This summer, many southern European countries face constant states of emergency due to water shortages, with around 30 per cent of people facing permanent water stress across the region. 36 per cent of people in Cyprus, and 32 per cent of people in Greece, reported difficulties accessing clean water in 2025, and in 2026, several Greek islands have entered states of emergency due to water stress.  Many parts of the region are facing what the UN has termed ‘water bankruptcy’ – in which groundwater and aquifers reach a state of no return to normal levels.   This week, UK climatetech company Ahbstra launched the ARK, a plug-and-play machine that harvests high-quality drinking water from air at up to 500L/day, even in dry and hot climates. This means the ARK can support a household (the average European uses 144L of tap water per day).  When the wells ran dry I spoke to Ahbstra CEO Hashem Arouzi, who told me he was inspired to start the company when wells on his own property in Ibiza ran dry.    ‘In Ibiza alone, there are over 15,000 properties that are not connected to the water supply, and need to secure their own water.  The wells that have previously supplied them are running dry. For now, many of these property owners are reliant on water deliveries by truck, but these trucks need to fill up at reservoirs that themselves are running dry. Islands are developing desalination, but water from these plants will not be available to these properties.” The first customers of the ARK are largely located in the Balearics, where water scarcity is acute. Turning Nobel-winning chemistry into a product Ahbstra can harvest high-quality drinking water from air at scale by using advanced nanomaterials known as MOFs (metal organic frameworks). These particles are engineered to have a huge internal surface area – the equivalent of a whole football pitch in one gram of material, which makes them ideal for capturing water or CO2 molecules from the air. MOFs were the subject of 2025's Nobel Prize in Chemistry.   For more than a decade, researchers have argued that MOFs could transform atmospheric water harvesting, producing drinking water even in arid climates where other systems (such as dew-point technology) struggle.  The chemistry has shown strong results in laboratories, but turning it into a machine that can produce large volumes of water every day at a practical cost has remained a challenge. The main difficulty is moving enough air through the MOF system while efficiently cycling the temperatures needed to capture and release water. In response, Ahbstra’s patented solution, the Suspended Particle Reactor, cycles air through MOF granules in a fluidised state to maximise their performance, for the first time reducing energy requirements of MOF-based harvesting to commercially practical levels. The ARK is the first commercially available water-harvesting machine powered by MOFs to operate at this scale. It produces high-quality drinking water free of PFAS chemicals and microplastics, which are commonplace in both tap and bottled water. Built for the world's driest climates The ARK can operate in a range of temperatures and humidity levels – including extremes seen in arid areas, where water scarcity is most serious. According to Arouzi, this is where ARK represents a real step forward from previous technologies: “Even at 10 per cent humidity and 45 degrees, we can still produce around 300 litres of water per day. In areas with higher humidity, we can increase output even further while reducing energy consumption. Our 500-litre-per-day performance is achieved at 30 degrees and 30 per cent relative humidity, which equates to a 10-degree dew point – the point where other atmospheric water harvesting methods, such as dew point harvesting, typically struggle." The tech also offers a point of difference to existing atmospheric water generators, which are based on dew-point systems and use cooling coils to condense ambient humidity. These are only efficient in hot, humid conditions. In arid or cooler climates, the coils must run far colder, the energy required per litre rises sharply and output collapses.  The ARK produces water across most climatic conditions, and especially in dry environments where the need is greatest.  “This means that atmospheric water harvesting now works in places like water-stressed islands in southern Europe, the southwest US, or the Middle East, where previously it would have been impossible,” he added. He also explained that while there are other MOF-based systems in development, “none of them currently available have managed to maximise the yield from each cycle of MOF in the way that we have, largely because of the challenge of cycling a high volume of air past the MOFs.” A machine tuned to local climates The ARK's performance varies depending on environmental conditions, particularly relative humidity and temperature, but also on the specific metal-organic framework (MOF) used and the amount of power supplied. Unlike conventional atmospheric water generation technologies, the system can be adapted to different climates by changing the MOF chemistry. "What's really exciting about the MOF field is that we can tailor the chemistry to different environments, so we can fine-tune the system for Southern Europe, Spain or the Middle East, rather than relying on a one-size-fits-all solution," shared Arouzi. The company currently deploys a MOF optimised for Southern European islands, where average relative humidity is around 20 per cent, while different MOFs are available for much harsher climates, operating at relative humidity as low as 10 per cent and temperatures above 40°C. Even in these extremely dry conditions — similar to summer in Riyadh  — the system can produce around 300 litres of water per day, with output increasing to around 500 litres per day at 30 per cent relative humidity. Arouzi explained:  "We calibrate for Southern Europe because it delivers significantly better energy efficiency while maintaining year-round water production.  