solution, its rationale, and planned features, along with a technical specification covering implementation steps such as data integration and algorithmic considerations. Teams can iterate on the proposal, after which SolveAI orchestrates specialised AI agents responsible for different stages of the development lifecycle, including UX, frontend, and backend, ultimately generating a complete custom software product. Commenting on the development, Steve Basher, CEO and founder of SolveAI, said organisations see the greatest impact when technology is tailored to their specific needs. He noted that while enterprises are eager to capitalise on the AI coding wave, few products fully reflect the complexity, regulatory demands, and scale at which large companies operate. SolveAI puts the power to build software directly in the hands of the people closest to the problems, without compromising security or compliance, Basher added. The approach is intended to support faster innovation while maintaining enterprise controls, reduce pressure on developer and IT teams, and decrease reliance on legacy custom applications. Companies in sectors such as manufacturing, retail, and financial services are already exploring the platform to accelerate internal development in complex technical environments. With the new funding, SolveAI plans to continue expanding its platform capabilities and scaling adoption across enterprise customers.

Get ready to feel old. According to a recent report, the average age of AI unicorn founders dropped from 40 in 2020 to 29 in 2024. And the trend continues. It’s been called a “youthquake,” shaking up the Silicon Valleys of the world. An ambitious Gen Z, coming of age in the AI-era, is not waiting for permission from their elders, or even college degrees, to start turning their dreams into reality. Instead, they’re getting down to business and making things happen. This wave is catching attention in some of the world’s fastest-growing startup ecosystems, where key players are getting on board to fuel the ambition and send more next-generation founders out to compete on the world stage. In the Baltics, for example, all this energy is being matched with real investment and structured support. FIRSTPICK, a first-check venture capital fund backing Baltic founders, and Lost Astronaut, a venture builder and an early-stage investor known for early bets on bold ideas, have launched a new collaboration focused on helping young startup founders at the very start of their journey. With a goal to invest in 100 early-stage startups over the next three years, they aim to give Gen Z founders a platform to build globally competitive businesses right from idea inception. By combining resources and hands-on programs, the two partners aim to fill the funding and knowledge gap at the early stage and keep young talent in the region moving forward. Baltic data mirrors this global surge, according to the latest Baltic Startup Funding Report . In Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, early-stage funding hit new records, with venture investments in the region rising from €505 million in 2024 to €607 million in 2025, with much of this growth coming from pre-seed and seed rounds. This creates a competitive environment for new startups, making it harder to break into the market. With global funds moving in earlier and bigger, Baltic founders need a stronger push at the outset to keep up. According to Tadas Burgaila, investor, entrepreneur, and founder of Lost Astronaut, FIRSTPICK is not a traditional accelerator. It’s a league of All-stars, a roster of the best builders in the Baltics. “We’re bringing together first-contact experience for founders at the initial stage and strategic depth for when it’s time to scale. This creates an environment where Gen Z upstarts can get the right support at the right time, to learn fast and compete at the highest level.” At the core of the collaboration between FIRSTPICK and Lost Astronaut is the All-stars program, built on covering the full journey for early-stage founders, beginning with a €100K investment for each selected company. Lost Astronaut brings to the table its first-contact experience working with founders at the -1 → 0 stage.  With a background rooted in self-funded, fast-paced investments, Burgaila says his team will focus on creating a competitive arena where All-stars can earn their position, raise their level, and compound performance over time.  FIRSTPICK picks up where early validation ends, giving All-stars access to a platform for practical learning and scaling. “Our approach does more than write checks,” says Andra Bagdonaitė, Partner at FIRSTPICK.  “It connects early founders to a community of 100+ experienced coaches and more than 250 other All-star founders who have learned from growing real companies. In our seven years of investing, backing nearly 100 startups like Ondato, Turing College, and Jeff App, we’ve built up a huge archive of workshops, templates, and insider operator advice. With access to these valuable resources through the All-star programs, new teams don’t have to start from scratch.” This extends to hands-on guidance for fundraising strategy, feedback on their materials, and warm introductions to the right VCs in a network of over 700 funds.  For the Baltic region, this joint approach is meant to build not just more startups, but a deeper talent pool and a more competitive ecosystem overall.  “The strength of the Baltic ecosystem lies in this quality-over-quantity mindset,” says Burgaila.  “Many first-time founders today don’t fit traditional venture patterns. They are less interested in pitch theatre and more focused on shipping, testing, and learning in real time. This collaboration is built for this shift, investing early and moving fast to make sure strong builders aren’t filtered out by slow decision cycles. Not everyone is chasing the next big headline. Some are building quietly but relentlessly. We see value in that, and ultimately, we are backing people before metrics.”

