Mycoverse, an agritech spin-out from the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) developing fungal-based biological crop protection, has raised €2.4 million in pre-seed equity funding. The round was co-led by Future Food Fund and High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF), with participation from PINC, the venture arm of Paulig, bringing the company’s total funding to €4.3 million. The crop protection landscape in Europe is evolving in response to regulatory changes and growing demand for more sustainable agricultural practices. At the same time, farmers continue to require reliable and cost-effective tools to manage persistent disease pressures. Potato late blight remains a major challenge and represents an estimated $1.9 billion global market, underlining demand for innovative bio-based solutions that can support crop resilience while reducing environmental impact. To address this need, Mycoverse is developing fungal-based biological crop protection solutions using an AI-driven discovery platform and advanced fungal production technology. The company focuses on identifying promising fungal strains and developing bioactive solutions designed to replace chemical pesticides while integrating into existing farming systems. Its platform is built to support scalable, data-driven applications across multiple crops, with an initial focus on potato late blight and potential future use in grapevine. The company reports that its lead candidates have demonstrated strong performance in greenhouse trials. The new funding will support the development of Mycoverse’s first solution targeting potato late blight, one of Europe’s most destructive crop diseases, as the region faces increasing pressure to reduce reliance on chemical pesticides.

Berlin-based Flink, a quick commerce operator active in Germany and the Netherlands, has secured around $100 million in new growth capital. The round was led by Prosus and other existing investors, with Btomorrow Ventures, the corporate venture arm of BAT, also participating. Founded in 2021, the company operates a network of local fulfilment hubs that enable rapid delivery of everyday groceries and household essentials through its mobile app. Flink focuses on high-frequency top-up shopping missions, combining a curated product assortment with short delivery times supported by in-house logistics and operations infrastructure. Over the past two years, Flink has refined its operating model with a focus on operational discipline, unit economics and cost control. The company reports that it is now operating profitably at the EBITDA level. Commenting on market developments, Julian Dames, CEO of Flink, said the quick commerce landscape has fundamentally evolved: Quick commerce works when it is built on operational discipline and realistic customer expectations. Our strength lies in combining profitable operations with true on-demand delivery - a model that clearly differentiates us in the market. Flink’s model centres on frequent, high-quality top-up shopping missions, reflecting local customer behaviour. The company reports an average basket size of more than €45 and an average delivery time of approximately 30 minutes. Looking ahead, Flink plans to open additional hubs in selected German regions in 2026, focusing on areas that meet strict profitability and density criteria. The new funding will strengthen the company’s financial position following a period of consolidation in the European online grocery sector and provide additional flexibility to support targeted expansion in its core markets.

The newly released Female Innovation Index 2026, Europe’s largest report examining the innovation and funding pipeline driven by female entrepreneurs, shows that female founders across the region are scaling more rapidly, raising larger rounds and increasingly adopting AI. Produced in partnership with more than 35 private equity and venture associations and leading European venture ecosystem players across 20 countries, the latest edition delivers over 150 insights into the female innovation funnel in Europe. According to the report, 1,307 European female-founded startups raised €7.5 billion across 1,376 deals in 2025, marking a three-year high and a 19 per cent year-on-year increase. This growth broadly tracks the overall European VC market, which rose 18 per cent over the same period. AI becomes a central growth driver The report reveals that AI continues to play an increasingly important role in female-led innovation. In 2025, companies leveraging AI captured 22 per cent of all venture capital and 25 per cent of all rounds raised by female-founded startups. Among funded female-founded AI companies, 47 per cent operated at the application layer, with security (18 per cent), health (16 per cent), robotics (11 per cent) and fintech (10 per cent) attracting the most investment. Source: Female Innovation Index 2026 Survey data from the Female Innovation Index 2026 indicates that AI is widely viewed as a key business enabler: 86 per cent of female founders report using the technology, and 90 per cent say it has made building their businesses easier over the past year.  Beyond AI, deeptech remains a major focus area, accounting for 34 per cent of total venture capital raised by female-founded startups in 2025, up one percentage point year on year. Within deeptech, drug discovery attracted the largest share at 20 per cent. Agata Nowicka, founder of Female Foundry and author of the Female Innovation Index, said: This has been a remarkable year for female entrepreneurs in Europe. Female founders across all industries are no longer simply experimenting with AI — they are embedding it at the core of their value creation. With an unprecedented number of female-founded companies reaching unicorn status and a surge in M&A activity, we are witnessing a generational shift in how women build, innovate, and scale across Europe. Health leads sector performance Health further strengthened its position as the leading sector for both company creation and funding among female-founded startups in Europe in 2025, capturing 37 per cent of total capital raised (€3.6 billion), up 75 per cent year on year. Fintech followed with 12 per cent (€0.9 billion), down 10 per cent, while energy accounted for 7 per cent (€506 million), declining 15 per cent from the previous year. Source: Female Innovation Index 2026 Larger rounds and stronger progression Funding rounds for female-founded startups continued to grow in size, particularly at later stages. Average round size increased 12 per cent year on year, with Series B and Series C showing the strongest growth at 26 per cent and 17 per cent, respectively. More Seed-stage female-founded companies progressed to Series A than the broader European startup population, and deal activity increased across all stages, especially at Seed, Series A and Series B. Female-founded companies also outperformed the European average at Series A in funding success. Record unicorn creation and regional leaders In 2025, female-founded companies in Europe achieved a record level of unicorn creation. Five companies reached unicorn status, bringing the regional total to 29, the highest recorded to date. A further 21 companies are approaching unicorn status, representing a 50 per cent increase and another record high. Geographically, the UK, Finland and France lead in total funding for female-founded companies, while Finland, Czechia, Luxembourg and Spain record the highest national shares of venture capital allocated to female-founded startups. Source: Female Innovation Index 2026 For more information, the full report is available here.