We could use a MOF designed for desert conditions, but in a temperate climate it would simply be overkill. As humidity increases to 60 or 80 per cent, we can also run the machine in dew point mode, which either boosts water production even further or reduces the amount of energy required to produce the same volume." This approach enables the system to maintain reliable output across a wide range of climates while maximising efficiency for local conditions. Water independence for off-grid properties   In many regions around the world, properties and developments are at risk of being devalued or abandoned if they cannot demonstrate independent water security. The ARK is aimed at developers and owners of off-grid properties that rely on private water supplies. Across many islands, seawater intrusion and declining groundwater levels are making those supplies increasingly unreliable.  The device is priced at £150,000 and is currently manufactured in-house using components sourced from a range of suppliers. “As we scale up, we will bring in manufacturing partners to help us grow,” shared Arouzi. Operating in a typical Southern-Mediterranean climate consumes around 10kW of power — that's 0.48 kWh per litre of water produced — and many customers are installing it alongside solar to meet this need.  Water from the ARK can be used to replenish wells and cisterns, or be sent directly to a property’s mains water system.     Ahbstra is scaling up production of the ARK in Barcelona, and is also developing systems for smaller water volumes. From luxury villas to critical infrastructure  To date, Ahbstra has raised £7 million from a select group of family offices and key strategic corporate distribution partners, and is building towards a Series A investment round.   The first purchased units are due to be installed by early 2027.  Arouzi sees the premium villa market as just the beginning.  “Every major clean technology like solar or EVs begins with early adopters who can help test reliability, generate real-world data and support the initial manufacturing scale that brings costs down. Our immediate R&D is focused on bringing power requirements down further, and creating smaller, less energy-intensive versions of this technology to serve a broader section of the residential market.” Long-term, the company is looking at broader applications:  “We know that 500L/day unlocks use cases for off-grid facilities such as mining or construction sites, or use cases in humanitarian aid and disaster relief,” shared Arouzi. “Datacentres are a major source of waste heat – in fact, almost all the energy that goes into a datacentre ends up turning into heat. Using that heat to create pure drinking water would be a part of a more sustainable ecosystem for datacentres.” There are also many industries, such as pharmaceuticals and cosmetics, that specifically require pure water, which they currently obtain by purifying tap water. For these industries, getting pure water directly from the air would be a logical next step.

UK-based Platter, a food-native operating system for suppliers, wholesalers and manufacturers, has raised an extension to its latest venture round, joined by Verb Ventures. The UK is home to around 25,000 food and beverage manufacturers, the large majority of them small: cheesemakers, bakeries, sauce producers, drinks brands, chilled foodservice wholesalers and regional dairies.  Individually modest, collectively they account for a meaningful share of what ends up on shelves and menus, and most of them still run on a spreadsheet that someone rebuilt from scratch. The inefficient spreadsheet is the operating system of a real business that nobody designed. They are used to document buyer-specific price lists that differ by customer and sometimes by week, alongside stock positions, production plans, delivery routes, allergen data and margin calculations.  Platter is building the missing puzzle for the sector, the back office itself, built around how the UK food trade actually works.  The product runs across three connected layers: orders and sales, including digital ordering, an online storefront and buyer-specific price list management; operations, covering delivery planning, stock and production visibility, and warehouse connections; and finance and invoicing, with automated invoices flowing straight into Sage and Xero, plus embedded invoice factoring through a partner facility that lets suppliers get paid on materially shorter terms. Already live since mid 2025, Platter has onboarded over 30 customers, each processing approximately £3 to £ 10 million in annual trade through the platform. Collectively, the company is on track to process well over £100m in annual trade, with zero customer churn since launch. According to  Alexey Bulygin, Principal at Verb Ventures:   "We invest in the operational layers that make trade work, usually in industries everyone depends on and almost nobody has bothered to build proper software for. Platter is going after it in the food industry from day one, and that's exactly the kind of system-of-record business we back."    Verb believes the key distinction is between software that supports operations and software that becomes operational infrastructure. Once ordering, inventory, production, delivery, invoicing and accounting all run through Platter, switching costs become significant. In addition, ownership of the invoice and end-to-end visibility into transaction flows and pricing data create a strong foundation for expanding into payments and broader embedded services.

