Anterra Capital, a specialist venture firm investing in food and agriculture, today announced its $100 million first close of Fund III. Founded in 2013  with offices in Amsterdam and Boston, the firm manages over $500 million across three funds. Anterra invests in and builds companies that apply life-science and software innovations to food and agriculture.   The Fund III's first close marks an important milestone for Anterra. The firm was built on the conviction that the tools that had already transformed other industries — life science tools that reshaped human health, and software that rewired sectors from logistics to financial services — would eventually transition to, and transform, food and agriculture.   “The firm has now successfully navigated two capital cycles in food and agriculture,” said Maarten Goossens, Partner at Anterra Capital.  “Each one rewarded the same discipline: backing companies that deliver real returns for their customers and to their investors. What's different this time is that the real-world industries we operate in — large, complex and historically resistant to change — are now ready to be rewired, and the tools to do it have arrived.”   Food and agriculture remains the largest industry on the planet, roughly $10 trillion in size, employing around 1.3 billion people, nearly 40 per cent of the world's workforce. It is also where a set of structural forces converges — margin volatility, food security, climate and water constraints, tightening regulation, and health outcomes increasingly tied to what the system produces — each a reason the old way of operating no longer holds. Global investment in food and agriculture technology surged to a historical peak of nearly $52 billion in 2021 before falling back to roughly $16 billion — 2016 levels. Much of that generalist capital backed ambitious, capital-intensive bets that failed to scale: indoor vertical farms, plant-based processed meat alternatives and 10-minute grocery delivery.  Anterra took a different approach — backing science-backed companies built on real unit economics and designed to scale through existing industry channels. That retreat of capital from hype back to fundamentals is precisely what now opens the door for disciplined specialists. Anterra's investment thesis has been consistent across two funds — and with valuations reset and AI now changing the economics of building in both software and biology, the moment has finally arrived to deploy it at scale.  "We've spent twelve years and two funds proving you can build category-defining companies in food and agriculture — and generate real returns doing it," said Brett Wong, Partner at Anterra Capital. "What's changed is that the world has finally caught up to that thesis. The technology is here, the valuations make sense, and the founders building in this sector are the best we've ever seen. This is the most exciting moment in our firm's history, and Fund III is how we intend to make the most of it."       Lead image: Anterra Capital partners. Photo: Anterra Capital.

Spanish AI workforce platform Orbio today announced a $21  Series A led by Dawn Capital, alongside existing investors including Visionaries. 80 per cent of the world’s workforce operates on the frontlines of essential industries: the 2.7 billion healthcare workers, retail associates, warehouse operators, hospitality staff and logistics drivers who keep economies running. The difference between a staffed shift and an unstaffed one directly impacts revenue, customer experience and operational performance. Yet most enterprise software built over the past two decades was designed for desk-based knowledge workers.  Frontline employees are often deskless, without corporate email addresses, and are reached through messaging and phone calls rather than software logins.  As a result, frontline hiring and workforce management still relies heavily on fragmented manual processes, spreadsheets and large operational teams, consuming significant time and costing organisations billions every year. Orbio is building an AI workforce platform designed for frontline industries. Its agents can conduct interviews, assess candidate fit and motivation, guide new hires through onboarding, monitor engagement and churn signals, and remain in contact with employees throughout their lifecycle — from first application through to tenure and exit. For employers, this creates a fundamentally new operating model: the ability to engage and support frontline workforces 24/7 while delegating large parts of workforce operations to AI agents. The result is faster hiring, lower administrative burden, improved retention and a more resilient operational workforce. “This is not a talent shortage problem, it’s a talent allocation problem,” said Sergi Bastardas, co-founder and CEO of Orbio. “The people are there. The work is there. What’s been missing is the ability to connect frontline workers with opportunities quickly, consistently and at scale."With Orbio, candidates can be contacted within seconds, onboarding can happen in hours rather than days, and employers can stay continuously connected with their workforce. The result is faster hiring, lower attrition and smoother operations, while workers get a better chance to start, stay and grow.” "What stands out about Orbio is the speed at which customers have completely rebuilt their operating models around it,” said Henry Mason, Partner at Dawn Capital.  “In a matter of months, some of the world's largest employers have embraced AI-first frontline workforce management with Orbio at the core, replacing labour budgets in a permanent way." Orbio already serves customers across Europe, the US and Latin America.  Orbio already works with global enterprise customers including Poke House and YUM! Brands (which owns brands including KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut).  In the United States, Orbio also works with The Stepping Stones Group, a US behavioural health provider serving children with autism and other special needs. What started as a small pilot has grown eightfold and now runs across the company's entire US operations.  Orbio took over interview scheduling entirely on day one, freeing up the team that had handled it. 20 per cent more candidates make it through to a hire, and Stepping Stones' own managers say the calibre of those hires has improved. The share of candidates who book an interview has climbed from 65 per cent to 85 per cent, and candidate satisfaction sits consistently above 98 per cent.  The new capital will fund further expansion alongside continued development of Orbio’s AI agent suite across the full employee lifecycle.