An Oxford-headquartered spacetech startup says it's gearing up to manufacture up to 200 satellites a year, as it looks to offer European governments and businesses an alternative communication channel to Elon Musk’s Starlink. Open Cosmos is launching a satellite network, called ConnectedCosmos, that will provide sovereign communication as an alternative to “transcontinental mega-constellations”, the startup said. The startup, founded in 2015, designs, builds and operates satellites that collect critical data to address global challenges like connectivity and climate change.   Founder and CEO Rafel Jordà Siquier said it was gearing up to build up to 200 satellites a year, from its main hub in Harwell, near Oxford, according to the Daily Telegraph.   He told the Daily Telegraph: “We have the ability to deliver up to 150, soon close to 200 satellites per year. In Harwell in particular, we now have the capacity for manufacturing on average a satellite every three days.”   The startup is pitching its offering as a European alternative to European businesses and governments, which use Starlink, the satellite network developed by Musk's spaceflight firm SpaceX. The startup's plans also come amid EU officials having reservations about its reliance on Starlink, which has been used by Ukrainian civilians, government and military since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, given its concentration of power in the hands of one individual. Siquier said: “ConnectedCosmos represents a leap forward for Europe in building a resilient, secure and autonomous connectivity capability - giving nations and partners a reliable alternative for true sovereignty in orbit. "By combining secure space-based communications with real-time Earth Observation intelligence, we are moving beyond connectivity alone and delivering actionable resilience. "This combination is what separates us from the crowd - adding the extra layer of context and insight to transform our offering into a unique service. “In a world where infrastructure can be disrupted, jammed, or compromised, our constellation ensures that critical data remains secure, trusted, and immediately usable. With ConnectedCosmos, we are delivering to the world an alternative that matches technological excellence with strategic autonomy.”   Open Cosmos, which has expanded into Portugal, and Spain, has secured contracts worth tens of millions of pounds. Its investors include ETF Partners, Accenture Ventures and Wise founder Taavet Hinrikus and has raised over $63m in total.

Zurich-based Fainite AG has received €165,000 (CHF 150,000) from Venture Kick to advance physics-based simulations and expand access to advanced engineering analysis across a wider range of applications. Modern hardware development and material testing rely heavily on physics-based simulations for design, validation, and manufacturing. However, these simulations are often time- and compute-intensive, increasing engineering costs and slowing product development. As a result, engineers frequently simplify models, limiting their ability to reflect real-world conditions and constraining product performance when extensive testing becomes too costly. Fainite is addressing this challenge with a physics-aware AI platform designed to accelerate and streamline simulation workflows. The platform enables engineers to run simulations faster, set up new workflows in minutes, and intelligently reuse prior results using deep learning and physics-informed models. An integrated AI agent guides users through complex tasks and provides expert recommendations, making advanced analysis and design exploration more accessible while preserving core physical principles. The company aims to support the approximately 9 million hardware engineers affected by these bottlenecks, initially focusing on complex engineering problems that general-purpose AI models are not well-suited to address. The new funding will support the expansion of the technology into additional engineering domains and applications, accelerate the launch of a scalable next-generation platform, and strengthen the team and go-to-market efforts to drive enterprise adoption.

Onetag, a global programmatic ad exchange and smart curation platform, announced the acquisition of Aryel, an Italian adtech company focused on immersive and interactive advertising experiences. As advertisers place greater scrutiny on the ROI of their ad spend while seeking simpler workflows and clearer performance signals, the limitations of fragmented buying models and undifferentiated curation layers have become increasingly apparent. Onetag’s strategy aims to address this shift by redefining how value is created, exchanged, and measured across the open internet. Commenting on the acquisition, Filippo Gramigna, Co-CEO of Onetag, said the industry needs a stronger value exchange rather than additional complexity: With Aryel, we’re unifying quality media, creative technology, unique data and AI-driven decisioning into one solution, making it easier and quicker for brands to achieve real business outcomes, with simplicity and ease. Through the integration of Aryel, Onetag brings together three core capabilities within a single proprietary platform: access to quality media via a global exchange connected directly to premium publishers; immersive, high-impact creative formats designed to drive meaningful user interaction; and AI-driven decisioning focused on optimising campaigns toward concrete business objectives rather than surface-level metrics. Delivered through a unified self-service solution, the platform is intended to reduce operational complexity, support broader adoption, and enable buyers and advertisers to achieve measurable outcomes. Mattia Salvi, CEO of Aryel, said the company was established to move digital advertising beyond passive impressions, adding that its immersive formats are built to capture attention, encourage interaction, and generate meaningful signals while maintaining a positive user experience. He noted that, as part of Onetag, this creative intelligence is now integrated directly into media delivery, allowing each interaction to contribute to performance metrics and measuremen. The combined technology is supported by large-scale proprietary data spanning audiences, performance insights, and user interactions. This foundation powers Onetag’s AI-driven decisioning layer, enabling buying strategies aligned with business outcomes such as consideration, engagement, and conversions, while linking media quality, creative effectiveness, and measurement within a single framework. With this acquisition, Onetag advances its shift from fragmented digital advertising transactions and inconsistent user experiences toward a more unified value exchange focused on quality, intelligence, and measurable outcomes.

