Czech-based Ranketta, an AI visibility platform that helps brands understand and improve their presence in AI search and AI shopping results, has raised €1 million in pre-seed funding. The round was led by Lighthouse Ventures with participation from Gi21 Capital. Recent data indicates that around 50 per cent of consumers already use AI-powered search to inform purchasing decisions, and 44 per cent now rely on it more than Google. Spending influenced by AI search is projected to reach $750 billion by 2028, yet fewer than 40 per cent of marketers identify Generative Engine Optimization as a priority for their organisations, and only 16 per cent of brands track their AI search performance at all. As a result, brands may remain highly visible on Google but have limited visibility within large language models if they lack tools to understand what customers actually see. Ranketta addresses this gap by measuring and improving brand visibility in AI-generated answers. The platform helps D2C, e-commerce, and B2B brands track how often and how prominently their products and brands appear across tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Mode, and AI Overview, and provides data-driven suggestions to improve their placement. Ranketta shows which products LLMs recommend most, why they appear, and how brands can adjust their content to influence rankings. In addition to product-level insights, the platform tracks a brand’s overall presence in AI responses, including sentiment, relative ranking, and frequency of mentions, and identifies the articles and sources these tools rely on. An integrated AI Copilot reviews each brand’s data and offers tailored recommendations on what content to create and which citations or websites are likely to have the greatest impact, giving companies a clearer and more reliable view of their performance in AI search. Vojtěch Oravec, CEO and founder of Ranketta, said that his research experience revealed how limited companies’ visibility is into the influence of AI systems on purchasing decisions. He added that traditional SEO and analytics no longer reflect the full customer discovery journey, and that brands need tools capable of operating across both conventional and AI-driven search channels. Ranketta turns AI shopping into a real acquisition channel that companies can monitor, improve, and grow. Our mission is to ensure every brand can compete fairly in the AI-driven discovery landscape. Founded in 2025, Ranketta’s technology began as a solo prototype developed by Oravec, a 21-year-old Czech engineer and AI researcher who started coding at 16 and became a software engineer at 18. Before founding Ranketta, he conducted research in the group of Tomáš Mikolov at the Czech Institute of Informatics, Robotics and Cybernetics (CIIRC) at the Czech Technical University and later worked as a product manager at the enterprise company Henry Schein. In the two months since launch, Ranketta has already begun supporting more than 20 European brands, including Brainmarket, Boost.space, Purple Technology, and Sloneek. The new funding will be used to accelerate expansion across Europe, support entry into the US market, and grow the engineering, product, and sales teams, as well as advance development of integrations with Shopify and other e-commerce platforms. 

Future Energy Ventures (FEV), a global active venture capital advisor for digital and asset-light energy technologies focused on accelerating the global energy transition, today announced the closing of Future Energy Ventures Fund II with a volume of €205 million, along with a dedicated capital fund for Italy of €30 million. With the milestone, FEV positions itself as the largest European advisor for energy-technology-focused VC investments.  I spoke to Jan Lozek, CEO of Future Energy Ventures, to learn more, A near decade of energy investing FEV's goal is to support companies that are reshaping the energy landscape through digital solutions, strengthening national energy independence, and creating new economic opportunities. Lozek started in energy infrastructure and moved into venture capital in 2016. Lozek recalls that “around that time, the energy transition in Europe was already progressing nicely, and together with RWE we set up our first fund, committing €300 million to early-stage technologies.” “Our conviction then — and still now — was that the future energy system would be built on massive volumes of renewables, but also on the digital tools required to connect, manage, and orchestrate them.” Where buildings, batteries, and mobility become energy assets Since 2016, FEV has made around 50 investments in that space, and in 2023 launched its current fund, now closed at €235 million. Crucially, the Firm invests at late Seed, Series A and B, usually when startups have €1–2 million in revenue and are ready for the next inflection point. It invests in startups with AI-driven, software-based solutions that optimise grid efficiency, enable demand flexibility, and integrate cutting-edge technologies into energy systems.  Alongside renewables, FEV focused on electrification across buildings, industry, and transport.  “Coming from the energy sector, we were fascinated by how to connect batteries, buildings, and mobility assets to the grid and how to optimise energy flows across these systems,” explained Lozek. Electrification creates a new relationship between the classic energy system and the end-user sectors. Buildings, vehicles, and storage assets become energy resources.  “We back technologies that make energy flows more efficient and help connect these assets to the system,” shared Lozek.  Further, in buildings, the Firm invests in advanced energy management to optimise heating, cooling, and storage. Lozek believes the technology needed to accelerate electrification already exists —”and our role is to back the companies positioned to scale it.” He admits that earlier investment in sectors such as home energy management systems didn’t always scale at first.   “But now, with AI and electrification, the timing is finally right. Many technologies that once lacked market readiness are suddenly critical." The portfolio includes companies such as Chloris, Enspired, Feld Energy, EV.energy, Jua, Piclo, Reev and Station A, which are advancing changes in flexibility management, e-mobility, building and industry electrification and AI applications. Cracking the Series A–B bottleneck Crucially, FEV helps Series A and B startups scale their businesses,a stage where many struggle to gain traction.  Lozek highlighted the need to identify true inflection points, contending it’s crucial to invest where there’s both an immediate need and long-term scalability.  “For example, enspired, a company managing and trading battery assets using AI, is solving a real pain point today, but also sits at the convergence of a long-term global growth trend in storage." .Further, data centres are booming, and for Lozek the question is “how to connect them without compromising energy availability for homes and industry. Software that improves grid throughput, siting, and connection planning is becoming essential.” There are also the industry realities that startups face: “Energy companies often build for 40 years, so they’re cautious. Procurement cycles can be long, and changing legacy mindsets is tough. Our team’s sector experience helps founders navigate this,” shared Lozek.  He also believes that compared to the US, Europe has fewer strong exit routes.  “When you’re aiming for a five- to six-year holding period, that’s a challenge.” The good news: European countries are now gradually adjusting pension fund rules to allocate more capital to venture — an important structural shift. Geopolitics is rewriting the energy playbook The vision backed by FEV goes far beyond cleaner electricity. It imagines a transformed global economy in which universal access to locally generated renewable energy reduces dependence on volatile imports and gives nations real sovereignty over their economic future. At a time when environmental policies are under pressure and geopolitical tensions highlight the urgency of energy independence, this Fund close signals a fundamental shift toward energy security, economic resilience, and long-term sustainability. The transition from volatile fossil fuel dependency to locally controlled renewable systems is today both an economic necessity and a strategic imperative. According to Lozek, geopolitics has made energy independence a top priority.  “Reducing reliance on imported gas and oil has accelerated interest in renewables and technologies that help manage the system more efficiently. In Europe, and particularly in Germany, investments that strengthen independence from external energy sources make more sense than ever.” The Fund was initially supported by E.ON SE and the European Investment Fund (EIF) as anchor investors. It now also includes additional strategic and institutional investors such as KFW Capital, ABN AMRO, CLP, BGK, ISA Energia, Borusan, Zorlu Holding, Telos Impact, KELAG, MTR, and Sabanci Climate Ventures. Italy’s startup renaissance draws FEV in The Italian fund is fully financed by CDP and invests alongside the main fund.  FEV’s decision to launch a dedicated Italian vehicle was the result of three converging factors: deep team roots in the country, a rapidly maturing innovation landscape, and investor demand. One of the Firm’s partners, Jan Lesinski, grew up in Italy and maintains strong ties to its startup ecosystem.  At the same time, Italy has undergone a notable shift since 2016, with government initiatives and development banks helping to build a more vibrant environment for founders and even drawing talent back from abroad. The structure of the Fund also played a role.  “CDP wanted to support and back our fund, but they needed to focus their capital on Italy,” Lozek explains. “That led us to set up two vehicles with the same strategy — one dedicated to the Italian market and the other operating more broadly.” Energy as a new top-tier asset class Energy has emerged as the most compelling investment sector of our generation: security requirements, economic growth, employment effects, and cost-effective renewable energy converge into an area where clean energy technology is both indispensable for stability and an exceptional investment opportunity. This momentum creates ideal conditions for groundbreaking energy innovations that will complete the transition to a renewable energy world. FEV is therefore well-positioned to identify and scale the technologies that will define the energy systems of the future. "Europe has the innovation power, talent, and industrial capacity to take a leading role in the global energy transition," says Veronique Hördemann, Managing Partner and CFO of Future Energy Ventures.  "The key now is that political frameworks facilitate investment and scaling, so Europe can fully realise its potential in energy technology. The energy transition offers the opportunity to drive economic growth, strengthen energy sovereignty, secure jobs, and enhance competitiveness." An open door for energy innovators For startups or scale-ups interested in potential investment, Lozek urges.  “Just reach out. If you’re building digital or software-driven technology that can make a real difference in the energy transition, we’re happy to talk.  We respond quickly — either with interest or suggestions for other investors with a better fit. We see a lot, and we’re always open to connecting founders with the right people.”