Ukraine's startup scene has long punched above its weight, and the companies emerging from it today are proof that innovation doesn't pause for adversity. Ukraine has quietly become a dynamic source of startup innovation, producing companies tackling challenges in energy storage, compliance technology, sustainable food, and more.  Here’s some to have on your radar  Crosscheck Crosscheck is a B2B SaaS startup that has built an AI-powered compliance and audit-preparation platform to help companies streamline and automate audit preparation and achieve sustainability or certification standards. Its software uses AI to collect, organise, analyse and verify evidence and documentation against standards such as ISCC and other international certification requirements, reducing manual work and errors while making audit reporting more efficient.  The platform gives auditors a private workspace to manage tasks, customise checklists, and collaborate with clients on compliance documentation, helping businesses prepare for certification audits faster and with clearer oversight. FIZI FIZI makes plant-based, sugar-free snack bars that are free from white sugar, lactose and gluten and designed as healthier alternatives to traditional chocolate and protein bars.  The bars combine flavours like nuts, caramel and cocoa with functional ingredients (e.g., plant protein, vitamins) for energy and wellbeing, and they’re sold in individual bars and variety boxes across many European markets. The brand was founded in 2022 and has expanded beyond Ukraine into countries including Poland, Spain, Lithuania, the UAE, and Western Europe.   Geodesic.Life Geodesic.Life designs and builds affordable, eco-friendly geodesic dome homes using natural, low-impact materials such as mass timber (CLT), hemp-lime insulation, and clay plaster.  The company’s spherical housing modules emphasise energy efficiency, reduced material use, and comfort — the dome shape results in about 33 per cent less external surface area than a conventional rectangular building, cutting heat loss and lowering construction and living costs. Their prefabricated homes are engineered for optimal natural daylight, indoor air quality (with CO₂ sensors and hybrid ventilation), and a minimal environmental footprint. Oh My Grant Oh My Grant helps organisations, startups and research teams find, apply for and secure grant money, especially from European and international funding programmes.  The team works with clients to review project ideas and materials, draft and polish full grant applications, and guide submissions to improve organisations' chances of winning funding. On the practical side, they act as full-cycle grant management specialists — starting from an organisation’s initial project descriptions and budgets, through clarification and drafting, to final submission of proposals.  They also leverage their expertise and networks across EU programmes to match projects with the most suitable grants and maximise success rates, reportedly reducing preparation time substantially and supporting clients across sectors like deeptech, healthcare, energy, agriculture and nonprofits. Marvilon Marvillion manufactures the MARV-2EX, an industrial continuous monitoring instrument that measure dust particle concentrations in industrial gas streams. The device is engineered specifically for hazardous and explosive environments  meeting stringent industrial safety standards.  The system uses optical sensing and extractive sampling to continuously draw gas from a process (like a furnace stack or industrial exhaust), heat and condition the sample, and then measure dust levels with an optical detector in real time. Unlike conventional systems that monitor only gas composition or require separate analysers for dust, MARV-2EX integrates dust detection specifically suited to wet and explosive atmospheres, making it particularly useful for heavy industry processes such as steel production, power generation or chemical manufacturing, where particulate emissions must be tracked and controlled for compliance and process optimisation.  SorbiForce SorbiForce is developing a metal-free, sustainable battery technology designed as an alternative to lithium-ion systems. Instead of relying on lithium, cobalt, or other mined metals. The company uses carbon derived from agricultural waste, salt, and water to create a safe and environmentally friendly energy storage solution.  The batteries are designed to be non-flammable, non-explosive, and non-toxic, even if damaged — addressing major safety and supply-chain concerns associated with conventional batteries. The company’s systems are built to scale from modular units to large industrial energy storage installations, targeting applications such as renewable energy storage, grid balancing, and backup power.  Critical to circularity, SorbiForce claims its batteries can last for many years with simple maintenance (such as water replenishment), and that up to 95 per cent of the materials are biodegradable or recyclable at end of life. TechNovator TechNovator is developing long-range wireless power transfer technology. Unlike conventional wireless charging (which relies on close-contact inductive pads), the technology is designed to transmit energy over distance with high efficiency, minimal heat loss, and automatic device detection while eliminating cables and enabling seamless, contactless charging. Its target applications span consumer electronics, smart homes, industrial robotics, IoT infrastructure, and potentially medical devices.  The broader vision is to create wireless power infrastructure that can be embedded into everyday environments — offices, factories, cities — so devices can charge continuously without plugs or battery swaps. 