Last week, we tracked more than 70 tech funding deals worth over €2 billion, and 5 exits, M&A transactions, rumours, and related news stories across Europe.Click to read the rest of the news.

The Tech.eu Summit London 2026 will take place on 21–22 April at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre, convening leading voices from across the international startup and investment ecosystem. Across two days, the summit will feature in-depth conversations, premium networking opportunities and collaborative sessions, positioning London once again at the heart of Europe’s technology scene. There are only a few days remaining to secure Early Bird tickets for the Tech.eu Summit London 2026 at the current rate. This discounted tier is nearing its deadline, after which prices will move to the next level. Ticket pricing will be updated on 4 March 2026 Ticket pricing for the Tech.eu Summit London 2026 will be revised on 4 March 2026. From that date, the Early Bird ticket will be priced at £500 + VAT. Thinking of joining with colleagues or friends? A discounted group rate is available for purchases of three or more tickets, with Early Bird (3+ People) passes priced at £450 + VAT per person. The Tech.eu Summit London 2026 will gather founders, investors, executives and policymakers from across Europe and beyond. The agenda will include keynote speeches, panel discussions and curated networking sessions focused on artificial intelligence, fintech, SaaS, sustainability and other emerging technologies. Attendees will also hear from speakers representing leading organizations such as OpenAI, Notion Capital, PolyAI, Oxa, Wise, NATO Innovation Fund, Upvest and 2150, offering unique insights and perspectives from across the global technology and investment landscape. Make the most of your summit experience with the Tech.eu Events app Attendees can also 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, schedule meetings, explore the complete agenda and organise their personal timetable in advance. The app will also be used for seamless 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 changes on 4 March. Join us at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre on 21–22 April for two days of insights, networking and collaboration with some of the most influential figures in technology and investment. We look forward to welcoming you in London. Partners Pavilion Partner Gold Partner Silver Partners   Supporting Partner Community Partners  

