Music education hasn’t changed much in generations. Children still attend weekly lessons, practise inconsistently at home, and teachers rely largely on instinct rather than measurable data. But now a startup believes AI can fix that gap and bring gamification and feedback loops to one of the most traditional corners of education. MuseCool is a London-based music education company founded in 2017 that provides personalised music lessons for students of all ages, both in person and online. The company connects learners with professional, conservatory-trained tutors for instruments such as piano, guitar, violin, and drums, and supports exam preparation, performances, and workshops. MuseCool combines traditional teaching with AI-supported practice tools to help students progress between lessons, positioning itself as a modern private music school focused on flexibility, high-quality instruction, and making music learning more accessible and engaging. I spoke to CEO Petru Cotarcea to learn more. Cotarcea grew up poor in Romania. But because of the Communist legacy, music education there was extremely cheap. “That meant I could learn an instrument, which wouldn’t have been possible in the West,” he shared. “It was one of the few good things about that system.” From scholarship student to West End performer Music became Cotarcea’s pathway to opportunities he wouldn’t otherwise have had. By 14, he was already competing internationally and had earned a scholarship to Chetham’s School of Music in Manchester, one of the UK’s most prestigious boarding schools for young musicians. He later continued his training at the Royal Academy of Music and quickly entered the professional world. He recalls: “By 18, I was playing in the West End production of Sweeney Todd and met Stephen Sondheim. I was performing with professionals much older than me, and I realised I’d been lucky — right place, right time. It made me think about what came next.” A failed peppermint farm — and a pivot After his first year in the West End, Cotarcea had saved about £10,000, “which felt like a lot of money at the time”. At 19, he invested in a peppermint farm in Romania. The logic was that he could keep studying in London while this grew in the background. After a year, Cotarcea planned to apply for grants and build an essential oil processing facility. However, he revealed, “the crop turned out to be toxic. It didn’t contain menthol, but it contained a chemical illegal in the EU. The lab told me I had to burn it. So I literally burned the entire field. That was my first venture.” This failure convinced him to build something in a field he understood: music education. Cotarcea now runs one of the largest music schools in London, with operations in the UK and New York. It aims to change how music is taught. The school’s audience is children aged 5–14.  The problems with traditional music teaching The fundamental problem is that music education is still very traditional, kids don’t practise enough, and there’s almost no data on what actually works. “If they don’t practice, they don’t improve. If they don’t improve, parents stop paying for lessons. Fix practice, and you fix the entire system,” asserts Cotarcea. Cotarcea describes music education as deeply traditional. “Teachers tend to teach the way they themselves were taught — often following methods passed down for generations. There’s real pride in lineage: my teacher taught me this method. Kids who enjoy their lessons often stay for years. Piano dominates the beginner market, accounting for roughly two-thirds of new students.” However, music teaching has largely failed to adapt to a more digital-first world and fails to reflect how children today learn. Why audio AI is harder than text AI Put simply: audio isn’t discrete like text — it’s a moving, layered signal, and teaching machines to understand it is closer to decoding a performance than reading a sentence. According to Cotarcea, Audio AI is lags behind text and image AI. “There are very few mature tools for music understanding. Most of what we built is based on research and custom development. The big challenge is interpreting imperfect human performance. If a child plays slightly out of time or tune, humans recognise it instantly. Machines don’t.” 'A big challenge is interpreting imperfect human performance. If a child plays a snippet of music, humans can recognise it — and its mistakes — instantly. Machines don’t.' MuseCool’s approach is different. Teachers press “start” at the beginning of a lesson and “finish” at the end. “We listen to the lesson, understand what happened musically, and automatically generate practice games and analytics. This empowers teachers to better understand the individual needs of each student and plan accordingly,” shared Cotarcea. Gamifying music education MuseCool’s flagship product is The Muse, an AI-powered practice assistant that supports music students between lessons by turning what was taught into guided, motivating home practice. It uses lesson data to generate short, personalised practice sessions that feel more like games than repetitive drills, helping children practise more consistently and with better focus. Parents receive practice analytics and simple progress updates, while tutors can seamlessly integrate the tool into lessons, keeping practice aligned with what was taught and boosting continuity week to week. Early software testing revealed a surprising reality — beginner lessons contain less playing than you’d expect. There’s a lot of conversation, encouragement, and attention management, especially with young kids. “Historically, no one has had large-scale data about what happens inside music lessons. If we scale, we could reshape music education research simply by providing real data,” asserts Cotarcea. A future built on data and scale Looking ahead, Cotarcea sees MuseCool evolving on two fronts: a global practice platform and a data-driven marketplace. “There are two layers,” he explains. “First, a global platform where tutors can use our platform for free while parents subscribe. The goal is simple: kids practise better, and lessons become more effective.”  The second plan is a teacher marketplace. As tutors adopt the platform worldwide, the school can match families with teachers using real performance data, creating smarter connections than traditional directories. The company is already testing the model at its large London music school, which serves as a live ecosystem for product development before a public launch in March and a wider international rollout.

The Tech.eu Summit London 2026 is set to take place on 21-22 April at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre, bringing together leaders from the global startup and investment ecosystem. Over two days, the event will host in-depth discussions, high-level networking opportunities and collaborative sessions, placing London once again at the centre of Europe’s technology landscape. There are only a few days left to secure Early Bird tickets for the Tech.eu Summit London 2026. This discounted ticket tier is approaching its deadline, after which pricing will move to the next phase. Ticket pricing will be updated on 11 February 2026 Ticket pricing for the Tech.eu Summit London 2026 will be updated on 11 February 2026. The Early Bird tickets' new price is £450 + VAT. Planning to attend with colleagues or friends? A 10% group discount applies for groups of three or more tickets, with Early Bird (3+ people) tickets priced at £405 + VAT per person. The Tech.eu Summit London 2026 will bring together founders, investors, executives and policymakers from across Europe and beyond. The programme will feature keynote sessions, panel discussions and curated networking opportunities focused on topics such as artificial intelligence, fintech, SaaS, sustainability and emerging technologies. Attendees can also download the Tech.eu Events app via the App Store and Google Play to start connecting ahead of the summit. The app enables participants to browse attendee profiles, arrange meetings, explore the full agenda and manage their schedule in advance. It will also be used for fast and easy on-site access through QR code check-in. Get your tickets today! Secure your ticket for the Tech.eu Summit London 2026 and take advantage of the current Early Bird pricing before it ends on 11 February. Join us at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre on 21-22 April for two days of insight, networking and collaboration with some of the most influential voices in technology and investment. We look forward to welcoming you in London.

Last week, we tracked more than 70 tech funding deals worth over €1.4 billion, and 5 exits, M&A transactions, rumours, and related news stories across Europe.Click to read the rest of the news.