Clee Medical, a Swiss neurotechnology startup developing ultra-high-resolution real-time imaging for brain surgery, has closed its seed financing round. The round was led by High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF), with participation from Zürcher Kantonalbank (ZKB), Kickfund, FONGIT, and Venture Kick, alongside continued support from existing partner Wyss Geneva. Many neurosurgical procedures require navigating delicate brain structures with millimetre-level precision, yet anatomical shifts and limited intraoperative visibility can make targeting during surgery challenging. Clee Medical is developing minimally invasive neurotechnology solutions to address this gap. Founded in October 2024 by Matt Lapinski and Abed Hammoud, the company’s flagship Neuro Access platform combines ultra-high-resolution real-time intraoperative Optical Coherence Tomography imaging with advanced navigation capabilities to support precision neurosurgery. The technology is designed to provide real-time imaging inside the brain, helping surgeons navigate complex anatomy with greater confidence and enabling safer access to deep brain targets for more targeted neurotherapies. Built on years of translational research, the platform is being developed to support applications including functional neurosurgery and neuro-oncology. With the new financing, Clee Medical plans to expand its development and clinical programs, advance toward its first-in-human clinical study, and accelerate the clinical validation of Neuro Access. The company’s long-term vision is to enable neurosurgeons to operate with enhanced real-time insight, improving safety, efficiency, and patient outcomes in complex brain procedures.

London-based Thema has secured $6.2 million to address gaps in how private equity firms assess portfolio risk and plan expansion strategy amid shifting software market valuations. The total includes $4.5 million in pre-seed funding from a round led by Stride.vc, with participation from KDX, Capital Allocators, and angel investors with backgrounds in private equity, investment banking, and enterprise software, including the former chair of KPMG. In addition, Thema received a $1.7 million UK government grant, in partnership with the University of Cambridge, to advance trustworthy AI. A repricing of software markets has exposed weaknesses in how private equity firms evaluate portfolio exposure and expansion opportunities. As valuations compress, these assessments often remain fragmented and manual. For investors building platform companies, expansion strategy drives much of the value created, yet decisions are still frequently made using disconnected tools and individual judgment. Thema is building what it calls Portfolio Expansion Infrastructure, a system designed to help PE investors determine where to expand, originate opportunities, and assess risk across a portfolio. Existing sourcing tools typically focus on identifying companies rather than analysing markets, often lacking broader context. Thema aims to replace fragmented consulting reports and sourcing tools with a continuously updated view of market structure. Thema’s AI infrastructure provides versioned representations of companies and market structures that track how markets evolve over time. Using proprietary AI techniques developed by co-founder Dr Dimo Angelov, the platform processes web-scale data to identify how companies cluster into markets, what adjacencies exist, and how those structures change. The result is a continuously refreshed map of market structure intended to highlight adjacencies, competitive dynamics, and potential expansion paths that conventional databases may miss. Developed in collaboration with tier-one private equity firms and as part of a UK government-backed programme with the University of Cambridge, Thema aims to help investors build conviction more quickly, define clearer platform theses, and support investment cases grounded in market structure. With the new funding, the company plans to expand R&D and commercial operations and is actively onboarding customers.

Grodi, a company focused on autonomous robotics and computer vision for intensive agriculture, has secured a €2.5 million investment round led by Swanlaab Innvierte Agri FoodTech, with participation from Axon Desarrollo Andalucía and Innvierte, SICC del CDTI. Founded in 2022 in Almería by Samuel Ruíz, Natalia Gálvez, and Ana Molina, Grodi has built a multidisciplinary team spanning engineering, robotics, artificial intelligence, and agronomy. The company develops technology tailored to the specific needs of Mediterranean intensive agriculture, enabling growers, cooperatives, and seed companies to work with objective, standardised, and continuous data to reduce uncertainty and improve decision-making. At the core of its offering is VEGA 11, an autonomous robot designed to operate independently in Mediterranean greenhouses while delivering full plant visibility through advanced computer vision. The system combines proprietary hardware, machine-learning algorithms, and large-scale data analytics to help growers optimise agronomic management, anticipate plant health issues, and estimate crop yields with high precision. Grodi’s digital platform centralises this information in real time to support safer, more efficient, and more sustainable operations. Providing practical tools that simplify farmers’ day-to-day production management remains a central objective for the company. As CEO Ana Molina noted: The sector needs solutions that reduce costs, improve resource-use efficiency, and standardise processes. VEGA is demonstrating that automation and computer vision can radically transform daily crop management. Grodi is now in a key growth phase, focused on scaling the commercial deployment of VEGA 11 while expanding its broader technology portfolio with additional products designed for real-world agricultural use. The new funding will support the industrialisation of the VEGA 11 robot, strengthen the company’s commercial presence across Spain’s main horticultural regions, and advance its international expansion strategy in a market increasingly demanding productivity, efficiency, and sustainability gains.

