Empirical Ventures, a specialist deeptech Fund, has secured an additional £10 million British Business Bank commitment to back the UK’s best venture scientists, bringing its total support to £15 million. This partnership will accelerate Empirical’s mission to back the best venture scientists in the UK. Empirical Ventures was built to solve a specific problem: exceptional scientists often lack investors who speak their language. Empirical Venture Scientist's thesis suggests that the most valuable companies of the next century will not be built by generalist entrepreneurs, but by deep domain experts who can navigate the boundary between fundamental research and commercial reality.   By focusing on Deetech and Life Sciences, Empirical Ventures is actively de-risking the "hard science" sector, proving that with the right support, scientific founders can deliver outsized returns and high-skilled regional employment. The commitment from the British Business Bank, via its Regional Angels Programme, will allow Empirical Ventures to write high-conviction cheques to these founders across the UK.  By combining patient capital with their unique SEIS & EIS Fund and Syndicate, Empirical Ventures is providing the financial fuel for scientists to leave the lab and build technologies that bend the physical world, from novel energy generation and advanced materials to next-generation life sciences and everything in between.  Mark Barry, Senior Investment Director at British Business Bank, said: “We are delighted to expand our commitment to Empirical Ventures. Their team has identified a powerful untapped resource in the UK economy: the ‘Venture Scientist.’  By backing technical founders who solve hard problems, Empirical is helping to bridge the critical funding gap for science-led businesses outside London. This partnership ensures that the UK’s brightest scientific minds have the support they need to turn research into category-defining global companies.” Dr Johnathan Matlock, Co-Founder and General Partner at Empirical Ventures, said: “The greatest companies of the next 30 years will be built by scientists. We call them ‘Venture Scientists’ — founders who bring rigorous scientific methodology to company building. But for too long, these founders have been underestimated or misunderstood by generalist investors.  This £10 million commitment from the British Business Bank allows us to back these Venture Scientists with the conviction they deserve.  Whether they are in Bristol, Manchester, or Edinburgh, we are here to ensure that the founders capable of rewriting the rules of what’s possible get the resources to do so.”  This commitment directly supports the UK government’s 2026 Modern Industrial Strategy by unlocking the commercial potential of the UK’s world-leading research base.

Today, VC firm P101 released the tenth edition of the "State of Italian VC" report, an analysis of the evolution of the Italian innovation industry. The Italian tech sector includes more than 14,000 innovative companies – nearly 12,000 of which are startups – that, in 2025, generated a production value of 10 billion euros and employed around 62,000 people. Of these, about a third work in startups that, alone, last year, recorded a production value of about €2.8 billion. According to Andrea Di Camillo, Founder and Managing Partner of P101, we are today looking at the evolution of an industry that barely existed in Italy a decade ago.  Italy has moved from a handful of operators with limited resources and marginal impact to a venture capital ecosystem with solid foundations, consistently investing between 1 and 2 billion euros per year into the real economy. "Corporate participation is essental" Di Camillo shared that the broader context has also changed dramatically: the era of incremental innovation is over: “We are now facing a phase of deep technological discontinuity, with AI and critical infrastructure reshaping capital allocation, alongside a growing awareness that digital sovereignty is no longer a choice, but a strategic necessity.  Everything is moving faster, and if we want to keep pace, growing capital alone will not be enough — despite the support of institutional investors such as CDP and EIF, and players like Azimut.”  He asserts that corporate participation will be essential, as it remains limited to a few virtuous cases, along with a more efficient public capital market.  “Above all, what is needed is a truly international perspective: from funds, which must look beyond national borders; from companies, which must compete globally; and from investors, who must become increasingly international. In a continent that remains too fragmented, the future of this industry — central to innovation — will depend on strengthening venture capital as a European asset class. The ‘28th regime’ represents a first step in this direction.” Evolution of investments: VC quadruples, but Italy slips in the European ranking Over the past decade, the Italian VC has invested a total of about €10 billion in startups, 7.5 of which in the last 5 years. This growth trajectory has led to a fourfold increase in annual investment capacity, from €363 million in 2016 to €1.4 billion in 2025. However, despite Italy being the fourth-largest economy in Europe, per capita VC investment remains disproportionately low: Fewer deals, bigger tickets: 2025 marks the maturation of the market In 2025, investments in Italy reached €1.4 billion, up 17 per cent compared to 2024, despite a decline in the number of transactions to 637 (-35 per cent). This trend reflects an increase in average deal size, with the median doubling to 1 million euros. Startup valuations in Italy have increased over time, from €1.8 million in 2016 to nearly €5 million in 2025. However, this remains roughly half of European levels and significantly below the US, where average valuations approach €49 million. Exit: the structural bottleneck of public markets In 2025 Italy recorded 22 exits, down from 31 in 2024, mainly due to lower corporate acquisitions (from 25 to 14 transactions). Buyouts increased from 6 to 8, indicating a growing role for financial investors. As in 2024, no IPOs were recorded for VC-backed companies.  Over the last decade, only 22 IPOs in Italy have involved VC-backed companies, confirming the limited role of public markets in the industry. In 2025, fundraising totalled nearly €400 million across 9 funds (-13 per cent year-on-year), with the market heavily concentrated on smaller fund sizes and no vehicles above €150 million. Overall, over €8 billion was raised in Italy over the last decade through 123 funds.  Although Italy has doubled its fundraising capacity in ten years, it still accounts for a small fraction of Europe's funding, with total funding reaching almost €11 billion, down sharply from € 25 billion in 2024.  Investors: institutional are growing, but domestic capital still dominates Italian venture capital remains heavily reliant on domestic investors (71 per cent), highlighting limited international diversification: European investors account for 19 per cent of funding, followed by North American investors at 4 per cent, while Asian investors are notably absent. The Middle East contributes 6 per cent, making Italy unique among its peers in attracting a meaningful share of capital from the region. The LP base is relatively balanced despite concentration: Direct investments: 17 per cent Banks: 15 per cent Funds of funds: 14 per cent Foundations: 10 per cent Pension funds: 9 per cent Insurance companies (4 per cent) and corporates (12 per cent) remain underrepresented, compared to more mature ecosystems such as France, where they account for 14 per cent and 21 per cent respectively In general, the interest of institutional investors is growing, thanks to the support of investors such as CDP, EIF, and Fondo Italiano, which have invested 63 times in Italian funds over the last 10 years, as well as Azimut, and driven by new regulations aimed at incentivising investments in VC.  Universities: Bocconi and Politecnico drive new entrepreneurship  In the last five years, startups founded by former students of Italian universities have raised over €7.3 billion in capital from the broader innovation ecosystem, which, alongside Italian VC, includes business angels, private, foreign, and corporate investors.  Bocconi University (3.1 billion) and Politecnico di Milano (2.2 billion) lead the ranking, followed by: The University of Bologna (1 billion), LUISS (505 million), La Sapienza in Rome (338 million), and The Polytechnic University of Turin (196 million) contributed more modest, but still significant, investment flows.