Dcycle, a sustainability data management platform, has acquired ESG-X, a software company specialising in AI-enabled sustainability reporting. The acquisition supports Dcycle’s European expansion and reflects increasing consolidation in the ESG software market. The transaction comes as European companies face expanding sustainability reporting obligations, with CSRD-aligned disclosures beginning across the EU, UK companies preparing for upcoming Sustainability Reporting Standards, and assurance requirements placing greater emphasis on data quality, traceability and governance. Together, these developments are driving demand for integrated sustainability data infrastructure rather than standalone reporting tools. ESG-X has developed proprietary AI models that automate materiality assessments and map existing company data to ESG requirements. Its infrastructure, hosted in certified German data centres, is designed to meet the data residency requirements of enterprises in the DACH region. The integration enhances Dcycle’s platform across several areas, including image recognition for fuel and energy consumption, AI-based double materiality assessments aligned with CSRD requirements, EcoVadis rating optimisation for industrial mid-market companies, automated ESRS reporting using technology compliant with the European AI Act, and local data residency capabilities. Commenting on the acquisition, Juanjo Mestre, CEO and co-founder of Dcycle, said the European ESG software market is entering a consolidation phase, as fragmented point solutions no longer fully address companies’ needs. He added that Dcycle’s strategy focuses on integrated platforms that enable organisations to maintain greater control over their sustainability data, and that the acquisition supports the company’s product development objectives. ESG-X was co-founded by Paolo Mazza, Valentin Aman, and Jean Bauer, with a focus on building scalable and rigorous ESG data management solutions. All three founders will join Dcycle’s team, contributing their expertise and local market knowledge to support the company’s expansion in the DACH region. Mazza added that joining Dcycle would allow ESG-X’s technology to reach a broader market by becoming part of a platform with the scale and operational maturity to advance ESG data management across Europe.

This week, we tracked more than 70 tech funding deals worth over €1.4 billion and 5 exits, M&A transactions, rumours, and related news stories across Europe. Alongside the week’s top funding rounds, we’ve highlighted the most important industry stories, including the release of our ? January monthly report covering key investment trends, notable company activity and emerging sectors, as well as the announcement of ? new speakers for the ?? Tech.eu Summit London 2026, taking place on 21–22 April at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre in London. 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 ??  ElevenLabs raises $500M, says building towards IPO ??  Polestar nabs $400M from banks to fuel EV fightback ??  newcleo raises $85M in financing ??‍?? Noteworthy acquisitions and mergers ?? Spotify-backed Soundtrack acquires Tunify and Ambie to build local power with global scale ??  UK2 Group acquired by Your.Online ?? TNS completes acquisition of BT Radianz ? Interesting moves from investors ? Constructor Capital closes $110M Fund I for science-first founders ? Mundi Ventures closes on €750M for Kembara, its largest deep tech and climate fund ? French climate investor SlateVC raises €132 million in its first close for its inaugural growth fund ? €1B fund AshGrove opens Copenhagen hub for €5-30M ARR Nordic software bets ?️ In other (important) news ? Cloover’s billion-dollar round headlines a fintech-heavy month led by Germany ? Menotracker wants to fix menopause symptom tracking — without selling user data ? From big rounds to broad momentum: the UK tech ecosystem ?? Kinnevik slashes valuation of stake in Swedish green startup Stegra ? Recommended reads and listens ⚡01C launches Amara to generate full 3D worlds from simple prompts ? From blood tests to orbital labs: Europe’s next generation of cancer tech ? Invest Europe and EIF report: How gender and geography shape Europe’s VC ecosystem ?? Estonia launches Defence Business Lab for startups ? January 2026's top 10 European tech deals you need to know about ? European tech startups to watch  ?? Berget AI lands €2.1M as demand grows for sovereign AI in Europe ?? Valeria lands $2M to fix payroll for the frontline economy ?? AI running analysis platform Runeasi raises €1M for global growth ?? TaxNova gets $1M backing from a16z’s accelerator and Revolut and Miro operators

Finnish sustainable technology company Capalo AI has completed an €11 million Series A funding round to support the expansion of its AI-powered virtual power plant across Europe and to scale the optimisation and trading of battery energy storage systems. The round was led by Heartcore Capital, with participation from Tesi (Finnish Industry Investment), existing investors VentureFriends, PROfounders, Inventure, and Innovestor, as well as several family offices. Founded in 2022 by Henri Taskinen, Riku Kukkonen, Teemu Lappalainen, and Eerik Jauhiainen, Capalo AI develops software that maximises the value of battery energy storage systems across electricity markets. The company combines high-quality forecasting data with AI-based models to optimise the trading and operation of energy storage assets. The rising share of weather-dependent energy sources such as wind and solar, together with increasing electricity demand from data centres and electric vehicles, is contributing to greater grid volatility and higher system costs. To address these challenges, Capalo AI aggregates large-scale battery assets and renewable energy production from multiple sites into a single virtual power plant, enabling real-time optimisation and trading across electricity markets while supporting grid balance and asset performance. According to Henri Taskinen, Co-founder and CEO of Capalo AI, the global transition to clean energy continues to accelerate, with solar power playing a central role, while electricity systems face growing pressure to integrate new capacity and maintain reliability. Infrastructure alone cannot solve this challenge, intelligence is essential. Intelligently orchestrated battery storage is now critical to accelerating the renewable energy ramp-up and building a pathway toward a truly sustainable energy system, Taskinen said. Following the funding round, Capalo AI plans to expand its international operations and further scale the optimisation and trading of battery energy storage systems, including both stand-alone assets and those co-located with wind or solar generation. The company is currently active in Finland, Sweden, Latvia, and Lithuania, and plans to enter additional European markets in 2026 while continuing to grow its client base.