European tech activity in May 2026 was characterised by a decline in deal volume but a substantial increase in capital raised compared to April. The ecosystem recorded 258 funding deals and €10.5 billion raised, compared to 290 deals and €5.1 billion in April, reflecting an 11 per cent decrease in deal activity and a 106 per cent increase in total capital invested. At the country level, the UK strengthened its position as Europe's leading funding hub. UK startups raised €7.9 billion in May, up from €1.9 billion in April, representing a more than fourfold increase driven by several large funding rounds. Sector dynamics also shifted during the month. Cloud emerged as the leading sector with €3 billion raised, replacing cleantech, which led in April, highlighting changing investor priorities across the technology landscape. Exit activity improved modestly in May, increasing from 35 exits in April to 39, suggesting a slight recovery in market liquidity after several weaker months. Ben Gibson, Partner at AshGrove Capital, commented on the May numbers within the European tech investment landscape in our monthly report: One of the most encouraging aspects of today's market is that investors remain willing to support businesses with strong fundamentals, even as capital becomes increasingly selective.While AI continues to dominate the conversation, sustainable value growth will ultimately depend on more than access to compute or model development. As AI becomes increasingly ubiquitous, the market is beginning to distinguish between software that is merely enhanced by AI and software that is genuinely indispensable to customer operations. The businesses that endure are typically those that own proprietary data which compounds with usage, solve mission-critical problems and become deeply embedded in customer workflows. For his more detailed review and more in-depth analyses of the European tech ecosystem, including industry and country performance, exit activities, and more, check out our May report. Here are the 10 largest tech deals in Europe from May, accounting for 69.5 per cent of the month’s total funding. Amount raised: $2.7B Pure DC is a digital infrastructure company that designs, builds, and operates hyperscale cloud and AI data centres across Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. The company develops large-scale facilities for some of the world's largest technology firms, with more than 1GW of capacity either operational or under development. Pure DC focuses on delivering resilient, high-performance infrastructure while addressing challenges such as power availability, sustainability, and the growing demand for AI and cloud computing. Pure DC secured $2.7 billion for European and Middle East expansion. Amount raised: $2.1B Isomorphic Labs is a London-based AI drug discovery company spun out of Google DeepMind. Founded in 2021, the company uses advanced AI models, including technology built on AlphaFold, to accelerate the design and development of new medicines. Isomorphic Labs combines artificial intelligence, biology, and drug discovery expertise to identify promising drug candidates across multiple therapeutic areas, with the goal of improving the speed, efficiency, and success rate of pharmaceutical research and development. Isomorphic Labs raised $2.1 billion in Series B funding to scale its AI drug discovery platform, expand its therapeutic pipeline, and advance AI-designed medicines toward clinical development. Amount raised: $790M Nscale is an AI infrastructure company that builds and operates full-stack computing platforms for artificial intelligence. The company provides GPU cloud services, AI data centres, and software infrastructure designed to support the training, deployment, and scaling of advanced AI systems. With operations across Europe and North America, Nscale focuses on delivering sovereign, high-performance, and energy-efficient AI infrastructure for enterprises, developers, and governments. Nscale secured $790 million in financing to underscore its commitment to the Norwegian data centre. Amount raised: £550M Ebury is a global fintech company that helps businesses manage international payments, foreign exchange, cash flow, and cross-border trade through a single platform. Founded in 2009, the company provides payment, collection, currency risk management, and financing solutions to businesses operating internationally, supporting transactions in more than 140 currencies across 160 countries. Ebury serves thousands of companies worldwide through a network of offices across Europe, Asia, the Americas, and other international markets. Ebury secured £550 million to support its growth strategy and further develop its global payments platform. Amount raised: $650M Recursive is an AI research company developing self-improving artificial intelligence systems capable of autonomously improving their own performance and research processes. Founded by leading researchers and engineers from OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Meta AI, Salesforce AI, and Uber AI, the company is pursuing recursive self-improvement as a path toward more capable AI systems. Recursive emerged from stealth with $650 million in funding to scale its research, compute infrastructure, and development of AI systems designed to accelerate scientific discovery. Amount raised: $550M ElevenLabs is an AI audio company developing technology that enables natural, human-like speech generation and voice interactions. Its platform offers tools for text-to-speech, voice cloning, dubbing, speech-to-text, and conversational AI, helping businesses, developers, creators, and publishers create and distribute audio content across multiple languages. Founded in 2022, the company focuses on making digital communication more accessible through advanced voice AI. ElevenLabs expanded its Series D financing to more than $550 million, as it scaled its AI voice platform and expanded enterprise adoption of voice agents, dubbing, and conversational AI products. Amount raised: €300M ICEYE is a space and Earth observation company that operates the world's largest synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite constellation. Founded in 2014, the company provides near real-time monitoring and geospatial intelligence for governments, defence organisations, insurers, and commercial customers. Its SAR technology can capture high-resolution imagery in all weather conditions, day or night, enabling applications ranging from disaster response and environmental monitoring to security and defence operations. ICEYE secured a €300 million credit facility to scale sovereign satellite intelligence. Amount raised: $240M Focused Energy is a fusion energy company developing laser-driven nuclear fusion technology with the goal of delivering clean, abundant, and commercially viable energy. Founded as a spin-out of the Technical University of Darmstadt, the company is building fusion power systems based on inertial confinement fusion, using high-powered lasers and proprietary fuel target technology. With operations in Germany and the United States, Focused Energy aims to commercialise fusion energy by translating decades of scientific research into scalable power generation infrastructure. Focused Energy secured $240 million in funding to advance the development of its laser fusion technology, with most of the capital earmarked for expanding operations and infrastructure at the former RWE nuclear power plant site in Biblis, Germany. Amount raised: $220M Fractile is a UK-based AI hardware company developing next-generation chips, systems, and software designed to accelerate AI inference. Founded in 2022, the company is building in-memory computing technology that integrates memory and processing to reduce the cost, latency, and energy consumption of running large AI models. By rethinking the AI inference stack from silicon to software, Fractile aims to enable faster and more efficient deployment of advanced AI systems at data centre scale. Fractile raised $220 million to tackle the growing inference bottleneck. Amount raised: €152M QuantWare is a quantum computing company developing scalable quantum processors and hardware infrastructure designed to accelerate the path toward large-scale quantum computers. The company provides superconducting quantum processing units (QPUs) and related technology to research institutions, governments, and commercial organisations worldwide. Through its proprietary VIO architecture, QuantWare aims to address the scalability challenges facing quantum computing and enable the development of more powerful quantum systems. QuantWare secured €152 million to scale its quantum processor technology, expand manufacturing capacity, and support the commercial deployment of large-scale quantum computing systems.

Edtech startup Sirius Game has closed a €1.3 million funding round led by Cassa Depositi e Prestiti, with participation from Trentino Invest, Ultra VC, 28Digital and Add Value. The newly raised capital will be used to strengthen the company’s structure and accelerate growth across three key areas: further development of its technology, expansion within the Italian and international education systems, and growth in the corporate training segment. As part of this new phase, Sirius Game has launched JOY, an educational product for primary schools developed in collaboration with Il Gruppo Editoriale La Scuola and the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano. Founded by Laura Cesaro, Sirius Game was created to address a challenge common to both schools and companies: learning is often perceived as passive, insufficiently engaging and limited in its long-term effectiveness. The company’s game-based learning model, grounded in scientific evidence, aims to make learning more engaging, effective and lasting while complementing traditional educational approaches. Through challenges, missions and interactive activities, learners take an active role in the learning process, developing transversal skills such as critical thinking, collaboration and digital awareness. The model is designed to be applicable across educational and organisational contexts. Laura Cesaro, CEO and co-founder of Sirius Game, described the funding round as an important milestone for the company, enabling it to scale the impact of its game-based learning model and expand its reach across schools and companies internationally. She emphasised that the company’s goal is not simply to make learning more enjoyable but to make it more effective and capable of delivering lasting outcomes. We want to show that learning can be engaging and rigorous at the same time, helping people develop skills that are truly useful to face change. Operating with an international outlook, Sirius Game maintains ongoing dialogue with educational and innovation ecosystems worldwide as it continues to expand the reach of its learning solutions.

