Rotterdam-based Lynk, a collaborative AI contract workspace that helps businesses manage and control their agreements, has closed a pre-seed round led by European AI investor Curiosity VC, with participation from strategic angel investors. Lynk is developing a contract intelligence layer integrated into the contract-control process. The platform automates audit tasks, identifies potential risks, and flags key actions throughout the contract lifecycle. It is designed to support faster decision-making, prevent missed obligations, improve financial outcomes, and reduce manual administrative work related to contract management. Lynk is currently used by both enterprises and small businesses in real estate development and general contracting in the Netherlands, and its product has been developed in close collaboration with industry stakeholders to address the complexities of contract management in these sectors. Ruben van Gaalen, founder and CEO of Lynk, explained: Companies we work with often manage more than 100,000 pages of active contractual obligations. Until now, this has been audited manually and tracked in Excel. Itʼs not only extremely labour-intensive, itʼs also highly error-prone. Our workspace and its AI capabilities now make it possible to this work reliably and at scale. AI is expected to significantly change how contract control is carried out. Over the next five years, the way large organisations audit and manage contractual obligations is likely to be fundamentally reshaped across legal, operational, and financial control functions. Manual contract related tasks are projected to be increasingly handled by AI systems that can also incorporate a company’s contextual data, allowing professionals to focus more on higher-value activities. Lynk will use the funding to accelerate commercial expansion, support its international rollout, and extend the product into additional sectors where complex, high-value agreements require improved control.

UK-based AI workload startup Runware has raised a $50 million Series A round led by Dawn Capital, with participation from Speedinvest, Comcast Ventures, and existing investors including Insight Partners, a16z speedrun, Zero Prime Ventures, and Begin Capital. Runware provides infrastructure for enterprises to integrate AI into media-creation workflows. Its customers include Wix, Together.ai, ImagineArt, Quora, Higgsfield, and a range of other enterprise accounts. The company focuses on three challenges in the media AI market: fragmented access and usability, latency affecting user experience, and unit costs that do not scale efficiently. Runware addresses these by aggregating AI models behind a single API and developing high-performance AI inference hardware and software designed to lower both capital and operating expenditure. Its Sonic Inference Engine platform aims to deliver performance comparable to top-tier GPUs at significantly lower cost. Ioana Hreninciuc, Runware co-founder, noted that bringing AI to millions of users has become essential for product teams, yet remains technically challenging and costly: We give clients the best price and developer experience in a single API, so they can roll out any new model in minutes—without integrating dozens of providers, managing RPMs, or negotiating huge commitments. Through our API, they offer unlimited AI features to end-users, and we see them hit repeated growth peaks as a result. Runware, which has offices in London and San Francisco, plans to use the Series A funding to further develop its “one API for all AI” platform, extend the capabilities of the Sonic Inference Engine, and expand its team.