In 2025, the UK led European tech investment by a wide margin, raising €21.5 billion across 830 deals and topping investment volumes in every quarter of the year. Funding was driven by a small number of very large transactions alongside a broad base of mid-sized and early-stage activity. The largest round was CityFibre’s €2.6 billion debt financing, followed by significant raises from Propel Finance (€1.7 billion), Nscale (two rounds of €937 million and $433 million), and Isomorphic Labs (€555 million), reflecting sustained investor interest in digital infrastructure, fintech, cloud services, and life sciences. Beyond these large transactions, investment was spread across a wide range of sectors. Fintech remained among the most active categories, while AI and data-driven companies continued to highlight the UK’s strength in applied artificial intelligence. Healthcare and biotechnology also attracted notable levels of funding. Overall, the UK’s 2025 funding landscape combined infrastructure-scale investment with high deal activity across growth and early-stage companies, reinforcing its position as one of Europe’s most diverse and liquid technology ecosystems (for more detailed analyses of the European technology ecosystem, check out Tech.eu’s annual report: European Tech 2025 –The Big Picture). Here are the 10 companies that raised the most in 2025. Amount raised in 2025: £2.3B As we already mentioned, CityFibre, a leading provider of full-fibre broadband infrastructure in the UK, secured £2.3 billion in financing to support the ongoing expansion of its gigabit-capable fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) network. The company will use the funding to support new residential and business connections, as well as potential acquisitions of additional fibre network assets. Amount raised in 2025: £1.5B Propel Finance offers asset, vehicle, embedded, and green finance solutions that enable businesses to access essential equipment and technology through a combination of digital tools and personalised service. The company has raised £1.5 billion to expand its lending capacity and support continued growth in SME financing. Amount raised in 2025: $1.53B Nscale builds and operates AI infrastructure, providing GPU-powered cloud and data centre solutions for training, fine-tuning, and deploying AI workloads. The company has raised approximately $1.53 billion across two funding rounds ($1.1 billion in late September and a further $433 million in early October) to expand data centre capacity and support global infrastructure growth. Amount raised in 2025: £500M Capital on Tap offers flexible credit solutions for small and medium-sized businesses, including business credit cards and financing products, to support cash-flow management and access to working capital. The company secured a £500 million funding package through its third asset-backed securitisation, backed by receivables from its business credit card portfolio. Amount raised in 2025: $600M Isomorphic Labs applies artificial intelligence to drug discovery and life sciences research, developing platforms designed to improve the identification and design of therapeutic candidates. Isomorphic Labs raised $600 million in its first external funding round to advance its AI drug design platform and support the progression of internal programmes toward clinical development. Amount raised in 2025: £400M Ferovinum provides financing solutions for the wine and spirits industry, offering credit and funding options to support business growth and cash-flow management. In 2025, Ferovinum secured a £400 million asset-backed securitisation facility to expand its services beyond the UK, with planned entry into the US, the EU, and Australia. Amount raised in 2025: $411M Verdiva Bio is a company that develops next-generation therapies for obesity and cardiometabolic disorders using innovative, patient-friendly treatment approaches. Verdiva Bio raised $411 million in a Series A round to develop next-generation oral and injectable treatments for obesity, leveraging recent advances in gut–brain biology to create new therapeutic options. Amount raised in 2025: £300M Believ is a UK-based electric vehicle charging network provider building and operating publicly accessible, renewable-energy EV charge points to support the transition to sustainable transport. Believ secured a £300 million investment facility in 2025 to install at least 30,000 charge points, expanding access to public electric vehicle charging across the UK. Amount raised in 2025: £300M Carmoola is a UK-based financial technology company offering digital car finance solutions through its mobile app, enabling customers to secure and manage hire purchase and personal contract purchase loans for used vehicles. Carmoola secured a £300 million private asset-backed securities (ABS) facility to expand its car finance offering. Amount raised in 2025: £300M Wagestream is a financial technology company that provides employees with access to earned wages, savings tools, and financial wellbeing services through a mobile platform. In 2025, Wagestream secured £300 million in debt financing to expand its alternative to high-interest loans.

Croatian-founded Daytona has raised a $24M Series A to build infrastructure designed for large-scale agent workloads. The round was led by FirstMark Capital, with Matt Turck joining the board. Additional participation came from Pace Capital, Upfront Ventures, Darkmode, and E2VC, along with strategic investments from Datadog and Figma Ventures. The round also includes a group of angel investors, including Gorkem Yurtseven (Co-founder of Fal), Theo Browne (Founder of T3 Chat), Eno Reyes (Co-founder of Factory.ai), Nikita Shamgunov (Founder of Neon), and others. Every knowledge worker relies on a computer. As software agents take on more work, they will require computing resources at a much greater scale, potentially spanning millions of concurrent environments. Most cloud infrastructure today is optimised for production workloads - stateless, immutable, and designed for consistent execution. While effective for serving software, this model is less suited to development and experimentation, which depend on flexible, stateful environments. Agents have similar needs but operate at far higher speed and scale, requiring environments that can launch in milliseconds, branch into parallel executions, support snapshots, and scale across large numbers of concurrent instances. Daytona addresses these needs by introducing sandboxes as a core infrastructure primitive. A sandbox is a programmatic, composable computing environment in which CPU, memory, storage, GPU, networking, and the operating system can be provisioned on demand. These environments can be started, paused, forked, snapshotted, or terminated at any point during execution. Founded in 2023 by Ivan Burazin (CEO), Vedran Jukić (CTO), and Goran Draganić (Chief Architect), Daytona focuses on providing programmable, sandboxed compute that allows agents to run code, explore alternative execution paths, and persist state at scale. Using Daytona, an agent can launch a sandbox, run for extended periods, reach decision points, and fork into parallel branches to evaluate alternative approaches. Promising branches can be snapshotted, while others are discarded. State persists across failures, and execution paths can be cloned, resumed, or merged. Workloads may run for minutes or for days. This model reflects a broader shift from cloud primitives designed around human workflows to infrastructure optimised for agents. Daytona focuses on making dedicated computing environments for agents practical through rapid startup, persistent state, and integrated tooling for activities such as writing code, using version control systems, and executing workloads securely at scale. Following the Series A, Daytona plans to expand beyond sandboxes to support a broader set of agent-native infrastructure. The company will scale its systems for higher volumes of concurrent agent workloads, deepen integrations with developer and agent tooling, and continue improving reliability, security, and performance. Daytona also plans to grow its team to support product development and customer adoption.

London-based Bound, an automated FX risk management platform, has closed a $24.5 million Series A funding round led by AlbionVC, with participation from Notion Capital and GoHub Ventures, alongside continued support from existing investors. The funding comes amid heightened geopolitical instability, trade uncertainty, and policy-driven volatility in global currency markets, which have increased the financial risks faced by internationally operating businesses. Sudden exchange-rate movements can materially affect revenues, margins, and cash flow, while many legacy FX systems and traditional brokerages struggle to respond effectively to these rapid shifts. For UK and European companies, a single political announcement or policy change can significantly alter costs or reduce the real value of sales, potentially turning profitable contracts into loss-making ones. Businesses with global exposure, including fashion companies with international supply chains, venture capital firms investing across regions, and production companies operating in multiple locations, are particularly exposed to these currency risks. Founded in 2021 by Seth Phillips (CEO) and Dan Kindler (CTO), Bound provides automated FX hedging solutions designed to help businesses manage currency risk. Its platform enables finance teams to implement best-practice hedging strategies that operate continuously in the background, reducing exposure to market volatility without the need for manual intervention or specialist trading expertise. Seth Phillips, co-founder and CEO of Bound, said the global environment remains highly unstable, with elevated currency volatility increasingly affecting businesses. He noted that even well-performing companies can see margins impacted by sudden exchange-rate swings triggered by minor events. We believe all businesses can be protected against this risk. Managing FX has traditionally been complex, time-consuming, and intimidating. Our goal is to make it simple, so companies can protect themselves from currency risk without becoming FX experts. We will use this funding to expand that mission across Europe, Phillips said. Bound will use the new funding to pursue regulatory authorisation in the European Union as it expands its European presence, building on nearly $2 billion in trading volume in 2025. The capital will also support continued product development, including further innovation of its perpetual FX hedging solutions.