GitHub alternative Tangled has raised a $4.5 million funding round. The code platform offers a primary European alternative to GitHub for developers, providing an open and extensible network built for the next generation of software creation. The funding round was led by byFounders, the community-powered VC firm, with participation from Bain Capital Crypto and existing investor Antler.  Notable angel investors also joined the round, including: Thomas Dohmke, the former CEO of GitHub,  Avery Pennarun, CEO of Tailscale, Mårten Mickos, former CEO of MySQL and HackerOne and Sami Honkonen, a prominent Finnish angel investor and the founder of DIAS. Tangled was founded by brothers Akshay and Anirudh Oppiliappan, who bring extensive experience building large-scale distributed systems and code intelligence platforms at Y Combinator startups. Akshay is based in London, while Anirudh is based in Helsinki, reflecting the company's cross-border European roots. I spoke to CEO and co-founder Anirudh to learn all about it. Beyond Microsoft: Tangled wants to rebuild social coding from first principles Today, a huge portion of the world’s code is stored in the US and governed by US jurisdiction. GitHub has been the incumbent for around 15 years. But according to Anirudh, after the Microsoft acquisition for $7.5 billion in 2018, there’s been a growing sense of complacency — both in product innovation and in ideology.  He asserts:  “A lot of “Microsoft-ism” has seeped into the platform, especially around AI and Copilot. My brother and I felt there was space to rethink social coding from first principles. That became the catalyst for Tangled.” The brothers are originally from Bangalore. Anirudh moved to Finland about three years ago to work for a Finnish cloud provider, where he spent roughly two and a half years building their managed Kubernetes product. He admits, “Finnish work life is very comfortable — maybe a little too comfortable for me. I wanted to lean back into my real passion: building developer tools. At the same time, I felt that the code collaboration space hadn’t meaningfully evolved in over a decade.” Anirudh explained that many developers don’t realise that if their code lives on GitHub, Microsoft is legally entitled — under its terms — to train AI models on that code.  “For some developers and organisations, that’s not acceptable. They want ownership over their intellectual property and control over how it’s used. We decided to build Tangled as a decentralised, European company where users can host their own code on their own infrastructure — and share it on their own terms. The jurisdictional aspect matters. Data sovereignty matters.” Built for indie devs: Tangled bets on community over enterprise Tangled approach to decentralisation is pragmatic. If you’re used to GitHub, the user experience feels very familiar. But behind the scenes, your code doesn’t have to live on a single central server. “We introduce something called a “Knot” — a lightweight, self-hosted server that runs on your own infrastructure, explained Anirudh. “You push your code to your Knot, and it federates into Tangled. From a user perspective, everything feels seamless. But in reality, code is distributed across the world.” The approach has already gained traction. For example, researchers at Cambridge are hosting a Knot on their own infrastructure and collaborating on research codebases there. Schools and student clubs have also adopted the model. Further, Tangled prioritises transparency and developer sovereignty, giving the community a choice.  “One of our core theses of Tangled is that it should serve indie developers and open-source communities first.” Anirudh asserts:  “After the acquisition, GitHub went hyper-enterprise. That’s understandable commercially — but it left indie developers underserved.” Updating the pull request model for agentic coding  The founders knew that ideology is not enough to win committed users — the product has to be better than what already exists.  Tangled rethinks the pull request model.  GitHub introduced pull requests in 2009 — it was revolutionary at the time. But according to Anirudh, the model hasn’t evolved to match today’s volume of code, especially in the era of AI-assisted and agentic programming. He explained: “At companies like Google and Meta, developers don’t rely on the traditional mega-PR model.  Instead, they use stacked pull requests. Rather than submitting one massive change with thousands of lines of code, you stack small, atomic changes on top of each other. Each change can be reviewed independently. It’s dramatically easier for contributors and reviewers.  We designed our stacked PR implementation with an ex-Meta engineer who worked on version control tooling there. It’s become one of the biggest draws to Tangled.” Infrastructure for Agentic programming Tangled believes the future of software development may involve one developer orchestrating hundreds of agents. Because Tangled is built on the AT Protocol, new actors — human or agent — can participate without relying on a proprietary API. On GitHub, you’re constrained by API limits and access rules. On Tangled, agents can create repositories, submit pull requests, review code — seamlessly. “ In fact, we’ve already seen autonomous agents create repositories and push code on Tangled,” explained Anirudh. “Our goal is to become foundational infrastructure for whatever this next era of software development looks like. Tangled is about tightly knit social coding — a platform where ownership, decentralisation, and community aren’t afterthoughts. Whatever the next generation of collaborative software development becomes — whether it’s indie hackers or autonomous agents — we intend to be the infrastructure layer that enables it.” The active Tangled community has around 900 members on Discord who directly influence product development, and roughly 18,000 followers on Bluesky.  “That federated social layer fits naturally with our philosophy, " explained Anirudh. Long-term, Tangled wants community spaces to live alongside codebases.  Anirudh shared:  “Today, discussions about projects happen on Reddit, Hacker News, or X. It’s fragmented. We’re exploring ways to bring those conversations directly to the platform — whether that means forums or something new entirely. Community is sticky. It’s what builds long-term loyalty.” Tangled’s Tailscale-inspired strategy For now, Tangled is not monetising. Instead, its focus is on building the best next-gen code forge.  “Down the line, we’re inspired by companies like Tailscale: give the product away to individuals and open-source users, and charge businesses for enterprise-level features. Eighty per cent of users get it free. The twenty per cent who need advanced capabilities — companies — pay. That approach creates goodwill and love for the product. We’re still designing what that looks like for Tangled, but we won’t paywall core functionality.” Choosing investors who share the mission According to Anirudh, the team was very thoughtful about fundraising.  “Open-source communities can be sceptical of venture capital — and frankly, so are we.” They found public funding for startups too slow, and eligibility restrictions made it difficult, especially since neither of the founders are European citizens. “Ultimately, we chose investors who aligned with our philosophy. byFounders stood out because of their community focus and radical transparency — you can literally download the exact term sheet we signed from their website. We also brought in Bain Capital Crypto, who are deeply technical and bullish on the AT Protocol, which Tangled builds on. And Thomas Domke, former CEO of GitHub, joined as an investor — which felt like strong validation.” The $4.5 million investment will be used to scale the platform into a foundational environment for software collaboration globally. Deina Kellezi, Investor at byFounders, comments: “From the moment we first met the founders, we were extremely impressed by their deep passion, speed of shipping, and vision of wanting to improve how software developers collaborate.In a world where development is being disrupted by AI coding agents and tools, they are building the next generation code forge from first principles, and we couldn’t be more excited to partner up with them on this journey.” Jussi Kallasvuo, Partner at Antler, comments:   “The bottleneck in software development has shifted from writing code to reviewing and managing it at scale. We backed Tangled because the team has the technical depth to build a system that manages this complexity for both humans and AI. This is a critical piece of infrastructure for the European tech ecosystem, providing a native alternative to American legacy platforms.”

Outpost Bio, a company focused on decoding complex interactions in human biology, has raised a $3.5 million pre-seed round co-led by Merantix Capital and Seedcamp, with participation from OpenSeed VC, Defined, and several strategic family offices and angel investors. Human microbiology examines how microbial communities living in and on the body metabolise drugs, process nutrients, and influence health outcomes. Despite being one of the most complex and data-rich areas in biology, it remains difficult for R&D teams to translate this complexity into actionable insights. While many biological frontier models focus primarily on components encoded in human DNA, biological function emerges from interactions across multiple systems. Outpost Bio aims to address this gap by developing frontier models at the interaction layer with a focus on human microbiology. Its Lab-in-the-Loop platform combines automated experimentation with machine learning to create a closed feedback loop in which models learn from experimental results and guide subsequent testing. The approach generates proprietary, human-derived functional data at scale, supporting pharmaceutical partners in reducing clinical risk, designing safer formulations, and strengthening regulatory evidence. Beyond pharmaceuticals, food and consumer companies can use the platform to assess how prebiotics, botanicals, and other ingredients influence microbial communities. The new funding will support the further development of Outpost Bio’s experimental and modelling platforms, enabling new approaches to the design of drugs, ingredients, and consumer health products.

