UK challenger business bank Allica Bank is to become the latest UK fintech unicorn, following a $155m (£111m) Series D funding round, according to a report.   Allica is expected to announce tomorrow that its new valuation will hit $1.2bn (£890m), following the Series D round, Sky News says.   It will mean that Allica will join the likes of Revolut, Monzo, Starling and Zilch in being valued at more than $1bn, giving it unicorn status. Allica targets the established SME sector (between five and 250 employees), offering them lending, such as commercial mortgages and equipment loans, and current and savings accounts.   The Series D round includes investment from Ventura Capital and existing investor, the US fund TCV. Allica last raised in 2022, raising a £100m Series C round. The funds are understood to be earmarked for expansion in Northern Europe, where it is considering buying a bank, as well as developing its AI offering.   Allica is headed up Richard Davies, a former Revolut executive.   Davies said: “We are building the category-defining digital bank for established small and medium businesses, and are excited to be taking our proprietary platform into new markets.   “This Series D investment is a major vote of confidence in Allica’s strategy and performance.” Image: Allica Bank

UK scaleup Radiant today announced its merger with Ori Industries, combining Ori’s distributed AI infrastructure platform with Radiant’s global infrastructure capabilities and marking the company’s transition into full operations. Radiant is a vertically integrated AI infrastructure company combining utility-scale powered land, long-term capital, and a proprietary AI infrastructure software platform. Radiant builds and operates AI factories for enterprises, telecommunications providers, and sovereign institutions, delivering scalable compute with utility-grade economics, operational resilience, and planning horizons aligned to the long-term demands of the AI economy. Ori provides sovereigns, telcos, & corporates with the software stack to build, manage, and deploy AI cloud. Through this merger, Ori will be the 'spark' that fires up Radiant -- it will be the software & team layer sitting on top of its compute + physical data centres.  As part of the merger, Radiant enters its operating phase as the first compute deployment vehicle and second seed investment for Brookfield’s AI Infrastructure Fund (“BAIIF”). BAIIF provides Radiant with a direct pipeline to a $100 billion investment program for AI Infrastructure, ensuring the company has the long-term capital required to deliver a fully integrated, utility-scale ecosystem that unites proprietary software, sovereign compute, and powered land into a single, global AI utility. Radiant’s infrastructure will be based on the NVIDIA DSX reference design, offering AI compute infrastructure for sovereign governments, select global enterprises, and telecommunications providers under long-term contracts.  Mahdi Yahya, Founder and CEO of Ori and President of Radiant, said: “We could not be more excited to continue the Ori journey through Radiant. For more than seven years, our team has been building toward this moment - designing software that could enable infrastructure for AI at scale. It was immediately apparent that Brookfield was the ideal partner for Ori.  Through Radiant we can challenge the supply-demand imbalance that has defined AI since the release of advanced LLMs in 2023. With deep, structural advantages in capital costs, powered land, compute, and software, Radiant is building the infrastructure to enable a global age of abundance for AI." Radiant will continue to grow and operate the Ori Global AI Cloud for customers who need on-demand capacity and rapid deployment.

French foodtech startup Verley has raised €32 million in a Series A financing round, only four years after its inception.  Verley develops functional whey protein ingredients, more precisely beta-lactoglobulin (BLG), designed to deliver the nutritional and functional performance expected by food and nutrition manufacturers. Verley has built its approach to integrate seamlessly into existing food value chains, responding to concrete industrial and market requirements.  Verley’s ingredients made through precision fermentation use only a fraction of the natural resources required by conventional production, addressing a growing demand from manufacturers and consumers for reduced-impact products.   The company focuses exclusively on B2B ingredient solutions, supporting manufacturers developing high-protein, clean-label and digestible products across multiple applications.  Its portfolio, marketed under the FermWhey™ range, consists of functionalized whey proteins engineered for performance in real-world formulations (high-protein yoghurts,  protein shots etc), combining high purity, advanced solubility, emulsification, gelling properties and optimised nutritional profiles.  High-protein nutrition has become a mainstream expectation, while demographic growth, evolving dietary habits, and the rapid expansion of GLP-1 treatments (1 in 8 adults in the US were taking a  GLP-1 drug in 2025) are further increasing demand for high-quality, digestible protein ingredients. At the same time, conventional whey protein production is facing structural constraints, limiting its ability to meet these needs at scale while reducing environmental pressure.  Since its creation, Verley has followed a methodical development path, combining rapid execution with industrial discipline. In less than four years, the company has secured key regulatory milestones, including a self-affirmed GRAS status in 2024, followed by an FDA “No  Questions” letter in 2025, validating the safety and robustness of its approach for the US market.  Beyond regulation, Verley has built a strong intellectual property portfolio around both fermentation and proprietary protein functionalisation technologies. These technologies do not aim solely to replicate dairy proteins but to enhance their performance, unlocking new formulation possibilities for manufacturers.   Stéphane Mac Millan, CEO and co-founder of Verley, said:  “Verley’s mission is to address the growing global demand for high-quality nutrition while preserving the planet’s natural resources. Verley is now ready to help alleviate the pressure the dairy industry is facing. We are very proud to be building a European champion  leveraging decades of know-how in the dairy industry.” The round brings together top European players: new investors, including Alven, leading the round, Blast, and the French Tech Seed fund, managed on behalf of the French government by Bpifrance as part of France 2030, and historical investors Sofinnova, Sparkfood, Captech and Founders Future. With additional non-dilutive support from Bpifrance, this funding round supports Verley’s next phase of industrial execution and market deployment.  The proceeds of the round will primarily support Verley’s US market entry, including  commercial deployment and early customer scale-up, alongside a ramp-up of production  capacities. The company will also continue investing in R&D to further strengthen the performance, efficiency and sustainability of its technologies. Following the US launch,  Europe and the Middle East will be priority regions for expansion. 

A Dutch chipmaker which designs and manufactures chips for AI inference use has raised more than $250m, with backing from new investor BlackRock. Innovation Industries, the European VC fund, is the lead investor in the round in Axelera AI. The round also features new investors BlackRock and SiteGround Capital as well as existing investors, including Bitfury, CDP Capital, the European Innovation Council Fund and Samsung Catalyst Fund. The startup has raised more than $450m in total to date. Axelera AI makes chips and software for inference, the computing process of running an AI model, as opposed to training an AI model, which has become increasingly important as more enterprises embrace AI. The startup's chips are designed for use locally on edge devices, such as mobile phones, as it looks to make AI more energy efficient by processing data directly on devices rather than in the cloud.   The startup said the funding represented the largest ever by an EU AI semiconductor firm. It said it had 500 customers across industries such as defence, agritech and robotics.   Describing its approach, it said: “Axelera AI’s success is rooted in a fundamental insight: to deploy AI at scale, the industry must first solve for energy consumption and cooling requirements.    “The company’s edge-first architectural approach delivers uncompromising AI inference performance that fits within the power and thermal envelopes of real-world deployment environments to drive real business value." Fabrizio Del Maffeo, CEO and co-founder of Axelera AI, said: “Data centres are hitting power and cooling limits, and as analytics move closer to where data is being created, edge AI solutions must operate within strict energy and bandwidth constraints.     “We designed our architecture from the ground up to overcome these obstacles. Our edge-first approach isn’t just about efficiency; it’s about making AI deployment economically viable at scale for real-world applications while protecting data and privacy by processing customer information locally.”