A UK-founded legaltech startup looking to democratise legal services for consumers has raised $60 million in funding, with the funds geared towards speeding up its US expansion. The Series B funding round in Lawhive was led by Mitch Rales, co-founder of conglomerate Danaher Corporation, with participation from TQ Ventures, Google’s investment arm GV, Balderton Capital and Jigsaw. The investment comes within a year of Lawhive's $40 million Series A funding round. Lawhive is targeting the consumer legal market, resolving everyday issues such as family law, landlord/tenant disputes and employment law, which it says are slow and cumbersome to resolve. Lawhive has developed its own AI operating system, which is used by lawyers, which it says reduces the time, cost and administrative burden associated with these everyday legal matters. Startups competing in this area include the likes of Robin AI, Legora and Harvey, though they have differing business models.   After initially launching in the UK, Lawhive launched in the US last year and now operates in 35 US states, with an office in Austin and one soon to open in New York.   Pierre Proner, CEO and co-founder of Lawhive, said: "Everyday legal matters remain costly and unpredictable for millions of people, while lawyers are held back by manual processes that limit their efficiency and scale of their legal practices. "AI is finally making it possible to achieve a breakthrough in delivering consumer legal services with the speed and consistency people expect.    "The reaction from lawyers and clients in the US has been exceptionally strong and this funding allows us to build on US momentum and scale our model.”

Following our previous announcements, we are delighted to reveal newly confirmed speakers for the Tech.eu Summit London 2026. The event will take place on 21-22 April 2026 at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre in London, bringing together senior leaders, founders and investors who are actively shaping the future of technology across Europe and beyond. This newly announced group of speakers further strengthens the summit’s focus on practical, real-world innovation, with voices representing global AI leaders, fast-scaling startups and some of Europe’s most active venture capital firms - including executives from OpenAI, AltaIR Capital, Oxa and a wide range of other technology-driven organisations. Newly announced speakers Crijn Bouman – Rocsys / CEO & Co-founder Danae Shell – Valla / Founder & CEO Gavin Jackson – Oxa / CEO Igor Ryabenkiy – AltaIR Capital / Founder & Managing Partner Jack Miller – Nettle / CEO Julien-David Nitlech – IRIS / Managing Partner Kamil Mieczakowski – Notion Capital / Partner Larsen Mabika – Maiven / CEO & Co-founder Laura Modiano – OpenAI / Head of Startups EMEA Luca Cartechini – Shop Circle / Co-founder & CEO Nikola Mrksic – PolyAI / CEO & Co-founder Pascual Cortes-Monroy – Northzone / Principal Sean Blanchfield – Jentic / Co-founder & CEO Here are the speakers we have previously announced for the Tech.eu Summit London 2026. What to expect at the summit The two-day summit will dive deep into the trends and innovations driving global change across business, society and technology.Key themes for the 2026 edition include artificial intelligence, fintech, climate tech, deeptech and other rapidly evolving sectors that are redefining how companies are built, funded and scaled. Across keynote sessions, panels and in-depth discussions, attendees will hear directly from leading investors, startup founders and technology executives about how they are navigating today’s market realities - from the deployment of advanced AI systems and autonomous technologies, to sustainability-driven business models and the next generation of financial infrastructure. The programme is designed to go beyond high-level vision and focus on execution: how companies grow internationally, how capital is deployed in more selective markets, and how Europe can remain competitive in an increasingly global and geopolitically complex tech landscape. Get your ticket Early Bird tickets are now available for a limited time. Secure your place and be part of one of Europe’s leading gatherings for founders, investors, operators and ecosystem leaders. Start networking before the summit All attendees will receive access to the Tech.eu Events App, allowing you to start networking ahead of the summit, schedule meetings in advance, browse the agenda once it is published and receive real-time event updates. More updates coming soon Additional speakers and the full programme agenda will be announced in the coming weeks as we continue to build a strong and diverse speaker lineup for the Tech.eu Summit London 2026. We look forward to welcoming you in London this April for two days of insight, inspiration, and meaningful connections.

The Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC) will host two prominent exhibitions from 13-16 April 2026 — InnoEX and Electronics Fair (Spring Edition) at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, presenting global innovation and technology (I&T) achievements, latest electronics products and advanced technology solutions. Industry professionals, investors, buyers, and technology users from different sectors, including SMEs are encouraged to attend the fairs. In 2025, the two fairs successfully brought together more than 2,800 exhibitors from 29 countries and regions, and attracted around 88,000 industry buyers from 148 countries and regions. InnoEX is a core event of the Business of Innovation and Technology Week, driven by the Innovation, Technology and Industry Bureau of the HKSAR Government and the HKTDC, showcasing cutting-edge technologies and global innovations. Under the theme of “Innovate • Automate • Elevate”, InnoEX 2026 will spotlight five dynamic areas: AI+, Robotics, Low-altitude Economy (such as unmanned aerial vehicle and electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft), Property Technology, and Retail Technology. Last year, the fair successfully helped buyers and exhibitors establish important partnerships. Philippine buyer Digital Pilipinas and International Digital Economies Association signed a distribution agreement with the United Kingdom’s exhibitor Unifi.id to introduce its smart card system for buildings to the Philippines, with hopes of expanding into other emerging markets in the future. Xi’an Meinan Biotechnology Co. Ltd also signed a strategic cooperation agreement with H & Y Building Decoration Electrical Engineering (HK), aiming to enhance the quality of construction projects in Hong Kong and internationally by utilising Meinan’s waterproof mortar technology, promoting sustainable development. Entering its 22nd edition, the Electronics Fair (Spring Edition)continues to connect international exhibitors with buyers worldwide, displaying groundbreaking electronics products and solutions aligned with evolving tech trends. The 2026 fair will spotlight on products and solutions in the sectors of Smart Home & Solutions, Health Tech & Gadgets and Pet Intelligence. The fair will host over 20 product zones, including the Hall of Fame that will feature more than 500 global renowned electronics brands and their creation; the Tech Hall will showcase next-generation electronics and modern lifestyle solutions; the Immersive Experience Zone willoffer visitors hands-on experiences with wearable technology and interactive games;and the Start Up Zone will highlight the latest innovations and creative ideas from entrepreneurs. Other thematic product zones will cover categories such as Energy Storage & E-mobility, Home Appliances, Audio-Visual Products, Computing & Gaming, Automotive & In-Vehicle Electronics, and more. Shenzhen Antop Technology Co. from Chinese Mainland, exhibitor of last year’s Electronics Fair stated, “We have made contact with many potential buyers from India and South America at the exhibition, and in the first two days, we received about 50 potential leads, with at least one third showing significant collaboration potential."  The company was also discussing a contract for an order valued at approximately USD2.5 million. Additionally, Hong Kong medical technology exhibitor CYBERMED, discussed business deals with two buyers from Mainland China and the Middle East, with each order valued at approximately USD200,000. The two fairs will also introduce the RoboPark, unveiling robots’ potential and innovations through immersive scenario-based demonstrations and live robotics performances. From humanoids and robotic arms to quadrupeds and autonomous mobile robots, visitors can explore how robotics is reshaping business, daily life, healthcare, and industries today. During the fair period, forums, presentations, and other events will be held, inviting experts to share insights and provide valuable networking opportunities for industry professionals. Additionally, start-ups will have excellent platforms to promote innovative ideas, seek support from investors, and gain advice from experts on business development. The fairs will be held in EXHIBITION+ hybrid model, complemented by the "Click2Match", an online smart business matching platform that will operate from 6 to 23 April, providing a convenient and efficient platform for traders to connect. In addition, the "Scan2Match" function also enables offline-to-online connections. By using the HKTDC Marketplace App, buyers can scan the dedicated QR codes of exhibitors to bookmark their favorite exhibitors, browse product information, view e-floor plans, and chat with exhibitors even after the fair to continue the sourcing journey. Register Now for Free Admission: https://tinyurl.com/r9h48j65 For more details, please visit our fair website:InnoEX: https://www.hktdc.com/event/innoex/en HKTDC Hong Kong Electronics Fair (Spring Edition): https://www.hktdc.com/event/hkelectronicsfairse/en 13 – 16 April 2026               Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre 6 – 23 April 2026                Click2Match (Online) Follow us on social media for the latest updates: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HKTDC.Exhibition Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hktdclifestyle/

