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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ghent-based HR tech company talentguide has secured €1.3 million in funding to support the European expansion of its AI-driven skills intelligence platform, which helps organisations manage workforce upskilling and reskilling amid shifting labour market demands. The round included participation from investment funds NXT II, Travvant (Partena Professional), Miles Ahead Capital, imec.istart, and the founders, as well as entrepreneurs Ewout Meyns, Koen Handekyn, and Jan Delaere. The investment comes as organisations face increasing challenges related to skills mismatches and workforce planning. Rapid automation is accelerating changes in required competencies, while many companies lack clear visibility into the skills they already have, particularly among blue-collar workers, whose competencies are often undocumented. These factors complicate effective upskilling, reskilling, and long-term talent planning. Based in Ghent’s Wintercircus innovation hub, talentguide supports primarily mid-sized and large organisations in understanding, developing, and planning workforce competencies through its AI-driven SaaS platform. We previously spoke with Filip Tack, CEO, and Julia Beatrice Toussaint, Chief of Product of talentguide, about the company’s approach and vision. Using AI and natural language processing, the platform structures skills based on tasks, traits, and knowledge domains. It enables personalised employee development, performance management, and strategic workforce planning, and is designed for both blue-collar and office workers. The solution can be implemented quickly without complex installations. Talentguide builds its skills intelligence using existing unstructured company data, including CVs, job descriptions, work instructions, evaluations, and system integrations. This data is used to create a skills-based job architecture and assess current employee competencies. This pragmatic approach ensures that companies can get started with useful insights from day one, without an expensive or time-intensive start-up phase, says Filip Tack, CEO of talentguide. In addition, the platform forecasts future skill requirements, such as those arising from automation-driven process changes, and supports employee growth through AI-generated personal development plans. Organisations including Travvant, MCC Verstraete, Banqup, Robovision, mtech+, and Syntra Bizz currently use talentguide’s skills intelligence platform. The new funding will be used to expand talentguide’s revenue, product, and engineering teams. As part of this growth, the company plans to hire software and AI engineers as well as customer success professionals.

Berlin-based Qontext, which is developing an independent context layer for AI, has secured $2.7 million in pre-seed funding. The round was led by HV Capital, with participation from Zero Prime Ventures and a group of founders and operators from the AI infrastructure, automation, and enterprise software sectors, including Jan Oberhauser (n8n), Emil Eifrem (neo4j), Bastian Nominacher (Celonis), Philipp Heltewig (Cognigy), and Fabian Veit (make.com), among others. Founded in 2025 by Lorenz Hieber and Nikita Kowalski, Qontext provides AI systems in production with relevant, up-to-date context. Its platform is used by fast-growing startups and larger enterprises deploying AI across functions such as marketing, sales, and customer support, helping organisations increase the number of processes that can be reliably automated. Despite rapid advances in AI capabilities, many organisations struggle to achieve consistent outcomes and measurable returns. This is often due not to model quality, but to the absence of a reliable foundation of contextual information covering customers, products, processes, and internal policies. Such data is typically fragmented across systems and teams, frequently changing and sometimes inconsistent, which limits the scalability and reliability of AI applications. Putting a great model into an organisation without context is like expecting a world-class hire to deliver on day one without any onboarding—the capabilities are there, but the results won’t be. With Qontext, companies can roll out new AI tools and agents that are fully context-aware from day one, says Lorenz Hieber, co-founder and CEO of Qontext. In many organisations, context is also rebuilt separately for each AI use case, leading to duplicated integration and maintenance efforts that slow adoption and make it difficult to scale AI broadly. Nikita Kowalski, co-founder and CTO of Qontext, added that the company works with large volumes of continuously changing data and complex access controls across both human users and AI agents, noting that addressing this challenge is essential to enabling AI at scale. With the new funding, Qontext plans to expand its platform and team to develop reusable context infrastructure, enabling AI processes to operate on reliable and continuously updated context across applications and use cases.