Crypto has created a financial system that runs on code, moves vast sums at the speed of the internet, and can be attacked from anywhere.  A single missed check or stray line of code isn’t a minor bug — it can take down an entire protocol.  Bug bounties began as an informal pact between developers and security researchers. But as DeFi ballooned into a multibillion-dollar ecosystem, the threat landscape shifted.  Today’s adversaries include nation-state outfits, organised crime groups, and financial engineers who can drain a protocol in seconds.  This escalating threat landscape demanded a more structured, scalable defence — something the early bug-bounty model wasn’t built for. Into this gap steps Immunefi, an on-chain security platform focused on protecting crypto protocols from hacks and vulnerabilities, founded by Mitchell Amador.   Founded in Lisbon in 2020 — although now with a Singapore HQ — Immunefi has reportedly paid over $100 million in rewards to white-hat hackers. It coordinates some of the industry’s largest bug bounties while setting an industry standard and helps prevent billions in potential losses. Further, it developed the internet’s first bug-bounty court to bring legal certainty, enforceability, and a sense of order to a space where a single dispute can shape the future of a project. I spoke to Amador to learn all about it.  Enter the scaling bug bounty standard Before introducing its Bug Bounty Court, Immunefi first set out to fix the incentives themselves with a new standard for how bug bounties should work. A bug bounty is a reward offered by a company to security researchers (“ethical hackers”) who discover and responsibly report vulnerabilities in its software or systems. However, traditional low bounties don’t incentivise top security researchers to responsibly disclose bugs. In turn, the Scaling Bug Bounty Standard is a DeFi security model where bounty payouts are tied to the real economic impact of a vulnerability, rather than a small fixed reward.  Instead of offering, say, $10k for a critical bug, a protocol sets the bounty as a percentage of the funds at risk (often up to ~10 per cent). DeFi systems can hold millions — or billions — of dollars in a single contract.  By scaling rewards with potential damage, the model: makes ethical disclosure financially competitive with exploits,Bug bounties attract better security talent, and significantly reduces the incentive to steal. But avoiding exploits also depends on preventing new bugs from shipping in the first place. As part of this, Immunefi has developed a pull request (PR) review program that allows security researchers to earn bounties not by finding new bugs, but by reviewing code changes (pull requests) before they go live. According to Amador: “PR Reviews is a CI/CD pipeline security tool. It integrates our AI systems and top human hackers into every step of code review." Instead of waiting for a hack to happen or searching the entire codebase, researchers review the new or modified code that developers submit for release. “We’re building the multi-layered SecOps stack that can get us there — multiple defensive layers powered by LLMs to customise every tool per protocol. Think of it as a SecOps platform with an intelligence layer. With it, we can keep the industry safe scalably. If we don’t, and trillions flow on-chain, we will be subsidising cybercrime for 20 years.” Why bug bounties need a court However, traditional bug bounties rely heavily on goodwill and trust, but in Web3 the stakes are much higher: millions or billions can be at risk, and researchers typically must disclose the vulnerability before getting paid.  Immunefi Arbitration is a legally binding dispute-resolution system created specifically for the bug bounty world, where security researchers and crypto projects often disagree on whether a bug is valid, how severe it is, or how much the reward should be.  When a conflict arises, Immunefi first attempts to settle it through mediation. If mediation doesn’t resolve the issue — and the bounty program is enabled for arbitration — either side can trigger a formal arbitration claim. At this point the case is handed to the London Chamber of Arbitration and Mediation (LCAM), an independent body whose arbitrators evaluate the vulnerability report, the evidence, and the program’s rules.  The researcher becomes the claimant, the project becomes the respondent, and both sides submit documentation and arguments. The arbitrator then issues a ruling that is legally binding and enforceable internationally through established arbitration frameworks such as the New York Convention.  It carries legal weight and can be enforced in courts around the world if necessary.  Ultimately, the process is designed to be faster, cheaper, and more practical than taking a dispute to a traditional court, which would be prohibitively slow and expensive for most researchers. For Amador, these systems weren’t theoretical — they grew out of years of witnessing crypto’s worst failures firsthand. The paranoia that built a security platform Mitchell Amador has worked with teams across the ecosystem — including Ethereum, Lido, MakerDAO/Sky, Filecoin, Stacks, LayerZero, Chainlink, Arbitrum, and Polygon — on incident response, vulnerability disclosure, and security standards. Amador has participated in numerous onchain incident “war rooms” and has been involved in efforts to recover funds and coordinate responsible disclosures.  Amador admits, “I’ve seen a lot of security events go wrong. Basically every project I worked on in the mid-2010s in crypto had some major cyberattack or incident.  Everything and anything under the sun was happening. So I became super paranoid.” However, this was before DeFi took off; there were no real on-chain financial markets, but he could see the tech taking off.  “I knew this was going to be huge — and we were going to get a huge wave of attacks. When people realise they can steal a million dollars over the internet, everybody and their dog is going to try.” He did the math and concluded that all of DeFi — and the potential for on-chain finance — would be destroyed before it began.  “It has been totally delegitimised in the eyes of the law. Imagine a world where 25–30 per cent of assets are stolen in the first year, “ he said. The modern attack landscape The modern attack surface shows exactly why that paranoia was justified. According to Amador, as the market matured, code became more complex. Real on-chain financial products have emerged over the last four years, such as lending markets like Aave, Automated market makers like Uniswap, perpetual futures,  and prediction markets. This has brought forth a wave of security complexity and an explosion of new vulnerabilities. There are two broad types: Flash-loans: where a hacker uses a giant flash loan to manipulate the market or protocol rules, and profit from that distortion — and a broader category of financial-engineering attacks where funds are accessed by gaming the financial design of the protocol. Web2-style “off-chain” compromises where attackers hack people and traditional IT infrastructure around a crypto system, instead of exploiting smart‑contract code directly. For example, in the $600 billion Ronin bridge hack, four North Korean actors compromised a service provider and internal systems to gain validator keys and then drained the bridge. “Criminal organisations run like startups whose sole job is to steal your money.” According to Amador: “From day one, there are literally North Koreans stalking you. The moment you announce fundraising, they are spear-phishing your dev team. That’s literal, not figurative. There’s too much money at stake, and the cost of attack keeps falling." He suggests that everyone must start paranoid, "There is no DeFi or on-chain company that survives with a reactive approach.” "Instead, everyone must be proactive before launch: audits, code review, and bug bounties. VCs mandate it. It’s night-and-day from traditional industries.” Amador asserts that when it comes to security threats, the risk of social engineering is massive. Crypto is the most lucrative place in history for social engineering. “Criminal organisations run like startups whose sole job is to steal your money. And I came to the conclusion that the only way we could do that is to have a scalable way of incentivising and coordinating the security community to defend these projects." He believes the stakes are clear: while “magical internet money” works remarkably well, the ecosystem risks subsidising cybercrime for decades if security doesn’t keep pace. Current hack rates of 3.6–4 per cent, he warns, are simply unsustainable. Yet Amador is adamant that the core technical challenges are solvable. In his view, the crypto security community already knows how to secure contracts, prevent contagion, detect scams, monitor chains, and harden code to aerospace-grade standards. The tools exist and are effective. What’s missing, he argues, is broad adoption — particularly from traditional finance players entering the space. “We know how to secure contracts, resist contagion, detect scams, monitor chains, and harden code to aerospace levels. The tools exist and work.  What’s missing is adoption — especially by traditional finance." He sees this as a battle between the excellence of the crypto security community and human ignorance. “If people adopt these tools, crypto becomes the most secure financial system in history.  If not, we will learn the lesson the hard way.”

Zilch, the UK BNPL fintech, has received a licence which it says will remove its reliance on third parties and allow it to build more payment methods in-house.Zilch, which is backed by Goldman Sachs and eBay, also said it had strengthened its ties with Visa, which earlier this year replaced Mastercard as Zilch’s card network partner.The UK fintech has received a payments services licence from the UK's main financial regulator, the FCA.Zilch said the licence means it will be less reliant on third parties and would be able to build more payment methods in-house, as well as bring products to market quicker.It comes ahead of the full rollout of Zilch’s one-click checkout feature, Zilch Pay, next year.Philip Belamant, co-founder and CEO of Zilch, said: “This is a major step change for Zilch, bringing us firmly into the payments tent and giving us a true seat at the table to shape the ecosystem. “It opens the door to new opportunities, setting us up to move even faster, more efficiently and cost-effectively."Zilch also said it has secured “Principal Membership” of Visa for the first time, and that Zilch and Visa intend to explore new opportunities to collaborate on payments.In November, Zilch, which has over 5m customers, bagged over $175m in an equity and debt funding round as it eyed acquisition targets. The funding round was led by KKCG, the Czech investment group, with participation from BNF Capital, the family office, and other strategic investors.