Glasgow-based Quantcore has secured £2.5 million in seed funding to develop a sovereign supply chain for quantum hardware, as the UK seeks to strengthen domestic capacity in technologies linked to national security and economic competitiveness. The round was co-led by PXN Ventures, Blackfinch Ventures, and Scottish Enterprise, with additional backing from Quantum Exponential and STAC. Founded in 2025 by Dr Jack Brennan, Dr Valentino Seferai, Wridhdhisom Karar, and Prof Martin Weides as a spin-out from the University of Glasgow, Quantcore designs, manufactures, and tests superconducting processors, resonators, and sensors that underpin quantum computers and advanced sensing systems. Quantcore manufactures niobium-based components, a material that can operate at higher temperatures than aluminium, which is widely used by global competitors. By leveraging niobium, the company aims to help customers, including UK national laboratories, reduce energy consumption while improving the scalability and performance of quantum components. Beyond computing, Quantcore’s quantum sensors support secure communications and high-precision medical imaging beyond the capabilities of classical technologies, with potential applications in neuroscience, early disease detection, secure infrastructure, and fundamental physics. Highlighting the strategic implications, Quantcore CEO and co-founder Dr Jack Brennan said quantum computing’s code-breaking potential makes domestic manufacturing increasingly important, arguing the UK must build sovereign capability as classical computing approaches its limits. The investment comes amid geopolitical uncertainty and follows the UK government’s commitment to invest £670 million in quantum computing as part of its 10-year modern industrial strategy. Following the funding, Quantcore plans to expand its team with new engineering roles across design, manufacturing, and cryogenic testing, alongside commercial hires.

The New Era of Shopping today announced the close of a $1.4 million Pre-Seed round to help traditional brands become discoverable, trusted, and purchasable inside AI assistants and agent-driven shopping experiences. ​ The investment was co-led by a European VC firm Presto Ventures, and an NYC-based AI accelerator Alliance, with participation of a16z Scout Fund, a super angel and a founder of ZFellows Cory Levy, AI-focused fund Davidovs VC, Ukrainian VC hi5 Ventures, Japanese Rokubunnoni, early-stage Typhon VC, and a group of angels: Greg Tkachenko (Unreal Labs), Guillaume Roux-Romestaing (Wordware), Kacper Kielak (Magic), Andrei Nenadov, Quinn Campbell, Urvit Goel, Evgeny Yurtaev, Nicole Buss, Matthieu Tissot, and Zituo Chen. ​ The storefront is moving into the chat window Today, millions of shoppers are abandoning traditional keyword searches in favour of direct answers from AI assistants, and the storefront is moving into the chat window. ​ Roughly 5 per cent of consumers ask AI chatbots what to buy instead of browsing online stores. ​ Industry projections suggest that figure will reach 15 per cent by 2027 and could exceed 50 per cent within two years after that. ​ When AI agents become the buyer Agentic shopping describes a new shopping lifecycle in which AI agents — acting on user preferences, history and explicit prompts — discover products, request checkout authorisation, and complete purchases on behalf of people. ​ The Agentic Commerce Protocol and related platform tooling are lowering the bar for both agents and merchants to transact programmatically, and instant checkout inside assistant experiences is already live in early platforms. ​ Era is an agentic commerce platform that helps brands make their product catalogues discoverable, trusted, and purchasable inside AI answer engines — including ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, and Perplexity. ​ By combining catalogue sync, AI visibility analytics, competitive intelligence, and prompt-level demand research in one platform, Era gives merchants the infrastructure to compete in the next generation of e-commerce. ​ “If you’re not optimised for AI, you don’t exist” I spoke to Era co-founder and CEO Oleksii Sidorov, who told me that in the old era, being on the second page of Google was bad. In the new era, if your product metadata, content, and flows aren’t optimised for AI agents, you don’t exist. ​ “We built Era so that every brand, not just the ones with large engineering teams, can be present and purchasable wherever consumers are asking to buy. The future of commerce is being written right now, and we are here to make sure our merchants are in it.” ​ Key features of Era’s platform include two-way catalogue syncing with PIMs/ERPs, SKU-level intelligence to measure AI visibility and product ranking in LLM responses, user prompt analysis for trend and volume insights, and automated content optimisation to improve how products rank in conversational answers. ​ The product is already integrated with all major eCommerce platforms, including Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, BigCommerce, Wix, etc., as well as the main AI discovery platforms: ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Google AI Mode, and Perplexity. ​ The company is currently running pilots with the first cohort of brands and will use the Pre-Seed to expand pilots with the Enterprise segment, scale data infrastructure, and integrate new platforms. ​ Why brands aren’t moving fast — yet ​ Pilots so far have revealed that, even though this seems like an obvious edge, not every brand is rushing to capture it. Sidorov explained: ​ “E-commerce brands especially are still conservative — they're busy with channels that already work, and a lot of them genuinely have no idea what's going on in AI search. Enterprises are particularly slow-moving. Where it's been easier is with tech startups and software companies. They're more AI-literate; they use LLMs themselves to find tools and write code, so they immediately understand the value. We've broadened our focus as a result — we don't limit ourselves to e-commerce anymore. Any brand that benefits from online traffic is a potential client.” According to Sidorov, there are already companies that exist almost entirely on AI traffic — they happened to be well-indexed by accident, and now that's where most of their traffic comes from. ​ Two YC alumni bet on agentic commerce ​ The company was founded by a team with deep experience at the intersection of AI, eCommerce, and advertising. Between them, the two co-founders have been through Y Combinator twice — and sold two companies. Ukrainian-born Sidorov previously conducted AI research at the University of Oxford and Meta AI Research before pivoting into entrepreneurship. He first founded Suggestr, an AI-driven e-commerce startup accepted into Y Combinator’s Winter 2022 cohort. ​ He later launched two additional ventures — Slise (advertising analytics) and Dise (an AI-native CRM) — both of which were acquired. Much of this was built while relocating across Europe after fleeing Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and supporting family back home. Sidorov studied in Ukraine, then continued his education across Europe through Erasmus, moving from physics into computer science and eventually AI. He worked in Belgium and Oxford, built a research track record, and then joined Facebook AI Research right after my master’s. He moved to Silicon Valley and followed a very academic path — conferences, papers, internal research. “But when COVID hit in 2020, I realised I wanted to build something tangible. I had deep expertise in AI, but I wanted to apply it in the real world — not just write papers. Being in Silicon Valley definitely reinforced that instinct.” His first startup, Suggestr, sat at the intersection of AI and e-commerce. “We joined YC Winter ’22, which was an incredible experience. Suggestr was an AI recommendations engine that brought Amazon-level personalisation to smaller e-commerce brands. We worked with more than 100 brands and generated over half a million dollars in additional sales for customers. But ultimately, we felt the market was too small to scale to the level we envisioned. So we made the hard decision to shut it down and start again.” The next venture was Slise, a Web3-based media analytics company built on blockchain data, which was acquired in a full exit, including IP and clients. While building Slise, Sidorov identified another gap — this time in Telegram-based sales infrastructure. “In crypto, especially, a lot of deals happen on Telegram, but there wasn’t proper tooling for sales teams. So we built Dise, an AI-native CRM for messenger-based sales. It gained traction, but by 2025, we stepped back and asked ourselves: Why are we building a niche SaaS for Telegram when AI is reshaping the entire internet? We sold it and redirected our focus toward what we believed was a much larger opportunity — AI-driven search and product discovery. That became ERA.” His co-founder and CTO, Sergey Drozdkov, is a serial founder and CTO with more than 12 years of experience in software development and AI. As CTO of Sensorium, he built one of the first AI chatbots two years before ChatGPT's release, and later went through Y Combinator’s W23 cohort with one of the first AI sales agents, Intently AI. ​ Hype vs reality in AI commerce Given his research background, I was curious how Sidorov sees AI platforms changing the way people shop. He admits, “I'm genuinely sceptical of the hype. What's already happening is real but still early. You can now buy products directly through ChatGPT in the US without ever visiting a merchant's website. The orders still flow to the merchant on the back end, so they receive the data and fulfil it — but the customer experience is increasingly detached from the brand's storefront.” He asserts that there are good arguments that, in five to ten years, as we now ask AI assistants questions instead of Googling and exploring links, people will also use them to find and buy products. “Especially when you consider that ChatGPT already stores your payment information and remembers your address — it's becoming a one-click experience. But this varies a lot by category. Food and beverage, you don't think much about. But supplements, personal care, health-related products — you want to compare specific ingredients, formulas, dosages, pricing. You don't care what the packaging looks like. That's where chatbots are genuinely efficient.” Reputation as a ranking signal In terms of customer brand relationships, the retail shift represents a substantial change. Sidorov contends that when someone buys through ChatGPT or Google Shopping, they're not really thinking about which brand or store they're choosing. “So the traditional levers — beautiful storefronts, brand storytelling, direct customer relationships — become less powerful. What matters now is your internet footprint: your reviews, your content, your references, what AI crawlers can find and interpret about you.” However, the upside is that once you build that reputation, it's more durable than paid ads. But the downside is you can't change it overnight, and the ranking factors shift constantly. “Six months ago, Reddit was enormously influential on LLM outputs,” explained Sidorov. “Then it dropped off. Now, HTML structure and other signals matter more. It's nearly impossible for one marketing manager to keep up with all of that — which is why we exist.” In the AI era, discoverability is no longer about search rankings — it is about being legible to machines that decide on behalf of humans. Era is betting that brands will need infrastructure, not intuition, to compete in that world. ​