London-based BeyondMath, a deeptech company that has developed a novel generative physics model, has raised a $10 million seed extension led by Cambridge Innovation Capital, with participation from existing investors including UP.Partners, Insight Partners, and InMotion Ventures. This brings total seed funding to $18.5 million. Engineering and industrial companies are under increasing pressure to design more complex systems faster and more sustainably, yet many still rely on legacy simulation tools that struggle to keep pace with modern hardware and AI-driven workflows. BeyondMath aims to address this gap with a foundational AI model trained directly on first-principles physics. The platform enables engineering-grade simulations to be produced in minutes rather than hours or days, delivering results up to 1,000 times faster than traditional supercomputing methods. Founded in 2022 by AI industry veterans Alan Patterson and Darren Garvey, BeyondMath has built what it describes as the world’s largest foundational physics model, capable of simulating complex physical phenomena ranging from aerodynamics to thermal management. The company’s customers include major automotive, aerospace, and electronics manufacturers, and it has established partnerships with NVIDIA and AWS. Speaking about the market need, BeyondMath CEO Alan Patterson said engineering teams require faster and more flexible simulation capabilities but currently lack the technology to meet these demands: Generative physics introduces a fundamentally new approach to engineering, unlocking innovation across fields ranging from aerospace and automotive to data-centre design. We now have the capital and investor support to accelerate our research roadmap and scale commercial adoption. This could be the ChatGPT moment for physics. BeyondMath’s technology has potential applications across sectors, including automotive, aerospace, electronics, data centre design, and semiconductor manufacturing. The new funding will be used to scale commercial deployment of BeyondMath’s generative physics technology and expand its research capacity. The company expects to double its headcount this year and grow its customer base across Europe, the United States, and Japan.  

Ai for autonomous driving company Wayve today announced it has raised $1.2 billion in a Series D investment round, bringing its post-money valuation to $8.6 billion.  The funding accelerates the company’s shift from AI research leadership to scaled commercial deployment of its end-to-end AI platform. The round was led by Eclipse, Balderton and SoftBank Vision Fund 2, and brings in new investment from Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, Baillie Gifford, British Business Bank, Icehouse Ventures, Schroders Capital and other global institutional investors. Microsoft, NVIDIA and Uber participated in the round, reflecting support for Wayve's embodied AI as a foundational software layer for deploying autonomy at a global scale. Leading global automotive manufacturers Mercedes-Benz, Nissan and Stellantis also invested, in support of advancing Wayve's unified AI platform spanning L2+ “hands off” through L3/L4 “eyes off” driving across vehicles, brands and markets. Wayve pioneered the application of end-to-end AI to autonomous driving in 2017 and has since industrialised its safety-by-design architecture into a production-ready autonomy platform. From 2026, consumers will experience Wayve-powered robotaxis through commercial trials with Uber. From 2027, they will be able to buy passenger vehicles equipped with Wayve’s AI Driver, starting with L2+ “hands-off” capability that allows the vehicle to steer, navigate and respond to traffic under driver supervision. Wayve licenses its AI Driver directly to automakers, providing tools to customise driving models for specific vehicles and brands. The system runs entirely on onboard vehicle compute and embedded sensors, and doesn’t rely on high-definition maps or location-specific engineering. By partnering with automakers and mobility platforms rather than vertically integrating, Wayve enables autonomy to scale globally with lower capital intensity. In the past year, Wayve became the first and only AV developer to drive zero-shot in more than 500 cities across Europe, North America and Japan, meaning without city-specific fine-tuning before deployment. That performance is enabled by Wayve's foundation model trained on globally diverse data spanning over 70 countries and a wide range of vehicle platforms, creating unmatched data diversity that allows autonomy to generalise to new markets. Robotaxi deployment with Uber Uber participated in the Series D and has committed additional capital to support multi-year deployments of Wayve-powered robotaxis on the Uber network, with plans to scale to more than 10 markets globally. The companies plan to launch their first service in London in 2026, with broader international rollout to follow. Under the partnership, Wayve will deploy its AI Driver in L4-capable vehicles from participating automakers, while Uber will own and operate the fleet, creating