Munich-based medtech company Noxon has closed its seed funding round, led by High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF) and Bayern Kapital, with participation from Auxxo and another institutional investor. The size of the round was not disclosed. In rehabilitation and the treatment of neuromuscular disorders, muscle diagnostics and activation are typically performed intermittently in clinical settings. As a result, patients often lack continuous data and adaptive therapy in their daily lives throughout the treatment process. Noxon aims to address this gap with a medical Muscle-Computer Interface that combines continuous muscle diagnostics and neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES) in a wearable designed for everyday use. The core innovation is a closed feedback loop that enables real-time measurement and personalised muscle and nerve activation throughout therapy, integrated into existing formats such as tapes, patches, and orthopaedic aids. Noxon is also working with medical partners, including University Hospital Würzburg and the neuroscience group N-Squared Lab, on additional pilot applications. The collaboration focuses on supporting muscle control when signal transmission between the brain and muscle is impaired, including approaches aimed at reducing tremor in Parkinson’s patients. With the new funding, Nexon will advance clinical validation of its platform and support the launch of its initial products, aiming to make muscle health more transparent, personalised, and accessible.

This week, we tracked more than 70 tech funding deals worth over €2 billion and 5 exits, M&A transactions, rumours, and related news stories across Europe. On the fourth anniversary of Russia’s unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Tech.eu remains committed to amplifying Ukrainian founders and investors — not as a symbolic gesture of solidarity, but in recognition of their continued global impact and their role in building front-running technologies at international scale. This week, we are placing them at the centre of our coverage. 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 ?? Wayve raises $1.2B at $8.6B valuation to scale embodied AI for autonomous driving ??  AI inference chipmaker Axelera AI raises $250M ?? Allica Bank to become unicorn, following $155M funding round, according to report ??‍?? Noteworthy acquisitions and mergers ?? Radiant and Ori merge to deliver sovereign AI cloud at utility scale ?? Former unicorn snaps up Bristol tech firm Squarebird ?? Canva acquired the startups Cavalry and MangoAI ??  Quantum Surgical acquires a Johnson & Johnson subsidiary ? Interesting moves from investors ??. Syndicate One closes €22M second fund to back Belgian tech founders ?? Founders House launches in Helsinki to build Finland’s next global tech giants ??  Space tech investor exceeds $100m for close of its latest fund ?️ In other (important) news ? The Tech.eu Summit London 2026 unveils new speakers: Leaders from Wise, NATO Innovation Fund, Upvest, 2150 and many more… ??  Not resilient, strategic: The reality of Ukraine’s tech ecosystem four years on  ?? Finland-based quantum computing startup IQM to go public in US via SPAC ? OpenAI to establish London as biggest research hub outside the US ⚛️  Proxima Fusion partnership gives Europe its most credible path to commercial fusion ?? Tewke secures £1.5M to scale AI-powered home energy platform ?? The New Era of Shopping raises $1.4M Pre-Seed to help brands win in the age of agentic commerce ??  Straion raises €1.1M to govern AI coding at scale ?? bmp Ventures invests €500,000 in Benefits-Manager ?? Clee Medical secures seed funding to advance real-time brain imaging for neurosurgery

Monzo’s former CEO TS Anil has been appointed vice-chair of Monzo’s board, in a shake-up which sees an executive from an existing Monzo investor and a former Y Combinator executive take non-executive board seats. The board reshuffle follows a boardroom battle which saw Anil step down as CEO of the UK challenger bank amid concerns over the digital bank's international expansion and his post-IPO commitment. Anil's exit, which led to objections from some Monzo shareholders over his departure, was announced by Monzo in October last year. He has been replaced by Diana Layfield, a banker who has also previously worked at Google, and who has now started in the CEO role. One of the new non-executive board appointments is Vinay Yarlagadda, who is a managing director at Singapore’s GIC, a sovereign fund, which is an existing investor in Monzo. The other new non-executive director is Anu Hariharan, the founder of Avra, a US VC and accelerator, who was previously a managing director at Y Combinator. Monzo, which has over 14m customers, was valued at $5.9bn in 2024 in a secondary share sale, backed by GIC and StepStone Group. Gary Hoffman, chair of the Monzo board, said: “I am delighted to welcome both Anu and Vinay who bring a wide range of experience as Monzo enters an exciting new phase of growth. "We’re also welcoming TS in a non-executive role as vice chair where, with the rest of the board, he’ll continue as planned to advise and support Monzo's long-term strategic vision as Diana takes the baton as Group CEO.” It is understood that there have been no departures from the Monzo board.