London-based Power Protocol, a blockchain infrastructure platform for gaming and digital entertainment, has secured a $3 million investment from BITKRAFT Ventures, bringing total ecosystem funding to $15.4 million. Power Protocol is a Web3 gaming ecosystem designed to connect games, studios, players, and digital assets through shared infrastructure. Powered by the $POWER token and developed by Pixion Games, the platform is built to support multiple game titles, in-game economies, and live service features while enabling digital asset ownership and long-term player engagement. The protocol is designed to scale economic systems across multiple titles rather than a single game. It supports multi-game interoperability, progression systems, reward distribution, live service functionality, and on-chain asset tracking. BITKRAFT’s investment targets the protocol layer, enabling third-party studios to integrate into the $POWER ecosystem and use shared infrastructure instead of building standalone token utilities. The ecosystem is anchored by Fableborne, a mobile-first action role-playing game from Pixion Games that is currently in global open beta. Early performance data shows more than 400,000 players have participated across open playtests. Previous beta phases reached a peak daily active user count of 108,000 and generated $21.5 million in NFT presale revenue ahead of the POWER token listing. These results indicate early interest in Fableborne’s hybrid ARPG and base-building gameplay and align with Pixion Games’ view that skill-based mobile design combined with optional on-chain features can support competitive gaming experiences at scale. Commenting on the investment, Kam Punia, founder and CEO of Pixion Games, said: Capital in gaming and Web3 is selective right now, which makes their belief in what we’re building even more meaningful. The response to our open beta and the $POWER launch showed us there’s a strong foundation to grow from.This investment helps us keep moving toward that vision and develop an ecosystem built on progression, competition, and lasting engagement. BITKRAFT’s support gives us confidence to keep improving thoughtfully for the benefit of our players and partners. The new funding will be used to accelerate product and ecosystem development, including content expansion, competitive season design, new progression systems, and deeper integration of the $POWER economy across gameplay loops.

An Estonian defence startup building what it says are “affordable, mass manufacturable” missile defence systems has raised €30m in Series A funding. Frankenburg Technologies, founded in 2024, is headed up by CEO Kusti Salm, the former permanent secretary of Estonia’s defence ministry. The startup, which touts its sovereign credentials, says it was founded in response to a structural shift in Europe’s security environment, namely that modern aerial threats can now be produced cheaply and at scale, while missile manufacturing has historically prioritised performance over speed, cost and regeneration. Its latest funding round comes four years after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It says that it can build “affordable missile systems designed for mass production”, which addresses Europe’s air-defence bottleneck. It says it will use the funding to build sovereign missile-manufacturing capacity in Europe, with a focus on production, resilience and regeneration. According to the FT, one of its priorities is to set up two EU-based “mass production sites” to make more than 100 missiles per day per site. The funding round was led by new investor Plural, the Estonian fund founded by Wise's Taavet Hinrikus and other high-profile investors, with participation from another new investor, the Estonian investor SmartCap. The startup has now raised €40m in total. Salm said: “Europe’s deterrence problem is not just about budgets, it’s about availability. You cannot deter with systems that are too scarce, too slow to replace, or too expensive to use at scale. Frankenburg was built to restore speed, scale and sustainability to missile defence. "This funding allows us to put real industrial capacity behind that mission and build missile systems Europe can actually afford to fire and produce at scale.”