The first half of 2025 showed continued momentum across Europe’s foodtech landscape, driven by growing demand for sustainable, scalable and resource-efficient food solutions. Investment activity reflected a maturing ecosystem in which innovations are increasingly focused on transforming core elements of the food value chain rather than solely introducing new consumer products. Activity centred on next-generation proteins such as precision-fermented dairy, mycelium-based ingredients and advanced plant-based meat analogues, with an emphasis on realistic sensory qualities, clean labels and scalable production. Alongside this, there was notable growth in circular and upcycling solutions that convert agricultural and food-processing sidestreams into high-value ingredients, as well as innovations in aquaculture and blue food, including land-based farming and seafood by-product valorisation. Fermentation-driven flavour and ingredient platforms also advanced. Overall, the period underscored a shift toward technologies designed to improve the efficiency, sustainability and resilience of Europe’s food system. The following are the ten largest funding rounds in the European foodtech industry during the first half of 2025. Amount raised in H1 2025: €130M Laxey is an Icelandic aquaculture company pioneering sustainable land-based salmon farming on the Westman Islands. The company develops advanced facilities that produce high-quality Atlantic salmon using environmentally friendly energy, innovative water-reuse technologies, and controlled systems that minimise environmental impact and eliminate the need for antibiotics. Laxey’s integrated operations span from smolt rearing to grow-out and processing, with the goal of scaling production substantially while creating local jobs and supporting the regional economy. In May, Laxey secured €130 million in combined equity and debt financing to support the next phase of its development. Amount raised in H1 2025: €32M Vivici is a company redefining how dairy proteins are made for the food and beverage industry. Using precision fermentation, Vivici produces animal-free dairy proteins that offer high nutritional value and superior performance while significantly reducing environmental impact compared with traditional animal-derived proteins. Founded in 2023, Vivici works with food brands worldwide to accelerate product innovation and bring sustainable, high-quality protein solutions to market. Vivici secured €32 million in February to expand its access into new international markets, launch its second dairy protein ingredient, and establish long-term manufacturing capabilities. Amount raised in H1 2025: €26M Volare is a company that is transforming food industry side streams into sustainable, high-quality ingredients such as protein, oil and fertiliser for aquafeed, pet food, agriculture and chemical applications. Built on research from the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Volare uses innovative circular economy technology centred on the black soldier fly to upcycle food waste into natural, drop-in ingredients that reduce environmental impact and support a more resilient food system. The company is scaling its operations with industrial-scale production facilities and has secured significant funding to expand its breakthrough insect-based protein platform. In May, Volare closed a €26 million funding round to build protein production plant Volare 01 and to advance its unique technology. Amount raised in H1 2025: €20M Heura Foods is a mission-driven foodtech company that develops 100 per cent plant-based, sustainable, and nutritious food products with a focus on meat alternatives inspired by Mediterranean culinary heritage. Founded in 2017 in Barcelona, Heura aims to transform the global food system by offering plant-based proteins made from high-protein legumes and quality natural ingredients, helping reduce environmental impact and promote healthier eating habits. Its products are sold internationally in thousands of stores, and the company continues to innovate in new categories beyond plant-based meat. In May, Heura Foods received €20 million boost from the EIB to expand sustainable food tech. Amount raised in H1 2025: €15M Project Eaden is a company focused on creating the next generation of sustainable, animal-free meat alternatives that closely mimic the taste, texture, and experience of conventional meat. Using advanced platform and fibre-spinning technologies inspired by the textile industry, Eaden develops ultra-realistic plant-based products designed to meet growing global demand while significantly reducing environmental impact. The company aims to make delicious, plant-based meats that appeal to mainstream consumers and help accelerate the shift toward a low-carbon food system. Project Eaden secured €15 million in January to fuel its European retail rollout of ultra-realistic plant-based hams and to advance R&D efforts focused on developing whole-cut meat alternatives. Amount raised in H1 2025: €10M Rival Foods is a company developing the next generation of plant-based meat alternatives that closely mimic the texture, juiciness and bite of whole-cut animal proteins using a proprietary Shear Cell technology to transform plant proteins into layered, muscle-like structures with minimal ingredients and clean-label formulations. Founded in 2019 as a spin-off from Wageningen University & Research, Rival Foods focuses on supplying high-quality, scalable plant-based chicken and beef alternatives to chefs, retailers and food brands across Europe, helping accelerate the transition to more sustainable protein options without compromising on taste or culinary experience. In June, Rival Foods raised €10 million to double its production capacity, scale its proprietary manufacturing technology, and reduce production costs so it can offer plant-based meat at more competitive prices. Amount raised in H1 2025: €4M Fungu’it is a French foodtech company developing a new generation of natural, fermented aromatic ingredients to enhance the taste and nutritional quality of food products through a clean-label, sustainable approach. Using solid-state fermentation with filamentous fungi, Fungu’it upcycles agricultural by-products into rich, complex flavourings ideal for both plant-based and traditional formulations, helping food manufacturers improve sensory profiles without artificial additives. The company’s innovative technology addresses key challenges in the food industry by combining naturalness, functionality and circularity to support the transition toward more sustainable and flavorful foods. In June, Fungu’it raised €4 million to build an industrial pilot plant, patent and scale its fermentation process, and develop a unique database from testing hundreds of strain–by-product combinations. Amount raised in H1 2025: €3.6M Grassa is a company that is transforming grass into high-quality, sustainable ingredients for animal and future human nutrition. Using a natural process of pressing, heating and filtering, Grassa unlocks the full nutritional potential of grass to produce protein concentrates, prebiotic sugars, fibres and plant-based fertilisers, offering a locally sourced alternative to imported soy and reducing emissions and waste in agricultural systems. By working with farmers and food chain partners, Grassa aims to build a circular, climate-positive food system that increases food production efficiency while lowering environmental impact. In March, Grassa raised €3.6 million to support scaling up the process, demonstrating benefits to dairy farmers, and developing grass protein for human consumption. Amount raised in H1 2025: €3M Kynda is a foodtech startup developing sustainable mycoprotein ingredients for the food and pet-food industries by converting agricultural by-products into high-protein, high-fibre mycelium through proprietary biomass fermentation technology. Its rapid fermentation process produces versatile, clean-label protein with meat-like texture and rich umami flavour, offering a scalable, low-impact alternative to traditional plant and animal proteins while upcycling under-utilised biomass. Founded in 2019, Kynda aims to support a more circular and efficient food system by unlocking the value of crop sidestreams and expanding access to nutritious, sustainable protein solutions. Kynda secured €3 million in February to scale up production with a new factory opening. Amount raised in H1 2025: €2.5M SuperGround is a foodtech company that partners with global food producers to make meat and seafood processing more efficient and sustainable. Using patented processing technology, SuperGround upcycles undervalued fish and poultry side streams into tasty, high-quality ingredients for products like nuggets, patties and fish balls. This full-utilisation approach helps companies reduce waste, lower emissions and costs, and produce more food from the same resources without compromising on flavour or food safety. In March, SuperGround secured €2.5 million to expand its technology aimed at minimising food waste.