European tech funding in July reflected a market where capital remained resilient despite a slowdown in deal activity. A total of 267 funding deals were announced, down from 293 in June, representing a 9 per cent decline in the number of transactions. Despite fewer rounds, European startups raised €8.6 billion, slightly more than the €8.3 billion recorded in June. Companies Out of 267 deals in July, 14 companies raised more than €100 million each. The value of 35 deals remains undisclosed. The month's biggest deal came from Germany-based Helsing which secured a $1.8 billion Series E at a $18 billion valuation. Industries Artificial intelligence was the leading sector by investment volume in European tech startups in July 2026, capturing 21.2 per cent of the month’s total funding, at €7.7 billion. Countries Germany emerged as the top fundraising market in July, securing €3.5 billion over 48 transactions. Exits Exit activity strengthened in July, with 51 transactions recorded, up from 39 in June. Activity was spread across a broad range of sectors, with software, AI, fintech, healthtech and HR tech among the most represented. Grab the PDF version of this report for even more critical insights.

Vangrid, a  Dutch startup developing a decentralised spatial intelligence network to be deployed on smartphones, has raised $9 million in seed funding. Vangrid's goal is to make high-fidelity spatial data accessible at the scale and frequency Physical AI actually demands, without requiring dedicated capture hardware. The platform activates the cameras and sensors already in billions of smartphones, turning ordinary phones into a distributed capture network.  This zero-hardware format allows everyday users, not just fleets of specialised vehicles, to generate continuously updated ground-truth data, taking a street or city from uncaptured to enterprise-ready in the time it takes to walk through it. Vangrid sits between two extremes: legacy mapping methods that rely on slow, expensive, centrally-owned vehicle fleets, and open crowdsourcing efforts that lack verification and enterprise-grade quality. It gives contributors a direct path to compensation and gives customers verified, provenance-tracked data they can trust. With Vangrid, the network scales at the speed of app downloads, not procurement cycles, and is built for continuous, real-time refresh, not a one-time capture. The onchain verification and edge-computation layer is central to delivering on this promise at scale. Faces and license plates are blurred on-device before any data leaves the phone, and each capture is verified onchain for provenance before reaching the enterprise spatial API. This approach lets Vangrid guarantee data integrity without operating a centralised fleet, and lets the team focus resources on network density and the AI-native tooling that customers use directly. According to Robert Brighton, CEO of Vangrid: “We are the eyes for the next generation of AI. Without a decentralised perception grid, billion-dollar robots will remain blind to dynamic human environments. This round, and the calibre of partners now standing beside us, signals that the market recognises spatial ground truth as the foundational infrastructure needed for the Physical AI era.” The company welcomed HashKey, Borderless, Crypto.com Capital, Animoca Brands, Gate Labs, and Mapleblock, as key stakeholders. The company has signed a fresh set of MOUs with strategic data partners and is actively engaging with organisations building defence and robotics platforms. Real transactions are already flowing through the platform, validating both sides of the grid.   The funding will support Vangrid's network bootstrapping, expand its edge-computation pipeline, and deepen enterprise partnerships across defence and autonomous systems. 