Today, Marathon VC is leading a €1.1 million Seed round for Straion, the rules layer built to turn the current chaos of AI coding into governed,  production-grade engineering. We have entered the "Prompt-and-Pray" era of software development. Tools like GitHub Copilot and Cursor have turned every developer into a high-speed generator, but for engineering leaders at scale, this velocity is creating a new kind of crisis. We are seeing more code than ever before, but it often lacks the "organisational DNA" required to survive in a complex enterprise environment. The current struggle with AI-first coding is the constant need for manual course correction. An AI agent might suggest a brilliant piece of logic that technically works, but it doesn't know your company’s specific Kafka naming conventions or your PII masking protocols. This leads to an exhausting trial-and-error loop where senior engineers spend their days "babysitting" the AI’s work to ensure it doesn't break architectural patterns. Straion helps teams centralise engineering standards in a single rule hub, dynamically select the right rules for each task, and validate plans before implementation — not just after code generation. It integrates seamlessly with existing workflows such as Claude Code, Cursor, and Copilot. The goal is simple: move faster, reduce drift, and increase confidence in the reliability of generated code. "The industry has spent the last two years obsessed with making AI faster.  But in an enterprise environment, speed without alignment is a liability,"  says Lukas Holzer, co-founder of Straion. "We built Straion to give AI  the organisational context it was missing—moving it from a trial-and-error  tool to a precision instrument that understands how your company actually  builds software." Straion solves this by transforming static documentation into active,  machine-readable guardrails. It doesn't just wait for a mistake; it provides the AI with the right context at the right millisecond. Most importantly, it validates the AI’s plan before implementation begins.   This shifts the process from reactive "cleanup" to proactive precision. By building a platform that uses machine learning to dynamically retrieve only the rules relevant to a specific task, they have enabled true, governed autonomy. It’s about giving the AI the steering wheel it was missing. According to  Marathon VC, to understand why Straion is the missing piece of the modern dev stack,  you have to look at the founders' roots in Linz, Austria. This isn't a group of "vibe coders" chasing a trend; they are seasoned operators who have spent a decade in the trenches of enterprise software. Lukas Holzer, Fabian Friedl, and Katrin Freihofner were colleagues at Dynatrace, the observability giant. While at Dynatrace, they noticed a recurring friction point: as teams grew, the "invisible rules" of the organisation—architectural standards, security mandates, and naming conventions—became increasingly difficult to enforce. These rules usually lived in "rotting" documentation: Confluence pages that no one read and 300-page PDFs that were updated once a year. When AI agents began generating code at superhuman speeds, this  "documentation gap" became a canyon. The AI could write a function in milliseconds, but it had no idea how that function fit into the broader organisational architecture. "Most investors are looking for the next AI code generator. We were looking for the guardrails," says Panos Papadopoulos, Partner at Marathon  VC. "Lukas, Fabian, and Katrin aren't just building a tool; they are building the governance layer that makes the autonomous future possible for the enterprise. They have the technical pedigree from Dynatrace to solve what we believe is the most critical bottleneck in modern engineering. We are proud to back this team as they build the governance layer that will define the next decade of software engineering." The funding will accelerate three priorities: deepening the product’s capabilities in rule governance and plan-stage validation, expanding integrations for scaled engineering workflows, and hiring mission-driven builders across AI engineering and full-stack development.

London-headquartered payments fintech Checkout.com today said it upped headcount by double digits last year to 2,000 staff, and pointed to the diversity of its merchant partners to indicate the robustness of its business, as it released selected financial figures.   In Checkout.com’s 2025 annual letter, penned by Guillaume Pousaz, founder and CEO, the fintech disclosed some financial figures for 2025 while Pousaz declared his long-term commitment to the startup he has been running for 15 years. He said: “As I close my first 20-year chapter, I can confidently declare that Checkout will be my life-long journey. I want to dedicate all my energy to compounding every learning, to further our mission and create value for our merchants.”   Checkout.com, valued at $12bn last year following an employee share sale, said it had grown headcount by 15 per cent year-on-year to 2,000 staff, opening new hubs in San Francisco, Atlanta, and Sao Paulo last year, despite fears AI was curtailing recruitment in fintech.   The fintech, whose merchant partners include Vinted and eBay, said that its top ten merchant partners account for 18 per cent of its revenues, indicating the diversity of its revenues. Other figures disclosed by Checkout.com were that it processed over $300bn in total payment volume last year, a 64 per cent increase on 2024, and that revenue grew by over 30 per cent for the second consecutive year.   It also said it was EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) profitable for the full year in 2025. Last year, it was revealed that Pousaz, who is Swiss and has been running Checkout.com since 2011, has quit the UK as his country of residence for Monaco, amid changes introduced by the Chancellor to crack down on non-doms.

Celebratix, an Amsterdam-based ticketing startup, has raised €2.2 million in growth capital from Airbridge Equity Partners, following a €1.1 million investment round at the end of 2024. Founded in 2022, Celebratix develops a blockchain-powered ticketing platform for events, clubs, and festivals. The platform provides organisers with tools to manage ticket sales, resale, guest lists, loyalty features, and real-time data through a single dashboard. It is designed to give organisers greater control over revenue and customer data throughout the event lifecycle while offering attendees a secure way to buy, sell, and store tickets. By using blockchain infrastructure, the company aims to reduce fraud, streamline access, and improve transparency. The opportunity is significant in Europe’s highly fragmented ticketing market, where a large number of local providers operate. According to Celebratix, around 300 companies are active across the region, many of which have built loyal customer bases but face limited opportunities to scale. Founder and CEO Frank Roskam said many local ticketing providers have reached their growth limits and that Celebratix’s strategy is to acquire these companies and migrate their customers onto its platform. The company is focusing on smaller providers with strong regional positions as it works to build a unified European ticketing platform capable of competing with larger players. We acquire these companies and transition their customers onto our platform. This gives organisers one system for sales, access control and resale, with less manual work and more data insights, explains Roskam. Over the past year, Celebratix completed one acquisition in the Netherlands and, according to founders Frank Roskam and Hans-Jochem Dijk, plans to add nine more European ticketing companies in the coming year. The new investment from Airbridge is intended to support this strategy and position the company for a Series A funding round in 2027.