Berlin-based AI healthtech company FICUS Health has closed its seed round, raising a total of €3 million together with its previous pre-seed financing. The round was led by European early-stage investor Redstone and supported by Merantix Capital as well as leading industry business angels. Founded in 2024, FICUS Health develops an AI platform that supports rehabilitation clinics with medical documentation. The software automates key processes, enhances information flow between physicians, therapists, and administrative staff, reduces administrative workload by up to 70 per cent in many clinics, and allows clinical teams to spend more time on patient care. The platform complies with high security and data protection standards, including ISO/IEC 27002, and all patient data is processed exclusively in Germany. FICUS is led by founders Benjamin Pochhammer (CEO) and Dr. Mario Elstner (CTO), who bring extensive experience in technology, healthcare, and AI product development. According to CEO Benjamin Pochhammer, the company’s aim is not only to give clinical staff more time in their daily work, but also to fundamentally improve how rehabilitation clinics operate: AI is the key lever to relieve operational workflows, optimise cost structures, and at the same time improve the quality of care. In this way, we support both medical staff and decision-makers who aim to shape their facilities in a digital and economically sustainable way. Market demand reflects this need. FICUS is already working with nearly 100 rehabilitation clinics across Germany. In less than nine months, more than 100,000 medical documents have been processed, and around 1,000 professionals use the system daily. Europe’s aging population is driving growing demand for rehabilitation, while the number of skilled workers is declining, and up to 1.8 million healthcare positions in Germany could remain unfilled by 2035. At the same time, clinics face rising costs, tight budgets, and high documentation workloads, with administrative tasks taking up around one-third of working time. Reducing this burden by even one hour per day could free tens of thousands of professionals for direct patient care. With the new funding, FICUS plans to further develop its AI platform, build additional applications along the entire patient journey, and ensure interoperability with existing systems. In parallel, the company will strengthen its organisational structures and expand its market position across the German-speaking region.

Qargo, an intelligent transport management system (TMS), has raised $33 million in a Series B funding round led by Sofina, with participation from existing investor Balderton Capital. The round follows Qargo’s rapid expansion across key European logistics hubs over the last 18 months. This latest investment brings Qargo’s total funding to $54 million. Founded in 2020, Qargo is a cloud-based transport management platform designed for carriers, freight forwarders, and 3PLs. It helps logistics companies digitise operations and automate manual tasks across the transport cycle, from order entry and planning to load building, invoicing, and reporting. The platform integrates with existing tools to support more efficient and profitable operations, reduce environmental impact, and enable scalable growth. Qargo Intelligence, the platform’s AI engine, enables logistics companies to automate large parts of the end-to-end transport workflow, including order creation, route planning, trip optimisation, load building, invoicing, and warehouse time-slot booking. This automation has helped customers reduce time spent on repetitive administrative tasks by up to 75 per cent, saving hundreds of hours each week across planning, customer service, and back-office teams. With the addition of agentic AI that can interact with external systems, Qargo’s platform is significantly reducing overhead costs and accelerating processes at a scale that traditional TMS systems cannot match. Its optimisation capabilities, which help companies run fleets more efficiently, can cut empty running by up to 30 per cent, a key advantage in a market where margins are under pressure from competition, decarbonisation requirements, and rising cybersecurity risks. Since its Series A in May 2024, Qargo’s growth has accelerated, with annual customer invoicing processed through the platform increasing from £420 million to more than £1.9 billion, and its customer base expanding from around 100 to more than 400. The Series B funding will enable Qargo to further scale its team, expand into new markets, and accelerate the development of its AI-driven product capabilities, while maintaining its independence and ability to partner with companies ranging from family-run firms to large enterprises.

Cofounder VC today announced the launch of a new early growth-stage fund that continues the investment activity of the CofounderZone team. The fund will target dynamically growing technology companies with proven market validation and recurring revenue, offering both capital and hands-on operational support to accelerate scaling. Cofounder VC (previously: CofounderZone) is an early-growth venture fund. The fund invests in technology companies that have validated products, growing revenue and a clear path to scaling. Cofounder VC combines capital with operational support from an experienced investment team, Venture Partners and a broad network of business angels. “Innovation’s value shows up only after market validation. At Cofounder VC, we aim to minimise execution risk by investing in the growth phase — when teams have proven demand, repeatable sales and clear momentum,” said Dr Tomasz Golinski, General Partner at Cofounder VC. “At that stage, our capital and operational playbook — especially in sales strategy, market entry and team building — can make a decisive difference. Our Venture Partners and the network of business angels we’ve built over the years are key assets we bring to founders.” The fund is sector-agnostic but leans toward business-process digitisation, sustainability and health tech, targeting companies with at least €100–200k in monthly recurring revenue that are profitable or near break-even. It plans to invest €1–3 million per company across a portfolio of around eight startups, supported by a network of 250+ business angels for deal sourcing and co-investment. The fund will actively support portfolio companies with: International expansion strategy and execution, Building and professionalising sales teams Fundraising and investor relations Organisational scaling and governance Implementing management best practices The team has been strengthened by the addition of Maciej Kowalczyk, founder and manager of Corvus Ventures, and will be supported by a group of Venture Partners — industry and operational experts who will advise deal selection and portfolio development. “Our goal is to bridge the gap between seed financing and later-stage growth capital,” added Michal Sioda, General Partner at Cofounder VC. “We see limited interest from many international VCs in the CEE  region, which leaves a gap for promising companies. We welcome projects that may be overlooked by large foreign funds but have strong potential to scale — and we’re ready to partner with teams that have already demonstrated early commercial success and now want to build something much bigger.” The fund has completed its first closing. Investors include Polish Development Fund, private investors and family offices from Poland and abroad. The fund intends to continue raising capital in the coming months.