Oslo-based Noteless, an AI company focused on improving how doctors document patient consultations, has raised €3.5 million in new seed funding. The round was led by Redstone, joining as a new investor, alongside Futurum Ventures and Farvatn Venture, who continue their support. Medical documentation has long been a challenge for clinicians, taking up hours that could otherwise be devoted to patient care or professional development. High administrative workloads are associated with burnout, reduced job satisfaction, and attrition among healthcare professionals. Noteless addresses this issue with an AI-powered clinical documentation tool that automatically generates medical notes in real time during consultations. Founded in October 2023, the company uses advanced speech recognition and natural language processing to help clinicians save time, reduce administrative burden, and support high-quality patient care. Since launching its first product in June 2024, Noteless has recorded substantial growth in its paying customer base, which has increased by more than 360 per cent since the start of the year. William Vossgård, CEO and co-founder of Noteless, noted that adoption in the Nordics has been strong, with more than one in four general practitioners in Norway and one in seven in Denmark now using the platform. Clinicians tell us we’re giving them back up to two hours a day, time they can spend with patients or on their own wellbeing, Vossgård said. Adoption is also expanding beyond general practice, with specialist doctors, physiotherapists, and psychologists using Noteless to streamline documentation workflows, support patient care, and free up time for higher-value activities. The company aims to use the investment to extend this impact to clinicians across Europe.

Helsinki-based healthtech company Gosta Labs has closed a €7.5 million seed round to scale its AI operating system for complex medical specialities. The round was led by Voima Ventures, with participation from COR Group, the Aho family, and both existing and new investors, including Reaktor and a group of notable angel investors. This follows a €1.7 million pre-seed round in 2024 and brings the company’s total funding to nearly €10 million. Cancer care is becoming increasingly complex. According to recent studies, by 2050, more than 35 million new cancer cases are projected across over 100 cancer types. At the same time, clinicians spend several hours per day on administrative tasks in fragmented systems with largely unstructured clinical data, and multidisciplinary teams must make rapid, high-stakes decisions across a growing range of personalized treatment options. Gosta Labs addresses these challenges with an oncology-focused AI operating system that converts each patient visit into high-quality structured data in real time. The system summarises and visualises patient journeys, automates clinical documentation, and captures structured clinical data relevant to patient care. It also supports quality of care by assessing key clinical parameters for each treatment pathway and automatically linking decisions to international guidelines. This helps oncologists deliver faster and more consistent care. The first real-world results from the Gosta AI Operating System were presented at the ESMO 2025 Congress. The findings indicate that the system generates high-quality consultation notes in real time, structured according to institutional standards. It also automatically classifies Performance Status and CTCAE toxicity grades. Oncologists were able to complete follow-up visit documentation in a median time of under two minutes, reducing documentation workload and allowing more time for direct patient care. Founded in 2023 by Lauri Sippola and Henri Viertolahti, the founders of Kaiku Health (acquired by Elekta in 2020), Gosta Labs builds on a track record of developing and scaling regulated digital health solutions globally. The team combines AI specialists with experienced oncology and medtech leaders, including Chief Medical Officer Dr Lionel Hadjadjeba and Chief Operating Officer Reetta Arokoski, both of whom have extensive experience in scaling cancer care technologies internationally. The new funding will be used to expand the reach of its AI assistant to oncology teams globally and to further strengthen Gosta Labs’ medical-device-grade product and AI foundation, enabling safer, more personalised patient encounters with reduced administrative burden.