Last week, we tracked more than 65 tech funding deals worth over €2.8 billion and over 10 exits, M&A transactions, rumours, and related news stories across Europe. ? In May, European tech startups raised €10.5 billion across 258 funding deals, with larger funding rounds driving strong capital deployment despite lower deal volume. ? The UK led the region, attracting €7.9 billion in funding, while cloud companies were the top-funded sector with €3 billion invested. Exit activity reached 39 transactions, reflecting a modest improvement in market liquidity and continued investor confidence. ? For a deeper dive into May's funding and exit trends, check out our May monthly report. ❗ Now, let's get you up to speed on everything that happened last week, including your handy.csv file, allowing for an even more in-depth analysis. Have a great week! Funding deals by amount GERMANY: NEURA Robotics secures up to $1.4B Series C to scale physical AI and cognitive robotics platform FINLAND: ICEYE raises €450M at €10B+ valuation as demand for sovereign space intelligence accelerates GERMANY: Europe conducted fewer than 10 orbital launches in 2025. Isar Aerospace just raised €270M to fix that UK: PhysicsX raises $300M at $2.4BN valuation FRANCE: Morpho received $175M in investment at a valuation of approximately $2 billion SWITZERLAND: CeQur raises $100M in Series E funding SPAIN: AI robotics outfit Theker raises $85M FRANCE: Alta Ares wants to make air defence cheaper than an attack, and it just raised €50M, led by Air Street Capital UK: CameraMatics raises up to €49M in new funding FRANCE: Eclipse raises $20M to create the battery financial market REPUBLIC OF SERBIA: Two Desperados receives $20M in user acquisition financing UK: Rem3dy Health raises £14M to power global expansion UK: NewOrbit raises $18.5M Series A to commercialise VLEO UK: Capsa AI raises $18M to expand its AI platform for private capital AUSTRIA: Led by 20VC, fonio.ai raises $17M for omnichannel AI platform UK: 01Health secures $15M to scale specialist healthcare platform FRANCE: Mendo secures €12M to scale enterprise AI adoption in Europe UK: Space Forge secures £10M for space-manufactured materials GERMANY: GALVANY secures €10M seed round for heat pump expansion IRELAND: Trustap raises $10M in funding POLAND: Spacetech startup Sybilla exits bootstrapped orbit with over €8M to strengthen space monitoring BELGIUM: Companion.energy raises €7.8M to help large enterprises manage energy in real time FINLAND: Skyfora secures €6.5M to scale its telecom-based atmospheric sensing platform FRANCE: Uncovr raises $7M to build AI infrastructure for surgery SWEDEN: Camphouse (formerly Mediatool) announces a €5M funding round GERMANY: Tawo secures €4.5M financing UK: Zaro lands $5.1M to build the next layer of enterprise AI FRANCE: Trading card game platform CardNexus raises €3.5M to support team expansion TURKEY: Promake received a $4M investment led by 212 ITALY: Rosso, the startup that wants to digitize blood donations in Italy, raises €3M SLOVAKIA: Definic raises €2.5M to scale its vendor intelligence platform FRANCE: Grapheal raises €2.5M in grant from EIC HUNGARY: Volteum bags €2.5M to power EV and mixed fleet operations POLAND: Fintech paymove secures €2.12M to drive European expansion FINLAND: Rotomate raises €2.1M to automate industrial reliability analysis NETHERLANDS: OurMind lands €2.1M to help reduce healthcare workloads BELGIUM: TurnUp raises €2M to help healthcare providers reduce no-shows SWEDEN: Haga Bioscience attracts a $2.3M seed round for spatial RNA technology development GERMANY: ShopAgentic raises a €1.9M investment CZECH REPUBLIC: Merchantee secures €1.8M for European marketplace expansion UK: Record OS raised $2M to fix Britain's self-assessment problem UK: Enera raises $2M to improve the EV charging experience ESTONIA: Nanordica Medical raises €1.6M to bring antibiotic-free chronic wound treatment to market UK: BeatpulseLabs raises $1.8M pre-seed to scale AI training data AUSTRIA: Deeptech startup Invisible-Light Labs raises €1.5M to identify sub-micron particles UK: Cybersecurity startup set up by former neighbours Strand Intelligence raises £1M UK: Cordon Technologies raises £1M to help farmers cut pesticide use through precision spraying UK: Breaking Change raises over £1M in funding BELGIUM: Duely secures €1.1M to reinvent M&A legal services with AI FINLAND: Granarium raises €1M+ to commercialise renewable supercapacitors for grid stability SPAIN: Toteemi closes a funding round of over €1M to accelerate its growth and international expansion ROMANIA: eCommerce startup Naratix raises €1M to accelerate market growth SWEDEN: Arkeon closes a €594,000 seed round to boost precision in quantum chip production POLAND: sunbay.io raises €550,000 to automate invoice collection for finance teams NORWAY: AI startup Mimir raises €518,000 pre-seed to automate e-commerce operations SPAIN: Ars Magna Semiconductors receives €180,000 thanks to BeAble Capital SWITZERLAND: Calmea receives €162,000 from Venture Kick UK: Cosine secures industry backing for Britain’s first sovereign frontier model UK: Barclays invests in CommonAI PORTUGAL: Augusta Labs closes an investment round FINLAND: Space safety startup Aavuus lands pre-seed funding to tackle space debris tracking GERMANY: Tokura receives a seven-figure investment AUSTRIA: Manuel Ortlechner is investing in Zone14 UK: Advancing Analytics receives strategic growth investment from Lead Edge Capital TURKEY: Mobile game company Spektra Games has received investment led by APY Ventures UK: Mobius receives investment from Motive Partners Exits and M&A activity AUSTRIA: Longevity company MoleQlar is acquiring biotech and skincare company Tomorrowlabs SWITZERLAND: Temenos acquires additiv to strengthen its wealth proposition GERMANY: DeepIP is acquiring Munich-based PatentMaker SWITZERLAND: Energy data and intelligence company TGS acquires Apparition Geoservices GERMANY: Berlin-based new carrier NexDash is acquiring the Rheinbach-based trucking company March Transporte UK: Barclays to acquire GoHenry, expand youth financial education offering in UK GERMANY: The Australian company Infomedia is acquiring the Munich-based startup Veact FRANCE: AI: Akeneo acquires Pricing Hub to bridge the gap between product data and prices AUSTRIA: The American headphone giant Bose is acquiring StreamUnlimited FRANCE: After Italy, Superprof sets its sights on Brazil with a new acquisition GERMANY: The American ChatGPT developer OpenAI is acquiring the Kiel-based AI company Ona

Bestie Bite, the Italian app dedicated to authentic video reviews in the hospitality sector, has closed a €1.5 million fresh-money funding round through a SAFE instrument. The investment was led by the Grassi family through their family holding company G&G, a shareholder of E80 Group S.p.A. Raised less than four months after the company’s first €700,000 round led by Techstars, the new funding brings Bestie Bite’s total capital raised to €2.2 million. The proceeds will support growth in Italy and expansion into the United States. Founded to address a growing disconnect in hospitality discovery, Bestie Bite tackles challenges on both sides of the market. Consumers, particularly younger generations, increasingly struggle to find restaurants, cafés and hotels they can trust. Unreliable reviews, fragmented information, and content dominated by influencers and sponsored posts have made discovery more difficult. At the same time, the hospitality industry remains largely composed of small businesses: around 90 per cent of venues lack the budget or marketing expertise needed to stand out online. As a result, many local businesses remain difficult to discover. These challenges have become more pronounced since the pandemic, as discovery and booking habits have evolved. On the consumer side, Bestie Bite uses artificial intelligence to understand users’ preferences and guide them through video content, helping them make faster decisions. Unlike traditional review platforms, content is subject to verification measures, including user authentication, fraud prevention systems, and AI-powered video detection. The platform also rewards users for contributing videos through cashback and “Missions” at partner restaurants. For businesses, Bestie Bite introduces what it describes as the first “AI Marketing Employee” for hospitality: an AI system that automates activities traditionally handled by social media managers or agencies. Starting from a single community-generated video, the system creates and publishes a monthly editorial plan. Businesses also gain access to sentiment analysis and performance insights to monitor customer experience and service quality in real time. Bestie Bite is led by co-founders Carlotta Robbe Di Lorenzo (CEO), and Caterina Vertefeuille (COO), both second-time founders with extensive hospitality experience. The founding team also includes Placido Falqueto (CTO), a software engineer with a PhD in AI and Robotics. We want to change this market. Authenticity is the most valuable and scarce asset on the web: we are building a new standard and a technological layer that brings the full power of artificial intelligence to restaurants, always starting from real content. With this round, we are accelerating from Italy to the United States to make this the global standard, said Carlotta Robbe Di Lorenzo and Caterina Vertefeuille, co-founders of Bestie Bite. Bestie Bite has already recorded significant organic growth, surpassing 100,000 users and more than 120,000 uploaded videos across 80 countries. A key objective of the new funding round is international expansion, particularly in the United States, where the company is establishing a base in San Francisco to accelerate growth in one of the world’s leading hospitality and technology markets.