Berlin-based Zentio has closed a €1.4 million pre-seed funding round led by HTGF, with additional support from SIVentures. Alongside capital, the investors will provide strategic and operational support for Zentio’s next phase of growth. Industrial companies make thousands of decisions every day, from minor operational adjustments to major strategic shifts, and each choice can trigger ripple effects across the entire value chain. A change in shift scheduling, for example, influences machine utilisation, which affects inventory levels, cash flow, and storage costs. These decisions are highly interdependent, yet no single person or existing system can fully oversee and simulate all these impacts in real time. Most companies lack the resources to analyse every scenario, leading to suboptimal planning, reduced productivity, capital tied up in inventory, missed delivery deadlines, and underused capacity. To move beyond simply digitising existing processes, manufacturers need a new approach that fundamentally changes how decisions are made. Zentio addresses this by enabling AI-native, real-time production planning. Its system structures and centralises operational, machine, and production data through AI agents, creating a self-learning flywheel effect. This depth of shopfloor-level insight helps factories turn operational data into a strategic asset, enhancing productivity, adaptability, and decision-making at scale. As Immo Polewka, co-founder and CCO at Zentio, explains, the best way to bridge this gap is by moving forward: Our vision is to elevate the standard of decision-making in European manufacturing. By combining operational data with mathematical optimisation and agentic automation, companies can plan ahead strategically and respond to disruptions with confidence. This approach allows decision-makers to anticipate capacity needs weeks in advance, respond to machine breakdowns or material shortages with the best available options, and adjust shift schedules or machine settings in real time to increase output and minimise idle time. Founded in 2025, Zentio is working with a network of pilot customers and strategic partners across Europe to advance its vision of AI-native production planning. Our main focus for the coming months is to advance our core mathematical systems and ML pipelines and tie it all together with UX and agents. To achieve this, we’re expanding our team with ambitious engineers who want to join us in building the first generation of AI-native production planning, added Christophe Kafrouni, co-founder and CTO of Zentio. The new funding will enable Zentio to deepen existing partnerships and lay the groundwork for long-term impact across European manufacturing.

This week, Spanish technology company  Internxt launched Internxt AI, a conversational AI tool designed as an ethical and secure alternative to tools like ChatGPT.  Internxt AI prioritises user privacy, total anonymity and strict compliance with European regulations, offering an accessible, sovereign AI experience free from mass surveillance.  This launch aligns with Internxt’s mission to establish itself as the leading brand in online user protection, providing a European alternative to the American tech giants.  Check out our earlier interview with Fran Villalba Segarra, CEO and founder of Internxt.  Most AIs we use daily —such as ChatGPT, Gemini or Copilot— store and reuse data to train models or feed advertising ecosystems. Internxt AI breaks that pattern, offering a 100 per cent private, anonymous and sovereign experience where user information is never stored or shared.  Its technology relies on a unique security infrastructure, with end-to-end encryption and zero-knowledge architecture that prevents even the company itself from accessing user files. Internxt has also integrated post-quantum encryption, based on the NIST-approved Kyber 512 algorithm, designed to withstand future quantum-based cyberattacks. Developed fully on European servers, Internxt AI ensures that all user data remains within EU territory, complying with GDPR and the future EU AI Act. Unlike American competitors, Internxt AI does not track, sell or link data to accounts, enabling completely anonymous interactions. It also does not store anything shared with the system.  “Internxt AI represents the future of European AI: accessible to everyone, but without compromising on privacy,” says Fran Villalba Segarra, CEO and founder of Internxt. “We’ve worked hard to deliver a robust, European, open-source model that advances society with more than twenty billion parameters, offering fast, independent, precise and bias-free responses. It’s time for Europe to lead the AI revolution with ethics at its core.”  According to Villalba, the main features of Internxt AI include:  Absolute Privacy: End-to-end encryption for all conversations; no logs or metadata stored. Guaranteed Anonymity: Access with no registration, no cookies and no user identifiers. European Sovereignty: Hosted exclusively on European infrastructure, ensuring regulatory compliance and preventing cross-border data leaks. Advanced Security: Protection against malicious prompt injections and independent audits to mitigate bias. Accessibility: An intuitive, multilingual interface, including Spanish, is free to use. Power: Capable of handling complex queries in programming, creative writing, data analysis and more, with performance comparable to leading models but optimised for energy efficiency. Internxt is known for its strong commitment to data privacy and sovereignty, meeting the highest standards and certifications (GDPR, ISO 27001, SOC2, ENS, HIIPA) and having received the Spanish Data Protection Agency’s Award for Best Startup.  The company complements its offering with a no-tracking VPN and an intelligent antivirus, and is preparing the launch of Internxt Mail and Internxt Meet, encrypted email and video-calling services that will compete with Gmail and Zoom.

Ghent-based tech scale-up Trendtracker has closed a $7 million Series A funding round led by Armilar, with participation from existing investor Capricorn Partners. The investment will support the further development of Trendtracker’s autonomous AI strategy and foresight platform, which is designed to help organisations streamline strategic research, planning, and decision-making amid growing demand for AI tools that improve how organisations anticipate change and make strategic choices. Founded in 2019, Trendtracker provides an AI-powered strategic and foresight intelligence platform used by enterprises, governments, and consulting firms to monitor their external environment, identify emerging trends, and support the development of forward-looking strategies. Its platform is used by teams at organisations including Siemens, PepsiCo, P&G, PwC, Arthur D. Little, and Ageas. In an environment of constant change and increasing data volume, traditional strategy cycles are becoming less effective. Decision-makers need ongoing visibility into emerging trends that may create risks or opportunities across political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental domains. Trendtracker addresses this need with an always-on, AI-powered strategic intelligence platform that continuously monitors global signals, interprets them in context, and connects developments to their potential strategic impact. This helps organisations and governments act more quickly, make better-informed decisions, and anticipate disruption. Trendtracker’s platform is built on a predictive architecture and a coordinated system of AI agents that continuously detect, score, forecast, and interpret emerging trends by quantifying and explaining a range of impact KPIs. Drawing on this contextual understanding, the system provides leaders with deterministic, explainable, and transparent strategic intelligence on a 24/7 basis. According to Vincent Defour, CEO of Trendtracker, the company aims to reshape how teams working in strategy, risk, insights, innovation, and foresight operate. The AI doesn't just look at the past, but actively models strategic recommendations, predicting the future for businesses. Our technology functions as a strategic sparring partner, enhancing leadership judgment without supplanting it. Combining advanced AI with foresight expertise, Trendtracker positions itself as an autonomous AI strategy and foresight partner, helping organisations detect change earlier, understand its implications more deeply, and make informed decisions about their future direction. With a global customer base, Trendtracker plans to use the new capital to further develop its AI Analyst architecture, enhancing its multi-agent systems to automatically map organisational environments, analyse key sources of uncertainty, generate scenario-based forecasts, and recommend prescriptive strategic actions with clear rationale. The company will also accelerate its expansion in the US and the Middle East, supported by new strategic partnerships and a stronger local presence. In addition, Trendtracker intends to deepen its integrations and alliances with consulting firms, strategy and innovation platforms, global data providers, enterprise partners, and public-sector organisations, while scaling its hybrid team with senior talent in AI, foresight, engineering, and commercial leadership.