London-based Neuracore, a robot learning platform focused on faster scaling and deployment, has closed a $3 million pre-seed round led by Earlybird Venture Capital, with participation from Clem Delangue (Co-founder & CEO of Hugging Face) and advisors from academia, hardware, and AI. Founded in 2024 by Stephen James, Assistant Professor of Robot Learning at Imperial College London, Neuracore is developing infrastructure designed to support the next generation of intelligent robots. Its platform enables robotics teams to move from data collection to deploying machine learning models in a matter of days rather than months, eliminating the bottlenecks that currently consume up to 80 per cent of engineering time. Neuracore’s software stack replaces fragmented robotics setups with a unified, cloud-based system that manages asynchronous data collection, visualisation, training, and deployment. By bringing the full robot learning pipeline into a single platform, Neuracore enables teams to focus more on development and experimentation rather than infrastructure. The platform is already used by more than 50 organisations across commercial and academic robotics, including collaborations with leading hardware manufacturers. Commenting on the investment, Stephen James, founder and CEO, noted that his experience across academic and industrial robotics showed that teams, from research groups to warehouse automation startups, were repeatedly rebuilding similar infrastructure from the ground up. Our mission is to eliminate that duplication and democratize access to high-performance robot learning tools. With this funding and our free academic program, we’re enabling both researchers and companies to focus on advancing robotics itself, not on building the pipelines to support it. Neuracore is also introducing a free academic program alongside the funding. Through this program, universities and research institutions worldwide will receive unrestricted access to the full enterprise platform, the same infrastructure used by Neuracore’s commercial customers. Academic researchers are building the foundation for tomorrow’s robots. They shouldn’t waste months setting up data pipelines - they should be innovating. We want Neuracore to be the backbone that lets them do that. James added. The initiative is intended to reduce the accessibility gap between research and industry by providing universities and robotics labs with free, unlimited use of the platform, supporting faster experimentation, collaboration, and reproducibility across institutions. The new investment will accelerate product development, expand the engineering team, and support Neuracore’s broader growth, including scaling its open-source robot learning community.

UK startups have broadly welcomed measures introduced by the UK chancellor in the Autumn budget, designed to get entrepreneurs to scale their startups in the UK, which has been a long-running concern for the industry.However, the response from the fintech industry was mixed, with some praising the budget while others bemoaning that more was not offered to support UK fintech as it looks to retain its leadership position.In a budget, which saw the chancellor raise taxes by £26bn, chancellor Rachel Reeves said: “We are sending a simple message to the world, if you build here, Britain will back you.”Unveiling measures to support startup businesses in the UK, the chancellor added: “Growth begins with the spark of an entrepreneur. Half of new jobs in Britain are created by scaleup businesses and we want those jobs created here, not somewhere else. “Our job is to make Britain the best place in the world to startup, to scaleup and to stay.”Measures announced in the budget designed to support entrepreneurs scaling up businesses in the UK include broadening the eligibility requirements for the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) and Venture Capital Trust (VCT) schemes.UK businesses will also get a three-year exemption from stamp duty tax if they choose to IPO in Britain, while the chancellor also launched a “call for evidence” on how the tax system can better back entrepreneurs, with founders and investors at the heart of the review.An uplift in the Enterprise Management Incentive (EMI) limits, which enables employees to share in the equity value they create, was also announced.Industry reaction  Dom Hallas, executive director, Startup Coalition, said: “In a tricky budget the chancellor made one thing clear - entrepreneurs and founders building high-growth businesses are the engine of growth in the UK. Is this everything that founders could ever need?  "No. But does this Budget show that the Government has seriously listened to founders and tried to make things better to build and scale a startup in the UK? Emphatically yes.  "Big progress on expanding share options, doubling the scale of EIS and VCTs to back scaleups, and looking again at how entrepreneurs are incentivised in our tax system will make a material difference to founders building today and in the future.” Alessandro Maiano, co-founder and CEO, Wilbe, said: “This budget makes clear just how much responsibility taxpayers continue to carry in funding the riskiest stages of scientific discovery.  “If the UK wants to become a true science superpower, public investment must be complemented by far greater incentives for private individuals, philanthropists and foundations to support early scientific discovery. Without that shift, taxpayers will continue to take the risk without ever sharing in the reward.” Cat Mora, director of research operations, Phasecraft, said: “We welcome the UK Government’s commitment to targeted investment in innovation and the message that if you build here, Britain will back you.  "Widening eligibility for enterprise incentives and expanding EIS schemes will go some way towards helping this. To stay ahead, the UK must back the quantum companies bringing real use cases to today’s limited hardware, not just preparing for the machines of the future." Sasha Haco, co-founder and CEO, Unitary, said: “If we want AI to genuinely raise productivity, the government must go beyond investment and needs to become an enthusiastic customer for startups. “As well as capital, founders need customers willing to adopt, test and scale innovative products. By using its own buying power, alongside targeted R&D programmes, the government can set the pace for the wider economy. That’s the clearest way to ensure the UK remains a global home for ambitious, high-growth companies.” Leo Labeis, founder and CEO, REGnosys, said: “Greater clarity on capital gains treatment, entrepreneur relief, and modernised EIS/EMI rules is exactly what founders have been calling for. This is a strong signal that the Government recognises how vital fiscal stability is for scaling high-growth sectors like RegTech.  “This makes the UK an even more attractive place to build and scale financial innovation and reinforces London’s position as the natural home for RegTech globally." Mike Walters, CEO, Form3, said: "The proposed support for expanding EMI and ensuring that the tax system champions the successes of UK business, founders, and employees is hugely promising.  "Preserving the UK’s status as a global hub for fintech will depend on the government protecting and retaining the deep pools of talent that this industry relies on.“It’s disappointing that there was no mention of any plans to back the progress made by the National Payments Vision.  "The UK is currently a global payments leader, and building out resilience in banking and payments will set the stage for the next decade of growth. “The government needs to build on its Mansion House pledges and ensure a steady stream of capital continues to flow into high-potential companies where it can directly translate into jobs and economic growth." Janine Hirt, CEO of Innovate Finance, the industry body for UK finfech, said: "Today’s budget was always going to be a difficult balancing act to manage public finances while driving growth.  "The UK fintech community was pleased to see the chancellor acknowledge very early on in her budget speech the importance of supporting entrepreneurs and founders, recognising they are key drivers of growth across our country. "We welcome her announcement of a call for evidence which will seek views on the effectiveness of existing tax incentives, and the wider tax system, for business founders and scaling firms, and how the UK can better support these companies to start, grow and stay in the UK. "This will go a long way in ensuring the UK cements its place as the best place in the world to build and scale a fintech business." Image: Pixabay