Hyped AI-audio generator ElevenLabs has raised $500m in a Series D funding round, valuing it at $11bn, with its CEO saying it is building towards an IPO.   The $11bn valuation marks more than a tripling of its valuation from its January 2025 Series C, when it raised $180m at a $3.3bn valuation. It also marks a big jump from its $6.6bn valuation following its secondary share sale deal announced in September last year. ElevenLabs has now raised $781m across five rounds. Sequoia led the Series D with other investors in the round being existing investors Andreessen Horowitz and ICONIQ and new investors Lightspeed, Evantic and BOND. ElevenLabs said it would be disclosing more investment support later this month. ElevenLabs leverages AI to convert text into speech, which sounds like it’s being read by human voices.   The UK based statup founded by two Polish entrepreneurs says its AI tools are capable of replicating voices with high accuracy. For example, the tech allows users to hear the voices of late Hollywood icons like Judy Garland and James Dean narrating books, articles, and other digital content.    Recently, it has struck voice deals with celebrities like Michael Caine and Matthew McConaughey. On the new funding, the AI startup said it was “doubling down” on ElevenAgents, its enterprise platform for voice and conversational AI, to support customer experience, sales and marketing, and internal workflows with interactive voice agents. It also said the funding would help bolster ElevenLabs’ foundation, its research, by expanding work on emotional conversational models, dubbing, and audio general intelligence.   The funds will also be used for international expansion across markets such as London, New York, San Francisco, Warsaw and Dublin.   The startup said it closed 2025 with over $330 million in ARR, driven by “rapid” enterprise adoption by companies like Deutsche Telekom, Square, the Ukrainian Government, and Revolut for customer support, conversational commerce, citizen engagement, internal training, and inbound sales.   Mati Staniszewski, co-founder of ElevenLabs said: “The intersection of models and products is critical - and our team has proven, time and again, how to translate research into real-world experiences.    “This funding helps us go beyond voice alone to transform how we interact with technology altogether. We plan to expand our Creative offering - helping creators combine our best-in-class audio with video and Agents - enabling businesses to build agents that can talk, type, and take action.    "When we started ElevenLabs, we couldn’t have imagined the scale and impact we’ve reached today, with an incredible team doing the best work of their lives. Yet we stay hungry, knowing how early this space still is, as we build toward IPO and beyond.”

PayPal-backed UK fintech Modulr has reported its first full-year net profit, it says, ahead of announcements regarding its US expansion.  Myles Stephenson, CEO and co-founder, heralded the achievement as an “important milestone”. He said: “It gives us control over our destiny: the ability to invest in products for our customers, expand globally, and pursue strategic opportunities.” Modulr provides white-label payment infrastructure for businesses, calling itself an “embedded payments platform”. Modulr, which has an Electronic Money Institution (EMI) licence and employs over 400 people, provides payment services for the likes of Sage, Wagestream and HMRC. Modulr did not disclose a specific net profit figure for 2025, but the net profit marks an upturn from 2024. Financial results for Modulr Holdings show pre-tax losses of £11m in the year ending 2024. On its 2025 full-year profit, Stephenson said: “Modulr’s profitability has been driven by sustained commercial growth across our focus markets.” It says it processes more than 200m transactions and over £180bn in payment value on a yearly basis. Asked if Modulr, founded in 2016, had made any cuts to hit profit, Stephenson said: “We have continued to grow our team across the UK, Europe, the US and India." Hitting a full-year profit continues to be a key metric for fintechs, as they look to show investors the robustness of their financials. Stephenson said Modulr had no current plans for external fundraising. Modulr last undertook a fundraise, around £83m, in 2022, led by General Atlantic. Other investors in the round included Blenheim Chalcot, Frog Capital, Highland Europe, and PayPal Ventures, PayPal's VC arm. Earlier this year, London-headquartered Modulr announced its expansion into the US through a strategic partnership with financial technology firm FIS. Stephenson added: “This is a foundation. It gives us greater flexibility to accelerate investment in the markets where business payments remain the most complex – particularly as we expand in the US and deepen our capabilities in AI-powered automation. Our focus remains on building products that businesses can rely on as they scale globally."