London-based Tewke, a company focused on energy optimisation and home automation, has closed its second funding round of £1.5 million. The round included participation from JamJar Investments, Cur8 Capital, Energy Mix Ventures and Project Ventures, as well as angel investor Vlad Yatsenko, co-founder and CTO of Revolut. Read our earlier interview with Tewke co-founders Piers Daniell and Rowan Dixon. Founded in 2020 by Piers Daniell and Rowan Dixon, Tewke develops smart home technology designed to simplify energy management. Its flagship product, Tap, is designed and engineered in the UK and requires no rewiring. It works in homes without a neutral wire, making it compatible with more than 90% of UK housing. The company positions the device as an alternative to more complex, installer-led smart home systems. Beyond lighting control, Tap is designed to support household energy optimisation by helping users shift electricity use in line with time-of-day tariffs to reduce costs and emissions. It forms part of Tewke’s broader strategy to improve home energy efficiency through contextual, AI-driven intelligence. The company develops its core technology in-house, including patented hardware and firmware as well as its proprietary operating system, Tewke OS. Piers Daniell, co-founder and CEO of Tewke, said the company’s goal extends beyond energy optimisation to creating a more intelligent, sustainable, and user-centred living environment. Building next-generation electronics and AI in the UK has been a monumental technical challenge. Seeing people install Tap in minutes and start saving energy immediately is a powerful reward. This funding enables us to scale what we’ve proven works and double down on engineering excellence, added Rowan Dixon, co-founder of Tewke. In 2025, Tewke also introduced TewkeAI alongside Google, a contextual AI framework that uses data from Tap’s nine onboard sensors to analyse behaviour, movement, air quality, and temperature patterns within the home. The funding will support go-to-market execution and the expansion of Tewke’s engineering team, including the development of neuro-symbolic AI systems to improve residential energy performance. The company’s growth is also supported by non-equity funding from Innovate UK.

Munich-based VoiceLine, a voice AI platform for enterprise frontline teams, has closed a €10 million Series A funding round. The round was led by Alstin Capital and Peak, with participation from existing investors Scalehouse Capital, Venture Stars, and NAP. Field sales and service teams spend much of their time with customers, travelling between appointments, conducting visits, and coordinating follow-ups. As a result, documentation, CRM updates, and back-office handovers are often delayed or deprioritised, leaving teams to spend several hours each week on administrative work instead of customer-facing activities. This can lead to incomplete reports, missed follow-ups, and customer insights that never reach enterprise systems, limiting real-time visibility for managers and disrupting continuity between interactions. VoiceLine addresses this challenge with a voice-first AI assistant designed for the daily workflows of field sales and mobile service teams. After a customer interaction, employees can record a voice memo on the go or call the assistant by phone. The platform then automates key frontline workflows in real time, converting spoken inputs into structured visit reports, CRM entries, follow-up tasks, and visit preparations, which are synchronised with existing CRM, ERP, and other enterprise systems. For managers, this creates access to structured frontline data that was previously difficult to capture, improving visibility into field activities, customer needs, and market signals, and enabling faster, more informed decision-making. Field sales continues to be the backbone revenue driver for many industrial or services organisations. With VoiceLine, we are revolutionising the end-to-end reality of frontline work, from visit preparation and documentation to follow-ups, analytics, and insights – using voice as the most natural interface, said Nicolas Höflinger, CEO and co-founder of VoiceLine. Unlike traditional CRM projects, VoiceLine can be deployed within days, enabling customised voice AI rollouts with minimal IT involvement while meeting enterprise security requirements. VoiceLine is already in use among mid-market and enterprise customers, including DACHSER, ABB, Knauf, KSB, and Elis, supporting deployments across multiple countries and thousands of frontline users. The new funding will be used to expand VoiceLine’s team and further develop its AI platform. The company plans to significantly increase headcount this year, with a focus on product development, sales, customer success, and partnerships. In parallel, VoiceLine intends to extend its platform to additional frontline use cases and grow its international presence.

On the fourth anniversary of Russia’s unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Tech.eu remains committed to amplifying Ukrainian founders and investors — not merely as a gesture of solidarity, but as recognition of their ongoing impact in innovation, creating front-running tech for international scale. Ukraine’s tech ecosystem is not paused by war. It is evolving — faster, harder, and with a clarity of purpose that much of Europe would do well to study. ​ Europe — and much of the global tech ecosystem — still underestimates and fails to grasp what Ukraine represents. ​ I often hear Ukrainian startups described as resilient. It’s a phrase I struggle with because it describes the kind of people who can bounce back, shake it off, and keep going. It makes us feel better, not them and implicitly suggests that adversity can simply be absorbed, as though anyone who struggles under these conditions is an exception rather than human. ​ No founder should have to pitch between air-raid sirens or hesitate to tell customers and investors they have teams in Ukraine — fearing that blackouts and disrupted infrastructure might make them harder to reach. ​ I’ve visited Ukraine three times since Russia’s full-scale invasion, and interviewed dozens of startups and ecosystem builders. It hits different when you visit a co-working space that has been hit by a missile attack / or talk to a founder who casually mentions they are homeless because their apartment burnt down. Founders are operating under pressures most of us will never fully comprehend — air-raid sirens at all hours, rolling blackouts, and the grinding toll of chronic sleep deprivation. I’m a chronic insomniac myself, but imagine being jolted awake night after night for nearly four years by the sound of an air-raid alert. You check the app and your local Telegram group. What kind of missile is it? Is it serious enough to warrant shelter — again — or can you cautiously try to sleep? But now you’re awake in fight-or-flight mode. And the next morning, you have a company to run. A pitch to deliver. A stage to stand on. Recently, Ukrainians experienced what became Ukraine’s harshest winter since the full-scale invasion. Temperatures plunged to –20°C in many regions as sustained Russian attacks on civilian infrastructure — actions that constitute war crimes under international humanitarian law — left entire areas without electricity, heating, or running water. And, there's the reality that family, friends, and colleagues have been killed. The editorial team at DOU, the largest Ukrainian IT community and portal for software developers and tech professionals, created a powerful digital memorial in honour of fallen IT professionals. The structural barriers Ukrainian founders face are rarely understood outside the region. Most Ukrainian men aged 18–60 are not permitted to leave the country under martial law. Yet I have heard investors say they will only invest if they can meet founders in person — as though geography were a preference rather than a wartime restriction. I’ve also had quite a few early-stage Ukrainian founders ask me not to mention they have co-founders and management in Ukraine in case it deters investors who see the blackouts as a particular liability for customer retention. Ukraine’s airspace has been closed to civilian flights for more than four years. A trip to a conference, pitch event, or board meeting in London, Berlin, or Lisbon can involve a 15-hour journey each way — train to the Polish border, border crossing, flight onwards, then the same again in reverse. And for those who got out. displacement brings its own invisible tax: navigating a new language, unfamiliar bureaucracy, housing insecurity, and rebuilding professional networks from scratch. These are not minor inconveniences. They are structural friction layered on top of war. And yet, Ukrainian startups continue to launch, raise capital, and scale internationally. But in the last four years, we’ve seen airSlate, Unstoppable Domains, Creatio, Preply, and mono become unicorns. Since 2020, the estimated value of the Ukrainian startup ecosystem has tripled to more than $25 billion. According to Digital State UA , there are approximately 2,600 startups in Ukraine, of which around 2,100 were founded by Ukrainian crews and more than 500 foreign startups that have opened offices in Ukraine. Further, the exodus of Ukrainian talent across the US, UK, and Europe has created unlikely dividends — new networks, new markets, new paths to scale. Has Europe done enough? Definitely not. Ukraine is holding the line — not just for itself, but for Europe’s security. ​ It’s been bizarre for me to see the investors go from anti-defencetech to scrambling for a foothold. Ukraine did not “pivot into defence tech” as a trend. It had to. And what began as an urgent, frontline necessity is increasingly translating into exportable dual-use technologies with broader European relevance, especially for startups. building autonomous counter-UAS systems, battlefield communications platforms, AI-enabled targeting software, logistics optimisation tools, and space-enabled capabilities. What started as survival is becoming strategic capability. Russia’s invasion has underscored a stark strategic shortcoming for not only Ukraine but neighbouring Europe: its reliance on systems like Starlink, owned by an American company headed by one of the most megalomaniac people in tech, to power satellite communications infrastructure in times of conflict. It has also highlighted the need for an expansion of localised, decentralised energy systems — from microgrids to renewables and storage — capable of withstanding sustained attacks on centralised infrastructure. ​ And, where to from here on? The rebuilding of Ukraine will be one of the largest infrastructure and governance challenges Europe has faced in generations.   But startups are focused on rebuilding, demining, and creating the necessary digital infrastructure. ​ Once the war ends, I predict cities like Lviv and Kyiv will become beacons for founders abroad looking to find a place to found their companies. A single state portal, Diia, developed over the last few years, offers over 70 digital services — you can become an entrepreneur in Ukraine in just 2 seconds and found a limited liability company in 30 minutes. Over 1,000,000 private entrepreneurs and more than 14,000 companies have already used the service. Ukraine is not waiting to be rebuilt. It is already being built. The question is whether the rest of Europe is ready to build alongside it. Lead image: Freepik.