I’m sure the creators of the internet never thought of a time when phrases like doomscrolling, social media addiction, and bed rot would be mainstream. But here we are. If you’ve ever jolted yourself awake by dropping your phone on your face at 1am, or instinctively reached for it in a room full of strangers just to avoid discomfort, you’ve felt it too — that quiet, compulsive pull. What began as a tool for connection has, for many, become an unhealthy reflex. Valeriia Chobotok is a solo founder whose path — from working inside Ukraine’s tech startup ecosystem to building communities that foster real-world connection — has culminated in a new mission: tackling the unintentional use of phones and laptops by building an ecosystem she calls Human. For Chobotok, entrepreneurship was never a sudden decision — it felt inevitable. “Honestly, I think it started when I was a baby,” she says. “I always wanted to become a businesswoman. I had big dreams about creating something of my own and running something myself.” Her parents had day jobs but also an entrepreneurial drive. “I grew up seeing them try different things,” she explains. “That stayed with me.” Inside Ukraine’s startup engine and beyond By 2020, she began moving closer to the startup world. Always active in volunteering and leadership programmes, she found herself drawn into entrepreneurial circles almost by accident. “At America House, there was a startup incubator happening in the same building. During a break, I just started talking to people. I was 19. That was my first real networking session.” One of those early networking conversations led to her first startup role at the beginning of 2020, supporting a New Jersey–based cookie company with customer service. Later that year, in autumn 2020, she joined the NGO Anti-Corruption Headquarters as a communications manager. The following year, she joined Unit City in Kyiv as an events & community manager at NEST Hub. At the time, Unit City was widely considered the epicentre of Ukraine’s startup ecosystem. “It was like the Mecca of startups,” she says. “That’s where I really immersed myself. I saw companies grow from exhibition stage to scale.” Among them was adtech Zeely, whose trajectory she witnessed from the beginning. “Watching that growth was incredible,” she adds. Even while supporting others, she knew she eventually wanted to build something herself. In 2022, she joined the infamous EWOR ideation Fellowship. Out of more than 35,000 applicants each year, EWOR accepts just 35 entrepreneurs (0.1 per cent) or a 1 in 1000 acceptance rate.  “It was insanely competitive to get in. I still don’t know how I was selected,” she admits. “At first, I had major imposter syndrome. But then I realised — there’s a reason they chose me. I belong here.” Beyond credentials, the fellowship gave her something deeper: community. “Through that community, I met some of her closest friends.” The power of the superconnector Chobotok falls under the category of people you can call superconnectors.  I’ve witnessed her in action. Her energy and compassion for people are always front and centre. When I visited Ukraine last year for TechChill Kyiv, she was tirelessly organising logistics, herding journalists (not easy, we are as difficult to corral as a herd of cats), connecting us with amazing social activities, and even making sure we were safely in our hotel bomb shelter when the air raids sounded in the middle of the night.  She admits: “My strength has always been connecting people. People naturally came to me asking who they should meet, where they should go, especially across Europe. But I saw friction. People aren’t always in the same place. You don’t always know who’s open to meeting, hosting, or showing someone around.” In June 2023, after living in Spain for a while, she considered moving back to Ukraine. "I realised I felt disconnected from the Ukrainian ecosystem. I was watching a documentary about Gorillas, the German delivery startup, and suddenly thought: what if we could visualise our connections?” She opened Google Maps and manually plotted her network.“I wanted to see if it worked. Chobotok admits, “When I moved back to Ukraine in October 2023, I had this very clear feeling: any moment I can die. That realisation changed everything. I didn’t want to delay my dreams anymore. I started taking small steps. Friends joined me. We built svoi.” svoi hosted offline gatherings in Madrid, San Francisco, Kyiv, Lisbon, and Paris. More than 300 people formed deep friendships through, and some even relationships.   Chobotok recalled: “Some even started relationships. We raised some funding through the ReactorX acceleration program, went to San Francisco, and met incredible people. Why she walked away from monetising connection Eventually, svoi evolved into a community — a machine that helps people feel they’re not alone, wherever they are. But over time, Chobotok decided that it would be a mistake to monetise the Svoi community. She asserts:  “Happiness depends so much on personal relationships. There’s research about this. I didn’t want to charge for connection or make it transactional. That felt wrong. So I stepped back and asked: what do I really want to bring into the world?” From connection to consciousness The idea for human emerged when she intentionally went off Instagram for three months in 2025. She admits, “It was the best decision for my mental health. I started observing my parents’ behaviour with their phones. My four-year-old nephew’s generation. My own anxiety when waiting for something and instinctively reaching for my phone. I realised this isn’t just Gen Z. It’s a humanity-level problem.” Chobotok asserts that while social media was built to connect us, we’ve become disconnected from others and from ourselves.  “With AI agents becoming more powerful, we risk outsourcing our small daily decisions — our memory, our values, our beliefs. But those are the things that make us human. So I’m building an ecosystem called human.” Inserting an intentional pause Human focuses on behavioural change — helping people become intentional and conscious about their digital habits and build a healthy relationship with tech. It starts a Chrome extension designed to interrupt automatic social media use with a brief, reflective AI conversation. When you try to open a platform like Instagram, instead of loading immediately, you’re met with a calm pause screen. You can then open the Mindful popup and have a short exchange with an AI that asks why you want to go there, reflects your reasoning back to you, and gently challenges impulsive motives like boredom or restlessness.  Instead of brute-force blocking apps or other means, I actually have a review of the Pavlok wearable device at home that can be programmed to give you an electric shock when you check social media too much — it uses a cognitive approach, grounded in evidence-based behavioural science. The goal isn’t to block access, but to create awareness before you scroll. Chobotok explained: “For example, if you say you’re opening YouTube for 20 minutes of yoga, it helps you stay aligned with that intention. If you end up scrolling instead, it highlights that gap between intention and behaviour.” But it's not just about screen time:  “It’s about mindfulness. Coaching. Self-awareness. It’s uncomfortable work.” She’s currently building an MVP — a Chrome extension with AI interaction and a “ghost mode” that helps track your stated intentions versus actual behaviour.  She’s also creating social challenges around consciousness — encouraging people to track time offline, time outdoors, and real-life experiences. “Because what actually matters isn’t showcasing how cool your life looks. It’s living it.” And if that’s not enough, recognising that we will all have more time when we’re not on social media as much, Chobotok is also experimenting with a digital “town board”—a private-first board of local events and meetups, like the announcement boards we had as kids.  “That connects back to Svoi, which we’re using as a trusted test community,” she explained.  Chobotok admits: “Closing Svoi as a business was one of the hardest moments in my life. At the same time, there’s war at home. You don’t know if your family is safe. You’re questioning everything — what you want to do, who you are. I’m 24. People say I’m at the beginning of my life. But I don’t want to waste a second of it. So you just do it. No matter how little you slept. No matter how many explosions you heard that night. You connect. You build. You ship. The world has to see you. As Ukrainians, we don’t give up. We pivot. We test again. We keep going.”