London-based VC firm Hiro Capital has snapped up two high-profile individuals from the European tech scene, as it launches a new fund targeting the European scaleup gap.Nick Clegg, the former deputy PM and former Meta executive, is joining as general partner and Meta's outgoing chief AI scientist, Yann LeCun, is joining Hiro Capital’s advisory board.The pair join as the VC firm launches a new UK and Europe-focused fund targeting the scaleup gap, a long-standing issue which sees European founders struggle to get scaling up capital across the continent.The London and Luxembourg-based firm’s new fund, called Hiro lll, is a multi-stage fund deploying cheques of between €5m and €50m.It will focus on an array of sectors including spatial AI, robotics, immersive computing and defence. The fund aims to raise more than $500m, according to reports.The VC, founded in 2018, has previously invested in gaming and metaverse companies in the UK, Europe and North America.Hiro Capital was founded by Luke Alvarez, the co-founder of Inspire Entertainment, the Nasdaq-listed games and virtual sports firm, Sir Ian Livingstone, former chairman of the studio behind the game Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, and Cherry Freeman, the co-founder of crafts marketplace LoveCrafts. It is unclear how many hours Clegg, who served as Meta's president of global affairs, will be dedicating to the role.Clegg said: “I joined Hiro because I share with the founders a belief in the rise of immersive computing and Spatial AI. We will move from staring at the internet, to living in the internet. "We are right in the early stages of that platform shift with the convergence of spatial technologies and next-generation world model AIs. Unlike other funds, Hiro is wholly focused on those themes, entirely within Europe."This is an amazing moment of opportunity for the UK/Europe’s tech ecosystem. We have some of the most outstanding researchers and universities on the planet, and great engineers and entrepreneurs, too. Our problem is not a lack of innovation, it is a lack of capital at scale. "Europe may have its critics, but we have a vibrant start-up scene which is now ready to accelerate – I believe the Hiro team has the unique geographic and technological reach to help make that happen.”LeCun, who is French, said: "I am delighted to be joining the Hiro advisory board. We are entering a new phase of AI – an era of systems which can understand the physical world, have persistent memory and which can reason and plan complex actions. "Hiro's track record of investing in spatial technologies, 3D tech, wearables and gaming means they are exceptionally well placed to capitalise on this new wave of opportunity in Europe."

Living in Germany, rubbish sorting is a big part of daily life. Do it incorrectly and your neighbours won’t hesitate to correct you, and repeat offenders may even risk a fine.  But even in cities with collection systems, huge volumes of plastic, glass, metal, paper and cardboard end up in mixed waste and go straight to landfills or incineration. In fact, the European Environment Agency reports that the overall waste recycling rate in Europe remains below 50 per cent, meaning most municipal waste is still treated by landfill or incineration rather than recycling.​ Further, PlasticsEurope estimates that about 65 per cent of post‑consumer plastic waste collected in Europe is sent to landfill or incineration instead of being recycled, despite widespread separate collection systems.​ It’s bad. But now a Ukrainian startup called Recycle has found a way to turn trash into cash. It runs a platform (and app) called Recycle that helps people, businesses and estate/condominium associations turn sorted waste into income by selling recyclable materials. I met the company at a recent trip to Ukraine for TechChill Kyiv, where I sat down with co-founder Anton Ustimenko.   How an office sorting problem sparked Recycle Ustimenko originally comes from the game-development sector. In 2010, he launched an outsourcing company and secured several major contracts over the years.  Recycle is the consequence of a problem his team faced. He recalled: “We opened a very cool office in the city centre in Kyiv. And of course, we tried to sort our waste, and we couldn’t manage it efficiently.  But every problem for the IT sector is an opportunity. We started to investigate how the market works, and this is how Recycle was started.” Sell sorted waste in a few taps Recycle incentivises people to sort waste by paying them money.  “People buy packaging, so why should they have to pay again when they sort it? It’s real goods — they can sell it. But right now, people pay again, just for removal. But it has real value, and they can earn money,” shared Ustimenko. And it’s done through a simple, intuitive process. Ustimenko explained: “We make the process of selling recyclables very simple —it’s completed in just a few taps. You create an order, and all the recycling companies that want to buy it make bids. You choose the best price and agree. A  certified recycler then picks up the sorted waste and pays you for it. It’s very easy. They don’t have to deal with the complexity. We take that away.” Recycle currently has over 300 active clients. An example is homeware retailer Jysk, which has over 100 stores across Ukraine, and sells its recyclables through the app. The startup takes a commission from the transaction. Focusing on high-value streams: paper, PET, HDPE, metal and glass Because some materials are far easier and more profitable to recover than others, Recycle zeroes in on the highest-value streams first. “We work with waste paper and plastics — at the moment, two main types: PET (type 1) and HDPE (type 2) — as well as metal cans and glass. Essentially, anything that can be recycled,” he explained. “Polypropylene (PP) is a challenge. There are many different grades of PP, and it’s quite difficult for recycling companies to process. That’s why we’re currently looking for a solution. But even if people simply start sorting the two most common plastics separately from the start, it already makes a big difference.” In addition, Recycle aims to convince recycling companies that buying well-sorted waste is much cheaper than post-sorting.  “Even the 'yellow bins,’  where people put all plastics together, are too expensive to sort. So, separate sorting is key to real recycling. Anything else is not really recycling,” asserts Ustimenko. “Good traction and a good pace” Ustimenko admits, “I’ve never heard of a model like this either, but it works. And we gained traction very quickly. We’ve been operating for more than half a year, and I think we have good traction and a good pace. Our steady growth is around 20 per cent per month, sometimes even higher.” He plans that Recycle will become profitable in a year, and after that, "I think we’ll be interesting for investors. Every investor wants traction — real paying customers — not endless pilots that never convert. We have real clients. And we almost don’t have churn — maybe one or two clients stopped using us, but not because of any bad story. Their circumstances just changed.” The startup is currently operational only in Ukraine due to regulatory requirements. Ustimenko explained that going to another market will take a few months of preparation: “For every transaction and every deal, we have to generate all the documentation, ecological compliance and accounting compliance and adjust our app to local legislative requirements. It’s not a tough task, but it takes time." However, Recycle’s next goal is Poland, and then Bulgaria. The company also plans to keep scaling in the Ukrainian market.  Further, through its charity arm, Recycle has partnered with TiKO fund to launch a program called “Sort for the Children of Ukraine.” This initiative sets up sorting stations in schools and kindergartens. The waste collected is sold, and proceeds go to support children in orphanages, boarding homes, as well as children with disabilities or in palliative care. Lead image: freepik