Invest Europe, in collaboration with the European Investment Fund (EIF), has published a new report titled TheVC Factor: Skills Edition. The report analyses Europe’s venture capital landscape, with a focus on cross-border startup funding and the influence of education and gender on funding outcomes and startup development. Beyond mapping current investment volumes, the Skills Edition draws conclusions with implications for investors, founders, and policymakers. The findings suggest that VC hubs which foster strong local connections are also more likely to attract investment from outside their immediate regions, potentially serving as a strategic reference point for both startups and ecosystem builders. The analysis shows that European venture capital activity is organised around “clans” of VC hubs - interconnected but regionally defined networks that include Benelux, the British Isles, Central and Eastern Europe (including Greece), DACH, France, the Iberian Peninsula, Italy/Malta, and the Nordics/Baltics. While the data highlights growing integration across the European VC ecosystem, national and regional investment patterns remain clearly visible. VC flows across Europe also exhibit signs of “preferential attachment”, whereby well-connected hubs tend to attract a growing share of capital over time: In 2021, 43% of venture capital investment crossed clan boundaries, up from 23% in 2007 The British Isles emerged as the most connected region, acting as the preferred investment partner for five of the eight clans By contrast, the Iberian Peninsula and Italy/Malta recorded the highest levels of intra-regional investment, with 88% and 87% of VC capital, respectively, remaining within their regions. Eric de Montgolfier, CEO of Invest Europe, commented: The larger and more developed the European VC ecosystem becomes, the more we learn about how it operates. This joint research with the EIF offers a deeper understanding of the sector’s structure and diversity – and highlights the need to unlock opportunities for talent regardless of gender or geography. A more inclusive and interconnected VC landscape will better serve entrepreneurs, investors, and society. Education and gender: Women founders are highly qualified, but receive less funding The report emphasises that the European venture capital ecosystem is shaped not only by capital flows and geographic hubs, but also by the skills, experience, and backgrounds of the individuals involved - namely, entrepreneurs and investors. Against this backdrop, it examines funding dynamics through the lenses of education and gender. While educational background alone does not determine access to venture capital, university prestige is shown to influence funding size: Alumni of the top 50 universities represent 10.7% of founders but receive 15.7% of total venture capital funding, making prestige the only education-related factor that consistently correlates with larger investment volumes. The report also notes rising female participation among younger generations of founders, indicating gradual progress towards a more diverse entrepreneurial landscape in which skills, talent, and ambition may play an increasingly important role in funding decisions. Source: Invest Europe and EIF report "The VC Factor: Skills Edition" At the same time, the analysis indicates that startups founded by women face structural challenges, including smaller founding teams and later access to initial funding. These factors explain only part of the observed investment gap. Startups with predominantly female founding teams receive, on average, €700,000 less per investment than those led mainly by male founders, despite women founders tending to have higher educational attainment and greater representation among graduates of highly ranked universities. The remaining gap appears to be associated with factors that consistently advantage predominantly male teams, pointing to persistent imbalances in how opportunity and capital are distributed across the ecosystem.

European tech startups raised €5 billion across 265 deals in January 2026, marking a 9 per cent drop in deal volume and a 24 per cent decline in funding compared with the same month year before. Regionally, Germany stood out, with startups raising €1.8 billion, reinforcing the country’s growing share of European funding despite the broader slowdown. Sector activity remained fragmented, with fintech attracting €1.5 billion during the month. Ion Hauer, Principal at APEX Ventures, commented on the January numbers within the European tech investment landscape in our January Tech.eu Pulse, a compact version of the monthly report: As a deep-tech investor, I see this shift from generalist growth to specialised hardware and sovereign AI as the defining trend of this decade. We are no longer just funding software, but supporting the fundamental technologies that secure Europe’s strategic autonomy and industrial resilience. At APEX Ventures, we predict a wave of consolidation as legacy industries acquire niche AI specialists to protect their infrastructure. In the coming years, the most successful companies will be those addressing core industrial productivity and decarbonization by using energy-efficient, scalable technologies. 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 January report. Here are the 10 largest tech deals in Europe from January, accounting for 52 per cent of the month’s total funding. Amount raised: $1.22B Cloover is a Berlin-based climate technology and fintech company building a software platform to support the adoption of renewable energy. Its platform integrates tools for financing, workflow management, procurement and energy optimisation to help installers, manufacturers, energy providers and end customers participate in the energy transition and access decentralised clean energy solutions. By simplifying operations for installers and improving access to capital, Cloover aims to expand the use of solar, battery, heat pump and other renewable technologies across households and businesses. Cloover has completed a $22 million Series A equity round and secured a $1.2 billion debt facility, bringing total capital commitments to $1.22 billion. Amount raised: $350M Parloa is a global AI technology company that develops an enterprise-grade AI agent management platform for customer service and conversational automation. Its cloud-based platform enables organisations to design, deploy, and scale AI agents that handle customer interactions across voice and digital channels while maintaining security and compliance. Parloa’s technology is used to automate and enhance customer service experiences by processing high volumes of natural language conversations, improving engagement and operational efficiency for large brands. Parloa raised $350 million in a Series D funding round, vaulting its valuation threefold to $3 billion in seven months. Amount raised: $300M Mews is a cloud-native hospitality technology company that provides a property management platform for hotels, hostels, and serviced accommodation providers. The platform automates key operational tasks, such as reservations, billing, payments, and guest services, and integrates with third-party tools to support revenue management, inventory, and guest experience workflows. Mews aims to streamline hotel operations and improve efficiency for hospitality businesses around the world. Mews raised $300 million to scale its AI-driven hospitality platform, expand fintech capabilities, and support growth across North America, Europe, and additional markets. Amount raised: €200M Oviva is a digital health company that provides personalised, technology-enabled support for people with weight-related and metabolic conditions. The company combines individual coaching with a digital app to help users improve eating habits, manage conditions such as obesity and type 2 diabetes, and adopt sustainable lifestyle changes. Oviva partners with healthcare systems and insurers in markets including the UK, Germany and Switzerland, using remote care tools to increase access, engagement and long-term health outcomes. Oviva raised €200 million to bring AI obesity care to more European health systems. Amount raised: €192M Terralayr is a technology company that provides an AI-powered data platform designed to centralise, normalise, and analyse data for businesses. The platform enables organisations to connect disparate data sources, automate analytics workflows, and generate insights to support decision-making and performance optimisation. Terralayr’s tools are intended to help companies improve efficiency by delivering reliable, scalable data infrastructure and analysis capabilities. Terralayr secured €192 million to further grow its grid-scale battery storage portfolio. Amount raised: $200M Harmattan AI is a defence technology company developing AI-powered autonomous systems and mission software for military and security applications. The company’s platforms include unmanned aerial systems, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) tools, electronic-warfare products, and command-and-control solutions designed to operate in complex environments. Founded in 2024, Harmattan AI aims to support armed forces and allied partners with scalable autonomous capabilities that enhance operational readiness and effectiveness. Harmattan AI completed a $200 million funding round, valuing the company at $1.4 billion. Amount raised: $200M Pennylane is a financial operations platform that combines accounting, analytics, and workflow tools to help businesses manage their finances. The platform integrates bookkeeping, invoicing, reporting, and real-time data insights, enabling companies and their accountants to collaborate more efficiently and make informed decisions. Pennylane aims to simplify financial processes for small and medium-sized enterprises by centralising financial data and automating routine tasks. Pennylane raised $200 million to increase investment in R&D, including refining its product for the German market and enhancing its payments and cash management capabilities. Amount raised: $150M Preply is an online learning platform that connects students with tutors for personalised language and academic instruction. The platform allows learners to find and book lessons with qualified tutors from around the world, offering real-time sessions through integrated video and messaging tools. Preply covers a range of subjects, including language learning, professional skills, and test preparation, and uses data-driven matching to help students find tutors aligned with their goals and preferences. The service is designed to support flexible, one-on-one learning that adapts to individual needs. Preply secured $150 million in funding at a $1.2 billion valuation to support its next phase of growth. Amount raised: €110M D-Orbit is a space logistics and orbital services company that develops technologies for satellite deployment, in-orbit transportation, and space operations. The company’s solutions include the ION Satellite Carrier, an orbital transfer vehicle that delivers satellites to precise orbits and supports hosted payloads. D-Orbit’s services aim to streamline satellite deployment and operations in space and support mission planning, control, and end-of-life activities as part of broader efforts to enhance space infrastructure. D-Orbit secured €110 million to support international expansion, increase industrial capacity, and advance its technology roadmap. Amount raised: €100M Alvotech is a company focused on the development and manufacture of biosimilar medicines to improve access to more affordable biologic treatments. The company uses a fully integrated approach, from research and development through manufacturing, to bring high-quality biosimilars to market for a range of therapeutic areas, with strategic partnerships that support global commercialisation efforts. Alvotech secured a €100 million senior term loan facility to strengthen liquidity and support the execution of its strategic priorities in 2026.