Today, The Rise Report, a new nationwide study, has found that UK female entrepreneurs identify human connection as the cornerstone of resilience, growth and business success. This report is commissioned by one of the UK’s biggest communities of female founders, in partnership with Barclays.  The detailed research is one of largest grassroots studies of its kind. The findings captured the detailed views, stories and experiences of 2,225 UK-based female founders – who collectively generate £1 billion in annual turnover – and recorded 436,000 words of qualitative data.   What's most compelling is that entrepreneurship, far from being a solo endeavour, thrives through community, peer support and shared experience.  The new insights come alongside recent reports that the UK could unlock up to £310 billion in economic growth if women started and scaled businesses at the same rate as men. Connection at the core of the female founder journey The report reveals that the need for human connection runs deep across the female entrepreneurial community, regardless of the size or stage of business:   78 per cent of respondents cited human connection as central to their entrepreneurial journey. Peer networks were identified as the most effective form of support, cited by 39 per cent of respondents. Mentorship and coaching were stated by 32 per cent as vital forms of support. However, when connection breaks down, the consequences are significant. Over a quarter of female founders (27 per cent) report mental health pressures, including burnout and self-doubt. Loneliness levels were notably similar among founders of both small and larger businesses, indicating this is a systemic issue, not just for those in the early startup phase. Emmie Faust, who commissioned and co-authored the report, founder at Female Founders Rise, a community of over 11,000 UK female entrepreneurs, is calling for all involved stakeholders — including policy makers, investors, the wider business community and allies — to listen and act. Faust asserts that being an entrepreneur is a unique experience, and without the right mentors or a peer network, it can be deeply isolating.  “At Female Founders Rise, we witness the power of bringing women together at a similar stage of growth, facing similar challenges and the transformation that follows. The support, the opening of doors and the willingness to share critical learnings have the potential to make a difference to whether a business survives or not. As an exited founder myself, I could save someone £100,000 by sharing some of the mistakes I made along the way. Just think about the impact this could have at scale.” Co-author Joanna Jensen, entrepreneur and chair of the EIS Association, added:  “I often say I can share in six minutes what took me six years to learn, and that kind of knowledge-sharing can change the trajectory of a business. Shared experience shortens learning curves and unlocks growth. If we want more successful founders, the entire start-up ecosystem has a responsibility to open more doors to expertise much faster.” 45 per cent of survey respondents cite capital access as their primary obstacle Unsurprisingly, financial insecurity and access to capital were also identified as significant structural barriers facing female entrepreneurs. Nearly half (45 per cent) of respondents said funding challenges were their primary obstacle.   Negative experiences were widespread: Of those expressing sentiment, 78 per cent reported strong frustrations towards public funding, such as grants, describing processes as bureaucratic and time-consuming 73 per cent expressed negative views of private finance, including business loans, venture capital and angel investment. Further, almost a third (30 per cent) said public funding applications were overly complex, while one in 10 cited negative investor behaviour, including dismissive attitudes, ghosting and power imbalances.  Sam White, Head of SME Business Banking at Barclays, said: “More than 2,000 women have shared their honest experiences of starting and growing a business in the UK and one message comes through loud and clear - when women are backed with the right networks, support and opportunities, their businesses don’t just survive - they thrive. Confidence fuels action, and action builds firms that contribute to local communities and the wider UK economy. The potential is huge, and we will get closer to realising it if we ensure women feel supported, connected and empowered to grow their businesses.”   Female Founders Rise is a UK community with over 11,000 members, dedicated to empowering women building ambitious businesses. Through education, connection and visibility, it supports founders at every stage of growth — from early idea to global scale — by providing access to resources, expert insights and a powerful peer network. It works to accelerate the success of female-led companies, foster collaboration and help close the funding and opportunity gap across the startup ecosystem.