Barclays is investing in United Fintech, joining four other big banks, which have invested in the fintech group. Barclays is joining Citi, Danske Bank, BNP Paribas and Standard Chartered which have invested in United Fintech. London-headquartered United Fintech, founded in 2020, acquires and scales fintechs across commercial banking and capital markets, as it looks to serve the needs of its financial clients. In total, it has acquired seven fintechs, including Cobalt, FairXchange, TTMZero, Athena Systems and NetDania. This year, it said it made its biggest purchase to date. Financial details of the strategic investment by Barclays in United Fintech, in which it will take a stake, were not disclosed. Barclays will now join United Fintech’s board of directors. The investment by Barclays will be used to fund further acquisitions. United Fintech has 11 offices including in London, New York, Copenhagen, Singapore and the UAE and employs more than 200 people. Christian Frahm, CEO, founder, United Fintech, said: “We are very excited to welcome Barclays as our fifth global bank investor. “With AI accelerating across financial services, industry-wide collaboration has never been more important. "With Barclays now onboard, we further strengthen our industry-wide adoption, and United Fintech is well on its way to becoming the trusted ecosystem for enabling that collaboration."

Berlin-based Mondu, a provider of B2B payment solutions, has secured a €100 million debt facility from J.P. Morgan Payments to scale its offering and support its expansion across Europe. Founded in 2021 by Malte Huffmann, Philipp Povel, and Gil Danziger, Mondu provides B2B payment solutions designed to simplify business transactions across Europe. With a focus on flexibility, convenience, and security, the company supports both online and offline payments, helping businesses improve growth and operational efficiency. Mondu holds an Electronic Money Institution (EMI) license, enabling it to operate in all EU markets. Mondu has also joined the J.P. Morgan Payments Partner Network, through which it will offer its deferred payment solutions for accounts payable and receivable to J.P. Morgan Payments’ corporate clients in Europe via a referral program. The collaboration is intended to give these clients easier access to flexible payment options that can support cash flow, sales, and payment process efficiency. Philipp Povel, co-CEO of Mondu, said the company is excited to be partnering with an industry-leading institution like J.P. Morgan Payments: This debt facility and strategic collaboration are a significant validation of our business model and our vision to simplify the financial lives of businesses. The capital will allow us to accelerate our growth and support more businesses across Europe with our innovative B2B payment solutions. Joining the J.P. Morgan Payments Partner Network will be a great driver of our expansion in Europe, and we look forward to working with their team and customers. The B2B e-commerce market is expanding rapidly, with the European segment alone expected to reach $1.8 trillion by 2025. Alongside this growth, demand for modern and flexible payment methods is increasing. The European Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) market is projected to grow from $191.3 billion in 2025 to around $293.7 billion by 2030, reflecting a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.0 per cent. The collaboration between Mondu and J.P. Morgan Payments aims to address this trend by offering businesses enhanced financial flexibility and improved access to flexible B2B payment options throughout Europe.

A University of Cambridge quantum computing spinout, which is building the infrastructure needed for scaling quantum computers, says it has raised the largest ever quantum Series A in the UK.Nu Quantum has raised $60m in a funding round led by National Grid Partners, the VC unit of National Grid, with participation from Gresham House Ventures and Morpheus Ventures. Existing investors, including Amadeus Capital Partners, IQ Capital, Ahren Capital and Cambridge Enterprise Ventures also took part.Nu Quantum says the round was the largest quantum Series A in the UK to date. Quantum computing has long been touted as the next big technology wave. It can solve problems too difficult for normal computers and makes it possible to carry out complex calculations very quickly.Founded in 2018, Nu Quantum is a spinout of the University of Cambridge’s Cavendish Laboratory. In 2023, the company raised £8.5 million pre-series A round.The company says quantum applications require systems that are thousands of times more powerful than those available today and that its networking architecture will unlock data centre-scale quantum computing by weaving together quantum processors to accelerate the path to transformational utility.It says it will use the funding for future product development and international expansion, including expanding its presence in Europe and the US.Carmen Palacios-Berraquero, founder, CEO, Nu Quantum, said: “When we launched seven years ago, very few were thinking about networked or distributed quantum computing as a strategy for scaling, but we saw it as one of the most urgent and challenging outstanding problems in the industry, and set out to solve it.“We’ve made great strides in shaping the market and the technology since then."Steve Smith, chief strategy and regulation officer, National Grid and president of National Grid Partners, said: “We are closer to quantum computing having an impact on businesses and lives than many people think.”