a scalable model for autonomous ride-hailing using mass-produced vehicles. Alex Kendall, Co-Founder and CEO of Wayve, said: “With $1.5 billion secured, we are building for a total addressable market that spans every vehicle that moves. Autonomy will not scale through city-by-city robotaxi deployments alone. It will scale through a trusted platform that automakers and fleets can deploy globally and improve continuously. This investment accelerates our path to widespread commercial deployment and positions us to build the autonomy layer that will power any vehicle everywhere.” Satya Nadella, Chairman and CEO, Microsoft: "Wayve is pushing the frontier of embodied AI for autonomous driving, and Azure supports the scale, reliability, and safety needed to bring that innovation into the real world. Through our partnership and investment, we’re helping accelerate the path from breakthrough research to scaled commercial deployment with automakers worldwide." Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO, Uber, said: “We are very proud to continue to deepen our partnership with Wayve, with plans to deploy together in more than 10 markets around the world. Wayve’s powerful end-to-end approach is purpose-built for scale, safety, and effectiveness, and we’re excited to work with them across multiple OEMs and geographies, which we’ll share more about soon.” tion.” Antonio Filosa, CEO, Stellantis, said: “Wayve’s embodied‑AI approach and end‑to‑end learning architecture represent an important innovation in autonomous driving technology." Their work aligns well with Stellantis’ platform‑driven strategy and our focus on scalable, safety‑first vehicle intelligence. We see strong potential for collaboration as we advance our autonomy roadmap, including our driverless AV Ready Platforms™, with the clear objective of delivering safer and more intuitive driving experiences for customers worldwide”. Suranga Chandratillake, General Partner at Balderton, commented: "We've been proud to support Wayve since the early days, backing Alex and his team as they pursued an ambitious - and at the time rather contrarian - vision for embodied AI. The technical achievements are extraordinary, but what's more impressive is how this team has taken cutting-edge research out of the lab and deployed it in complex, real-world driving environments - turning breakthrough science into commercial reality. Born out of a tiny lab in Cambridge and now a global leader in its field, Wayve represents the very best of European innovation: world-class technology, global ambition and real-world deployment at scale."

Munich-based Secfix, an end-to-end security compliance platform, has closed an oversubscribed $12 million Series A round led by Alstin Capital, with participation from Bayern Kapital and existing investor neosfer, an early-stage investor of the Commerzbank Group. The funding will support the company’s expansion across Europe and the further development of its AI-native capabilities and CISO-as-a-Service offering. European companies have traditionally faced lengthy and resource-intensive certification processes, often requiring months of manual work and delaying commercial opportunities. Secfix was founded to address this challenge by automating compliance across standards, including ISO 27001, the EU AI Act, NIS2, GDPR, and SOC 2, helping small and mid-sized businesses reduce manual effort and streamline certification. However, certification often proved to be only the first step. As customers achieved initial certifications, many encountered growing security and compliance demands as their organisations scaled, creating demand not only for automation tools but also for ongoing expert support. In response, Secfix expanded its offering into an end-to-end security compliance platform that combines automation with an AI-native CISO-as-a-Service model. The platform provides continuous monitoring, incident management, security questionnaires, gap assessments, policy reviews, access management, cloud security scanning, penetration testing, and broader security leadership support. Fabiola Munguia, CEO and co-founder of Secfix, said the company initially focused on helping businesses achieve certification more efficiently and is now expanding its role to support customers as a broader security and compliance partner beyond the certification phase: Our vision is to solidify Secfix as Europe's leader in end-to-end security compliance - one that grows with companies from their first ISO 27001 certification through their entire security and compliance journey. With regulatory requirements such as ISO 27001, NIS2, DORA, and the EU AI Act increasing the compliance burden on European organisations, Secfix positions its platform as a combined automation and AI-driven solution informed by audit experience, customer feedback, and extensive cybersecurity expertise. The Series A funding will support Secfix’s continued European expansion, further product development to enhance its AI-powered automation capabilities, and the scaling of its CISO-as-a-Service offering to meet growing mid-market demand.