Qorelo, an AI startup focused on enterprise resource planning (ERP) transformations, has raised $3.5 million in seed funding just five months after launching. The round was co-led by HPI Ventures and Caesar Ventures, with participation from 10x Founders, Antler, Adesso Ventures, and Angel Invest. Founded in late 2025, Qorelo has built an AI-powered intelligence layer designed to automate and simplify ERP upgrade and migration projects based on SAP software. The platform focuses on reducing the complexity of large-scale enterprise transformations by automating functional delivery workstreams, helping organisations complete projects more efficiently and with fewer resource constraints. The company is targeting a growing challenge facing SAP customers worldwide. As businesses prepare to migrate to SAP S/4HANA before the 2027 deadline, demand for specialised delivery expertise is increasing, placing further strain on already complex and costly ERP modernisation projects. Qorelo aims to address this bottleneck by automating parts of the ERP delivery process, which it says can reduce project timelines by up to 45 per cent. The platform also serves as a continuous system of record for ERP delivery, helping organisations maintain operational data that is ready for future AI applications and ongoing optimisation. Nicholas Torabi, co-founder of Qorelo, said: Large enterprises are facing an unprecedented race against time to modernise their digital backbones before the 2027 deadline, but the industry simply lacks the human delivery capacity to make it happen. At Qorelo, we have built an elegant solution that automates the repetitive functional workstreams of these massive transformations. The company is already working with enterprise customers in the DACH region, including a major German automotive company that is using the platform for its SAP transformation programme and subsequent operational processes. The new funding will be used to accelerate product development and expand the company's team across engineering, SAP expertise, and enterprise sales as it looks to capture growing demand for ERP transformation solutions.

This week, we tracked more than 65 tech funding deals worth over €2.8 billion and over 10 exits, M&A transactions, rumours, and related news stories across Europe. We also released our monthly report for May with all the critical funding rounds, acquisitions, and other critical news.  If email is more your thing, you can always subscribe to our newsletter and receive a more robust version of this round-up delivered to your inbox. Either way, let's get you up to speed. ? Notable and big funding rounds ?? NEURA Robotics secures up to $1.4B Series C to scale physical AI and cognitive robotics platform ?? ICEYE raises €450M at €10B+ valuation as demand for sovereign space intelligence accelerates ??  Europe conducted fewer than 10 orbital launches in 2025. Isar Aerospace just raised €270M to fix that ??‍?? Noteworthy acquisitions and mergers ??  Longevity company MoleQlar is acquiring biotech and skincare company Tomorrowlabs ?? Temenos acquires additiv to strengthen its wealth proposition ?? Barclays to acquire GoHenry, expand youth financial education offering in UK ? Interesting moves from investors ?? German VC coalition calls for institutional capital shift to power next-gen startups ? Creator Fund closes $56M to back Europe's scientific founders ? Pitchdrive raises €60M to back Europe's AI-native founders ?? Barclays to acquire GoHenry, expand youth financial education offering in UK ?️ In other (important) news ??  Bending Spoons files for US IPO ⚖️  Legora to open Paris, Milan and Madrid offices and London engineering hub ⚛️. Deliverance AI exits stealth to power sovereign enterprise AI  ?? British startups to “scale here” and “stay here”, as UK PM unveils £400M chip plan ? European tech startups to watch  ?? Granarium raises €1M+ to commercialise renewable supercapacitors for grid stability ??  sunbay.io raises €550,000 to automate invoice collection for finance teams ?? AI startup Mimir raises €518,000 pre-seed to automate e-commerce operations ??  Cosine secures industry backing for Britain’s first sovereign frontier model ?? Space safety startup Aavuus lands pre-seed funding to tackle space debris tracking