Danish tech luminaries, including leaders from Synthesia, Pleo and Flatpay, are backing Pluto.markets, a Danish YC-backed investment platform looking to disrupt the brokerage market in the Nordics, in a new funding round. Danish challenger neobroker Pluto.markets was founded in 2021 by Joakim Bruchmann, a former base metals trader at Goldman Sachs, and Oscar Vingtoft, a software engineer.   The $6m funding round, which Bruchmann says is a seed round, was led by Danish VC firm Seed Capital with participation from existing investors and Thomas Delaney, the Danish professional footballer.   The round also features a host of Danish unicorn founders.  These include Jeppe Rindom, Pleo co-founder, Sander Janca-Jensen and Rasmus Busk, Flatpay co-founders, Victor Riparbelli and Steffen Tjerrild, Synthesia co-founders, Andreas Sachse, Podimo co-founder, Alex Aghassipour, Zendesk co-founder, as well as Lars Fløe Nielsen and Michael Seifert, Sitecore co-founders.   This new funding brings the total capital raised to nearly $10m since the startup's inception in 2021.   Pluto.markets offers users commission-free trading in fractional stocks, ETFs, and cryptocurrencies.    The challenger is looking to replicate the success of the likes of Robinhood and Trade Republic across the Nordics.   The startup, which secured an EU-wide investment license before it started major fundraising, began onboarding its first customers 14 months ago. Bruchmann said the funds will be used to move into new markets and launch new products.   He said: "Our next move is to disrupt the ETF - for both individuals and businesses - and already this quarter, we will launch products that the European market hasn't seen before. "Securing support from nearly every Danish unicorn founder of the last decade is the ultimate seal of quality. They know what it takes to disrupt established industries at high speed. With their help, we are ready to make Pluto the preferred investment platform across Europe and reinvent asset management.”   The startup says it has more than 10,000 users in Denmark, its first market. Its focus is on the millions of Europeans living in countries that have their own local currencies, like the Nordics.

Healthtech startup Gardia has closed an €8.5 million Series A round to support the expansion of its mobile fall-detection emergency system for seniors. The round was led by European venture capital firm Peak, with participation from amberra, the corporate venture studio of Germany’s Cooperative Financial Group, and the butterfly & elephant accelerator by GS1 Germany. Existing business angels and investors BONVENTURE, Dieter von Holtzbrinck Ventures, and Beurer also reinvested. The funding comes as demographic change continues to reshape healthcare needs across Europe. The EU is home to around 97 million people aged 65 or older, a number expected to exceed 110 million by the mid-2030s. In Germany, where most seniors live independently in private households, the preference to age at home increasingly coincides with a shortage of care workers. This development has intensified demand for independent safety solutions. Millions of older adults in Germany experience falls each year, and in many cases are unable to call for help. Delayed assistance increases the risk of serious injury and long-term care dependency, placing additional strain on healthcare systems. Gardia has developed a mobile emergency system specifically designed for seniors. The solution centres on a discreet wristband with automatic fall detection that works both at home and on the go, without requiring a smartphone. Hardware, software, application, and AI are developed in-house and tailored to the needs of older users. Marlon Besuch, co-founder and CEO of Gardia, explained that reliable fall detection depends on highly advanced and precise technological development: At the same time, we see that many existing emergency systems are not used in everyday life because they are stigmatising or too complicated. Our goal was therefore to develop a technically excellent solution that people are happy to wear and that reliably provides help when it really matters. The company has a five-figure active user base across the DACH region, supported by strong retention and reimbursement through German health insurance. With the Series A funding, Gardia plans to scale further across the DACH region, expand internationally, and strengthen its B2B activities in the care and healthcare sectors.