French Entrepreneur Samuel Tual has today launched Clover, a €30 million early-stage evergreen fund to back startups reshaping the future of work and education. Tual is an entrepreneur, Vice-President of the MEDEF and Chairman & CEO of Actual Group, a major player in employment and labour in France and Europe. Clover aims to become the “VC for Work”, an indispensable reference in support of work and education, acting both as an investment fund and as a structuring actor of the ecosystem. Designed and structured like a startup, Clover positions itself as agile, fast and scalable, with a simple ambition: to become the go-to platform offering far more than capital to entrepreneurs. Clover plans to deploy €100,000 to €200,000 checks in 20 to 30 investments per year at Pre-Seed and Seed stages, with the ambition of becoming the leading investor in the work & education verticals.  The fund supports top founders across Europe and the United States, where it is already firmly established with strong ties to the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Since May of this year, Clover has already invested approximately €1 million, one-third of which has been committed in the US, in areas such as AI, productivity tools, workflow automation, and workplace health. The investment thesis of Clover rests on two core pillars: becoming the reference “VC for Work” and rethinking the traditional venture-capital model together with founders. On one side, the world of work is undergoing a radical transformation driven by AI, new modes of collaboration, increasing demands for productivity, flexibility, inclusivity and sustainability. In France, the national AI initiative aims for 100 per cent of large corporations to adopt artificial intelligence by 2030, while global potential productivity gains via AI are estimated at US $4,400 billion over the long term. Meanwhile, as France itself faces economic and political uncertainty, marked by budgetary tensions and a tighter investment climate, many hesitate to invest or innovate. “I believe in the future of work globally, and I believe that it is precisely in times of uncertainty that one must be daring and innovative. It is imperative to accelerate so we do not fall behind and to safeguard the longevity of our businesses. If the environment is fragile, the future of work is being written now, invented globally, and the rest of the world doesn’t wait”, declares Samuel Tual. Hugo Mendes, Managing Partner, former entrepreneur and investor with Origins, will lead the fund’s construction and management. “Investing is like recruiting: you must recognise talent before everyone else does. With Clover, our goal is to be a true partner beyond the check, because founders don’t just look for capital, they look for teammates who care, who respond quickly, and who show up again and again. I’m proud to lead this initiative alongside the Tual family, with whom I share strong entrepreneurial values.” Lead image: Samuel Tual and Hugo Mendes. Photo: uncredited.

In response to widespread suppression of women’s health vocabulary, health creative studio Ouch! launches the GOOD WORDS campaign: a series of posters highlighting how essential terms such as “vulva,” “uterus,” and “period” are censored by digital platforms, forcing women to navigate a growing “euphemism economy” of coded language just to find information online.  The campaign calls out the culture of silence, inviting anyone to download free, high-impact prints for use in public spaces and digital sharing.  Recent research, including the June 2025 CensHERsip White Paper, documents that up to 95 per cent of women’s health businesses in the UK say their educational content is routinely shadowbanned, hidden, or rejected by algorithms on social and advertising platforms.  In June, more than 190 organisations, founders, health professionals and campaigners have co-signed an open letter calling on social media platforms to end the routine censorship of women’s health content online. It followed formal complaints filed in March 2025 by CensHERship and The Case For Her under the EU Digital Services Act (DSA). These complaints, submitted on behalf of six women’s health companies, documented biased moderation, lack of transparency, and failures to provide effective appeal mechanisms. Despite clear evidence and growing public concern, no meaningful response or action has been taken to date. Key terms describing anatomy, menstrual health, menopause, and postpartum care are flagged as “adult content” or “unprofessional,” while equivalent male health language remains visible.  Further, research by CASANEGRA Studio shows this goes beyond erasure, revealing how algorithmic content moderation distorts language and stifles vital health conversations.  Their analysis reveals an euphemism economy flourishing across social platforms, where medically precise terms like vulva, uterus, and period mutate into code words or symbols to evade banishment: “down there”, “seggs” or “that time of the month”.  As a result,  clinical language is now treated with the same severity as pornography, pushing women toward euphemisms like *“down there” or “per!od.”  This linguistic regression harms health literacy and deepens shame around female anatomy, especially for Gen Z and Gen Alpha, who rely on these platforms for information.According to Carrie Kenyon, founder of Ouch!: “There is something refreshing about a traditional print campaign as a call to arms against the online censorship of women's health. Using a range of visual icons, and with inspiration taken from the words themselves, we created this series to signal that all words associated to women's health are first and foremost good words.”  Taking a stand beyond the digital, the campaign’s print run acts as a symbol of leaving behind the very platforms perpetuating this censorship, reclaiming trusted physical spaces like GP offices, libraries, and community centres.  Alongside print, the free digital versions encourage sharing and reconquering of digital spaces through community-driven efforts on social media. 

Recruitment tech startup Helio AI has secured a $1 million Seed round led by SABAH.fund, joined by DOMiNO Ventures, Axiom, Tetrad VC, and Angel investor Bas Godska.  The US-based, Georgian-founded team has developed an AI-powered recruiting platform for high-volume and frontline hiring. It combines an intelligent recruiting agent, able to chat, think, and act in local languages with game-based psychometric tests.  The platform automates up to 70 per cent of recruiter tasks, instantly ranks top candidates, and improves the accuracy and speed of hiring for companies with large applicant volumes. The company previously raised a $350K pre-seed round from angel investor Teimuraz Jashi, Georgian Business Angel Network - Axel, and 500 Eurasia. This early backing enabled Helio to build its core AI technology and prove strong traction across emerging markets with hundreds of international brands across 7 countries.  “We’re thankful for the continued trust of our early investors and more than happy to welcome new ones. We choose our partners carefully, people who share our culture, energy, and way of working, because synergy matters when you’re building something big. This round marks an important step in scaling Helio globally and amplifying the impact we’re already creating across our markets,” said co-founder and CEO of Helio AI, Iako Jikia.  According to the Managing Partner of SABAH.fund, Abbas Kazmi, Helio AI’s vision directly aligns with the mission at SABAH.fund, backing founders who are solving large-scale, systemic challenges: “HR technology touches nearly every organisation in the world, yet remains underserved by advanced AI. Helio is closing that gap and we believe they have an exceptional team that is uniquely equipped to power the future of recruitment.”  The new funding will be used to scale Helio’s AI Recruiting Agent globally, expand product capabilities, and transform how companies hire in fast-growing markets.