Carina Vantsi, CMO and co-founder of women’s health startup Suun, has a message for the healthcare sector:  Stop normalising suffering during pregnancy, while giving birth, and after birth. "When a baby is born, people often say, 'Everyone is doing well.' But the reality is that many women are recovering from an enormous physical and emotional experience. Birth is not the end of the journey." Her comments reflect a growing recognition that maternal care should extend far beyond delivery.  Through a combination of digital and in-person support, Estonian-German startup Suun Health is working to address those gaps and has already supported more than 50,000 families. I spoke to Carina Vantsi to find out more.  Why reducing maternal mortality isn't enough Across Europe, maternal mortality has fallen by around 80 per cent from the 1950s to the early 2000s, and by a further ~50 per cent from the early 2000s to 2023. But this success story is incomplete. Pregnancy, birth, and the first year after birth remain some of the most neglected, painful, and least supported periods in a woman’s and a family’s life. This is not an accident; it is by design.  While modern maternity systems have made significant progress in reducing mortality, they often remain focused on survival rather than wellbeing, leaving many women without the support they need during pregnancy, childbirth, and the postpartum period. Women (and people who give birth) are often told that the pain and difficulties of childbirth will be forgotten once they meet their baby.  But research suggests that up to one in five women may experience a traumatic birth, while awareness is also increasing around obstetric violence — the inhumane, disrespectful, or negligent treatment of women during pregnancy, childbirth, or the postpartum period.  These experiences can leave lasting physical and psychological scars, highlighting the need for a more holistic approach to maternal healthcare. "The postpartum period requires support, attention, and care," says Carina.  "There is so much more we can do to help women during that stage of life, and I think it's time we started treating that support as essential rather than optional." The missed diagnosis that helped spark a startup Suun Health was founded in 2022 by paediatric nurse Anna Strubel alongside entrepreneurs Carina and Keiro Vantsi. The company provides digital and in-person support for women throughout pregnancy and postpartum.  Through her work, Stubel saw first-hand the realities of pregnancy, birth, and postpartum care, as well as the gaps in support available to women and families. Carina explained: “The inspiration for the company came from very honest conversations Anna and I had when we first met. We talked about the differences in maternal and postpartum care across countries, as well as our own experiences. During my first pregnancy, I had undiagnosed gestational diabetes. Looking back, there were warning signs. I was suddenly drinking a huge amount of water and raised concerns with doctors, but it wasn't taken seriously.  As a result, my baby was born early, was very large, and we spent a week in intensive care because of complications linked to the unmanaged diabetes. During her second pregnancy, she insisted on being tested early. It turned out she had gestational diabetes again, but this time it was managed properly with insulin. The outcome was completely different, and the baby was born healthy. That experience made her realise how important it is for women to have information and confidence to advocate for themselves. “If I'd known what I know now, many of those complications could potentially have been avoided.” At the same time, the founders were discussing postpartum care. In Germany and the Netherlands, women often receive extensive support after birth, including home visits.  “In Estonia, there was very little available. We started talking to healthcare professionals — more than 50 of them — and they agreed there was a lot that could be improved. That's when we decided to build something ourselves." Starting with home visits, not an app. Unlike many startups focused on women's health, Suun Health didn't start with an app but with postpartum home visits. It later expanded into personalised education, health tracking, movement programmes, and in-person care, including pregnancy fitness, yoga, Pilates, strength training, and postpartum recovery sessions delivered both online and through physical studios in Berlin and Tallinn and later, an app. By bringing these services together, Suun aims to provide continuous support between medical appointments, helping women better navigate the physical and emotional changes associated with pregnancy, birth, and recovery. “Some services existed within hospitals, but we felt they didn't necessarily belong there. Pregnancy and postpartum support should also be nurturing and preventative. We were inspired by models we'd seen in places like Berlin, where support often exists outside the hospital environment. It wasn't just about delivering a service; it was about creating an experience that prioritised wellbeing.” Pregnancy symptoms shouldn't simply be endured But as its community grew, women kept asking which digital tools and apps they should use. “We looked at what was available and felt that most products were very transactional. They would tell you that your baby was the size of an apple or list common symptoms, but they weren't really supporting the woman as a whole person,” explained Carlina.  "We wanted a more holistic approach that focused not just on getting through pregnancy, but on helping women feel well throughout it." According to Carina, many pregnancy symptoms are incredibly common. Around 94 per cent of women experience fatigue, around 60 per cent struggle with sleep, and the vast majority deal with issues such as nausea, digestive problems, pelvic pain, or back pain. The problem is that these symptoms are often treated as something women should simply endure. “Our view is different. If a woman tells us she's experiencing pelvic pain, nausea, or swelling, we personalise the information and support she receives. We provide evidence-based content, practical recommendations, and where relevant, connect her to services or specialists who can help. The goal is to move away from a mindset of simply surviving pregnancy and toward actively supporting women's health and wellbeing.” Further, rather than overwhelming women with information, it focuses on delivering personalised content that's relevant to their specific situation. Questioning long-held assumptions about birth Historically, maternity care has focused on survival because maternal mortality used to be much higher. But today, outcomes have improved dramatically, yet many systems still operate with that same mindset. According to Carina, a good example is childbirth itself. Most women still give birth lying on their backs, despite evidence that alternative positions can often be better for both comfort and outcomes. The reason is largely that it's more convenient for healthcare providers. “Women need better information so they can make informed decisions and advocate for themselves. There are many ways to reduce discomfort, manage symptoms, and improve the overall experience, but too often women aren't told about them.” That emphasis on trust and medical accuracy also shaped Suun Health's approach to AI. Combining technology with clinical expertise Before Suun Health built its technology, it already had established a strong network of healthcare professionals, including midwives, gynaecologists, and other women's health specialists. “ They help us create and review our content. If you look at our educational materials, you'll see they are reviewed by qualified medical professionals,” explained Carina. “That's incredibly important because trust and accuracy are fundamental in healthcare.” Building an AI assistant women can trust Carina attributes  Suun Health’s success to its in-person community-building approach. In Estonia, around 20 per cent of pregnant women joined within the first 24 hours after launch, with similarly strong interest when Suun Health expanded into Germany. Before launching an app, the company had already spent years supporting women through its services. "That meant we had trust and engagement from day one." Suun Health launched an AI assistant late last year, and adoption has grown rapidly. It's built on medically reviewed information and designed to provide support women can trust. According to Carina, one of the biggest challenges with general-purpose AI tools is that users need to know the right questions to ask.  “During pregnancy, that's not always possible because many women don't know what is normal, what is concerning, or what support options exist. I think the reason is that our mission resonates deeply. Women want better support, and healthcare professionals also recognise that change is needed. That shared sense of purpose has helped us attract both users and specialists." Right now, the team’s biggest focus is the AI component. “We're constantly improving it because we can see the value it provides. We want it to become increasingly proactive and personalised. If a woman reports a particular issue, we don't just want to provide information. We want to follow up, understand whether things have improved, and continue supporting her over time. Ultimately, we're trying to create an ongoing conversation rather than a one-off interaction." Scaling a community-led healthcare platform Most women start using Suun Health services very early in pregnancy, often within the first month. Today, it supports women throughout pregnancy and during the first year postpartum, which means many women stay as users for close to two years. Long term, the team sees an opportunity to support women across multiple life stages, but our current focus remains pregnancy and postpartum care. Suun Health has been testing the UK market, particularly in and around London, since last autumn, and the response has been encouraging. Its expansion strategy has generally involved creating a flagship physical space alongside the technology.  Carina asserts: “We started in Tallinn, then opened in Berlin, and we'd like to bring the same model to London. The physical locations help us build trust and community. They remind people that there are real healthcare professionals behind the technology.”

Pleo, the spend management fintech, has undergone a fresh round of job cuts, with around 50 staff understood to be laid off. The latest cuts follow Pleo laying off around 100 workers last year. The latest job cuts, which took place last week, were across Pleo's "Offering" teams, which span product, tech, design and data roles. The majority of those impacted held engineering and data roles, including some at senior level, sources say.  It is understood around 300 people worked across Pleo's "Offering" teams before the cuts.  Staff in Pleo’s home market of Denmark, the UK, and Germany were impacted by the cuts, sources say. Pleo said the changes would “strengthen focus” and “simplify decision-making”. A spokesperson for Pleo said: “Pleo has been undergoing significant transformation over the past year to ensure we continue our growth journey as a leader in spend management in Europe. “The proposed changes to our Offering teams recently announced are part of this transformation.  “They are designed to strengthen focus, simplify decision-making, and accelerate product delivery for customers, while reflecting the increasing role of new technologies in how product and technology teams operate.” Pleo also made job cuts in 2022, laying off around 15 per cent of its workforce. Pleo, which started life in Copenhagen in 2015, employs more than 800 people, was co-founded by fintech veterans Jeppe Rindom and Niccolo Perra. The Danish startup, which has raised more than $430 million in funding, provides European businesses with various spend management tools including company cards, employee expense reports, credit and treasury products. In 2021, Pleo, which is backed by Creandum and Seedcamp, raised $150m at a $1.7bn valuation, and six months later raised another $200 million at a valuation of $4.7 billion. But last year, investor Kinnevik cut the value of its stake, giving Pleo an implied valuation of $1.62bn. Pleo says its services are used by over 40,000 businesses. As well as Copenhagen, it has offices across Europe, including London, Madrid and Berlin.