R3 Robotics (formerly Circu Li-ion) has raised €20 million in combined financing to industrialise the automated disassembly of electric vehicle systems at scale. The company has raised €14 million in Series A funding, co-led by HG Ventures and Suma Capital, with participation from Oetker Collection, the European Innovation Council Fund (EIC Fund), and existing shareholders including BONVENTURE, FlixFounders, and EIT Urban Mobility, alongside €6 million in European grants. The funding coincides with the company's rebranding from Circu Li-ion to R3 Robotics and a clear expansion of scope: from battery disassembly to automated dismantling of complete electric vehicle systems, including e-drives, power electronics, and other high-value components. The long-term ambition is to enable fully automated disassembly across entire vehicle systems. Today, manual disassembly remains labour-intensive, costly, and difficult to scale safely. R3 Robotics addresses this challenge with a dismantling platform designed for repeatable, high-throughput operation in continuous industrial environments. It combines computer vision, AI, and specialised robotic tooling to automate the disassembly of lithium-ion battery packs, e-motors, power electronics, and other high-value electrified components. The system minimises human exposure to high-voltage hazards and delivers the cost structure and reliability required for industrial-scale operations.  European policy reinforces this shift. The Critical Raw Materials Act underscores the need to strengthen secure and resilient domestic supply chains for strategic materials. In parallel, the EU Battery Regulation introduces progressively stricter recycling-efficiency targets, including a 70 per cent target for lithium-based batteries by 2030, alongside material recovery and recycled-content requirements. Together with the End-of-Life Vehicles Directive, these frameworks are reshaping industrial recycling infrastructure. “The bottleneck isn’t recycling technology; it’s clean feedstock, meaning getting complex electrified systems safely and cost-effectively dismantled at an industrial scale,” said Antoine Welter, CEO and co-founder of R3 Robotics. “We’re building a dismantling platform that turns end-of-life systems into a strategic source of critical materials and reusable components for advanced industrial economies.”  The company is working with Fortum Battery Recycling, a major integrated battery recycler active across multiple stages of the European battery recycling value chain, to deploy its automated dismantling technology at industrial scale. It also works directly with automotive OEM customers, processing end-of-life battery systems through its centralized dismantling infrastructure to recover critical raw materials and support secure sourcing. “R3 Robotics is addressing a critical industrial bottleneck in the supply of strategic raw materials,” said John Glushik at HG Ventures. “Scalable dismantling infrastructure is essential to strengthen resilience and secure access to critical inputs.”  “R3 Robotics combines strong industrial execution with a scalable approach to dismantling complex electrified systems,” said Natalia Ruiz, Partner at Suma Capital. “This capability is critical to unlocking materials and components at scale.” To further strengthen its strategic development, R3 Robotics has added Peter Mohnen, former CEO of KUKA, to its advisory board.

Valeria, a Barcelona-based payroll and workforce operations startup, has raised $2 million in a funding round led by Venture Friends, with participation from Fortino Capital and 10k Ventures. Founded by Pau Laporte, Carlos Saiz, and Sergio Morales Bonet, Valeria is pioneering a payroll and workforce management platform designed specifically for industries where high turnover and operational complexity are the norm, including hospitality, retail, logistics, and services. These sectors face constant onboarding and offboarding, variable shifts, and complex compliance requirements — challenges legacy payroll tools were never designed to support. I spoke with CEO and co-founder Pau Laporte to learn more. From restaurant chaos to payroll rethink The founding team brings firsthand experience from companies such as Uber, Getir, and Glovo, where they repeatedly encountered payroll systems that could not keep pace with frontline operational realities. Before Valeria, Laporte spent almost 10 years in the tech industry, starting in restaurant tech and operations-heavy companies. He recalls: “Early in my career, I was leading operations in restaurants where there was very high turnover. I was managing around 150 riders at one point. Payroll was extremely complicated — tips, variable hours, bonuses — and sending all that information to the accountant was a nightmare. I also needed to onboard employees during the weekend, but the accountant wasn’t working.” The company was paying around €2,000 per month for a service that couldn’t respond to operational reality. Because of the delay, he couldn’t match supply and demand and was losing money. Later, he moved into larger operational roles in tech companies, at one stage managing operations involving up to 2,000 riders. “You can imagine the scale of the problems,” he recounts. “There were thousands of queries, labour compliance issues, no integrations, outdated processes, and recurring fines. The operations were chaotic.” His last experience before Valeria was at restaurant software company Haddock, where he led the sales team. According to Laporte: “It brought me back close to the restaurant industry, which is where the first version of Valeria came from. Initially, Valeria started as an accounting solution for restaurants. But very quickly we realised payroll was the bigger opportunity.” Why legacy payroll infrastructure is breaking Europe’s labour market is undergoing a structural transformation. The era of stable, long-term employment is increasingly giving way to a workforce defined by frequent job changes, flexible contracts, variable schedules, and continuous onboarding — particularly in service-heavy industries. Yet most payroll systems still operate as if headcount were static, built for monthly cycles, permanent contracts, and predictable workforces, leaving labour-intensive businesses stuck with outdated, unscalable infrastructure. Valeria was created to address this growing mismatch. Payroll scales well. Almost every company outsources payroll, while accounting is often kept in-house. Even large enterprises rely on payroll providers. With AI, the team saw that it was finally possible to build something new in this space. Building payroll for operational reality Unlike traditional payroll providers, Valeria is purpose-built for high-rotation workforces. The platform centralises payroll calculations, contract management, and compliance while integrating directly with operational and workforce systems, reducing manual processes and payroll errors. In less than a year since launch, Valeria is already used by more than 100 companies. On top of payslip management, the platform resolves 94 per cent of client queries, including contract and employee-related requests. Valeria launched in January 2025 and today has over 100 customers. It has raised €1.5 million in equity and €200,000 in public funding, for a total of €1.7 million, and now has 18 employees, mostly engineers and operators coming from global tech companies. “Valeria is tackling one of the most complex and overlooked problems in modern HR software, impacting millions of frontline workers across Europe that still use slow and traditional methods,” said Lily Joo from Venture Friends. “High-turnover companies have fundamentally different needs, and the team has shown impressive traction by focusing on operational payroll complexity rather than generic HR workflows.” Why payroll infrastructure is hard to modernise For Valeria, the biggest challenge has been integration with government systems. “Social security and labour institutions don’t move at startup speed,” Laporte said. “Most of them don’t have modern APIs, so you can’t simply plug in and exchange data smoothly. Government integration is slow, inefficient, and requires a lot of engineering work. AI has helped us automate processes that would have been impossible a few years ago. That’s one of the reasons this company can exist now and couldn’t exist in the same way before.” Another challenge is that many customers don’t have strong internal tech infrastructure. Traditional payroll software is difficult to implement and requires heavy training. Because Valeria’s platform is AI-native, onboarding and daily use are more intuitive, reducing friction for clients. Valeria is building its payroll engine from the ground up with international expansion in mind.   According to Laporte, without AI, creating a pan-European payroll platform at speed would be almost impossible. Most existing providers operate in a single country because their architecture isn’t designed for cross-border scaling. “By connecting AI directly to government systems and compliance logic, we can expand faster and build smoother integrations. That international capability is a core part of our strategy.” Building an AI-native payroll engine Valeria’s long-term goal is to create cross-border payroll infrastructure powered by AI. Valeria uses AI in two main ways. The first is automated onboarding. Employers can send a WhatsApp message directly through our platform and onboard an employee into the social security system in seconds.  “Previously, that process required back-and-forth emails and could take one or two days, even with a good accountant,” explained Laporte. The second is payroll execution.  “We’re building a system that automatically prepares and runs payroll by structuring all payroll data inside our platform. Once the information is standardised, it becomes much easier to expand internationally and support multiple countries.” Looking ahead, the company is focused on scaling its infrastructure. “Our focus now is building the infrastructure that lets us operate across multiple countries while keeping the product simple,” Laporte said. “Simplicity is critical for the type of companies we serve. They don’t want complexity — they want payroll that just works.” With the new capital, Valeria plans to grow its team, deepen automation across the product, and expand into additional markets where labour-intensive businesses face similar challenges.