German tech investor Maguar , which specialises in medium-sized B2B software companies, has acquired a significant stake in GlobalSuite Solutions, a multinational software company specialising in Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) solutions.   This transaction represents Maguar's first investment in the Spanish market. Founded in 2007, with a presence in Iberia and Latin America and a team of more than 100 professionals, GlobalSuite Solutions supports more than 2,000 customers in highly regulated sectors, including banking, insurance, healthcare, and telecommunications, offering solutions that facilitate risk management, regulatory compliance, business continuity, and ESG.  Companies are increasingly adopting technology platforms that centralise risk management, regulatory compliance, and corporate governance, replacing manual processes with integrated systems that provide real-time visibility and improve strategic decision-making. Maguar's investment in GlobalSuite Solutions is part of this trend, aimed at driving the company's evolution in a market that is increasingly strategic for organisations. Maguar plans to support GlobalSuite Solutions by strengthening its commercial organisation and partner ecosystem while driving innovation in automation, integration, artificial intelligence, and usability. The alliance also envisions geographic expansion into new markets, complemented by a selective acquisition strategy. According to Arno Poschik, Founding Partner of Maguar, GlobalSuite Solutions has developed a solid and highly differentiated GRC platform in a market with great potential.  “With this investment, we seek to support the continued development of its technology and accelerate its expansion to continue generating value for its customers." Antonio Quevedo Muñoz, founder and CEO of GlobalSuite Solutions, shared: "Maguar's entry marks a key moment for our company and opens a new stage of progression. Their extensive experience in the development and scaling of B2B software companies, together with their long-term vision, makes them the ideal partner to accompany us in this new phase. Thanks to this alliance, we will be able to continue driving innovation on our platform and strengthening our presence in new international markets, thereby maintaining our commitment to delivering maximum value to our customers.” Antonio Quevedo Muñoz, founder and CEO of GlobalSuite Solutions, will continue to lead the company, maintaining a significant stake in the business, alongside his team and Jaime Girón de Velasco, who will join GSS as Managing Director.  Lead image: Antonio Quevedo Muñoz, Founder and CEO of GlobalSuite Solutions, and Arno Poschik, Founding Partner at Maguar.

Midas, a platform for composable on-chain investment products, has raised $50 million in Series A funding. The round was led by RRE Ventures and Creandum, with participation from Framework Ventures, HV Capital, Ledger Cathay, Franklin Templeton, Coinbase Ventures, M1 Capital, Anchorage Digital, FJ Labs, North Island Ventures and GSR. The round brings total funding to $58.75 million, following an $8.75 million seed round in 2024. Midas enables asset managers to convert institutional-grade investment strategies into regulatory-compliant tokens, providing investors with transparency, liquidity, and composability across decentralised finance protocols such as Morpho and Pendle. As institutional adoption of tokenised assets continues to grow, many existing products still rely on delayed settlement processes, creating liquidity constraints for investors. To address this, Midas has introduced Midas Staked Liquidity (MSL), which deploys dedicated staked liquidity to enable instant redemptions without affecting underlying yield or composability. We’re building toward a future where investing works like the internet: open, transparent, composable, and accessible by default, said Dennis Dinkelmeyer, CEO and co-founder of Midas. In addition to MSL, the company plans to expand its product offering into a broader range of institutional asset classes, deepen integrations across decentralised finance ecosystems, and further develop existing partnerships. Developers, investors, and asset managers can access further information, including technical documentation and live products, via the Midas platform. The newly raised capital will support the continued development of MSL as part of an open liquidity architecture designed to enable instant redemptions across on-chain investment products.

TerraSpark, a developer of space-based solar energy systems, has raised over €5 million in a pre-seed financing round. Investors include Daphni, better ventures, the Hans(wo)men Group, and a group of strategic business angels. TerraSpark is developing a long-term approach to energy generation based on space-based solar power, aiming to provide continuous energy independent of weather conditions or time of day. The concept addresses growing challenges in Europe’s energy infrastructure, including rising demand, grid constraints, and increasing energy needs from data centres. While the concept of space-based solar power has existed for decades, recent reductions in launch costs and advances in satellite manufacturing and orbital robotics are making its implementation more feasible. TerraSpark is taking a phased approach, beginning with the commercialisation of radio frequency-based wireless energy transmission for industrial use on Earth. This allows the company to validate safety, efficiency, and regulatory requirements before scaling towards orbital systems. Space-based solar power has long been considered something for the distant future. Across Europe, energy resilience is now a practical concern. With a step-by-step approach, starting with commercially viable systems on Earth, we believe this can become real infrastructure within a realistic timeframe, said Jasper Deprez, founder and CEO of TerraSpark. The company is led by a team with experience in space technology, engineering, and scaling businesses, including Jasper Deprez (CEO), Sanjay Vijendran (CTO), and Matthias Laug (COO). In the coming months, TerraSpark plans to prepare pilot applications and demonstration use cases, including wireless power transmission for live environments. An orbital technology demonstrator is planned for 2027, followed by initial space-to-Earth power transmission in 2028. The funding will be used to further develop the company’s technology and support upcoming pilot applications and live testing.

The Tech.eu Summit London 2026 is set to take place on 21–22 April 2026 at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre in London. With the event now less than four weeks away, this is one of the final opportunities to secure a ticket before pricing moves to its last tier. Ticket pricing will be updated on 1 April 2026 Ticket pricing for the Tech.eu Summit London 2026 will be revised on 1 April 2026. From that date, the Last Chance ticket will be priced at £600 + VAT. Joining with colleagues or friends? A discounted group rate is available for purchases of three or more tickets, with Last Chance (3+ People) passes priced at £550 + VAT per person. The Tech.eu Summit London 2026 will bring together founders, investors and technology professionals from across Europe and beyond. Sessions will cover artificial intelligence, fintech, deeptech, climate tech and other fast-evolving sectors, with speakers confirmed from organisations including OpenAI, Notion Capital, PolyAI, Oxa, Wise, NATO Innovation Fund, Upvest, 2150, Mastercard, Morgan Stanley, Mollie and many more. Make the most of your summit experience with the Tech.eu Events App Attendees can download the Tech.eu Events App via the App Store and Google Play to begin connecting ahead of the summit. Through the app, participants can browse attendee profiles, arrange meetings in advance, explore the agenda and manage their personal schedule. The app will also be used for on-site access via QR code check-in. Get your ticket today Secure your ticket before prices increase on 1 April. Join us at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre on 21–22 April for two days of discussions, networking and insight from some of the most influential figures in European technology and investment. We look forward to welcoming you in London. Partners Pavilion Partner Gold Partner   Silver Partners   Supporting Partner Community Partners           