Europe's deeptech startups are increasingly being asked to do more than build successful businesses. As policymakers focus on strengthening strategic autonomy, securing critical supply chains, and accelerating the green transition, a new generation of companies is emerging at the intersection of innovation and geopolitics. Backed by initiatives such as the European Innovation Council (EIC), they illustrate how European innovation policy is increasingly aligned with broader objectives around supply-chain security, resource efficiency, industrial competitiveness, and technological independence. CorPower Ocean (Sweden) CorPower Ocean is a wave energy company developing technology that converts the motion of ocean waves into renewable electricity. Inspired by the pumping principles of the human heart, the company's compact wave energy converters are designed to capture significantly more energy than traditional wave power systems while withstanding harsh ocean conditions. CorPower's technology aims to provide a reliable source of clean energy that can complement wind and solar power, helping accelerate the transition to a low-carbon energy system. By harnessing a domestic, largely untapped natural resource, CorPower helps reduce Europe's dependence on imported fossil fuels while strengthening the resilience of its clean energy infrastructure. ​ EnduroSat ( Bulgaria) EnduroSat is a space company that designs, builds, and operates satellites, offering a "satellite-as-a-service" model that allows customers to deploy space missions without building spacecraft from scratch. Its technology covers satellite platforms, components, integration, launch support and mission operations. EnduroSat expands Europe's independent satellite manufacturing capabilities, providing governments and businesses with access to European-built space infrastructure while reducing reliance on non-European suppliers. Its satellites support applications ranging from Earth observation and communications to defence, environmental monitoring, and critical infrastructure, strengthening the broader European space ecosystem alongside launch providers, geospatial companies, and defence-tech firms. The company recently opened an 188,000-square-foot Space Centre in Sofia and secured more than $100 million in funding to scale production of its larger ESPA-class satellites, with the goal of manufacturing up to two satellites per day. Investors include the European Innovation Council Fund and major international backers. Kraftblock (Germany) Kraftblock is a deeptech scale-up developing high-temperature thermal energy storage systems for industrial decarbonisation. The company has built a flexible, modular platform that stores cheap renewable electricity as heat and dispatches it on demand to energy-intensive industrial processes. The storage systems enable manufacturers to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy, helping reduce dependence on imported gas and volatile global energy markets. Its technology aligns closely with broader European efforts to build cleaner, more self-sufficient industrial supply chains and accelerate the transition to a sustainable, sovereign energy system. ​ Modvion (Sweden) Modvion is a climatetech company that builds wind turbine towers using a patented modular tower system made from laminated veneer lumber (LVL), which it describes as "nature's own carbon fibre." As wind turbines get taller, traditional steel towers become increasingly difficult and expensive to manufacture and transport. Tower sections for very tall turbines can exceed road transport limits across Europe and North America. Modvion's solution is to manufacture towers as smaller wooden modules that can be transported on standard trucks and assembled on site. Taller towers become more economically viable, allowing turbines to access stronger winds and generate more electricity. By replacing conventional steel wind turbine towers with engineered wood sourced from European forests, the company helps reduce dependence on imported, carbon-intensive materials while strengthening local manufacturing and clean energy supply chains. Its technology supports the EU's goals around energy security, sustainable industry, and the transition to a circular bioeconomy, aligning closely with initiatives such as the Net-Zero Industry Act and broader efforts to enhance European industrial resilience. In 2026, Modvion secured up to €39.1 million from the EU Innovation Fund to establish volume manufacturing for its wooden wind turbine towers in Sweden. Multiverse Computing (Spain) While much of the AI race has focused on building ever-larger foundation models, Spain's Multiverse Computing is pursuing a different route to European AI sovereignty. Multiverse Computing develops quantum-inspired AI compression technology that dramatically reduces the computing power, energy consumption, and cost needed to run advanced AI models, enabling organisations to deploy powerful AI on their own infrastructure rather than relying solely on hyperscale cloud providers. As Europe seeks to reduce dependence on foreign cloud providers and scarce AI compute resources, efficiency itself is becoming a strategic asset. Companies mentioned in this article are members of the EIC Scaling Club, a curated community where 120+ European deep tech scale-ups with the potential to build world-class businesses and solve major global challenges come together with investors, corporate innovators and other industry stakeholders to spur growth. The EIC Scaling Club is an EIC-funded initiative run in partnership with Tech Tour, Bpifrance (EuroQuity), Hello Tomorrow, Tech. eueu (Webrazzi), EurA and IESE Business School.

Barcelona-based AI robotics startup Theker has raised what it says is the largest robotics Series A round ever in Europe. The $85 million round in Theker was led by US VC CRV, with other investors including Samsung, LVMH, Cathay Innovation, 20VC and Henkel Ventures.  Existing investors Inditex and Kibo Ventures also participated in the round. The Series A funding round follows less than a year after Theker, founded in 2022, raised €18 million in seed funding. Theker says it's building AI-native generalist robots for industrial environments. Theker says it’s building a new category of industrial robotics, which operate autonomously and are “AI-native generalist robots capable of adapting in real time to changing environments”, contrasting with “traditional industrial robots that are rigid, task-specific and costly to reconfigure”. Its tech lends itself to industries like logistics, retail, food and beverage, and waste management, it says. Its robots are being deployed to address labour shortages across manufacturing and retail environments, it said. Carla Gómez Cano, co-founder of Theker, said: “This round accelerates a vision we’ve been building toward from day one: making intelligent, adaptable robotics practical for real industrial operations at global scale." Theker will use the new funding to accelerate deployments with industrial operators, deepen its proprietary AI and robotics stack, and expand its team across software, electronics, mechanical engineering and deployments, it said.

Despite a decline in deal activity, May saw a significant increase in capital invested across European tech compared to April. A total of 258 funding deals were announced in May, down from 290 in April, representing an 11 per cent decline in deal activity. Despite the lower number of transactions, European startups raised €10.5 billion, more than double the €5.1 billion recorded in April, pointing to a month driven by larger funding rounds. Companies Out of 258 deals in May, 15 companies raised more than €100 million each. The value of 31 deals remains undisclosed. The month's biggest deal came from UK-based data centre operator Pure Data Centres (Pure DC), which secured more than €2.3 billion in debt financing. Together with Nscale's €675 million debt raise, the deals highlight strong investor confidence in the infrastructure needed to support growing demand for AI and cloud computing. Industries Cloud was the leading sector by investment volume in European tech startups in May 2026, capturing 28.6 per cent of the month’s total funding, at €3 billion. Countries The UK emerged as the top fundraising market in May, securing €7.9 billion over 70 transactions. Exits Europe recorded 39 exit activities in May, with M&A activity characterised by strong cross-border consolidation across the region. Germany emerged as the largest source of acquisition targets, while France, the UK, and Germany were among the most active acquirors, highlighting the increasingly interconnected nature of Europe's tech ecosystem. Grab the PDF version of this report with a foreword by Ben Gibson, Partner, Ashgrove Capital, for even more critical insights.

Enera, an AI-powered driver experience platform for electric vehicle charging, has raised $2 million in funding. The round was led by Lakehouse Ventures, marking the firm's first investment outside the US, with participation from Divergent Capital, Masia and a group of angel investors, including several founders from across the mobility and technology ecosystem. As electric vehicle adoption continues to grow, charging reliability remains a key challenge for both drivers and operators. While charge point operators often report high charger uptime, a significant proportion of charging sessions still fail, creating a disconnect between network performance metrics and the real-world experience of drivers. According to the company, one of the reasons for this gap is the industry's limited visibility into the causes of failed charging sessions. Customer support is frequently handled through outsourced call centres, making it difficult for operators to capture and analyse the information needed to identify recurring issues and improve service quality. To address this, Enera has developed a platform that combines driver support interactions, telemetry data and backend system logs into a single operational view. Its AI-powered Control Room helps operators understand why charging sessions fail and identify where the customer experience is breaking down. The platform also enables operators to deploy AI support agents that can assist drivers, troubleshoot issues, monitor charging networks and proactively intervene before problems escalate. Operators can't see where their experience is breaking down, and users carry the cost. We are building the AI recovery layer for that entire category of infrastructure, says Nicholas Marquardt, co-founder and CEO of Enera. The company believes that improving the visibility of charging failures and automating support workflows can help operators increase charging success rates while providing drivers with faster and more effective assistance. Enera will use the funding to accelerate pilots already underway with leading UK charge point operators and support its expansion across Europe. The company also plans to further develop its AI platform and expand its capabilities across driver support, network monitoring and operational insights.