Finland-based quantum computing startup IQM today said it plans to go public in the US via a SPAC, with a $1.8bn valuation. Helsinki-headquartered IQM, founded in 2018, is merging with SPAC firm Real Asset Acquisition Corp (RAAQ) as part of the deal, the startup said today. SPACs are an alternative route for companies to go public, instead of a traditional listing. A SPAC listing is seen as attractive to startups as they can fast-track a listing, without the expense, time and hassle of going through a conventional IPO. SPAC IPOs leapt in popularity in 2020, but then fell out of favour, amid falling stock prices and big investor losses. IQM said the transaction values IQM at a pre-money equity valuation of approximately $1.8 billion and would make IQM the first European quantum company to go public.  It said it was going public on one of the two leading US stock exchanges, but did not share further details. RAAQ is listed on the Nasdaq. The deal, which is subject to the approval of IQM and RAAQ shareholders, is expected to be completed in June this year, ahead of the listing. IQM said it was also considering a dual listing that would see it listed on the Helsinki stock exchange. IQM is a prominent player in superconducting quantum computers. It provides both on-premises full-stack quantum computers and a cloud platform to access its computers.  Last year, IQM raised $320 million in venture capital, the largest Series B raise ever in the quantum space, bringing its total funding raised to $600m. Last year, Swedish autonomous truck startup Einride said it was going public in the US via a SPAC, valuing it at $1.8bn. Jan Goetz, co-founder and CEO, IQM, said: “We built IQM from the beginning for one purpose — to put working quantum computers in the hands of the people who will use them to solve real problems. "Not someday. Now. Quantum computing is a science project no more. It is an industry where customers own, operate, and build on advanced quantum computers. That’s what IQM makes possible.”   Peter Ort, CEO and co-chairman, Real Asset Acquisition Corp, said: “IQM has built and delivered more on-premises quantum systems than any other competitor to some of the most demanding research institutions on earth. "This transaction will accelerate the growth of a company that has already earned its position in the field, with real customers, running real quantum systems, today.”