miros, a Lausanne-based startup founded in 2023 and spun out of the EPFL ecosystem, announced the closing of a  €1.1 million (CHF 1 million) Pre-Seed funding round from various business angels. miros is building a network of connected workpods to bring privacy, calm and comfort into public and semi-public spaces. Through its hardware and software platform, including a mobile app to locate, book and access pods, the company addresses the needs of a workforce that is increasingly mobile and flexible.  “We start with pods, but the ambition goes far beyond that,” said Dr Fabio Zuliani, Founder and CEO of miros. “We are looking at how commercial real estate itself can become flexible, modular and on-demand.  The pod is just the first building block. Seeing it already used throughout Switzerland and beyond makes  that vision feel very real.”  The round follows a manufacturing partnership with Ducommun Menuisiers, initiated through the  SyNNergy grant from Innovaud. The pods are designed in collaboration with Lakabi, a Lausanne-based furniture brand, and fully built in Switzerland. In parallel, the project also received support from the Canton of Vaud to develop a new version made entirely from Swiss wood (Bois  Suisse), reinforcing its focus on local sourcing and production. Since its inception, miros has deployed 15 workpods and worked with partners including SwissTech  Convention Centre, Beaulieu, and Hôpital Riviera-Chablais.  Through Geneva Airport’s GVA Runway Lab open-innovation program, miros was able to test its value proposition under real-world conditions and confirm strong product-market fit. The company has also taken its first step internationally, with a pod deployed at Village by Crédit Agricole in Toulouse, France, since October. These deployments helped validate the product and lay the foundation for scaling, with nearly 350 hours of usage so far.  The company plans to announce several new partnerships in the coming months as it continues to expand its footprint across Switzerland.  miros will use the funds to deploy a network of connected and bookable workpods across Switzerland, with a  target of more than 100 units by the end of 2026. 

Mistral today said it had secured $830m in debt financing, marking its first debt raise, to buy Nvidia chips to power its first data centre.   The French AI startup, which is seen as a European rival to larger US LLM companies like OpenAI and Anthropic, said the deal represents a “significant milestone”.   The debt raising was financed by a consortium of seven banks: Bpifrance, BNP Paribas, Crédit Agricole CIB, HSBC, La Banque Postale, MUFG and Natixis CIB. Mistral said the funding will finance 13,800 Nvidia GPUs as it builds out its first data centre in its native France. The raising of debt comes as Mistral, which is valued €11.7bn, looks to take on US and China in the AI race. Mistral, which is looking to become a full stack AI player, is pitching itself as an open-source, sovereign data alternative to the largely proprietary models of its US rivals. Arthur Mensch, CEO of Mistral, said: “Scaling our infrastructure in Europe is critical to empower our customers and to ensure AI innovation and autonomy remain at the heart of Europe.   “We will continue to invest in this area, given the surging and sustained demand from governments, enterprises and research institutions seeking to build their own customised AI environment, rather than depend on third-party cloud providers.”   Earlier this year, Mistral announced details of its first-ever data centre near Paris, France, which will power the training of Mistral AI’s own models, as well as those of its customers. It is set to become operational in Q2 2026.   Last month, it also announced the launch of a new data centre in Sweden.

Last week, we tracked more than 55 tech funding deals worth over €850 million, and over 15 exits, M&A transactions, rumours, and related news stories across Europe.Click to read the rest of the news.

Finland-based quantum computing startup IQM Quantum Computers has secured a €50 million financing package from funds and accounts managed by BlackRock. The funding is intended to support the company’s continued growth and strengthen its position in the global quantum computing market. The facility was secured ahead of IQM’s previously announced plans to become the first publicly listed European quantum computing company through a merger with Real Asset Acquisition Corp. It is expected to reduce the company’s overall cost of capital while increasing flexibility and diversification within its capital structure. IQM develops full-stack superconducting quantum computers and provides both on-premises systems and cloud access to research institutions, universities, high-performance computing centres, and national laboratories. Its approach enables organisations to directly operate and manage their own quantum infrastructure. The financing package comes at a pivotal time for IQM, as we build momentum for our next phase of growth. This financing further strengthens our capital structure, increasing the resources available to execute on our technology vision and expand into new markets. said Jan Goetz, CEO and co-founder of IQM. With growing global demand for on-premises quantum systems, the company is positioning itself to support enterprise adoption of quantum and quantum AI technologies. Its strategy combines hardware development, cloud accessibility, industry partnerships, and ecosystem expansion, with a long-term focus on achieving fault-tolerant quantum computing. The capital will be used to accelerate IQM’s technology roadmap, expand research and development activities, and support entry into additional markets, further advancing its capabilities in superconducting quantum systems.

German industrial AI startup deeplify has announced the successful closing of a €2 million pre-seed funding round. The round was led by D11Z Ventures, with participation from Vanagon Ventures, EWOR, and a group of strategic business angels. The investment will support the company’s mission to modernise how critical infrastructure is inspected and managed. The company addresses a longstanding gap in industrial operations. While recent advances in artificial intelligence have largely focused on productivity tools and digital services, many sectors responsible for maintaining essential infrastructure still rely on fragmented and outdated processes. Inspection workflows often depend on spreadsheets, static documents, analogue imagery, and manual reporting, despite the high risks associated with undetected defects. We have the most advanced software for digital-first workflows, but when it comes to determining if a high-pressure pipeline is safe, the industry is often still stuck in the past, said Jan Löwer, co-founder and CEO of deeplify. The need for modernisation is increasing as Europe’s chemical sector, comprising around 31,000 companies, faces ageing infrastructure, a shortage of experienced inspectors, and growing volumes of complex inspection data. To address this, deeplify has developed an end-to-end AI platform for industrial inspection and asset integrity management. By connecting workflows from raw sensor data to automated defect analysis and auditable reporting, the platform replaces fragmented processes with a unified system, helping reduce inspection time, minimise errors, and improve traceability. The solution is grounded in real-world industrial experience. Early projects revealed significant inefficiencies in existing workflows, leading to an initial deployment with Open Grid Europe. Further pilots with SKF followed, and the platform is now used by inspection firms serving global energy companies such as Shell. The newly secured funding will be used to expand deeplify’s platform capabilities and accelerate deployments across sectors, including energy, oil and gas, chemicals, and transportation.