Spanish startup BCAS, focused on flexible education financing, has closed a €30 million debt round led by MyInvestor. The funding will be used to expand operational capacity, introduce instalment-based financing at affordable interest rates, and increase access to education funding for students. Founded in 2021 by Bosco González del Valle, Javier Ausín, and Manuel Avello, BCAS is an edtech platform offering flexible student financing solutions. The company aims to support equitable and sustainable access to education, enabling students to focus on their training without upfront financial barriers. To date, BCAS has financed more than 3,800 students and works with over 60 training providers, including Ironhack, The Bridge, thePower, ISDI, 4Geeks, UNIR, EIP, and HACK A BOSS. BCAS combines Income Share Agreements (ISAs), in which repayments begin once students secure employment, with affordable instalment-based payment plans, providing a flexible financing model tailored to different student profiles and the needs of training centres. We are a business that needs debt to operate. The more you grow, the greater your financing capacity needs to be. This new facility will allow us to reach thousands more students and expand our offering with more flexible solutions for both schools and learners, explains Javier Ausín, Co-CEO and co-founder of BCAS. The new financing supports BCAS’s continued scale-up, reinforcing its position as an education financing provider in Spain and as one of the Spanish edtech companies able to attract structured funding at scale. As a result of the round, more than 6,000 students are expected to gain access to high-employability training programmes. BCAS currently operates in Spain and Germany and plans to expand further across Europe after consolidating its position in its home market, with the aim of becoming a European education financing provider.

Today, February 4, is World Cancer Day. Cancer kills around 10 million people each year — more than HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis combined. Fortunately, European startups are accelerating innovation across the cancer care pipeline, from early detection to post-treatment recovery. Here’s just some of the startups to watch: Aerion Bioscience (Luxembourg) Aerion Bioscience is developing a blood test for early lung cancer detection based on a specific pattern of proteins circulating in the bloodstream. Current lung cancer detection relies heavily on CT scans and biopsies, which are expensive, involve radiation, and are not widely used as population screening tools. A reliable blood-based test could be performed during regular check-ups and flag high-risk patients earlier, when treatment is far more effective.  Aerion’s work builds on biomarker research originally developed at the Luxembourg Institute of Health, translating academic discovery into a practical diagnostic platform designed for clinical labs rather than experimental settings. The Blue Box  The Blue Box is a deep-tech biomedical startup developing an AI-powered, non-invasive screening solution for breast cancer that uses a simple urine sample instead of traditional mammography. Their device combines a proprietary electronic nose to detect cancer-related volatile biomarkers in urine. Then a machine-learning algorithm recognises subtle patterns linked to early-stage disease.  This pain-free, low-cost, radiation-free diagnostic tool has the potential to outperform mammograms, particularly in women with dense breast tissue. and make reliable screening more accessible through clinics and future at-home solutions. Captain T Cell (Germany)  Captain T Cell is developing next-generation T cell therapies to treat solid tumours, a class of cancers where existing immunotherapies often fall short.  The company engineers tumour-specific T cells that express optimised T-cell receptors (TCRs) with enhanced persistence and the ability to survive and attack cancer cells even within the hostile tumour microenvironment. Its proprietary platform supports both personalised (autologous) therapies and “off-the-shelf” allogeneic products, ready for use in multiple patients. Concr (UK) Concr is a London-based biotech company tackling cancer’s 96 per cent drug failure rate by applying astrophysics-derived technology to predict which treatments will work for individual patients. Its FarrSight platform creates digital twins, simulations of a patient’s molecular biology, to predict the most effective therapies for them and to help drug developers design better clinical trials. The startup works with partners including the NHS, Roche, and the Institute of Cancer Research. Luminate Medical (Ireland) Image: helmet designed to reduce hair loss from chemotherapy. Luminate Medical develops wearable medical devices designed to reduce some of the most distressing side effects of chemotherapy, including hair loss and nerve damage. Its flagship products use targeted compression technology to limit how much chemotherapy reaches certain parts of the body, helping protect hair follicles and peripheral nerves without interfering with the treatment's effectiveness.  Beyond reducing side effects, the company is also working to shift parts of cancer care out of hospitals and into patients’ homes. Luminate is developing infusion and monitoring systems that allow certain low-risk treatments to be delivered remotely under clinical supervision.  SPARK Microgravity (Germany) SPARK Microgravity is developing what it describes as Europe’s first dedicated commercial orbital cancer lab, to enable life scientists and pharmaceutical researchers to perform experiments in the microgravity environment of low Earth orbit.  They aim to make space-based research — especially advanced cancer biology, 3D tumour growth models, drug screening and personalised oncology studies — accessible without researchers needing to manage their own space missions, with the goal of revealing biological behaviours and therapeutic targets that are hard or impossible to study on Earth due to gravity’s influence. 