Modern defence is shifting from hardware to software. As cyber conflict, drone warfare, and information operations reshape global security, the advantage increasingly belongs to nations that can innovate faster — not just build bigger arsenals. Defence Holdings PLC is a UK-listed defence technology company focused on building a software-led platform for modern military and security operations. Rather than manufacturing traditional hardware, it develops and acquires AI-driven tools for mission planning, logistics, cyber defence, secure communications, drone coordination, and protection of critical infrastructure.  Defence Holdings recently appointed Andrew Roughan as CEO, formerly head of innovation hub Plexal, which oversees more than 700 startups and scaleups. While Roughan focuses on scaling the company’s commercial strategy, this interview centres on CTO Andy McCartney, who leads the design and deployment of Defence Holdings’ AI product stack. Building the software layer of modern warfare The company positions itself around the idea that future defence capability will increasingly depend on intelligent software, data, and automation, and is assembling a portfolio of technologies to help governments and allied organisations respond to cyber, information, and hybrid threats. The edge-case engineer The company’s software-first strategy is shaped heavily by McCartney’s background. Andy McCartney brings nearly three decades of technology experience to Defence Holdings. A Belfast-born technologist, McCartney has built his career around developing systems ahead of mainstream demand — tools that organisations often recognise the value of only years later. “My background’s pretty much online. I’ve been doing tech since I was 11 or 12,” he said. Growing up in a rough area of Belfast, he spent long stretches teaching himself programming in public libraries. “That’s where I got a real passion for technology.” He built his first computer at 12 and quickly gravitated toward technical problems others overlooked. “I realised I was good at building the technology people said wasn’t needed — the 3 per cent nobody wanted. Then three years later, everyone says, ‘Can we please have that?’ That’s been my world: building the edge cases that later become essential.” McCartney later served as CEO of Microsoft Ventures UK between 2013 and 2015, where he launched the company’s first venture innovation platform outside the United States and helped scale dozens of high-growth technology businesses.  Defence as a natural fit McCartney went on to found Whitespace, a Belfast-based company delivering generative AI into defence, the public sector and other highly regulated industries. Today, Whitespace platforms support frontline Ministry of Defence operations. His entry into defence, he says, was driven by both technical challenge and personal motivation. “About 15 or 16 years ago, I was brought into defence and national security conversations around technology. I realised I was actually very good at it because it’s complex and fast-paced. It suited my attitude toward technology.” He frames his work in direct terms: “I’ve always been vocal about this — I really don’t like bad people. I grew up seeing bad people do bad things. Much of the technology I’ve built has been focused on stopping that. So defence felt like a natural fit.” Alongside Defence Holdings and Whitespace, McCartney has founded SafetyTalks and Jam Pot Technologies and continues to serve as chief hacking officer at Tadaweb, with a focus on security, data systems, and high-risk operational environments.  This background shapes how he sees Defence Holdings’ mission. More capability, less money, greater urgency Last year, the UK published the Strategic Defence Review. It calls on government, the armed forces, industry, and wider society to implement its 62 recommendations to ensure Britain can deter threats and respond effectively in a rapidly evolving security environment The review advises a shift toward faster procurement, dual-use innovation, and deeper collaboration with startups. For younger defence companies, it effectively opens doors that were historically closed. For McCartney, “It means developing more capability for less money, faster. We have less time and budget to solve complex problems quickly. That’s a massive attraction for me.” According to McCartney, “the last time we truly operated at wartime speed was Bletchley Park. It was about solving impossible problems quickly, bringing in talent from the commercial and civil sectors, and working nationally to solve them.” Ukraine has rewritten the rules of modern warfare According to McCartney, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine fundamentally changed how modern warfare is understood. “They didn’t have time to spin up high-end systems. War arrived in 24 hours. They had to innovate immediately,” he said. Without access to Western intelligence infrastructure, Ukrainian forces relied on low-cost hardware, commercial platforms and open data — constraints that forced rapid experimentation. “Jeopardy creates high-quality solutions because failure has consequences.” Rather than deploying multi-million-dollar systems, Ukraine adapted consumer technology at scale. Cheap drones are now capable of destroying tanks worth up to €1 million — a cost imbalance that McCartney says “rewrites doctrine.” “Ukraine isn’t spending $10 million per system. They’re bolting functionality onto consumer drones and integrating them into the kill chain. That mindset is powerful.” The lesson, he argues, extends well beyond the battlefield. NATO countries must rethink how they design and procure defence capabilities. Ukraine isn’t just a war story — it’s a preview of how modern defence will operate in the future. “For every solution you create, a hundred new problems appear. Meanwhile, you have institutions wrapped in legacy procurement systems that weren’t built for this speed. That’s the seismic shift.” Rebuilding domestic defence capability Defence Holdings positions itself as part of a broader push toward sovereign capability in UK defence technology. The company aims to reduce reliance on foreign-built systems by accelerating the development of domestic alternatives. “When you buy externally, the money leaves your economy, and you’re not part of the development cycle,” he said. “You don’t understand the solution as deeply because you didn’t build it.” He argues that the UK’s dependence on non-sovereign technology is often driven more by speed than by preference. Defence agencies frequently turn to foreign suppliers because domestic suppliers have struggled to deliver at the pace operational needs demand. “The UK often has no choice but to buy non-sovereign technology because no one has provided alternatives at the speed required,” McCartney said. “Defence Holdings exists to change that.” The company’s strategy is to work with smaller technology partners and hyperscale infrastructure providers to deliver sovereign applications faster — giving UK defence agencies greater control over both the technology stack and its long-term evolution. Why smarter systems beat bigger arsenals What Ukraine exposed, McCartney argues, is not just the importance of readiness, but the central role of data in maintaining it. Modern defence capability, he says, depends less on raw firepower and more on how effectively information is processed and acted upon. Yet he believes the long-standing assumption that “data equals power” can itself become an obstacle. “I once heard a senior military leader say, ‘The last thing I need is more data.’ That terrified me,” he said. “Amazon, Microsoft, Apple — they want more data. It sharpens execution. If you can’t use data, your systems are broken.” For McCartney, the issue is not volume, but interpretation. Data, he argues, removes institutional bias. “If decisions aren’t data-driven, they’re opinion-driven,” he said. “If you ask the army, navy and air force how to defeat an enemy, each argues for their domain. AI looks at the problem neutrally. Its strength is analysing data without institutional bias.” The lesson reinforced by Ukraine, he says, is clear: superiority will increasingly come from intelligent systems rather than sheer scale . “Ukraine proved the solution isn’t more tanks. It's smarter systems.” A system finally starting to move McCartney advises that cultural change in the UK, somewhat insulated from the battlefields of Ukraine, is possible. He advises: “Demonstration beats argument. Instead of waiting a year for approvals, I go directly to the person with the problem. We build fast. Then we come back and demonstrate the working solution.” Once people see it functioning, resistance disappears. Then, the only barrier left is process. Suddenly, onboarding documents shrink. Procurement timelines compress. Senior leadership now has proof they can use to push internal reform. “We’re not waiting for defence to fully transform before engaging. We’re engaging now and helping accelerate that transformation,” he asserts. The shift from hardware to information warfare Defence Holdings is seeing the most traction in real-time learning systems that analyse operations and continuously improve them.  According to McCartney, “Information warfare is huge: misinformation, cyber, psychological operations. A teenager with tools can destabilise a public figure faster than institutions can respond. Encryption and redundancy matter because communication infrastructure is converging.” He also shares my interest in spacetech as critical to defence, asserting, “Ukraine showed commercial satellites can outperform traditional military systems. That changes assumptions.” In terms of UK readiness in defencetech, McCartney admits, “a year ago I’d have been cautious. Now I’m encouraged.” He sees commitments made in early 2025 are turning into reality, noting: “For an organisation as regulated as defence, that pace is impressive. It reminds me of Microsoft’s transformation under Satya Nadella. Cultural change takes time, but once it starts, it compounds.” “Stop complaining and build” McCartney advises startups interested in defence/dual defence to jump in: “History is being written, and this is a historic window. The blueprint doesn’t exist yet. In three years, it will. Stop complaining and build. Right now, a small team can compete with giants. If six out of ten attempts succeed, you’re ahead of everyone who tried none. Defence Holdings isn’t a traditional prime contractor. We’re a bridge. If you’re solving real problems, talk to us.”