This week, we tracked more than 55 tech funding deals worth over €850 million and over 15 exits, M&A transactions, rumours, and related news stories across Europe. Alongside the week’s top funding rounds, we’ve highlighted key industry developments, as well as notable trends in European venture activity, investor moves and emerging sectors shaping the current funding landscape. 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 ?? Kandou AI closes $225M Series A round to break memory bottlenecks in AI ?? Granola raises $125M at $1.5B valuation ??. Vuelo secures €64M in seed funding to build an AI-native travel booking experience ??‍?? Noteworthy acquisitions and mergers ?? Swedish-founded Kobalt is sold for €1.3B ?? Bioniq cashes in on personalised health boom with $150 million Herbalife acquisition ??. Unifly buys EuroUSC-Benelux to bridge drone tech and regulation at scale ? Interesting moves from investors ?.Nathan Benaich's Air Street raises $232M Fund III, becoming Europe’s largest solo GP venture firm ?. 360 Capital announces €85M close for Poli360 2, targeting €100M ?. Credo Ventures raises $88M Fund 5 to double down on pre-seed in CEE and its global diaspora ?. Team Scaleup launches to close Europe’s post-Seed funding gap ? futurepresent emerges from stealth with $300M Fund I to back AI across infrastructure and industry ?️ In other (important) news ??  Europe builds Microsoft-compatible ‘Euro-Office’ to reclaim digital sovereignty ?. Aleph Alpha’s former CEO lures Apple engineer from US to join European startup ??. tozero opens Europe’s first industrial-scale battery recycling plant to power Europe’s material independence ??. Most UK startups aren’t in London. But most funding still is ??  Galtea lands $3.2M to cut costly AI testing delays ??  Newly secures $2M+ in funding to advance native app creation platform ??. Klarna veterans launch Galdera with €1.5M for AI financial modeling ??: Allday Goods raises £765,000 to scale its cult, recycled-plastic knife brand ?? NanoZymeX secures €160,000 to advance lipid nanoparticle enzyme therapies for rare diseases

Today, a coalition of European enterprises and community organisations has launched Euro-Office, a solution for editing documents, spreadsheets and presentations, developed as a true sovereign community collaboration of over a dozen different organisations. A tech preview is available immediately.  The effort, backed by major European tech firms including IONOS, Nextcloud, Eurostack, XWiki, OpenProject, Soverin, Abilian and BTactic is planning a first stable release by summer. Need for a sovereign office Across Europe, public administrations, enterprises and educational institutions are reassessing their dependence on non-European productivity platforms. While office software remains mission-critical infrastructure, there is currently no solution that combines full Microsoft format compatibility, a familiar user experience and genuine digital sovereignty under European stewardship. The announcement comes at a time when many organisations are reassessing their reliance on existing office solutions, not only from a cost or functionality perspective, but increasingly from a control and long-term risk standpoint. Just this week, it became public that ONLYOFFICE has shut down its cloud offering, forcing many organisations to reassess their current setup. "With the geo-political developments we have seen in the last year, there is a clear need for a reliable, fully Microsoft-compatible and easy-to-use sovereign office solution in Europe," states Achim Weiss, CEO of IONOS. "Our joint initiative delivers a suite with an extremely familiar interface and capable of working with documents, presentations and spreadsheets.“ Existing alternatives often require trade-offs between compatibility and usability, are encumbered by legal risks around licensing and trademarks, or are developed without transparent, open governance, lacking an independent, sustainable contributor community. For organisations handling sensitive information and public data, this creates structural risk. Euro-Office addresses this gap directly. It is designed to provide seamless handling of widely used document, spreadsheet and presentation formats, while offering an interface that minimises retraining and migration friction.  The entire code base is released under fully open source licensing, free from trademark constraints, and developed in a transparent process open to public scrutiny and contribution. The result is an office suite built not only for functionality, but for strategic resilience. “Europe has had the technical building blocks for years. What was missing until now was an initiative to bring them together into a meaningful, comprehensive solution,” says Frank Karlitschek, CEO of Nextcloud.  “With Euro-Office, we’re not starting from scratch; instead, we’re taking responsibility for a vital piece of digital infrastructure. This finally gives organisations tools they can trust: transparent, durable, and managed in Europe.” A public tech preview of Euro-Office is available immediately on GitHub.The preview enables organisations and individuals to evaluate core functionality, test compatibility, and contribute feedback ahead of the first stable release planned for summer. Lead image: Achim Weiss, CEO of IONOS, Henri Schmidt, member of German Parliament, Frank Karlitschek, CEO of Nextcloud.

The co-founder and former CEO of high-profile German AI startup Aleph Alpha has today revealed fresh details about his new AI startup, which launched last month and is backed by a multi-million-dollar investment from the German consultancy Roland Berger. The new startup founded by Jonas Andrulis, who left Aleph Alpha last year after six years leading it, is developing what it calls “collaborative AI systems", which are designed to address the challenge in industrial AI applications of a lack of human integration into complex, AI-driven processes. It says in industrial environments, automated AI systems alone are not sufficient and human judgement remains critical. Its tech means that AI agents can ask humans clarifying questions, helping negate hallucinations, it says.   Today the startup revealed its name, CNTR (the name refers to the so-called “centaur chess” where teams of humans and computers play together) and said that Apple engineer Alejandro Molina was relocating from the US West Coast to join the startup as its CTO in Germany. Molina has also previously worked for Amazon and Aleph Alpha.   Andrulis said: “Most AI systems today are built to replace human labour. Humans are reduced to temporary gap-fillers. That’s a dead end—for the technology itself as well as for the companies that are putting their most valuable assets at risk: their teams and their culture.    “We’ve founded CNTR so that humans and machines can learn, make decisions, and solve problems together—not competing, but collaborating with each other.”   Aleph Alpha was originally one of the few European LLM startups but subsequently pivoted from building LLMs to helping businesses and governments use AI.