London-based Procure AI, a company pioneering AI-native procurement automation for procurement and supply chain management, has raised $13 million in seed funding. The round was led by Headline, with participation from C4 Ventures, Futury Capital and notable angel investors from across the procurement industry. Procurement teams are under pressure to do more with fewer resources. Forty-seven per cent of B2B buyers cite operational complexity as a major challenge, and 90 per cent of companies say constraints such as limited headcount, budget pressures and skills gaps are hindering their ability to transform. At the same time, organisations face rising costs, unpredictable delivery timelines and increasingly complex compliance requirements. Founded by Konstantin von Bueren and Yves Bauer, Procure AI’s platform is designed to deliver measurable cost savings and operational efficiency by helping businesses optimise spend. A key differentiator is its end-to-end approach. Rather than targeting isolated workflows, Procure AI offers an AI-native procurement platform that spans the full range of processes and use cases where AI can have an impact. By integrating and enriching fragmented procurement data instead of replacing existing systems, the platform addresses the practical challenges procurement teams face. It acts as a secure and sovereign procurement data layer, with dedicated hosting and end-to-end autonomous solutions built to deliver direct customer value. The platform deploys more than 50 AI agents across three categories: autonomous agents that execute procurement tasks independently, collaborative agents that support and enhance human decision-making, and ambient agents that provide proactive assistance. This AI-native architecture enables end-to-end automation across sourcing, contracting, purchasing and invoice management. Core solutions include Autonomous Spot-Buy and Tactical Sourcing, which have shown 35–46 per cent time reductions and 3.7–5.2 per cent savings per event, and Quote-to-Order Intake, where around 60 per cent of requests can be handled autonomously. Yves Bauer, Co-founder and co-CEO of Procure AI, noted that while many procurement tools require companies to rebuild their systems from the ground up, Procure AI intentionally chose a different approach. Our platform sits on top of fragmented data landscapes and makes them intelligible, enriching what is there rather than replacing it. That is why we can deliver ROI in months, not years, and why our clients see us as a partner rather than just another vendor. With the new funding, Procure AI plans to expand its engineering team and strengthen its go-to-market capabilities, supporting growth beyond its initial focus on the DACH region into the UK, Nordics, Benelux and France.

An angel investor in UK AI unicorn ElevenLabs and Revolut has launched a $15m solo GP fund to back pre-seed and seed stage founders building startups across AI, robotics, and defence.Carles Reina has launched Baobab Ventures, an “oversubscribed” fund backed by institutional LPs Cendana Capital, Isomer Capital, RSJ Investments, Emergence Ventures, and Cyber Fund.  Partners from Concept Ventures, Credo Ventures, as well as business angel and professional football player Mario Goetze and deep tech investor doctor Fatima Godall are also backing it.Reina currently works as the GTM (Go-To-Market) lead at ElevenLabs, the voice AI startup now valued at $6.6bn, a role he will continue in alongside Baobab Ventures.An early investor in ElevenLabs, he also became the company’s fourth hire.Baobab Ventures will make average investments of $300,000 and $350,000 in pre-seed and seed stage startups, it said.According to the fund, its philosophy is that building momentum quickly is the most important part of a startup journey, while Reina will be focused on helping founders develop and execute their GTM, operations, and product strategies, as well as providing hands-on support with customer pitches, contract negotiations, and critical hires.London and Barcelona-based, Baobab Ventures is a European fund with a global mandate, backing early-stage technical founders operating with an international expansion mindset from day one, it said.Half of the fund’s investments will be focused on Europe, with the rest to be deployed in the US and other markets.Reina said: “Building startups has dramatically changed in the last few years. Sales cycles are faster, there are hundreds of competitors within months, and AI has killed cold outreach conversion rates. "Founders need to move incredibly quickly whilst building a sales and growth motion fit for the AI age. To do that, they need operators on their cap table who can draw on relevant frontline experience from the AI era and who are hands-on with their help. "This AI-informed operator experience is a clear gap in the European landscape and it’s one I believe Baobab can fill.”

Women across Europe are building innovative solutions in agrifood — yet many still lack access to the support, visibility and networks needed to scale. The EWA — Empowering Women in Agrifood program from EIT Food was designed to change that. It is open to women from selected European and neighbouring countries (in 2025, 13 countries including Albania, Estonia, Greece, Italy, North Macedonia, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, Türkiye and Ukraine). Participants benefit from a comprehensive curriculum including online training modules, one-on-one mentorship (over 20 hours) from business and agrifood advisors, and a strong networking component through an established community of more than 500 mentors and female entrepreneurs. The programme also offers funding opportunities (country-level prizes of €10,000 and €5,000) and access to investors and corporate partnerships. In our latest podcast, we spoke with Alicja Krakowska, Project Manager at EIT Food North-East, as well as two founders whose journeys highlight how transformative this programme can be. Débora Campos, CEO and founder of AgroGrIN Tech, entered EWA while still validating her technology for upcycling fruit sidestreams into clean-label food ingredients. The programme helped her refine her business model, connect with suppliers, and move toward building a pilot facility capable of producing ingredients at scale. Meanwhile, Greta Budreike, founder of TASTIK, joined with the goal of creating alternative protein products made from crickets to support healthy ageing and nutritional needs.  Watch/listen to our latest Tech.eu podcast to hear firsthand how EWA is helping women turn bold agrifood ideas into real, scalable businesses. Accelerating innovation through women's leadership The upcoming Next Bite Satellite in Warsaw will gather 13 EWA Innovators, investors, partners, and leaders from across the European agrifood ecosystem. The event is designed as a space for dialogue, shared learning, and meaningful networking, with a dedicated focus on advancing women’s leadership in agrifood innovation. Across its Inspire and Empower stages, attendees will have access to panel discussions with investors, conversations on gender equity and sustainable innovation, and presentations from women-led startups. The in-person format also enables participants to schedule one-to-one meetings and connect directly with peers, experts, and ecosystem partners. Those interested in taking part can explore the full agenda and registration details through the event page.

Norwegian startup Bsure has secured a $2.1 million seed round to help companies gain visibility into blind spots within their Microsoft environments. The round was led by Scale Capital, with participation from existing US investors. Most companies rely on identities such as people, apps and services that need access to do their work. The challenge is that this access tends to accumulate and is rarely cleaned up. In a typical Microsoft 365 environment, accounts and admin roles grow faster than they can be managed. Old permissions remain, inactive users stay enabled, and over time, this creates blind spots. Few companies can clearly say who all their users are, which accounts should still exist, and what they currently have access to. Founded in 2022, Bsure is building an Azure-based platform that connects directly to Microsoft Entra ID in order to address this problem. The platform provides companies with a real-time view of users and access rights, flags inactive or risky accounts, and helps reduce unnecessary license costs. The need for this type of solution is clear. Microsoft’s 2024 Digital Defense Report finds that over 90 per cent of account compromise cases involve forgotten or unmonitored accounts. At the same time, EU rules such as NIS2 and the Digital Operational Resilience Act require organisations to document and monitor digital access, with possible fines of up to €10 million or 2 per cent of global turnover. Gartner expects that by 2028, 70 per cent of CISOs will use new identity visibility tools to reduce unauthorised access and improve security. We often see that up to 40% of user accounts are inactive. That represents both a security risk and unnecessary cost. Companies are often genuinely surprised when they see the real picture for the first time, says Henrik Skalmerud, CEO and co-founder of Bsure. Bsure currently serves more than 200 customers across nine countries in both the public and private sectors. With this funding, Bsure will expand its team and accelerate international growth, building on its position in the Nordics and early presence in the U.S. The company will also continue to invest in product development, with an emphasis on scalability, ease of deployment, and new AI-driven features to make visibility more actionable.