According to Tech.eu's H1 2026 report, the UK remained Europe's largest technology funding market in the first half of 2026, raising €18.7 billion across 423 deals. Capital was concentrated in a limited number of large transactions, with cloud (€5.9 billion), artificial intelligence (€3.2 billion), healthtech (€2.6 billion) and fintech (€1.8 billion) accounting for the majority of funding. Cloud attracted the most capital, driven by major financings for Pure Data Centres and Nscale, reflecting continued investment in AI infrastructure and data centre capacity. Artificial intelligence ranked second, supported by large rounds for Ineffable Intelligence, Recursive Superintelligence, ElevenLabs and Fractile, spanning foundation models, enterprise AI and semiconductor technologies. Healthcare was led by Isomorphic Labs' Series B financing alongside significant rounds for companies including Oviva. Meanwhile, fintech funding was spread across both early- and growth-stage companies, reflecting continued activity throughout the sector. Funding was also concentrated among a relatively small group of companies. The 10 highest-funded companies raised a combined €12.3 billion, accounting for around 66 per cent of the total capital invested in the UK during H1 2026. For further insights into funding trends across the European technology ecosystem, check out Tech.eu's Funding Explorer, free and open to everyone. Here are the ten companies that raised the most in H1 2026. Amount raised in H1 2026: €3.57B Nscale is an AI infrastructure company that develops and operates GPU cloud platforms, hyperscale data centres and renewable energy-powered computing infrastructure for artificial intelligence workloads. The company provides end-to-end AI infrastructure, spanning compute, data centre capacity and energy, to support enterprise and foundation model deployment. Across three financing announcements in H1 2026, Nscale secured a total of €3.57 billion to expand its AI infrastructure, data centre footprint and compute capacity. Amount raised in H1 2026: $2.7B Pure Data Centres is a developer and operator of hyperscale data centres, providing digital infrastructure for cloud and AI workloads across Europe, the Middle East and other global markets. The company designs, builds and operates energy-efficient, large-scale facilities for hyperscale customers and supports growing demand for AI and cloud computing infrastructure. In H1 2026, the company secured $2.7 billion to accelerate the expansion of its data centre platform across Europe and the Middle East. Amount raised in H1 2026: $2.1B Isomorphic Labs is an AI drug discovery company that develops artificial intelligence models to accelerate the discovery and design of new medicines. A spin-out from Google DeepMind, the company applies advanced AI to identify novel drug candidates and partners with pharmaceutical companies to advance therapies across multiple disease areas. During H1 2026, Isomorphic Labs raised $2.1 billion to advance its AI drug discovery platform and expand its pipeline of therapeutics. Amount raised in H1 2026: $1.26B Wayve is an autonomous driving company developing Embodied AI technology for self-driving vehicles. Its end-to-end AI models enable vehicles to learn from real-world driving data rather than relying on high-definition maps or rule-based systems, supporting deployment across passenger and commercial vehicles. Across two funding rounds in H1 2026, Wayve raised a total of $1.26 billion to accelerate the development and deployment of its Embodied AI technology for autonomous driving. Amount raised in H1 2026: $1.1B Ineffable Intelligence is an artificial intelligence company developing foundation models and AI systems for enterprise and scientific applications. The company focuses on building large-scale AI infrastructure and next-generation models designed to support advanced reasoning and automation across industries. In H1 2026, Ineffable Intelligence secured $1.1 billion in seed funding to build its foundation AI models and computing infrastructure. Amount raised in H1 2026: $1.06B ElevenLabs is an AI company specialising in voice generation, speech synthesis and multilingual audio technologies. Its platform enables businesses and creators to generate, translate and dub natural-sounding speech using artificial intelligence for media, publishing, entertainment and enterprise applications. Across three funding rounds in H1 2026, ElevenLabs secured a total of $1.06 billion to expand its AI voice platform, advance research and scale globally. Amount raised in H1 2026: £550M Ebury is a fintech company providing international payments, foreign exchange, trade finance and cash management solutions for businesses operating across global markets. Its platform helps companies manage cross-border transactions, currency risk and international business operations. In H1 2026, Ebury raised £550 million to support its continued international expansion and strengthen its financial services platform. Amount raised in H1 2026: $650M Recursive Superintelligence is an artificial intelligence company developing frontier AI models and large-scale computing infrastructure for advanced reasoning and autonomous systems. The company focuses on building next-generation AI capabilities for research, enterprise and scientific applications. In H1 2026, Recursive Superintelligence raised $650 million to accelerate the development of its frontier AI models and computing infrastructure. Amount raised in H1 2026: £260M Oxford Quantum Circuits (OQC) is a quantum computing company developing superconducting quantum computers and cloud-accessible quantum computing services for enterprise, research and government customers. Its technology is designed to support complex computational workloads beyond the capabilities of classical computing. In H1 2026, Oxford Quantum Circuits raised £260 million to accelerate the development and commercial deployment of its quantum computing technology. Amount raised in H1 2026: $300M PhysicsX is an industrial AI company developing foundation models and simulation technologies for engineering and advanced manufacturing. Its platform helps engineers design, test and optimise complex systems across sectors including aerospace, automotive, energy and materials. In H1 2026, PhysicsX secured $300 million to scale its AI-driven engineering platform and accelerate the development of industrial foundation models.