Today data storage and cloud infrastructure company Qumulo announced the official launch of its European Software R&D hub in Cork.  Through this strategic expansion, Qumulo will create 50 highly skilled R&D positions in the coming three years to solve the major challenges for data management at enormous scale and scope for global business. Information, derived from data, is now the core asset driving the modern global economy. The success of autonomous AI systems integrated into business operations depends on their ability to make real-time decisions with instant, trustworthy access to colossal datasets.  This new R&D and Customer Success hub in Cork is a recognition of the challenges and opportunities presented by this new global, digital landscape. This team will research and develop solutions to enable the secure, frictionless, and instantaneous transfer of exabyte-scale workloads across the globe, delivering the trusted, AI-ready data requirement to power next-generation enterprise applications. For Qumulo's global customers, this new site in Cork will also see an expansion of its Customer Success team in the region.  This project is supported by the Irish Government through IDA Ireland. Minister for Enterprise, Tourism & Employment, Peter Burke TD, said: “Qumulo’s decision to establish a new European software R&D hub in Cork is a strong endorsement of Cork as a location where cutting-edge engineering and global ambition meet. It highlights the depth of talent emerging from our universities, the strength of the region’s technology ecosystem, and Ireland’s ability to support companies delivering pioneering innovation on a global scale. “After actively reviewing a wide variety of options for our second R&D centre, we found that the stellar third-level institutions in the South-West were the basis for a deep talent pool in Cork,” said Qumulo Chief Technology Officer Kiran Bhageshpur. “Additionally, the excellent support infrastructure for companies like Qumulo provided by IDA Ireland made Cork the obvious choice for us to build a team focused on leveraging AI to help businesses manage global-scale data infrastructure.”  Lead image: Pictured from L-R: Dave Coughlan, Qumulo VP, Customer Success; Kiran Bhageshpur,  Qumulo CTO; Anne-Marie Tierney Le-Roux, IDA Global Head of Technology and Consumer, Content & Business Services; Minister of State at the Department of Rural and Community Development and the Department of Transport, Jerry Buttimer TD and Diarmaid Hogan Qumulo Director, Engineering. Pic Daragh Mc Sweeney/Provision.

AI is everywhere right now; startups are playing with generative models, governments are debating new rules and the whole industry feels like it’s in a state of constant motion. But not all innovation is loud or flashy. Behind closed doors, companies across the continent are pouring resources into tools that make everyday work less painful. Legal teams might not be the first place people look for tech upgrades, but they’re right in the thick of it. These teams have always been the compliance gatekeepers, especially important in Europe with its maze of regulations. The problem? Legal workflows can get bogged down fast; think endless email chains, clunky spreadsheets and manual approvals that slow everything to a crawl. That’s starting to change. More and more tech companies are turning to automation to modernise their legal processes. The aim is simple: Cut out the friction, boost compliance and free legal professionals from tedious admin so they can actually focus on the bigger picture. Automation is becoming the backbone of Europe’s tech industry In major tech hubs like London, Berlin and Paris, companies aren’t just adding AI to their products, they’re weaving it right into their operations. There’s a big reason for this: Regulation. Europe has set itself up as a leader in responsible AI, with regulations like the EU’s AI Act setting the tone. Sure, tighter rules can add some extra hoops to jump through, but a lot of companies see this as a chance to build more trustworthy tech. But stricter rules also mean more headaches for legal teams. They’re juggling vendor agreements, procurement sign-offs, data governance and compliance paperwork, usually across multiple countries. For any business with a presence in several European markets, things get complicated fast. Trying to manage all this by hand just doesn’t work anymore. That’s why we’re seeing more companies invest in systems that automate these internal legal processes while keeping everything transparent and compliant. Legal workflow automation platforms are taking off Legal teams aren’t just sticking with old-school case management or basic document storage. Now, many organisations are adopting platforms built specifically to handle internal requests and processes. Take Tonkean legal works, for example. It’s part of a bigger platform focused on automating enterprise intake and orchestrating workflows. Instead of drowning in email requests, legal teams can manage everything through structured forms and automated routing. The system takes care of assigning tasks, tracking progress and making sure the right people are involved at every step. This shift is bigger than any one tool. Across Europe’s tech industry, companies are moving away from isolated AI projects and embedding automation directly into everyday work. In practise, employees don’t have to send messy, unstructured emails to legal anymore. They fill out guided forms and the platform handles the rest; routing requests, assigning tasks and tracking everything along the way. For businesses dealing with mountains of procurement contracts, vendor reviews or compliance checks, this kind of software isn’t just helpful, it’s a game changer. How automation is changing legal work For a lot of people in the legal world, the biggest win from workflow automation is just being able to see what’s going on. Forget endless email threads, lost files and wondering who’s supposed to approve what. Automation platforms bring order to the chaos, laying out each step from start to finish so nothing gets lost in the shuffle. Modern legal workflow tools now come packed with features that are quickly becoming must-haves. Structured intake systems No more chasing down missing info or trying to decode vague requests. With automation, employees fill out forms that ask the right questions up front, so legal teams get all the details they need right away. That alone cuts down on a ton of back-and-forth emails. Intelligent routing AI steps in here, figuring out what kind of request it is and sending it straight to the right person or team. Complicated, high-stakes contracts go to senior lawyers, while more routine stuff gets picked up by junior staff or even handled automatically. Automated task coordination Once a request lands in the system, it gets assigned out automatically. The software tracks deadlines and sends reminders, so there’s no need to chase down colleagues for updates. Clear compliance oversight Every step in the workflow gets logged, which means companies have a solid audit trail. That kind of visibility matters, especially now, with regulators in Europe paying closer attention than ever. In the end, legal teams get to spend less time wrangling processes and more time doing real legal work; analysing, negotiating and managing risk. Why European companies are adopting these tools Legal workflow automation isn’t just a trend in Europe, it’s becoming the new normal and there are a few reasons for that: Rising regulatory pressure. Hybrid work is here to stay. Legal talent is hard to find. Data-driven operations. So, the future of AI in Europe’s tech world? It’s not just about smarter products. It’s about building smarter ways to work, helping companies move quickly, stay sharp and always play by the rules.