Noahs, a Copenhagen-based food-tech company that transforms the service stations, convenience stores (c-stores), supermarkets, and travel hubs into modern food destinations, has raised €1.9 million in new funding at a €6.5 million pre-money valuation.  Founded in 2020, Noahs has redefined how food integrates into retail — building a platform that enables global retailers to enter the digital food economy with zero capex and minimal labour.  I spoke to Daniel Baven, CEO and co-founder of Noahs, and Helle Uth, co-founder and Partner at PSV Tech, who led the investment, to learn more.  3 million retail locations, yet most analog  While the retail sector counts more than 3 million locations worldwide, much of it remains analog. Meanwhile, the daily consumer's behaviour is notably changing towards convenience and tech-enablement: almost 50 per cent of households’ food consumption is food away from home. Add to the fact that Millennials and GenZers favour zero-human interaction when it comes to C-stores check-out experience. “Until recently, the tech wasn’t good enough.” According to Uth, service stations and supermarkets are being pushed into new roles:  “Fuel matters less due to electrification, and fresh food sales are declining. Both service stations and supermarkets can meet this shift by offering healthy, ready-to-eat meals — but doing so at scale is hard without strong digital tools. " Baven contends that, against this, until recently, the tech wasn’t good enough: “Traditional integrations were complex, slow, and expensive. What we’ve built is a unified system that lets retailers digitise and layer in food brands without a massive investment. Interestingly, some retailers stayed analog simply because digitisation wasn’t strategically important—until now. Today, they feel the urgency.” Uth agrees, asserting that,”AI and automation are finally mature enough to work reliably in stores, and you have the perfect moment for change. The technology simply wasn’t mature enough before; now it is, and the industry can’t afford to stay analogue.” From chef in Thailand to a foodtech entrepreneur Baven originally comes from the culinary world; he’s a trained chef and spent his first ten years in kitchens. At around age 24, he moved to Thailand to work in hotels and opened a sandwich shop on the side.  Baven shared, “The demand was huge, and within six years we grew it into more than 20 locations." During that journey, the team developed strong tech capabilities and built a modern franchise system unlike anything else at the time. But when COVID hit, Thailand closed its borders for nearly two years, and the business essentially collapsed.  “That’s when we started looking ahead and asking: ‘What will the future of food production look like?’ We saw it becoming more digital, higher volume, and integrated into retail spaces.” Noahs was born from that thinking. Over the past five years, the team has built the “implementation recipe” for how food gets embedded into retail at scale. In response, the team has developed a  comprehensive platform consisting of three layers:  The three-layer system powering retail food digitisation The technology stack According to Baven, most retailers are extremely analog, running on legacy IT systems that make digitisation slow and bureaucratic.  Noahs has built a plug-and-play omnichannel system—kiosks, app ordering, QR, aggregators—all feeding into one decentralised cloud-based POS. With just Wi-Fi, a retailer can digitise their entire shop. “We also unify all digital revenue through one reconciliation and BI system. That means a single store can run its own products, plus additional digital storefronts, plus multiple food brands simultaneously,” explained Baven. Streamable food brands “We provide simple, high-quality food brands—bowls, tacos, sandwiches, chicken concepts—that retailers can produce using the equipment they already have," detailed Baven.  These aren’t typical convenience items; they compete with restaurants. Suddenly a convenience store can offer restaurant-quality meals during hours when footfall usually drops. Further, “there’s almost no CapEx involved, and no extra labour. A retailer can start offering QSR-level dishes immediately.” Long-term kitchen transformation as cooking at home becomes rarer Baven predicts that over the next decade, retailers will move increasingly into hospitality because food has higher margins and larger basket sizes. “Our 10-year thesis is that cooking at home will become rarer because it will be more expensive than ordering prepared food. Retailers have the locations, scale, and pricing power to outcompete many traditional restaurants. We’re helping them build that future step by step.” According to Baven, the concept has roots in the ghost kitchen model, “but we rebuilt it to be much more applicable to retail. This is designed for walk-ins, service stations, supermarkets—physical spaces with existing footfall.” “Noahs is completely brand-agnostic. We enable famous brands, local restaurant IP, and our own streamable brands to run inside the same retail location. It's a hospitality layer that sits on top of retail infrastructure.”   Investor confidence in a tough foodtech market Noahs’ plug-and-play solution has gained considerable traction, positioning it to become one of the frontrunners in the food-tech industry. The company has experienced an exponential 200 per cent revenue over the last three years. It successfully onboards major international conglomerate clients and partners, including. MAXOL, Q8, DSC, and MENY, Further, it has over 88 + service-station locations live in DK and  a broader EU rollout underway; It's an approach that has gained traction with investors.  “The winners will simplify—not complicate—retail operations.” PSV Tech was launched in 2020 as part of the PSV Venture House to back Nordic founders even before product/market fit. The team supports founders in taking their software startups from early validation to scalable growth. With more than €100m under management, numerous tech investments and six exits from their first fund—including Helloflow and Heyhack—the PSV Tech team has proven its strength in the earliest growth stages and truly knows the craft According to Uth, food-tech funding has gone through a reset, but companies that combine operational knowledge with strong technology are still attracting high-quality investors.  “The trend is shifting away from capital-heavy models toward software-driven infrastructure — exactly where NOAHS sits. Its platform is built to be light, cloud-based, and API-driven. There’s no heavy hardware rollout and almost no implementation downtime. Stores can be live in days, not months — which makes fast scaling possible without big upfront investments. NOAHS turns food operations into something scalable and profitable.“ She contends that retail is changing fast, and the winners will be the companies that make everyday operations simpler, not more complicated.  “NOAHS is building exactly that kind of solution, and we’re proud to support a team that understands both the food world and the technology powering it.” The investment round was also joined by angel investors, Kraen Nielsen, ​​Executive Advisor & Tech Investor, Former Group CEO & CTO of Coop Denmark, Denmark's largest consumer cooperative, and Bob Stein, President RBS & Associates. Existing shareholders, including early Noahs investor Torben Frigaard Rasmussen, Former e-conomic CEO and active angel investor, also participated in the round.  According to Uth, “Our role is to help NOAHS scale in a structured way." "We’ve backed many companies through this stage, so we know what it takes operationally and how to prepare for the next round of investors. We bring the experience and network that let companies grow fast without losing focus.” Rapid market expansion from Europe to the world  Noahs is currently expanding into Ireland, Belgium, and Luxembourg, and expects to have around 600 locations across Northern Europe by 2026. The startup is running pilot projects in many countries, so the funding is going toward building the international rollout team and strengthening its product.  “We’re also consolidating our IP into a more centralised, high-value stack,” shared Baven. “The goal is strong traction ahead of a Series A round in Q3 2026. In 2026 we’re also planning pilot locations and local HQs in both the UAE and the US. The model is very adaptable — retailers can localise brands, ingredients, or concepts easily." He believes that food is going to become one of the next big verticals emerging from the AI wave: “Noahs sits at the intersection of culinary IP, hardware, and operational tech. We think the real value of this vertical will become much more visible over the next couple of years.”

Stockholm-based Kovant, an autonomous enterprise platform that enables businesses to create, run and manage entire operations and departments of AI agents, has raised €1.5 million in pre-seed funding. The round was led by Stockholm-based VC firm J12 Ventures, with participation from Ampli, Green Ventures and a group of angel investors ranging from tech veterans to industry leaders, including Sarah Öhrvall, board member at Axfood and Verisure, who will also join the Kovant board, and Emmanuel Martin-Chave, VP AI at Data Guard. Unlike copilots or isolated bots that only assist at specific points in a workflow, Kovant provides managed agentic workforces, meaning teams of specialised AI agents that can autonomously operate across functions such as procurement, supply chain, inventory management, compliance and customer success. Kovant uses a novel architecture that allows enterprises to deploy swarms of agents based on small language models (SLMs) rather than relying solely on large, general-purpose AI models, which helps reduce the risk of hallucinations and errors. Each agent operates within clearly defined guardrails to support accuracy, auditability and compliance. Designed to be deployed within weeks rather than months, Kovant’s agentic teams run continuously, learn over time and escalate only when human input is needed. Ali Sarrafi, CEO and co-founder of Kovant, explained: Too often, AI is used in ways that strip the human element out of work. We’ve flipped that. We’re pioneering a system where AI handles the execution so people can focus on what actually needs human judgment. What matters to us is real P&L impact, not building more agents or running endless POCs. Something that can be achieved in weeks, not months. Kovant’s current portfolio is already generating business value by turning processes that previously took a month, such as procurement and bidding, into autonomous executions completed within one to two days while retaining human oversight. The company is now launching globally, making its platform available to enterprises of all sizes and across markets. With this funding, Kovant plans to expand its presence across the Nordics, Switzerland and the Benelux region. This expansion supports the company’s goal of helping enterprises adopt agentic-first operations, where AI workforces execute end-to-end business functions under full governance, compliance and human oversight.

Dutch-based Yasu, an AI startup building autonomous agents to prevent cloud waste, has raised €850,000 in pre-seed funding. The round was led by Akka, with participation from Empower Impact and earlier investment from Antler. Founded in 2025, Yasu is developing an AI Cloud Engineer designed to bring cloud cost visibility into the development process and prevent waste before it occurs. This addresses a major challenge in the €1.6 trillion global cloud infrastructure market, where an estimated €512 billion is lost annually due to misconfiguration, inefficiency and complexity. The issue has grown with the rise of generative AI workloads, which have led to average cloud spending increases of 30 percent, and 72 per cent of IT and finance leaders now describing GenAI-related costs as unmanageable. Since launching in April 2025, Yasu has delivered average cost savings of 35 per cent for its customers and is managing €3.9 million in cloud spend across companies, including alpha.One, TRaiCE and Smiler. Commenting on the problem, Vikram Das Ambar, Co-founder and CEO of Yasu, explains that he saw companies value the flexibility of the cloud while suspecting they were overspending, a concern now supported by data showing that nearly one-third of all cloud spending is wasted. Current tools only detect problems after deployment, when fixes are ten times more expensive. Yasu shifts cost visibility into development, where our AI agents prevent waste before it happens. We are building an AI cloud engineer for every team, not just another monitoring platform. This funding accelerates that vision across Europe. The new investment will be used to expand Yasu’s go-to-market across key European markets, advance its agentic AI capabilities and further develop its autonomous optimisation platform.

London-based Monq has emerged from stealth with $3 million in pre-seed funding to launch its AI-driven strategic negotiation platform. The round was led by Outward VC, with participation from Cornerstone VC, Portfolio Ventures, Octopus Ventures, Endurance Ventures, Lakestar Halo and strategic angels. Founded in April by Revolut and Deutsche Bank alumni, Yasin Bostancı and Duygu Gözeler Porchet, Monq is addressing a major inefficiency in enterprise operations: how global corporations negotiate their most important deals. Complex, high-value supplier contracts in the $1 million to $100 million range are central to enterprises across industries, including manufacturing, technology, logistics and professional services. Yet, despite being part of a $10.4 trillion market, strategic procurement remains one of the few core enterprise functions not fully automated. It is still dominated by manual processes that consume resources, with nearly a quarter of procurement time spent on low-value tasks, and it often depends on instinct rather than data-driven analysis. At the same time, many existing technology solutions focus on applying AI to existing processes instead of fundamentally changing how procurement teams operate. Monq’s multi-agent AI system combines LLM-based reasoning, contract intelligence and behavioural science to support, rather than replace, human judgment. Each agent analyses deal history, supplier performance data and negotiation behaviour patterns to anticipate counterparty responses, suggest negotiation levers and, where authorised, autonomously manage deals end-to-end. Teams retain full control over negotiation parameters and can decide how much to delegate, allowing them to focus on higher-value relationship building and strategy while gaining a measurable competitive advantage. Yasin Bostancı, co-founder and CEO of Monq, noted that strategic procurement has been slow to benefit from real automation because it still relies heavily on human intuition. By empowering procurement teams with strong, actionable, data-driven and intelligent insights, we’re giving enterprises the speed, clarity and confidence to negotiate at a new scale while unlocking billions in hidden deal flow, value and efficiency before that value is lost to the company. In early pilots with partners, Monq is estimated to have reduced costs by up to 40 per cent, accelerated deal cycles by up to a factor of five and unlocked millions in additional value. These pilots have covered negotiations across capital expenditure agreements, consulting and professional services, software and technology licensing, as well as logistics and supply chain arrangements. The capital will be used to scale ongoing pilots, expand operations and build full-time engineering and product teams across the EU, US and the Middle East. Monq is launching with a subscription-based model and plans to explore value-based pricing over time, where enterprises would pay a percentage of the savings generated by its technology.