Runeasi, a KU Leuven spin-off focused on running and movement analysis, has raised €1 million in a new investment round. The round was led by Smarter Ventures, with participation from existing investors Freshmen Fund, Gemma Frisius Fund, the company’s founders, and angel investor Sean Gourley. Runeasi enables physiotherapists, coaches, and speciality running stores to carry out running and jumping analyses quickly, without the need for complex or costly equipment. The platform uses an AI-powered motion sensor worn in a sports belt to capture biomechanical data, which is translated into personalised reports with actionable insights for rehabilitation, training, and exercise planning. The company focuses on translating scientific research into practical tools that support health and human performance, allowing practitioners to convert biomechanical data into tailored training programmes. Runeasi is currently used in more than 40 countries by sports physiotherapy practices and running specialists. To date, the platform has supported over 50,000 running analyses, with the United States representing its largest market. The company also works with sports footwear brands, enabling efficient and objective product testing and supporting scientific validation. Commenting on the funding, CEO Kurt Schütte said the investment will support the company’s next phase of growth, with a focus on accelerating international expansion, particularly in the United States, while continuing to serve the Belgian market where Runeasi has established long-term customer relationships. At the end of 2025, Runeasi was named among Belgium’s fastest-growing AI scale-ups. According to Schütte and co-founder and CTO Tim Op De Béeck, the recognition reinforces the company’s commitment to scientific integrity and validation, with a focus on using AI as a practical tool rather than a marketing feature.

Dutch-based startup QT Sense has raised €4 million to advance Quantum Nuova, a quantum-based platform that monitors cellular stress in living cells at single-cell resolution. The funding includes a €3 million seed round led by Cottonwood Technology Fund, alongside follow-on funding from QDNL Participations and an angel investor. The total funding includes a €0.6 million ONCO-Q grant to fast-track oncology applications, along with €0.4 million from the Quantum Forward Challenge to support collaborative deployment and validation of Quantum Nuova in real research environments. While traditional biological methods typically analyse fixed tissue or non-living cells, QT Sense’s Quantum Nuova platform measures biochemical activity in living cells and tissues in real time, enabling new approaches in spatial biology. The platform uses fluorescent nanodiamond quantum sensors to detect oxidative stress, metabolic changes, and free radical activity—signals that are central to disease processes but have been difficult to observe directly. By providing a live view of cellular behaviour at the individual cell level, Quantum Nuova allows researchers to study how cells respond to drugs, adapt to stress, and differentiate into distinct subpopulations, offering insights beyond those available through genomics, proteomics, or conventional imaging. The technology has already been used to study the mechanisms of action of FDA-approved drugs. With support from the ONCO-Q grant, it will now be applied to colorectal cancer research, with the aim of mapping oxidative stress and metabolic vulnerabilities in tumour models to support future diagnostic and therapeutic development. The new investment will support the transition of Quantum Nuova from a high-performing prototype to a deployable discovery platform. Planned developments include improvements in hardware robustness, throughput, and integrated analytics to support real-world use. Early-access systems will be deployed with strategic partners to enable mechanism-of-action studies, functional heterogeneity analysis, and rapid, label-free measurements across multiple samples.