The boss of the VC firm that hit the headlines when it snapped up Yann LeCun and Nick Clegg says it invested around €50m in a co-leading investment in LeCun’s much-hyped world model startup AMI Labs, as part of the startup’s $1bn plus raise announced earlier this year. Hiro Capital's investment- co-led with Cathay Innovation, Greycroft, HV Capital and Jeff Bezos’ Bezos Expeditions-marks the first deployment out of Hiro Capital’s Hiro lll fund, a €500m-plus fund investing in spatial AI, robotics, games, space and defence, which Hiro is still out raising for. New fund On raising funds for the fund, Luke Alvarez, Hiro Capital co-founder and managing general partner, says: “We are in process. We have really good demand from institutional investors and sovereign wealth funds.”  However, Alvarez did not share any names of the investors in Hiro lll, citing client confidentiality.  The fund is investing at a multi-stage level, deploying cheques of between €5m and €50m, targeting the so-called scale-up capital gap in Europe. Clegg, Meta’s former president of global affairs and former UK deputy prime minister, joined Hiro as a general partner, while LeCun, Meta’s former chief AI scientist, joined its advisory board. Hiro’s strategy is to lead or co-lead an investment round but it’s “not religious about it”, Alvarez said. Would Hiro, based in London and Luxembourg, invest in a Large Language Model company, like France's Mistral, or another world model company like AMI Labs? Alvarez said: “We have done one investment in world models. We probably won’t do more of those. We are really interested in applications of those world models, in things like autonomy and robotics. We certainly don’t think there is much opportunity to invest at this point in competitors to Anthropic and OpenAI for language and code foundation models.” Appointment of LeCun Hiro’s appointment of LeCun in December last year to its advisory board appears to be an act of foresight, given Hiro’s investment in AMI Labs just months later. Alvarez said: “With our relationship with Yann, we did get an early heads up that he was leaving Meta and was going to set up this amazing thing. And we thought that is so perfect within our strategy, we absolutely would like an opportunity to invest in that and maybe lead it. And that is what happened.” Hiro has a core investing team of around 10 investors, mostly based in London, with a couple in Europe, which is complemented by Hiro’s advisory board, which also includes former Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and British astronaut Tim Peake. The advisors are partly employed to help unearth the most promising companies of tomorrow in their specialist areas. “We get amazing AI entrepreneurs who want to work with us because of Yann,” says Alvarez. Appointment of Clegg Hiro is Clegg’s main gig, says Alvarez, with the former deputy prime minister also sitting on the boards of UK AI startup Nscale and edtech firm Efekta. Alvarez says: “It’s his relationship with Yann, who is an old friend of his, who brought Yann into our orbit and our advisory board. He has been great on intros, great on deal flows, lots of people reach out to him because of his time at Silicon Valley. In due course, he will sit on the board of Hiro Capital’s portfolio firms." Last year, Clegg caused a bit of an uproar when he said a multibillion-dollar tech agreement announced to coincide with Donald Trump’s state visit to the UK represented “sloppy seconds from Silicon Valley”. Clegg said the deals, heralded with great fanfare by the UK government, were “mutton dressed as lamb” and would make the country ever more reliant on US tech. Alvarez says: “I think Nick and the rest of our team are strong believers that Europe needs to build its own globally significant companies.” Investing in founders So what does Hiro look for in today’s founders? He says: “Our fund is predicated on the thesis that we are in the early years of a platform shift in tech. These platform shifts come along every 15 or 20 years. The next big shift is where computing moves off the 2D screen in your pocket or on your desktop and into the world around us. "And where AI moves off of language and into atoms and manufacturing and logistics and movement of people. So we want entrepreneurs who are swimming in the tools of the technology that makes that possible. And want to build really big generational ambitious things that make the world better.” Why should founders choose Hiro? Why should Hiro, founded in 2018, win, given the best startups have many suitors? Alvarez points to the dearth of big funds, like Hiro, in Europe, compared to the US. Allied to that, he says: “Part of the difference with Hiro is we are all founders and entrepreneurs. In a European venture, that kind of founder-led background to funds is quite unusual.” Alvarez, who previously founded and was CEO of Inspired Entertainment, says he has four IPOs under his belt while his co-founder Ian Livingstone, an entrepreneur who helped bring to life Tomb Raider’s Lara Croft and the Warhammer fantasy games, has five unicorn exits to his name. The third co-founder is LoveCrafts co-founder Cherry Freeman. Hiro to date Hiro, founded in 2018, started out backing development studios, esports and other gaming innovations across the UK and Europe. It also has a focus on the metaverse and takes its name from the character Hiro Protagonist in Neil Stephenson’s 1992 novel Snow Crash, which came up with the name metaverse. Hiro lll is its third main fund to date. Alvarez says: “Our first two funds are performing in the top quartile to top decile of venture funds of their equivalent vintages.”