Dutch healthtech startup OurMind has raised €2.1 million in funding to expand its AI platform for healthcare providers as demand from hospitals continues to grow. The round was led by 4impact capital, with additional participation from a group of general practitioners and medical specialists. The investment comes at a time when healthcare systems are facing mounting pressure. Waiting lists continue to grow, administrative workloads are increasing, and healthcare professionals are working longer hours, contributing to declining job satisfaction across the sector. Founded by former orthopaedic surgeon Paul Koning and backed by healthcare professionals, OurMind develops AI solutions designed to reduce administrative burdens and support clinicians before, during, and after patient consultations. The company works closely with hospitals and healthcare providers to ensure the safe and practical implementation of generative AI in clinical settings. Healthcare professionals involved in the funding round believe wider adoption of supportive technologies is needed to help address growing pressure on the healthcare system and reduce burnout among medical staff. By automating time-consuming administrative tasks, the company aims to give healthcare providers more time to focus on patient care while helping preserve job satisfaction across the profession. OurMind initially launched Notes, an AI-powered tool that converts consultation conversations into medical documentation. Today, the platform is used by more than 300 general practices and 14 hospitals. The company is now expanding its offering with additional tools for consultation preparation, administrative support, and patient communication, while continuing to develop a broader AI platform that adapts to the needs of individual healthcare professionals. The new funding will enable the company to scale its platform and meet increasing demand from healthcare organisations. Beyond supporting the adoption of AI, the company says its broader goal is to help ensure high-quality healthcare remains accessible despite growing workforce constraints.

Funding activity among European cloud companies in 2025 was characterised by a small number of large transactions alongside a broader range of early- and growth-stage rounds. The largest deals accounted for a significant share of the total capital raised, reflecting the substantial funding requirements of cloud and AI infrastructure businesses. Geographically, funding activity was spread across Europe, with the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Spain and the UK emerging as the most active markets. While Western Europe continued to dominate in terms of deal volume and capital raised, companies from Central and Eastern Europe also secured notable investments, highlighting the growing maturity of the region's cloud ecosystem. Funding activity was concentrated in growth-stage companies, with Series A, Series B and Series C rounds accounting for the largest share of capital raised. At the same time, seed, pre-seed, convertible and other funding rounds indicate continued investment across earlier stages of company development. The range of financing structures, including equity rounds and convertible notes, reflects the diversity of the sector, spanning both capital-intensive infrastructure businesses and software companies focused on cloud management, optimisation and automation. Overall, the data highlights the diversity of Europe's cloud ecosystem, spanning AI infrastructure, sovereign cloud, cloud optimisation, developer platforms and data management technologies (for more detailed analyses of the European technology ecosystem, check out Tech.eu’s annual report: European Tech 2025 - The Big Picture). Amount raised in 2025: $1.53B Nscale is an AI infrastructure company that provides a full-stack AI cloud platform, combining GPU cloud services, AI software tools and data centre infrastructure. Its platform enables enterprises, developers and governments to train, fine-tune and deploy AI models at scale, with a focus on performance, resilience and efficiency. In 2025, Nscale raised approximately $1.53 billion across two funding rounds ($1.1 billion in September and $433 million in October) to expand data centre capacity and support the growth of its global AI infrastructure. The company has continued its rapid expansion in 2026, securing approximately $4.19 billion in equity, debt financing and infrastructure funding commitments to accelerate the development of AI infrastructure worldwide. Amount raised in 2025: $1B Nebius is an AI infrastructure company that provides cloud computing services designed for AI development and deployment. The company offers access to high-performance GPU clusters, cloud platforms and managed infrastructure that enable businesses, researchers and AI startups to train, fine-tune and run machine learning models at scale. Nebius combines purpose-built AI infrastructure with software tools and services aimed at supporting the full AI lifecycle, from model development to production deployment. In 2025, Nebius secured $1 billion for AI cloud platform development. Amount raised in 2025: $108M Cast AI is a cloud optimisation and automation platform that helps organisations reduce cloud infrastructure costs and improve the performance of Kubernetes workloads. Using automation and machine learning, the platform continuously analyses cloud environments to optimise resource allocation, automate scaling and increase infrastructure efficiency across major cloud providers. Cast AI serves enterprises and software teams looking to simplify cloud operations while improving reliability and cost control. In 2025, Cast AI raised $108 million to help businesses run AI and Kubernetes workloads more efficiently. Cast AI became Lithuania's fifth unicorn in 2026, surpassing a $1 billion valuation following a strategic investment and expanding its cloud and AI infrastructure. Amount raised in 2025: $45M NexGen Cloud is an AI infrastructure company that provides sovereign AI cloud services, GPU computing and large-scale AI infrastructure for enterprises, developers and AI startups. Through its Hyperstack platform, the company offers on-demand access to high-performance NVIDIA GPUs, enabling customers to train, fine-tune and deploy AI models at scale. Founded in 2020, NexGen Cloud focuses on delivering secure, scalable and sustainable AI infrastructure powered by renewable energy across Europe and North America. NexGen Cloud raised $45 million in 2025 to expand its hyperscale infrastructure globally, with a particular focus on building sovereign AI infrastructure across Europe. Amount raised in 2025: €28.8M Impossible Cloud Network (ICN) is a decentralised cloud infrastructure platform that connects enterprise-grade hardware providers into a distributed network for cloud computing, storage and networking services. The company aims to offer a scalable alternative to traditional hyperscale cloud providers by leveraging underutilised infrastructure, enabling businesses and developers to access cloud resources with greater transparency, resilience and cost efficiency. In 2025, Impossible Cloud Network secured €28.8 million to become an alternative to “monopolistic hyperscalers”. Amount raised in 2025: $21M E2B is a cloud infrastructure platform designed for AI applications and AI agents. The company provides secure, isolated cloud environments where developers can run code, execute tasks and build AI-powered workflows, enabling AI systems to interact with tools and external data safely. Its platform is designed to simplify the deployment of AI agents while providing the scalability and reliability required for production environments. E2B raised a $21 million Series A round in 2025 to expand its secure, scalable infrastructure platform for deploying AI agents in enterprise environments. Amount raised in 2025: $10M Akamas is an AI-powered cloud optimisation platform that helps organisations improve application performance while reducing infrastructure costs. The platform continuously analyses application and cloud environments, automatically identifying and implementing resource configuration changes to optimise performance, efficiency and sustainability. Akamas is designed for enterprises running complex workloads across cloud-native and Kubernetes environments. In 2025, Akamas raised $10 million to fuel international growth, invest in product development and scale its cloud optimisation technology for enterprise environments. Amount raised in 2025: $10M StackGuardian is a cloud infrastructure automation platform that helps organisations manage, provision and govern cloud resources across multiple environments. The platform combines infrastructure-as-code, policy controls and workflow automation to streamline cloud operations, improve compliance and reduce manual effort. Designed for DevOps, platform engineering and cloud teams, StackGuardian enables organisations to deploy and manage cloud infrastructure more efficiently at scale. StackGuardian raised $10 million in Series A funding in 2025 to accelerate its expansion across Europe and the US and further develop the AI capabilities of its infrastructure automation and orchestration platform. Amount raised in 2025: €7.5M PoliCloud is a French sovereign cloud infrastructure company that develops and operates a network of modular micro-data centres for AI, high-performance computing and secure data storage. Its distributed cloud platform enables public institutions, enterprises and local organisations to run workloads on locally governed infrastructure designed to provide greater data sovereignty, energy efficiency and resilience than traditional hyperscale cloud models. PoliCloud raised €7.5 million in seed funding in 2025 to expand its sovereign cloud infrastructure platform, grow its operating team and support international expansion, with a particular focus on serving public sector organisations across Europe. Amount raised in 2025: €3.3M Internxt is a cloud storage company that provides privacy-focused file storage, backup and file-sharing services. The company uses end-to-end encryption and a zero-knowledge architecture to ensure that users retain control over their data, while offering a secure alternative to traditional cloud storage providers. Its platform is designed for both individuals and businesses seeking greater privacy, security and data ownership in the cloud. Internxt raised €3.3 million in 2025 to expand internationally and further develop its privacy-focused cloud and digital services platform.