Telecom software provider Mobilise has launched Mobilise Platforms & Investments, a new division created to help specialist telecom technology businesses scale by combining strategic investment, telecom expertise and shared technology.  The division will focus on businesses operating across business support systems (BSS), operations support systems (OSS), mobile virtual network enabler and aggregator (MVNE/MVNA) infrastructure, eSIM, connectivity and adjacent control-plane systems such as roaming, interconnect and numbering. The telecom software market is highly fragmented. Despite the top three global vendors — Amdocs, Ericsson and Nokia — accounting for “an estimated 38 to 42 per cent of global OSS/BSS revenues” , the remaining 60 per cent of a market valued at more than $70 billion is served by hundreds of smaller, often founder-led businesses with limited access to scale capital. Many BSS and OSS assets are founder-led and capital-constrained, with no clear succession or scale path. They are often deeply embedded in operator workflows but under-resourced for next-generation deployment, and can be operationally complex for generalist investors to assess, given the regulatory, integration and service-level demands specific to telecoms. Once these businesses are integrated onto a shared platform, their value compounds: each addition strengthens the commercial reach and technical capability of the businesses already in the ecosystem. Many specialist telecom businesses have strong products, experienced teams and loyal customers, yet find that limited access to investment, operational infrastructure or new markets holds back their next stage of growth. Mobilise Platforms & Investments has been created to address that gap, drawing on more than 20 years of experience building, operating and scaling telecom platforms. “There are excellent telecom software businesses out there with no clear path forward, not because the product is weak or the customers aren't loyal, but because the founder is stretched, the capital isn't there and the next step feels too hard to take alone,” said Hamish White, founder and CEO of Mobilise, who has spent more than 20 years building and scaling telecom platforms across Europe, Africa and the Americas.  “For a long time, the only real options were to keep struggling, sell to a generalist buyer who doesn't understand the product or wind down. We built Mobilise Platforms & Investments because we think there's a better answer.” The division operates as a partner-led joint venture. Instead of buying companies outright, the business works with them first. It introduces its HERO platform to improve how they operate and increase profitability. If the partnership works well and the businesses are a good fit, an acquisition may follow later. Alongside Mobilise, aligned capital partners with deep telecom sector expertise provide acquisition capital, balance-sheet strength and exit discipline.  “We're not buying businesses to restructure them, strip out costs or give founders an exit while their team is left to figure out what comes next,” White added. “We're looking for businesses where the product has strong market fit, the customer relationships are real and the team knows the domain better than anyone else. Those are exactly the things we want to keep. A deal with Mobilise isn't an exit, it's a scale path.” The new division is open to conversations with telecom technology founders considering growth or succession, operators looking to expand their capabilities and capital partners seeking opportunities within the telecom software market. This includes travel eSIM platforms, embedded connectivity providers needing scale, OSS and BSS software vendors, telecom systems integrators, MVNE and MVNO specialists, enterprise mobility providers and regional delivery partners. Lead image: Hamish White, founder and CEO of Mobilise.