Cologne-based Einklang, which specialises in integrated energy solutions for Germany’s mid-sized companies, has secured €2.2 million in funding. The round was led by Vireo Ventures, with participation from SI Ventures, Saxovent, Angel Invest, Heimatboost and DnA Ventures. Einklang is an Energy-as-a-Service provider focused on serving small and medium-sized enterprises in Germany. The company delivers integrated electricity solutions for commercial and industrial customers, combining intelligent control systems, battery storage, and flexible tariffs without requiring upfront investment or operational effort from customers. Its offering is designed to help businesses reduce electricity costs, increase energy autonomy, and expand the use of renewable power. The company is part of a new generation of energy ecosystem spin-offs. Its founders, Lucas Jonas, Jonathan Schulte, Paul Ziche, and José Neri, bring experience from building and scaling companies, including Voltfang and Impuls Energy. This background in industrial energy systems and algorithmic energy trading underpins Einklang’s technology approach. Lucas Jonas, co-founder and CEO of Einklang, said the company is addressing a key challenge in the energy transition: While energy-intensive industries are granted relief through tailored regulations, mid-size companies continue to face high electricity prices. The issue isn’t renewable energy itself, but rather price volatility, high grid charges, consumption peaks, and a lack of flexibility. Our solution tackles exactly these problems. Jonas added that the company’s objective is to enable businesses to automatically use electricity when renewable generation is high, without adding operational complexity. Einklang integrates electricity procurement, storage and consumption to help companies automatically source power when it is cheaper and more renewable. The system is designed to reduce price volatility and peak loads, lower grid fees, and improve planning visibility. The solution is already in use at manufacturing and industrial sites, with implementation typically completed within three months. Following the funding round, Einklang plans to further develop its technology platform and expand strategic partnerships as it works to scale flexible energy systems for mid-sized businesses. The company aims to grow its battery-optimised electricity tariff solution across commercial and industrial customers, targeting expansion to 100 customer sites by 2026.

Today GovTech Lab Ukraine announced that three startups from Ukraine and Europe have been selected to pilot digital solutions for public services in Ukraine’s first open innovation programme for the public sector.  GovTech Lab Ukraine is an open innovation programme in government technology implemented by the Global Government Technology Centre Kyiv (GGTC), in collaboration with the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine and the World Economic Forum, and with the support of Switzerland through the EGAP Program, which is carried out by East Europe Foundation. GovTech Lab Ukraine enables government institutions to work directly with startups to design and test digital solutions before scaling them.  This approach helps reduce the risks of large-scale digital projects, accelerates innovation cycles, and allows both public institutions and technology companies to develop solutions grounded in real operational needs—ultimately improving public services and strengthening the digital economy. This year, GovTech Lab Ukraine focused on three challenge areas developed together with government partners: legal assistance, urban development, and tourism management. During the programme, seven startups worked with public-sector teams to refine user needs, test hypotheses, and prepare pilot concepts, which they presented at Demo Day. The solutions were reviewed by an Advisory Board that included representatives from government, international organisations, and the GovTech ecosystem. Winning startups and their pilot solutions Obriy AI to pilot automated legal assistance for Ukraine’s justice system In partnership with the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, the “Automated Legal Assistance” challenge is designed to expand access to basic legal guidance for citizens while easing the operational burden on Ukraine’s Free Legal Aid service. As demand for legal support rises amid ongoing wartime and reconstruction pressures, scalable digital tools are becoming essential to maintain timely and consistent service delivery. The winner, Obriy AI, will pilot its SURE platform to support legal aid operators. The enterprise-grade solution deploys AI agents capable of understanding legal intent, retrieving information from approved knowledge bases, and assisting staff in responding to citizen inquiries — all while adhering to strict security and data-governance requirements. The pilot is expected to reduce workload for legal aid professionals, shorten response times, and improve the consistency and quality of frontline legal support. citytax UAB to modernise Ukraine’s tourism data infrastructure In collaboration with the State Agency for Tourism Development of Ukraine, the “Data-driven Tourism Management” challenge aims to strengthen how tourism data is collected, analysed, and applied in policymaking. As Ukraine looks to rebuild and reposition itself internationally, transparent and reliable tourism data will be essential for informed decision-making, fair taxation, and long-term sector development. The winner, citytax UAB, is a Lithuanian GovTech company building digital infrastructure for public-sector tourism management and local taxation. It will pilot a digital platform for accommodation registration and tourist-tax administration, introducing standardised identifiers, structured data flows, and AI-based screening of accommodation listings. The solution enables authorities to detect unregistered properties, improve tax compliance, and generate more reliable tourism data. Designed to integrate with existing public-sector systems and align with European regulatory frameworks, the platform supports scalable rollout beyond the initial pilot phase. Itera wins challenge to digitise Ukraine’s construction oversight In partnership with the State Inspectorate of Architecture and Urban Planning of Ukraine, the “Transparent and Efficient Urban Development” challenge set out to modernise one of the most critical bottlenecks in Ukraine’s reconstruction: construction permitting and regulatory compliance. As the country rebuilds, improving the transparency, speed, and accountability of urban planning processes — particularly around complex documentation and regulatory requirements — is essential to restoring infrastructure at scale. The winner, Itera, is a Nordic software and innovation company with more than 30 years of experience and a strong team based in Ukraine. Itera presented an AI-powered solution that automates the extraction, structuring, and verification of complex construction documentation. The system conducts compliance checks against current regulations and introduces auditable workflows alongside role-based dashboards, helping authorities streamline permit issuance while strengthening transparency and oversight in the rebuilding process. Over the next 12 weeks, startup teams will work together with government partners to develop and deploy the proposed pilot solutions in real operating environments. Each team will receive up to $100,000 to implement and test their solutions in partnership with Ukrainian government institutions. Support for selected challenges is provided by Mastercard, partner of the data-driven tourism management challenge, and East Europe Foundation, partner of the automated legal assistance challenge. Infrastructure resources across all three challenges are provided by De Novo, enabling startup teams to design and test pilot solutions.

Last week, we tracked more than 80 tech funding deals worth over €707 million, and over 15 exits, M&A transactions, rumours, and related news stories across Europe.Click to read the rest of the news.

Thiax, a Danish deeptech spin-out, has secured investment from PSV Hafnium to advance its non-destructive 3D inspection technology for polymer and composite parts. In many high-performance composite industries, including aerospace, quality assurance still relies heavily on destructive testing and techniques such as ultrasound. While effective at confirming failure or detecting simple defects like voids, these methods often cannot reveal root causes or measure critical parameters such as strain and crystallinity. Thiax seeks to address this gap by combining advances in X-ray diffraction with multispectral X-ray detectors and 3D measurement technology to deliver deeper insight into polymer microstructures. The capability is delivered through a compact, production-ready instrument for in-line use, providing three-dimensional, depth-resolved visibility into internal material structures. Peter Froberg, CEO of Thiax, said the key milestone is not only that the underlying physics is proven, but that the technology can operate at industrial speed, enabling manufacturers to inspect internal material behaviour non-destructively in factory environments. Thiax is initially targeting aerospace manufacturing, where quality assurance remains a significant challenge, with longer-term applications expected to extend to areas such as spacecraft quality control and increased use of recycled polymers in everyday products. With the investment from PSV Hafnium, Thiax will focus on preparing its system for stable, reproducible use in industrial production environments, advancing pilot projects with aerospace partners, and strengthening its organisation around product development and commercial validation. By bringing laboratory-grade material insight into production settings, the company aims to support a shift in quality assurance toward a more enabling role in advanced manufacturing at scale.