TurnUp, the Ghent-based startup helping dental and medical practices reduce no-shows and last-minute cancellations, has raised €2 million in a seed funding round led by Newion, with participation from RDY Ventures. Missed appointments remain a costly challenge for healthcare providers. No-shows are estimated to cost the healthcare sector hundreds of billions of euros annually, while reception teams often rely on manual processes such as phone calls, waiting lists and appointment reminders to fill vacant slots at short notice. TurnUp was founded in 2022 by Nicolas De Bruyne and Jona Decubber, with Koen Lepez joining as CEO in 2024 after initially investing in the company. The startup has developed an AI platform that integrates with existing practice management systems to predict no-shows and automate follow-up actions. By analysing historical patient data, scheduling patterns and external factors, the platform identifies appointments at risk of being missed and proactively engages patients through targeted communications. In addition to its predictive capabilities, the platform automates tasks such as appointment confirmations, cancellations, rescheduling and waiting list management. Its AI receptionist, Elissa, can contact patients across multiple languages and outside regular office hours, helping practices reduce administrative workloads and make better use of available appointment capacity. Today, TurnUp serves more than 250 practices across Belgium, the Netherlands and the UK, covering more than 2,500 dentists. According to the company, the platform has helped prevent more than 500,000 no-shows while saving receptionists and practice managers tens of thousands of hours of administrative work. We always start from the same question: how do we make sure every chair in a practice is filled? No-shows are the biggest obstacle to occupancy. In Belgium, the Netherlands and the UK, we've shown we can solve that problem. Now we want to do the same for every care practice in Europe and then the US. The scale is there, says Koen Lepez, CEO of TurnUp. The company will use the funding to expand its commercial operations, strengthen its technical team and accelerate growth in the UK, where it is already running a pilot programme with a group of 400 healthcare practices.

Warsaw-based sunbay.io, a platform helping finance teams recover overdue invoices faster, has raised €550,000 in funding from Kogito Ventures, with participation from s20 and a group of angel investors, including Jostein Håvaldsrud, CTO of Kahoot. The company already works with more than 20 businesses across five countries, collecting payments from customers in 30 markets. For growing companies, collecting overdue payments is often a manual and time-consuming process. Finance teams must track outstanding invoices, send follow-ups, manage exceptions and decide when to escalate cases, often relying on spreadsheets, email threads and basic accounting-system reminders. While ERP and accounting platforms can send standard payment reminders, they are not designed to manage collections according to each company's workflows and customer relationships. As a result, a process that directly affects cash flow still requires significant manual effort. sunbay.io was founded by Filip Szczeciński, Dawid Dzierzyński and Nikodem Cabała after conversations with finance leaders revealed how much time teams spent managing receivables. The founders set out to automate the process while keeping finance professionals involved where judgement is needed. In our conversations with CFOs and CEOs, one sentence kept coming back: 'I hate working with invoices.' It wasn't that companies didn't know how to collect their receivables. The problem was that a process that directly affects their liquidity still depends on manual work. We built sunbay.io so that companies can automate this process on their own terms and bring the team in only where human judgement is actually needed, says Filip Szczeciński, co-founder of sunbay.io. The platform connects directly to invoice data and automates collections according to each company's rules. It follows up on overdue payments via email, SMS and AI voice calls, manages escalations, provides a branded payment portal and involves finance teams only when decisions require human input. sunbay.io is now expanding the platform with predictive insights and additional automation. The product already surfaces credit-scoring and payment-behaviour signals to help teams identify at-risk accounts before they become seriously overdue. Future AI agents will automate further tasks, analyse payment data and support faster decision-making. Built for European finance teams, the platform keeps customer and receivables data within the EEA, avoids transatlantic data transfers and is designed with GDPR compliance at its core.

Mendo, the French startup helping enterprises adopt generative and agentic AI, has raised €12 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Ventech and Educapital, with participation from Tomcat and OVNI. The funding will support the company’s continued product development, team growth and expansion across Europe. Despite rapid advances in AI technology, many organisations still struggle to move beyond experimentation. While businesses are investing heavily in AI initiatives, turning them into widely adopted and impactful solutions often requires more than the technology itself. Successful deployment depends on integrating AI into everyday workflows and ensuring employees are equipped to use it effectively. Founded in 2021, Mendo was built to address this gap. Its platform acts as a bridge between AI tools and the people expected to use them, helping organisations turn AI investments into measurable business outcomes. Through its platform, Mendo helps organisations identify practical AI use cases, encourage adoption across teams and maximise the value of their AI initiatives while supporting employees throughout the transformation process. The emergence of agentic AI is changing how organisations deploy AI. As AI becomes embedded across business functions, the challenge shifts from implementing technology to transforming how people and processes work. Mendo helps companies identify where AI can create the most value, determine where agents should be deployed and support adoption across teams. With agentics, AI changes status: it is no longer a tool that saves you a few hours a week, it becomes the layer that orchestrates and governs all of a company’s operations. No company will pull off this transition without bringing its people along and changing the way it is organised. Our role is to make that adoption possible at scale, without leaving anyone behind, explains Quentin Amaudry, CEO and co-founder of Mendo. With this new funding, Mendo will focus on three priorities: strengthening its analytics capabilities to help organisations identify high-impact AI use cases and measure adoption, which early results show can be up to six times higher than with traditional approaches, doubling its workforce from 50 to 100 employees, primarily across product, engineering and sales, and accelerating its expansion across key European markets to meet growing demand for AI adoption support. The funding marks an important milestone for Mendo as it seeks to help more organisations translate AI investments into measurable business value and sustainable adoption at scale.

NEURA Robotics has announced up to $1.4 billion in Series C funding to accelerate the development of its physical AI platform. Investors include Tether, Qualcomm Technologies, Amazon, NVIDIA, imec.xpand, Bosch, Schaeffler, the European Investment Bank, Lingotto Horizon, InterAlpen Partners. According to the company, this is the largest funding round ever for a full-stack robotics company. NEURA is creating a new category of AI infrastructure where cognitive robots continuously learn, collaborate, and operate in real-world environments on a shared, intelligent platform (Neuraverse).  Unlike traditional robotics companies that rely on isolated machines or limited industrial automation, NEURA combines robotics, AI, sensors, edge computing, and large-scale learning infrastructure into a unified platform architecture that can be deployed globally. With this capital, NEURA will scale mass production to millions of robots by 2030 and accelerate the global rollout of NEURA Gyms – the world's first real-world training environments for cognitive robots and physical AI. “The future of AI won’t simply take place on screens,” says David Reger, founder and CEO of NEURA Robotics. “It will move, interact, learn, and work alongside us in the real world. We are convinced that physical AI and cognitive robotics will lead to one of the biggest technological leaps of the coming decades. They will fundamentally transform entire industries, from manufacturing and logistics to healthcare, services, and household robotics.” NEURA's strategic partnerships include leading industrial and AI companies, such as Bosch, Schaeffler, Kawasaki, Qualcomm Technologies, Amazon, and NVIDIA, positioning the company at the intersection of robotics, industrial automation, and artificial intelligence. The company's current order backlog and strategic deployment pipeline exceed $1 billion. With AI moving into the physical world, NEURA sees its next decisive competitive advantage in combining intelligence with real-world interaction, sensing, and scalable infrastructure.  "In the future, people won’t just ask what AI can tell them,” says Reger. “They’ll ask what AI can physically accomplish.”