InSpacePropulsion Technologies (ISPTech), a German space tech company developing propulsion systems designed to enable fast and agile in-orbit manoeuvring, has raised €5.5 million to advance deployment of its non-toxic propulsion technologies for operational missions. The round was led by Join Capital, with participation from High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF), Faber, First Momentum Ventures, Lightfield Equity, Final Frontier Liftoff, the German Aerospace Center (DLR), and Start-up BW Seed Fonds, among others. As satellite constellations grow denser and missions become more complex, spacecraft must reliably change orbits and avoid collisions with minimal margin for error. Existing propulsion solutions often lack the agility, responsiveness, and thrust required for these demands. At the same time, regulatory pressure is accelerating the phase-out of conventional systems that rely on highly toxic propellants such as hydrazine, prompting satellite manufacturers to reassess propulsion choices and seek safer alternatives. ISPTech is positioning its technology to address these trends. The company is developing spaceflight-ready propulsion systems and expanding commercial engagement with satellite manufacturers and mission operators, with potential applications also spanning defence, in-orbit servicing, and refuelling. Dr. Lukas Werling, CEO and co-founder of ISPTech, said that although reusable rockets have improved access to space, future growth will depend on improved in-orbit mobility. He noted that the company is focused on building propulsion systems intended to support a more capable and scalable space ecosystem. ISPTech’s portfolio includes the HyNOx and HIP_11 propulsion systems, positioned as non-toxic alternatives for agile in-orbit manoeuvring across spacecraft classes. The company is currently preparing two customer missions, with its first small-satellite mission using ISPTech propulsion scheduled for launch in 2026. CubeSat units are in acceptance testing, and the company reports early customer traction. HIP_11 and orbital refuelling development are also supported by ESA-backed projects. Long-term, ISPTech aims to expand spacecraft mobility to enable more flexible satellite operations and future in-orbit services.

ChatGPT developer OpenAI is to make London its largest research hub outside of its San Francisco headquarters, it announced today, signifying a vote of confidence in the city. The US AI frontier lab, which currently employs around 30 researchers in London, has pledged to further increase investment in its London hub, but did not specify figures. OpenAI, whose European headquarters are in Dublin, said that its London team was contributing to key parts of OpenAI’s work, including on its AI-powered coding assistant Codex and its GPT-5.2 LLM (large language model). OpenAI cited the UK’s "world-class talent" across machine learning and the sciences, and “strong culture of cross-disciplinary collaboration”, as well as its leading universities and scientific institutions as reasons for investing in London. The move comes as OpenAI looks to battle for talent against the likes of Google's DeepMind, which employs around 2,000 people in the UK. OpenAI said: “In committing to establishing London as its next research hub, researchers in London will own key components of OpenAI’s frontier model development, strengthening the data, evaluation, alignment and reliability work that helps ensure advanced AI systems are safe, robust and useful in the real world." Science and Tech Secretary Liz Kendall said: "OpenAI naming London as its largest global research hub outside the US is a huge vote of confidence in the UK’s world-leading position at the cutting edge of AI research. It also reaffirms the UK’s global leadership as the place to pursue AI innovation that is both safe and transformative.” Mark Chen, OpenAI chief research officer, said: “We are excited to establish London as a major research hub for OpenAI, building on the leading work our London team is already doing to support our latest breakthroughs. The UK brings together world-class talent and leading scientific institutions and universities, making it an ideal place to deliver the important research which will ensure our AI is safe, useful and benefits everyone.”

FlyFocus, a Poland-based defence technology company specialising in unmanned aerial systems (UAS) and avionics, has raised €4.5 million in a funding round led by ffVC, with participation from the NCBR Investment Fund, the venture capital arm of Poland’s National Centre for Research and Development. The investment marks the company’s first institutional round following eight years of self-funded growth. The raise comes as Europe’s drone market faces growing reliance on non-European technologies, particularly components originating in China. Dependencies in areas such as batteries and flight controllers are increasingly viewed as potential risks to defence readiness. Founded in 2017 by engineers with backgrounds in aerospace and competitive aeromodelling, FlyFocus was built on the premise that trusted, European-controlled supply chains and technological sovereignty are important for military security. Its systems are manufactured using components sourced exclusively from NATO-aligned suppliers, a policy the company says supports supply-chain transparency and compliance with European defence procurement requirements. The company’s portfolio spans intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance platforms, loitering systems, and counter-drone technologies, alongside a tethered UAV solution for persistent aerial surveillance already used by government and institutional customers. FlyFocus retains full ownership of its software stack (including flight control, mission planning, and ground control software) developed in close collaboration with operators. Combined with a modular hardware architecture, this enables the company to deliver regular upgrades in response to evolving operational needs. Without secure and transparent defence supply chains, there is no real military security. Europe needs industrial capabilities it can rely on in the long term, explained Igor Skawiński, CEO and co-founder of FlyFocus. The new funding will support the construction of a dedicated manufacturing facility in Poland, expected to become operational in the second half of 2026, as well as expanded international sales and continued R&D, including the planned launch of two new UAV platforms later this year.

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

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