Linda AI, a healthtech startup focused on automating front-desk operations for dental practices, has raised a €2.6 million pre-seed round led by 6 Degrees Capital. The funding comes as voice AI adoption accelerates across service-intensive industries. In healthcare, dentistry stands out due to high call volumes, complex operations, and detailed scheduling needs. Despite this reliance on phone-based booking, more than 25 per cent of inbound calls to dental practices go unanswered, leading to significant lost revenue. Linda AI addresses this challenge through agentic workflow automation built specifically for dental practices. Its AI agents integrate with existing practice management and communication systems to manage administrative tasks end to end, including appointment scheduling, confirmations, rescheduling, and patient follow-ups. The platform works alongside front-desk teams, using voice, text, and system integrations when staff capacity is constrained. As a result, the company reports measurable impact across its customer base. Approximately 25 per cent of new patient bookings are generated through Linda AI, overall bookings increase by around 15 per cent, no-show rates decline by more than 30 per cent, and front-desk teams save over 10 hours per week on administrative work. These outcomes support improved revenue performance, better calendar utilisation, and greater operational efficiency. The new funding will be used to expand the engineering team, strengthen the senior sales function, and scale deployments across additional dental practices in Ireland and the UK.

Cloover’s billion-dollar round headlines a fintech-heavy month led by GermanyClick to read the rest of the news.

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Soundtrack Technologies has acquired Tunify, a B2B music provider serving the Belgian and Netherlands markets, and Ambie, a UK-based background music service dedicated to hospitality, with global clients including Rocco Forte, Hyatt Hotels, D&D London, and Hilton.  Soundtrack, founded in Stockholm in 2013 as a joint venture with Spotify, is active in 75 countries with a major presence in North America. The Soundtrack music library is continually growing (currently featuring over 125 million tracks), and has over 100,000 subscribers and thousands of direct licensing deals.  With the Tunify and Ambie teams joining Soundtrack, the acquisitions mean that Soundtrack now has commercial and operational teams established across the UK and the Benelux region. It’s part of a broader strategy to consolidate the fragmented international music-for-business market. Soundtrack provides the global infrastructure for rights management and streaming reliability, while the incorporation of Tunify and Ambie (both of which will rebrand to Soundtrack) ensures that regional businesses continue to receive the hyper-localised curation and service they value.  According to Soundtrack founder and CEO Ola Sars:  “Music is a universal language, but business is local. By welcoming Ambie and Tunify to Soundtrack, we aren't just acquiring customer bases; we are investing in the specific cultural and musical nuances of several markets. We are thrilled to bring their expertise into the Soundtrack family: it’s a strategy of local focus and global scale.”

MyC, a software platform dedicated to managing employee health in industrial, multi-site, and high-risk environments, announces a €10 million funding round led by Hi Inov. and including IXO and existing investors, Elaia and OSS Ventures- In many high-risk sectors, such as energy, industry,  maritime, defense or specialised medical services, employee health management still largely relies on fragmented tools that are poorly suited to multi-site and international environments.  MyC addresses these challenges by providing an operational response tailored to such contexts. Its platform covers both occupational health and first-line medical care, while ensuring a high level of security and compliance with international standards. It improves  operational efficiency through process automation, including pharmaceutical management, medical records management with specialist consultations, and regulatory  reporting. Designed to operate in complex conditions, including limited connectivity, the platform enables rapid, large-scale deployments.  Founded in 2020 by Dr Laurent Bonnardot, an ENT physician and emergency doctor with extensive experience in isolated and complex environments, and Benjamin Crevant, an entrepreneur from the industrial sector, MyC develops a cloud-based platform that centralises and secures employees’ medical data.  According to Dr Laurent Bonnardot, co-founder of MyC: “For more than twenty years, from industrial sites to offshore platforms, I managed employee health using fragmented systems. Even the world’s largest organisations lacked truly fit-for-purpose tools. MyC was born out of this frustration: providing international  companies with a single platform capable of covering all their needs, from on-site medical  follow-up to multi-country regulatory compliance, where traditional solutions fall short." MyC addresses a structural challenge for many organisations: gaining access to a reliable,  secure and actionable view of employee health in complex, highly regulated environments,”  says Valérie Gombart, co-founder and Managing Director of Hi inov. “The platform combines strong domain expertise rooted in medical field experience with a robust SaaS technology designed for international deployment. This investment fully aligns with our  strategy to support European B2B companies delivering tangible operational value to  essential industries.”  With this funding round, MyC plans to strengthen its product roadmap and scale its sales and marketing teams to support broader adoption among international enterprise clients.