The Gothenburg-based company Fintower has closed an oversubscribed €1.5 million seed round, attracting both new and existing investors. Participants include Chalmers Ventures, Akka, the Stena family through William Olsson, several entrepreneurs and angel investors, as well as existing investors Almi, Daniel Jonsson from Inet, and Alexander Hars. Founded by Salman Eskandari and Ehsan Yazdani, Fintower is a Swedish SaaS company developing an AI-powered financial planning and analysis platform. The company aims to modernise how organisations manage financial planning, an area that is still largely reliant on manual spreadsheets that can be slow, fragile, and difficult to update as conditions change. Fintower’s platform consolidates budgets, forecasts, reports, and operational data into a single system. By integrating with accounting, HR, CRM, and billing tools, it supports budgeting, forecasting, reporting, scenario planning, and cash flow analysis, enabling finance teams to build flexible financial models and make faster, data-driven decisions. Many financial systems are built around accounting charts, not the realities of the business. We have focused on products, sales, and personnel, connecting finance and operations in the same system, says Ehsan Yazdani, co-founder of Fintower. Since its initial funding round, Fintower has attracted customers across sectors including technology, finance, retail, and energy. These organisations typically operate in complex environments that require structured financial and operational management, often alongside external funding and clear growth objectives. The new capital will be used to further develop the product and support the company’s long-term growth.

Finnish-headquartered deeptech company Willo has raised a  €2.9 million Pre-Seed round to accelerate the development of its wireless power system.  While most wireless power systems depend on alignment or directionality, Willo has designed a system that keeps devices charging over the air even as they move and rotate.  From hackathon meeting to deeptech founders Willo was co-founded by Harri Santamala (CEO), Dr Nam Ha-Van (CTO), and Marko Voutilainen, who met at a hackathon as Voutilainen was leaving Slush. “At the time, it wasn’t clear that I’d end up building a company with them,” he recalls. “But it was immediately clear these were people I wanted to work with.” Voutilainen is effusive about his team, sharing:  “My CTO co-founder is one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. Not saying that because you’re recording — I genuinely believe he’s our generation’s Einstein. What I respect most is someone who is incredibly smart in a deep, vertical way and also kind. There’s no arrogance. No ‘I’m better than you.’” That early trust shaped the company's direction. The company’s core technology builds on more than a decade of wireless power research led by Ha-Van. After earning his PhD in South Korea, he returned as a postdoctoral researcher focused on wireless power transfer. Creating a world without cables Willo’s ambition is to create a world without cables — across consumer devices, industrial systems, manufacturing, drones, and virtually any electrically powered hardware. According to Harri Santamala, co-founder and CEO of Willo: “Wireless power is one of the last unsolved infrastructure layers in autonomy. Until power can be delivered without cables or manual charging, robots and devices will remain operationally constrained. Willo is working to remove that barrier, and this funding round lets us turn a breakthrough demonstration into a real engineering phase,”  Proving the science to industry acclaim The technology was first presented publicly at CES 2026, where the company’s system won CNET Group’s Best of CES 2026 Awards.  It’s a long-tail mission, admits Voutilainen.“It will take time. But the world clearly needs it.” So far, the demonstrations have been positive. Voutilainen admits that while the system isn’t optimised for distance yet, the team has proven the fundamentals: movement, rotation, and multiple devices charging at once. “We’re getting inbound from some of the biggest companies in the world. Many don’t even have use cases yet — they just want to understand the tech.“When executives see it, their jaws drop. The reaction is always: ‘How did you do this?’” Further, while others are researching the tech, no one has successfully transitioned it out of the lab. According to Voutilainen, Willo protects its technology through a combination of patents and tightly guarded trade secrets. “Patents are public — people can reverse engineer them to some degree. Trade secrets are like the Coca-Cola recipe. Only a handful of people know them, and they’re not written down digitally.” Each engineering breakthrough is added to what the company calls an “onion strategy”: a core layer of foundational patents surrounded by successive protective layers. “Every time we solve a new challenge, we patent it. Over time, you build layers around the core technology. It’s similar to how smartphones evolved — even swipe gestures became patent surfaces.” Turning constant charging into constant operation While the company has yet to announce commercial partnerships, Voutilainen admits that selecting an initial use case was challenging. “At first, yes. Everyone wanted something. When big companies start emailing your employees directly, it gets noisy.” The commercial model will vary by industry. “This technology is extremely horizontal,” Voutilainen explains. “Some markets will involve licensing, some hardware, some OEM integration. We won’t build our own phones — OEMs will embed receivers. Industrial verticals may be contract-based. We want to enable other companies, not hoard the tech.” He says the early flood of interest forced the founders to become disciplined about focus. “Founders have to separate signals from noise. Some companies just want to peek under the hood. Others have real problems we can solve — and you figure that out quickly once you start talking. Long-term success means discipline. You can’t chase shiny objects.” Turning downtime into continuous operation Not every company approaching Willo yet knows exactly how it would deploy the technology. “Some do. Some don’t,” says Voutilainen. “We believe every electrical device will eventually go wireless, but we can’t tackle all verticals at once. We’re focusing first on autonomous robotics.” Today’s robots are constrained by charging downtime. They must dock and pause work to recharge. Willo’s system is designed to eliminate that interruption. It could also shrink battery requirements. Many devices carry oversized batteries to survive off-grid conditions; wireless power effectively brings them back onto the grid. “That has sustainability implications — fewer minerals, smaller batteries.” Now, the team’s focus is on building the technical foundation and early reference system that partners can begin evaluating and integrating around.  “VCs move quickly when they believe in something” The round was led by byFounders, with participation from Interface Capital, Unruly Capital, and Wave Ventures, alongside a group of angel investors including: Andreas Klinger (Co-initiator of EU Inc & former CTO of Product Hunt), Niccolò Perra (Co-founder of Pleo), Vincent Ho-Tin-Hoe (CPO at Wolt & scout for NEA), Urho Konttori (Co-founder & CEO of Varjo), and Sune Alstrup (Founder of The Eye Tribe, acquired by Meta).  Fundraising, Voutilainen says, moved faster than expected. “It was surprisingly fast. Once investors saw the demo, momentum accelerated. Term sheets came within weeks.” He believes the speed reflects growing investor appetite to back European category leaders. “VCs move quickly when they believe in something. There's a strong appetite to build European champions. We want to help define a new global category from Europe.” “Willo is creating a new way to transfer power over the last meter, which removes one of the major constraints for all modern infrastructure,” said Magnus Hambleton, Partner at byFounders.  “They are pairing deep technical work with universally applicable hardware execution that very few teams in Europe can pull off.”  Willo is headquartered in Finland and operates across Europe, the United States, and Japan.