Europe is racing to secure the critical raw materials needed for its energy transition, yet remains heavily dependent on imports — particularly from China. At the same time, a growing volume of end-of-life batteries is creating a domestic source of lithium, graphite, and other materials that has, until now, been difficult to recover at scale. Battery recycling startup tozero has launched its first industrial demonstration plant in Germany, marking a step toward turning end-of-life batteries into a domestic supply of critical raw materials at scale. The plant will deliver recycled lithium and graphite to companies across sectors, including construction, ceramics, and lubricants, with further materials and industries to follow. Located in Bavaria at Chemical Park Gendorf, the plant can process more than 1.500t of battery waste every year. From this waste, tozero can produce high-purity lithium carbonate – the equivalent of saving 6,000 electric vehicles' worth of batteries from landfill – and recover graphite and nickel-cobalt mix. Founded in 2022 by Sarah Fleischer, a serial entrepreneur and mechanical engineer, and Dr Ksenija Milicevic Neumann, a leading metallurgy expert, tozero has scaled at pace. In April 2024, nine months after opening its pilot facility, it became the first company in Europe to deliver recycled lithium to commercial customers.  I spoke to Sarah Fleischer, Co-founder and CEO of tozero, to learn more about how the company is not only scaling its own operations, but effectively creating a playbook for an emerging industry.  Europe’s critical materials paradox: reliant on imports, rich in waste Global demand for lithium is set to quadruple by 2030, while in the EU alone, graphite demand is expected to rise by up to 25 times by 2040, driven by EVs, grid-scale storage and industrial electrification.  Yet Europe remains almost entirely reliant on imports – China controls global graphite supplies, and 99 per cent of Europe's lithium comes from abroad.  Ironically, Europe is sitting on a stockpile of the very materials it's scrambling to source from the growing number of end-of-life batteries, largely due to Europe’s growth in EVs  With demand expected to exceed supply by over 33 per cent from 2035, battery recycling is becoming essential — and tozero is aiming to help bridge the gap. “Yes, it works”: how tozero validated its recycling tech with OEMs tozero’s approach to battery recycling is fundamentally different from conventional methods. By deploying a proprietary acid-free, hydrometallurgy process, it focuses on low-temperature, water-based chemical processing rather than burning batteries. Building on this, the company aims to close the battery materials loop and support Europe’s ambition to achieve greater independence in critical raw materials. This aligns with the EU Critical Raw Materials Act, which calls for 25 per cent of supply to come from recycling sources.  tozero's recycling takes place in a single cycle, and the recovered materials are pure enough to feed directly back into manufacturing.  tozero has already demonstrated successful qualification of its recycled lithium and graphite for lithium-ion batteries with leading cathode and anode manufacturers.  Through pilots with OEMs, including BMW, tozero has been able to validate both the flexibility of its recycling process and its ability to meet future regulatory requirements. Fleischer notes that the inbound interest itself was an early signal of market demand: “First of all, they approached us for the pilots, which I think is already a strong statement about the demand for verifying whether this type of recycling actually works.” She explains that tozero’s approach differs fundamentally from conventional recycling methods: “What we’re doing is very novel — it has not been done before.  Conventional battery recycling is based on burning batteries at very high temperatures, around 1,400 degrees. It’s called pyrometallurgy. You can extract nickel and cobalt that way, but lithium and graphite are essentially lost in the process. That’s where we come in.” Working with multiple OEMs — including partners that remain undisclosed due to NDAs — the pilots were designed to answer two core questions: “First: is our process agnostic? Can we handle different battery chemistries? Every OEM has a different battery.  Second: can we recover critical materials like lithium, and can we meet regulatory requirements — for example, the 2031 European Battery Directive, which requires over 80 per cent recovery of critical raw materials?” The results, she says, came earlier than expected: “That’s what we were able to demonstrate. From a very early stage, we could already show recovery rates that meet those future requirements.” Ultimately, the pilots confirmed both the technical robustness and regulatory readiness of the process: “So the key learning is: yes, our process is chemistry-agnostic, and yes, we already comply with future EU recovery regulations — even though they only come into force in 2031.” Turning material science into real-world supply Tozero has achieved significant growth by embracing a lean, agile mindset with a team of just over 30.  “In just under four years, tozero has gone from lab-scale experiments to industrial operations, and we’re consistently proving that recycling isn't just a pilot project – it can be delivered at a level capable of giving Europe a homegrown, circular supply of critical materials its future runs on."  Fleischer sees the team’s ability to move fast and focus on execution as critical: “We don’t just talk — we deliver. We shipped our first lithium carbonate to customers in 2024, starting with hundreds of kilos. Now we’re moving to tonnes with the demonstration plant. That early delivery is critical. This is material science — if you don’t work directly with customers, you can’t improve the product. So our approach is simple: we do it, we learn from customer feedback, and we iterate quickly.” From chemistry to geopolitics: why lithium and graphite recovery matters now As a deep tech company, tozero has focused heavily on understanding the behaviour of lithium and graphite at a chemical level — what they respond to, and what they don’t — as the foundation of its process. “That allows us to extract them efficiently.” Fleischer points in particular to the growing importance of graphite, driven by shifting supply chain dynamics and increasing geopolitical pressure. She argues that while the European Union is still defining what a comprehensive critical raw materials strategy looks like in practice, other regions have long treated this as a strategic priority: “If you look at the US, they defined this decades ago — already in the 1930s — to secure materials essential for industrial growth.” Europe, by contrast, remains heavily dependent on imports for materials tied to energy independence — particularly from China. More than 90 per cent of refined lithium is imported, while graphite supply is even more concentrated, with close to 99 per cent sourced from China. This imbalance is already translating into rising demand across industries: “That’s why we’re seeing a lot of inbound interest from customers. It’s not just the battery industry — you also have glass, ceramics, lubricants, and cement industries that depend on these materials. They can’t substitute them, and their margins are tight.” Ultimately, Fleischer argues, graphite is becoming increasingly strategic not just because of its applications, but because of how concentrated its supply is: “So graphite matters because it’s both critical and highly concentrated in terms of supply.” Beyond sustainability: winning on price Fleischer says this required a fundamental rethink of how to position the business: “ We see ourselves as the miner of tomorrow.” Early on, the company explored charging a premium for its lower-emissions approach, but quickly abandoned the idea: “At the beginning, we thought about charging a green premium — because recycling reduces emissions. But very quickly we realised that no one is willing to pay extra for that. It’s an ideology, but it doesn’t hold in real markets, especially where margins are tight.” Instead, tozero reframed its model around cost advantage: “So we shifted to the idea of a green discount.” She argues that, at a fundamental level, recycling should outperform mining on efficiency: “From a physics perspective, recycling should be cheaper. When you mine, you might extract 0.2 per cent usable material from the earth. In batteries, you have around 4 per cent concentration of materials like lithium. So it’s much more efficient.” This underpins the company’s long-term benchmark: “Our goal is to have a cash cost that is about half that of a Chinese miner. That’s the benchmark.” Competing on global markets means aligning closely with price dynamics set by dominant producers: “If Chinese producers go cheap, we need to be cheaper. If they lose money, we need to remain sustainable. That’s how we position ourselves — as a competitive, alternative source of raw materials.” At the same time, Fleischer emphasises that recycling is not a replacement for mining, but part of a broader supply mix: “We don’t believe recycling will replace mining entirely — demand is growing too fast — but it will become a key complementary source.” Tozero’s approach not only enables the industry to re-use both current and future materials from this stockpile, while reducing the reliance on virgin materials, but it also creates a circular, domestic supply chain that strengthens Europe's competitiveness in the global race for next-generation energy technologies. Building the blueprint for Europe’s battery recycling plants Following its success, the industrial demo plant will now form the blueprint for a full-scale commercial operation planned for 2030, capable of producing thousands of tonnes of lithium carbonate and graphite.  It also lays a foundation for Europe’s ability to secure a sustainable and independent supply of the critical raw materials its growing battery industry needs.  While tozero wants to operate its own plants for now, because it provides more control over optimisation and improvement, tozero is working with partners. In 2025, it signed an MOU with JGC Corporation, one of the largest engineering companies globally.  According to  Fleischer, they’ve built thousands of industrial plants, including for companies like Aramco, so they bring strong expertise.  “There are multiple ways for us to scale — both independently and through partnerships.” "Europe must take more risks.” Building a truly circular battery ecosystem in Europe will require not just technology, but a shift in how risk and capital are deployed, Fleischer argues. She points to a more conservative approach compared to other regions, particularly when it comes to backing emerging players:  "Europe needs to take more risks. In other regions, you see multiple companies being supported at the same time, creating competition and increasing the chances of success. In Europe, we tend to back one company — and if it fails, we stop investing in that area.” Access to capital — especially for industrial-scale projects — remains another key bottleneck: “We also need to improve access to capital, especially for industrial projects. That includes debt financing for CapEx at earlier stages.” There’s also still a tendency for institutions to prioritise large, established companies over smaller, innovative ones. Ultimately, she argues, the issue is not a lack of capital, but how it is deployed: “It’s not that Europe lacks money — it’s that the money is not always deployed in a way that supports breakthrough innovation.” And from here on in, she asserts,  “We’re just getting started — oh, and we’re hiring.”