London-based Matta, an industrial AI spin-out from the University of Cambridge, has raised $14M in seed funding to transform how products are designed and manufactured. The round was led by Lakestar, with participation from Giant Ventures, RedSeed VC, InMotion Ventures, 1st Kind (Peugeot family), Unruly Capital, and Boost VC, alongside grant support from Innovate UK and the Royal Academy of Engineering. After decades of deindustrialisation, many factories are now exposed to geopolitical shocks and under pressure to deliver more with fewer resources. At the same time, energy costs are rising, supply chains remain fragile, and workforces are ageing. Manufacturers are being asked to reshore, decarbonise, and operate with fewer skilled workers. Workforce gaps and increasing operational costs are becoming common across Europe, and the US. Matta offers a practical way to improve productivity, quality, and resilience on today’s shop floors. The company develops AI that learns the physical rules of production and applies them directly on the line. Its first product uses unsupervised and self-supervised computer vision to automate quality control and anomaly detection, perform measurements, diagnose root causes, and recommend corrective actions in real time. A central platform allows teams to monitor every camera, analyse results, and trace parts across the factory, giving live visibility into issues and bottlenecks. Matta delivers this as a plug-and-play system that combines hardware, factory integration, AI research, and software. Most deployments become operational within hours, with cameras inspecting automatically after a short learning period. Manufacturing still runs on human know-how, the kind that lets someone on the line kick a machine just right, or run a finger over a scratch, and say, ‘that’s thirty-four microns wide.’ We’re using AI to capture and scale that tacit knowledge, so engineers can design things that actually work in the real world. It’s time to manufacture the impossible, explains Doug Brion, Co-founder and CEO of Matta. Matta’s AI enables factories to monitor, analyse, and optimise their operations in real time, learning any production line within days. It detects defects, identifies root causes, and helps teams address issues before they become costly. The technology is general-purpose and highly adaptable, operating across sectors such as electronics, automotive, defence, and apparel, and integrating with manual inspection stations, conveyor lines, and robotic systems. Beyond defect detection, Matta also collaborates with OEMs to enable machines to adjust their own settings. The new investment will accelerate the rollout of Matta’s technology, enhance its AI capabilities, expand self-serve deployment, and support the company’s entry into key manufacturing regions in Europe and the US as it pursues increasingly autonomous, end-to-end production.

U2V (University2Ventures) has completed the first closing of its €60 million Fund I, with support from corporates including anchor LP Jungheinrich via Uplift Ventures, alongside family offices, serial entrepreneurs and industry executives. The fund aims to support teams turning Europe’s research into commercially viable deeptech companies, helping to bridge academia and industry while contributing to Europe’s technological sovereignty and resilience. Founded by Philipp Semmer, Michael Schmitt and Johannes Triebs, U2V brings together scientific, technical and commercial expertise, providing capital, strategic support, industry connections and operational guidance to help companies scale. The founding team has more than 30 years of combined venture experience and a track record of backing over 50 startups and achieving more than 10 exits across previous funds (Earlybird-X and Motu Ventures), with portfolio companies including Quantum Diamonds, Greenlyte, Ncodin, Certivity, Twaice and LiveEO. U2V has proprietary access to leading European tech universities and ecosystems, including TU Munich, ETH Zurich, RWTH Aachen, École Polytechnique, the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, Imperial College London, DTU Denmark and Politecnico di Milano, alongside an industrial network of more than 500 corporate partners. This combination enables structured go-to-market pathways and early pilot customers for portfolio companies. Through close collaboration with technology transfer offices and corporate innovation units, U2V aims to accelerate commercialisation and follow-on funding rounds. According to Dr. Philipp Semmer, Founding Partner at U2V, Europe excels at generating scientific breakthroughs but still faces challenges in turning them into global companies. With U2V we’re fostering a substantial change here: we help scientists become entrepreneurs, linking research, capital and corporate partners to build Europe’s next generation of category-defining deeptech startups. U2V, with Fund I, aims to back up to 25 pre-seed and seed startups across Europe in AI and novel computing, industrial technologies and cleantech, building a deeptech spin-off platform that helps turn university-originated technologies into commercially viable industrial solutions.

Amsterdam-based coffee company Wakuli has closed a Series A round of €5 million in debt and equity from ECBF and Rabobank. Including earlier participation from the ABN AMRO Sustainable Impact Fund and Icecat Capital, the company has now raised a total of €9.25 million. Founded in 2019 by Yorick Bruins and Lukas Grosfeld, Wakuli focuses on giving farmers greater control and reducing exploitation in the coffee supply chain. Initially launched as an online subscription brand, it now operates 20 coffee bars across the Netherlands while continuing to grow its digital business. Wakuli’s model is based on the view that farmer income and climate impact are closely linked. The company maintains that farmers can only adopt regenerative agricultural practices if they have access to a stable, long-term living income from committed buyers. Over the past five years, Wakuli has worked with more than 16,000 farmers across 13 countries, paying among the highest prices in their respective regions. It has maintained relationships with most of these farmers throughout this period, including in challenging regions such as the DRC, Myanmar and East Timor, providing a more reliable and sustainable income stream. This financial stability enables farmers to invest in climate-friendly methods. Recent research by the nova-Institute indicates that Wakuli’s regenerative approach results in emissions of just 0.30–0.60 kg CO₂ per kg of green coffee, representing a reduction of 57–89 per cent compared with conventional agriculture. Some partner farms even achieve net-negative emissions through carbon sequestration in trees and soil. These reductions are achieved by phasing out synthetic fertilisers, implementing shade-grown agroforestry systems, restoring soil health through organic management and minimising pesticide use. According to Wakuli, such practices are feasible because farmers have the financial capacity to prioritise long-term soil health over short-term yield maximisation. The company plans to use the funding to accelerate the opening of new locations in the Netherlands and to launch its first international outposts.

Berlin-based cleantech startup FION Energy has closed a €1.4 million pre-seed funding round, led by HTGF and Norrsken Evolve, with participation from experienced business angels. Most industrial companies want to reduce their energy costs but face significant technical complexity and high operational effort. FION addresses this by offering an end-to-end solution, from site analysis and system sizing to procurement and installation of turnkey battery systems, followed by ongoing operation. Founded in 2025 in Berlin, FION Energy focuses on making industrial battery storage systems economical and easy to use through manufacturer-independent project development and AI-optimised real-time operation. FION uses battery storage systems to increase flexibility in industrial energy demand, providing manufacturer-agnostic, AI-controlled solutions designed for economically optimised operation. The company’s proprietary AI dispatch engine learns consumption patterns, reads tariffs and market prices, and autonomously controls the battery. This helps smooth load peaks, reduce grid fees and enable price arbitrage without additional effort for plant operators, resulting in potential electricity cost reductions of up to 50 per cent. According to Philipp Hamm, co-founder and Managing Director of FION Energy, Europe’s industrial sector is increasingly disadvantaged by high electricity costs: With FION, energy becomes predictable and profitable again – our AI turns battery storage into a real competitive advantage. FION targets industrial companies with an annual electricity consumption of more than 2 GWh. Several battery systems are already installed at industrial customer sites, with further projects in Germany and across the EU in development. The new capital will be used to accelerate roll-out, further develop the platform and expand the team, with the goal of lowering energy costs and strengthening industrial sites. FION’s broader mission is to turn energy into a competitive advantage for industry and help make production in Europe economically attractive again.