From faster internet and more secure satellite communications to next-generation semiconductors, quantum technologies and energy-generating greenhouses, photonics is becoming one of Europe's most strategically important deep tech sectors. Europe is home to a new generation of photonics scaleups translating decades of scientific research into commercially viable products.    By generating, transmitting and manipulating light, photonic technologies deliver higher performance while reducing the size, weight, power consumption and cost of complex systems.  As demand for AI infrastructure, high-performance computing and resilient digital networks continues to grow, photonics is emerging as a foundational technology for the next generation of innovation, strengthening Europe's technological sovereignty and creating globally competitive businesses. Here are some companies to have on your radar: EFFECT Photonics (Netherlands) EFFECT Photonics develops integrated photonic semiconductor chips and optical communication systems that enable faster, lower-cost, and lower-power data transmission across telecom and data centre networks. Its technology integrates multiple optical functions—including lasers, modulators, photodetectors and digital signal processing—onto a single chip, reducing the size, cost and complexity of optical networking equipment.  Image: EFFECT Photonics. Cailabs (France)  Cailabs develops advanced photonic systems that control and shape laser light. The company's core technology is Multi-Plane Light Conversion (MPLC), a proprietary beam-shaping technology that precisely manipulates laser light. This enables more reliable, higher-capacity optical communications and more precise industrial laser applications.  Its solutions include optical ground stations and laser communication systems for satellites, beam-shaping technologies for defence applications, photonic components that boost the capacity and reliability of fibre-optic networks, and optical systems that improve the precision and efficiency of industrial laser welding, cutting and additive manufacturing. Wooptix (Spain)  Wooptix develops advanced optical metrology equipment for the semiconductor industry, helping chip manufacturers measure and inspect silicon wafers with extremely high precision. At the core of Wooptix's products is its proprietary Wavefront Phase Imaging (WFPI) technology, derived from adaptive optics originally developed for astronomy. The technology analyses how light changes as it passes through or reflects from a surface, enabling single-shot measurements of wafer shape, nanotopography and surface roughness with exceptionally high resolution and speed. This allows semiconductor manufacturers to improve process control, increase manufacturing yields and support increasingly complex chip architectures such as advanced packaging and 3D integration. Mbryonics (Ireland)  Mbryonics develops advanced optical communications technologies for the space sector, designing optical terminals, laser communication payloads and photonic integrated circuits that enable satellites to transmit far greater volumes of data than traditional radio-frequency systems.  Its free-space optical communication technology uses lasers instead of radio waves to create secure, high-bandwidth links between satellites and from space to Earth for applications including satellite constellations, Earth observation and deep-space missions. The company specialises in integrated photonics, combining optical components onto compact semiconductor chips to reduce the size, weight and power requirements of satellite communications equipment. Its integrated photonics platform also improves the performance, manufacturability and cost efficiency of optical systems. Quside (Spain) Quside develops quantum tech that enhances cybersecurity, high-performance computing and scientific research through the generation and manipulation of quantum light. The company's core products are quantum random number generators (QRNGs), which use the inherent unpredictability of quantum physics to produce truly random numbers. These provide a higher level of security than conventional software-based random number generators and are used in applications including encryption, secure communications, data centres, cloud infrastructure and financial systems. Quside also develops single-photon sources for quantum computing, quantum sensing and quantum communications.  Its integrated photonics technology is designed to deliver scalable, compact and energy-efficient quantum hardware. Brite Solar (Greece)  Combining photonics, materials science and solar technology, Brite Solar develops transparent photovoltaic glass for greenhouses, allowing growers to generate renewable electricity while maintaining the optimal light conditions for crops. Its patented solar glass uses advanced optical coatings to selectively transmit the wavelengths plants need for photosynthesis while converting the remaining sunlight into electricity.  This enables greenhouses to reduce energy costs and carbon emissions without compromising crop growth or yields. Collectively, these scale-ups highlight Europe's strength in photonics, transforming advances in light-based technologies into commercial products that address some of today's most pressing technological and industrial challenges. Companies mentioned in this article are members of the EIC Scaling Club, a curated community where 120+ European deep tech scale-ups with the potential to build world-class businesses and solve major global challenges come together with investors, corporate innovators and other industry stakeholders to spur growth. The EIC Scaling Club is an EIC-funded initiative run in partnership with Tech Tour, Bpifrance (EuroQuity), Hello Tomorrow, Tech.eu (Webrazzi), EurA and IESE Business School.