Deep Science Ventures (DSV), a UK-based deeptech venture creator, and Renaissance Philanthropy, a nonprofit fueling a 21st-century renaissance by increasing the ambition of philanthropists, scientists, and innovators, today announce a venture-creation project designed for systemic intervention in crop resilience. The project is part of DSV and Renaissance Philanthropy’s existing partnership to form the Climate Emergencies Resilience Lab (CERL). Moving beyond traditional genetic modification, the initiative establishes a high-ambition roadmap to address the economic threat of climate-induced crop failures by creating commercially viable, deep-tech spin-outs. By 2050, climate-driven agricultural collapse and malnutrition could cost the world $1.8 trillion and 887 million years of healthy human life. This is not a distant projection; recent droughts and heatwaves have already destroyed up to 50 per cent of harvests across California, Southeast Brazil, and the Horn of Africa, while pre-harvest sprouting alone costs more than $1 billion annually. However, the dominant approach- of engineering crops for permanent genetic resilience is reaching its limits.  Hardwiring heat tolerance into a plant's DNA often results in a "yield penalty" in normal years, while novel traits can take 10+ years to reach the market. As climate extremes grow less predictable, these static, time-consuming solutions are becoming increasingly unviable for global food security. However, a convergence of technology breakthroughs means that it is becoming possible to tune resilience in alignment with climate risks. The DSV and Renaissance Philanthropy partnership has identified three high-growth technical pillars ready for venture creation and institutional backing: Forecasted priming to enhance stress pathways and orchestrate developmental processes, combining short-term weather accuracy with biologicals such as RNA or peptides to tune crops in real time.  Environment-responsive protectants and field-robust symbiotic microbes, enabling stress tolerance to be outsourced and reliably activated under specific conditions. Foundational breeding tools to rapidly expand the available palette of resilience traits, for example, by engineering wild relatives or donor plants to circumvent barriers including crossing, linkage drag and epistasis. The partners seek to identify and embed specialised talent to lead technical and commercial scoping. These individuals will define a specific market or environmental need and work backwards to build the necessary field-ready data packages. Unlike traditional models, this approach does not rely on an initial laboratory breakthrough or a chance discovery.  By intentionally engineering the R&D, regulatory, and IP strategies toward a predetermined outcome, the initiative ensures that innovation is targeted where it can achieve the greatest global economic and nutritional impact. "We are mapping the white space where science meets commercial markets," said Dom Falcao, co-founding Director at Deep Science Ventures.  "This is about creating a de-risked pathway that transforms plant science into investment-ready companies. We are providing the systematic architecture to turn primed resilience into a dominant market category." "Renaissance Philanthropy was built to advance entire fields," said Joshua Elliott, Chief Scientist at Renaissance Philanthropy. "By furthering our partnership with DSV, we are enabling visionary philanthropic capital to act as a bridge for innovations that are too complex for traditional early-stage funding but too critical to ignore. The next generation of agricultural tech must exist in the field, protecting livelihoods and preventing the social unrest caused by food insecurity. We look forward to partnering with collaborators, including scientists, funders and other experts, to realise our goals and encourage them to reach out to us." 

Bioniq, creator of personalised supplements based on blood biomarker analysis, has entered into an agreement for the sale of its assets to global nutrition company Herbalife. Founded in 2019, Bioniq develops personalised supplement formulas using its patented product personalisation engine, an individual’s health background, and a proprietary database of biomarkers. Bioniq’s personalised supplement formulations are designed for a broad range of individuals, from everyday wellness consumers to elite athletes. Bioniq has built one of the largest proprietary datasets in the category, comprising over 6 million data points collected across five continents. Its patented algorithm identifies micronutrient imbalances and delivers precision daily nutrient support, complemented by one-on-one consultations and ongoing health insights. Headquartered in London, Bioniq serves customers in more than 70 markets worldwide, including the United States, Europe, and the Middle East. The Company is backed by prominent investors, including HV Capital and Unbound, as well as elite athletes Cristiano Ronaldo and Diogo Dalot. Since entering the UAE in 2021, Bioniq has expanded rapidly across the Gulf region through partnerships with the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi and Al Borg Diagnostics in Saudi Arabia. The $55 million purchase price will be paid over five years, including an initial payment of $10 million at closing. In addition, the transaction value includes up to $95 million of contingent payments based on future performance.Vadim Fedotov, Founder of Bioniq, will join Herbalife’s leadership team following the completion of the transaction. Key members of the Bioniq team will also transition to Herbalife. The acquisition will enable Bioniq’s science-driven, personalised supplementation platform to scale globally through Herbalife’s extensive infrastructure, which spans 95 markets, with over 2 million distributors and millions of customers worldwide. Bioniq’s proprietary algorithm, formulation capabilities, and international team will be integrated into Herbalife’s ecosystem, accelerating product innovation, expanding access, and enhancing the customer experience globally. “With a professional athletic career behind me, I created Bioniq to make health measurable, actionable, and accessible,” said Vadim Fedotov, Co-Founder and President of Bioniq.   "Our science-driven approach, proven efficacy, and sustainable business model have positioned us as a leader in personalised nutrition. Joining Herbalife allows us to accelerate our mission and bring personalised health solutions to a global audience at scale.” “The future of health and wellness is increasingly personalised and data-driven,” said Stephan Gratziani, CEO of Herbalife. “By combining Bioniq’s technology with our global infrastructure and Pro2col platform, we are uniquely positioned to deliver personalised nutrition to millions of consumers worldwide.“ “Throughout my career, biometrics and personalised nutrition have been central to helping me perform and compete at the highest level. As a longtime Herbalife and Bioniq user, I’ve experienced firsthand how a tailored approach to nutrition can help optimise performance,” said Cristiano Ronaldo.  “I’m delighted to see Bioniq’s personalised supplements become part of Herbalife’s expanding access to nutritional supplements, helping people take a more informed approach to their health, wellness and performance." The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2026, subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals. As part of the transaction, Herbalife also obtained a call option to acquire Bioniq LAB,  a separate platform focused on small molecules and peptides.  The call option provides Herbalife with strategic flexibility to evaluate potential longer-term opportunities in this area in a disciplined and capital-efficient manner.  Bioniq’s personalised nutritional supplements are expected to be offered later this year through Herbalife independent distributors for customers in select countries in Europe and the United States, with additional markets to follow.  The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2026, subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals.