Quillon, an AI platform for technical accounting and financial reporting, today announced the close of $1.5 million in pre-seed funding and its rebrand from Acclara AI. The round was led by 42CAP, with participation from angel investors affiliated with NVIDIA and Roblox, who backed the company ahead of the institutional round. Founded in 2023 by Nikolay Dakov, Ivaylo Stefanov, and Atanas Dobrev, Quillon is built in Sofia, with operations in San Francisco, and focuses on technical accounting - a specialised area that involves interpreting complex accounting standards and preparing detailed memos designed to withstand scrutiny from auditors and, in some cases, the US Securities and Exchange Commission. This analysis underpins critical financial decisions, including mergers, debt restructurings, and revenue recognition, where errors can lead to restatements, regulatory inquiries, and material financial impact. While many accountants have begun using general-purpose AI tools to manage increasing workloads, such tools often lack auditability. They may generate unverifiable or incorrect citations and fail to provide a clear connection between conclusions and underlying accounting standards. Quillon addresses this gap through a platform built on a proprietary knowledge graph of accounting standards, integrated with EDGAR. It enables users to navigate accounting questions step by step, linking each conclusion directly to source material, while combining research, contract analysis, peer benchmarking, and memo drafting in a single workflow. The system allows accountants to review, edit, and validate each stage, maintaining human oversight while increasing efficiency, with every output traceable to its originating source. "For two years we've watched technical accountants try to use general-purpose AI to keep up with a workload that's outpaced hiring," said Nikolay Dakov, co-founder and CEO of Quillon. They couldn't - because no auditor will defend output that the AI cannot cite. We built Quillon to close that gap: a workspace where the AI does the analysis, the accountant drives at every step, and every claim traces back to the exact paragraph in the standards. The platform initially focuses on technical accounting memos, which inform nearly all financial reporting decisions within public companies. The company plans to expand into broader financial reporting workflows, including quarterly and annual disclosures. The funding will be used to expand Quillon’s engineering and go-to-market capabilities, supporting its transition from a research-oriented product to a platform that produces finalised deliverables and performs end-to-end accounting workflows.

Balderton today announces the appointment of Phil Chambers as Partner, where he will focus on early-stage investments. Chambers joins the firm after a 20+ year career as a founder, operator and angel investor in the European technology ecosystem, including roles in London, Hamburg and Copenhagen. Most recently, he served as CEO of Orbex, the Scottish space launch company. Prior to Orbex, Chambers co-founded and served as CEO of Peakon, a Balderton portfolio company focused on employee engagement, which he led through rapid international expansion from its Danish home into the UK, Germany, the US, and APAC before its $700 million acquisition by Workday in 2021. He was then GM at Workday for two and a half years, where he grew Peakon’s global footprint to hundreds of millions in ARR.  After falling in love with computers and technology as a child, Chambers studied computer science at the University of Manchester and worked at startups, including Gumtree in the UK and the local reviews company Qype, based in Hamburg, Germany. He then became CTO at Podio, a work management company based in Copenhagen that was acquired by Citrix, where he later led the GoToMeeting product line in Santa Barbara. This experience inspired him to co-found Peakon, a product that revolutionised the employee listening market and made continuous listening a standard practice in many companies.   Alongside his operating career, Chambers has been one of Europe’s most active angel investors, backing more than 100 startups. At Balderton, Phil will draw from his own experience to support founders as they start and scale their businesses in Europe. Bernard Liautaud, Managing Partner at Balderton, said: “I have had the pleasure of knowing Phil for almost a decade now, first working with him as a board member of Peakon, where I saw him grow the company from virtually nothing to a $700 million acquisition by Workday. We then stayed close during his tenure at Workday, and his Orbex years. I could not be more excited to welcome Phil to the Balderton partnership.” Phil Chambers added: “I’m absolutely delighted to be joining the Balderton team: an incredible group of people, working with the most impressive companies in Europe, and a fund at the top of its game.”

Cleantech company TheStorage, which develops industrial thermal energy storage solutions, has closed a €3.6 million seed funding round. The round was led by Voima Ventures, with participation from existing investors Superhero Capital and 2C Ventures, alongside new investor Momentum. The company is focused on addressing one of the most emissions-intensive and challenging areas to decarbonise: industrial heat production. Its thermal energy storage technology stores energy in sand, enabling industrial companies to electrify heat processes, integrate renewable energy sources, and optimise energy use based on electricity market prices. This approach can significantly reduce both energy costs and emissions compared to fossil-based systems. Currently, the majority of industrial heat is still generated using fossil fuels, while the increasing availability of renewable energy and volatility in fossil fuel markets are driving demand for more flexible and cost-effective alternatives. By storing energy and releasing it when needed, TheStorage’s system helps overcome the intermittency of renewables and supports a more stable and economically viable transition to low-carbon energy. The new funding gives us real momentum in commercialising our technology. Interest in thermal energy storage is growing enormously across industry, and our goal is to be the number one choice for companies looking for efficient solutions to manage their energy costs and support their sustainability targets, said Timo Siukkola, CEO and co-founder of TheStorage. In addition to reducing costs and emissions, the technology enables industrial operators to respond to fluctuations in electricity prices and participate in grid balancing markets, creating potential new revenue streams while contributing to grid stability. The solution is designed to deliver high efficiency in heat transfer and integrate seamlessly into existing industrial processes without compromising performance. With the new funding, the company plans to accelerate commercialisation, expand its team, and further develop its technology, aiming to scale its solution globally as industries seek practical pathways to reduce emissions and energy costs.

Berlin-based climatetech startup VREY has closed a €3.3 million seed funding round led by Rubio Impact Ventures, with participation from High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF) and Kopa Ventures. The company enables property owners to deploy solar systems in multi-family buildings and supply the generated electricity directly to tenants, without taking on the role or regulatory burden of an energy supplier. Nearly half of Europeans live in buildings with shared roofs, yet solar adoption in this segment remains low. In Germany, fewer than 2 per cent of multi-family rental units use on-site solar, largely due to regulatory complexity that requires property owners to act as energy suppliers. A recent regulatory change in Germany introduces a new framework, “Gemeinschaftliche Gebäudeversorgung”, which removes this requirement and enables a simpler structure for shared solar deployment. VREY’s platform is designed to operationalise this framework and make it accessible at scale. As a certified smart metering operator and billing partner, VREY provides an integrated solution for tenant electricity models and “Gemeinschaftliche Gebäudeversorgung.” Its platform measures each tenant’s share of solar output and manages billing directly, eliminating the need for property owners to assume supplier responsibilities while allowing tenants to benefit without switching providers. The company currently manages a three-digit number of projects across all 16 German federal states. Its customer base includes private landlords, housing cooperatives, project developers, and large real estate companies. For system installation, VREY collaborates with partners selected by its customers. In addition to solar distribution, the platform supports the integration of batteries, heat pumps, and EV charging infrastructure. VREY positions its solution as an “EnergyOS” for multi-family buildings, providing a central layer for measuring, billing, and managing energy flows. The majority of property owners want to future-proof their buildings, but until now, practical solutions were missing. With VREY, we make solar in multi-family buildings simple and economically viable for the first time, says Julius Pahmeier, co-founder and Managing Director of VREY. With the newly secured funding, VREY plans to expand its team of around 20 employees and further develop its platform. The company aims to strengthen its position in the multi-family building segment and unlock additional energy use cases for property owners.

Starling Bank has no plans to enter the “massively overserved” US retail banking market, but will focus its US expansion on its business-to-business offering instead, says its chief financial officer.   The UK challenger bank is looking to establish itself in the US, to diversify and grow its revenues, and is looking at buying a US bank to secure a national US banking licence.   Speaking to the Banker, Starling CFO Declan Ferguson said the challenger bank had no plans to expand Starling’s retail offering in the US, which he described as a “massively overserved” market. Ferguson said: “The opportunity for a UK retail bank to be successful there is limited . . . I can’t see what the unique selling point is." Ferguson said that Starling, which has nearly five million retail customers, would not be applying for a US banking licence but would undertake a “more modest acquisition”. It hopes to establish itself in the US within the next two years, the CFO said.   Instead of launching its retail bank stateside, Starling is focusing its efforts on exporting its B2B offering Engine.   Starling launched Engine as a subsidiary in 2022, as the challenger bank U-turned on its global strategy.   Engine sells itself as a “cloud native, complete banking platform”. Clients can leverage its software to build and enhance services such as digital onboarding and savings accounts.   Engine has set up a Delaware subsidiary and has appointed former McKinsey partner Jody Bhagat, to head up its multi-million-dollar US assault from its New York office.   Last year, Engine, which employs around 300 people, landed its biggest client to date, Tangerine Bank, which is a subsidiary of Canada’s Scotiabank. Earlier this year, Monzo said it was exiting the US market while British rival Revolut has applied for a US national bank licence.

Swedish legal tech unicorn Legora has made its second acquisition in two months, snapping up a Swedish startup specialising in legal research, which has built a search engine for lawyers. Legora has acquired Qura, a 10-strong team which was founded in 2023, for an undisclosed amount. Legora is a much-hyped AI platform for lawyers which supports lawyers in researching, reviewing and drafting legal work. Legora is competing against US rival Harvey as they look to disrupt the legal market.   Stockholm-based Qura has built a search engine, which leverages AI to scan legal documents, pull together scores of legal sources, and produce quick summaries or more detailed analyses of legal questions.   Legora says Qura’s search engine goes beyond traditional AI retrieval methods, saying its product “enables precise, reliable legal reasoning, rather than surface-level search”. This is a capability that Legora does not currently have, Legora says.   Last year, Qura raised €2.1m in a round led by Cherry Ventures. Qura is working with law firms, which have previously relied only on traditional publishers, and its product is now running across 27 countries. The deal will see the Qura’s team join Legora’s existing legal research organisation, with a remit to expand internationally, including the US. Max Junestrand, CEO & co-founder Legora, said: “Legal research will be a cornerstone of the legal AI stack, and Qura has built one of the most impressive foundations in the world.   “We evaluated legal research startups globally, and Qura stood out by a wide margin. Their ability to combine deep legal understanding with truly AI-native infrastructure is exceptional."   Last month, Legora made its first acquisition, buying Canadian legal AI startup Walter, as it looks to expand its presence in North America. The acquisition for an undisclosed sum came in the same week Legora announced its $550m Series D funding round, at a $5.5bn valuation.