Cerrion, the Swiss-founded AI video agent platform that detects and resolves production line issues in real time, has raised $18 million in Series A funding to further expand and scale operations in the US and Europe. The round was led by Creandum, with participation from existing investors Y Combinator, Goat Capital, 10x Founders and Session VC, alongside prominent angels including Harry Stebbings (20VC), Oskar Hjertonsson, Thomas Wolf (Hugging Face) and Garret Langley (Flock Safety). Factory downtime costs the global manufacturing industry an estimated $1.4 trillion annually, and with rising energy prices and increasingly complex supply chains, related costs have increased 319 per cent since 2019. Cerrion addresses this issue with AI video agents that monitor factory operations beyond what workers can directly observe. These agents help operators detect and respond to process deviations, quality issues and safety risks in real time, triggering alerts, slowing or stopping machines and notifying relevant personnel as needed. This combination of automated intervention and human oversight enables manufacturers to resolve problems up to 50 per cent faster, reducing downtime and scrap losses by up to half. Cerrion is rapidly emerging as a key provider of AI-enabled automation, safety and efficiency solutions for the manufacturing sector. Its platform is already in use in live production at manufacturers such as Unilever, Riedel, Schott Zwiesel, Stölzle Lausitz, Sisecam and Verallia, spanning glass, food, timber and CPG industries that supply major global brands including Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Pfizer and Novartis. Customers frequently scale quickly once the platform is deployed, often moving from single-site pilots to company-wide rollouts within months of seeing results. Global manufacturers are facing mounting pressure from unplanned downtime and rising operational costs, and the demand for solutions that tackle these challenges has never been higher, said Karim Saleh, Co-founder and CEO of Cerrion. With a team built from talent originating at ETH Zurich, Google and EPFL, Cerrion plans to use the new funding to double its headcount in Europe and the US and to expand its platform beyond vision to support a wider range of manufacturing processes and customers.

Fintech has secured a credit facility and acquired Planky, a UK-based tech company specialised in AI-driven financial analytics and open banking.  The credit facility accompanies its latest Series B round, bringing the total raised to £29 million. The BKN301 Group is a fintech architecture provider that supports banks and fintech companies. Its cloud-native, proprietary suite enables institutions to modernise legacy architectures without disruption, speeding time-to-market and ensuring long-term scalability. The platform is built on three core components: the API Orchestrator, the Data Decoupling Layer, and the Business Logic Engine. These components work together to provide a flexible, vendor-neutral foundation.  Through the acquisition of Planky, BKN301 gains a proprietary AI and data analytics engine that will be fully integrated into its digital banking architecture. Planky’s machine learning models, specialised in real-time financial insights, behavioural scoring, and predictive analytics, will enhance the intelligence and automation of BKN301’s platform. This integration will enable financial institutions and fintechs using BKN301’s technology to deliver smarter, faster, and more personalised digital banking experiences, while maintaining high compliance and scalability standards. “This milestone marks a defining moment for BKN301,” said Stiven Muccioli, Founder & CEO of BKN301. “With the growth financing and Planky’s AI capabilities, we’re accelerating toward our vision of a next-generation fintech infrastructure — one that’s intelligent, open, and designed to empower financial inclusion at scale across emerging markets.” The company’s growth strategy for the next 18 months includes: Strengthening its AI and data analytics capabilities across the core platform, Expanding strategic partnerships with regional financial institutions, and,   Exploring new M&A opportunities to accelerate technological innovation and market reach. “We’re building the rails for the next wave of financial innovation,” added Muccioli. “AI is transforming how financial services operate, and BKN301 is at the forefront — combining intelligence, scalability, and regulatory readiness to help our clients innovate faster.” The new financing will also accelerate BKN301’s roadmap, enabling the company to scale its digital banking architecture platform across EMEA markets. 

Corporate food companies group NutriUnited has raised €8.5 million Seed financing. Founded by Josef Brunner, NutriUnited builds,  connects and develops artisan-oriented food companies. It aims to create a home for family-run businesses in the product categories meat,  meat alternatives and ready-made meals. Josef Brunner is a serial entrepreneur, executive, and investor with over two decades of experience building and scaling technology companies across cybersecurity, IoT, industrial digitalisation, and the future of nutrition. He is the Founder and CEO of NutriUnited, launched in 2024, where he is building technology-enabled solutions in the nutrition and health domain. He serves as Chairman of the Board at Startup Insider, supporting Europe’s tech ecosystem, and is a Supervisory Board Member at learnd. Previously, he was the Founding Investor and CEO of relayr, one of Europe’s leading industrial IoT success stories and co-founder of JouleX, which was acquired by Cisco.  Accomplished entrepreneurs from the fields of food, buy & build,  communications, and new business models (including Flink, ETL and Chrono24), including;  Martina Pfeifer (flatexDegiro), Tim Stracke  (Chrono24), Oliver Merkel (formerly Flink), Christof Wahl (G-FUND), Marc  Müller (formerly ETL Group), Frank Dopheide (human unlimited), Arnd  Hungerberg (ServiceNow), Finn Wentzler (Atlantis Ventures), Leon Mann  (Direkt Gruppe), Dr Hadi Saleh (CeramTec) and Timo Seggelmann (OakHorizon). “We want to create a home for family-run food companies,” says Josef  Brunner, founder and CEO of NutriUnited.   “We stand for true entrepreneurship, dedication to craftsmanship, and honest products – and we see ourselves as the anti-corporation. Even as we grow, we want to remain small, agile and close to our customers. As the son of a baker, returning  to my roots and dedicating myself to the most important mission of my life  is deeply personal: ensuring the future of medium-sized artisan food  producers with NutriUnited.” According to Arnd Hungerberg (ServiceNow): “I invested in NutriUnited because I  believe in sustainable food innovation that connects tradition and the  future, creating real value for people and businesses.” Leon Mann (Direkt Gruppe) shared: “NutriUnited’s contribution to the food  industry is more important than ever – not only in terms of high-quality  products but also in securing the competitiveness of SMEs.”  The new capital will be used to fuel further growth, integrate additional companies and advance the shared mission. The objective is clear:  strengthening family-owned businesses,