US AI infrastructure startup Modal Labs is opening a London office, marking the latest North American AI firm to invest in bricks and mortar in London or up their presence in the capital. New York–headquartered Modal provides computing infrastructure for AI workloads, with a focus on AI inference, the process of running an AI model, as opposed to training an AI model.  The startup, founded in 2021, is opening an office in the Marble Arch area of London, sources say. The space can hold up to 40 workers, and Modal plans to have all its London staff in place by early September, sources say. Modal is joining several North American AI firms which have recently announced new London office openings or expansions, including AI giants OpenAI and Anthropic, and AI startups Cursor and Cohere. In May, Modal raised $355m in a new round of financing, valuing the company at $4.65bn, in a round led by Redpoint Ventures and General Catalyst, up from its $1.1bn valuation eight months before. Modal also has offices in New York, San Francisco and Sweden and employs around 170 people.. Modal was co-founded by CEO Erik Bernhardsson, who previously ran the tech team at mortgage tech firm Better.com and also spent six years at Spotify, where he was central to building its music recommendation engine. Its other co-founder is Akshat Bubna, who serves as chief technology officer, who was previously an engineer at Scale AI, the US AI infrastructure startup. Bernhardsson says: "Modal has been transatlantic since day one: New York, San Francisco, Stockholm. We’re doubling down with our new London office as part of our commitment to helping European companies achieve scale.”

Spanish drone technology company FuVeX has raised €3 million in an oversubscribed funding round to accelerate its commercial and international expansion and strengthen its position in the European dual-use drone market. The round included participation from SODENA, SEGO Venture, Izertis Ventures, and several family offices linked to the industrial, agricultural and innovation sectors. The company has also secured funding commitments for future financing rounds. Founded in 2013 by Carlos Matilla, FuVeX develops, manufactures and operates long-range drones for civil and defence applications. Its proprietary technology combines unmanned aircraft, operational systems and artificial intelligence-powered analytics to automate the inspection and monitoring of critical infrastructure. Designed as a dual-use platform, FuVeX's technology serves both commercial and defence customers, enabling beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) operations of up to 10 kilometres while reducing inspection times, operating costs and workers' exposure to hazardous environments. The company has established a strong presence in the energy sector, having inspected more than 36,000 kilometres of power lines through contracts with UFD, Naturgy's electricity distributor, and Endesa. FuVeX aims to inspect 70% of Spain's electricity distribution network by 2027 while expanding into agriculture, oil and gas, and other critical infrastructure sectors across Europe and Latin America. Alongside the private investment, the company has secured €400,000 in public funding from Spain's Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology (CDTI) to support a defence research and development project. According to Carlos Matilla, CEO and founder of FuVeX, the funding reflects investor confidence in both the company's technology and its ambition to contribute to Europe's strategic autonomy by developing drones designed, manufactured and operated in Europe. The vertical integration of our solution—from aircraft development and operations to data analysis—gives us a highly agile structure that can adapt to a rapidly evolving sector. This allows us to provide a comprehensive solution while reducing dependence on foreign technology, he added. The funding will be used to expand the company's commercial and defence operations, strengthen its technology, industrial and commercial teams, increase manufacturing and operational capacity, and accelerate international growth. FuVeX will also invest in research and development to advance drone systems for defence, security and critical infrastructure applications.

Today, White Star Capital announced the final close of White Star Capital Fund IV at $250 million.  Together with its inaugural North American Seed Fund, announced late last year, and several new special purpose vehicles, the Firm has raised more than $350 million in fresh capital to back founders from Seed through Series B. The Firm launched its first Fund more than twelve years ago. It's grown from a team of five split between New York, Montreal, and London in 2014, to 50+ exceptional individuals across eight offices today.  The company has led rounds into teams like Sequen (New York), Veesion (Paris), OatFi (New York), AMI Labs (Paris), Tetrix (Montreal), and Trayd (New York).  Its portfolio includes several companies that have achieved category leadership, including Butternut Box (UK), Vention (Canada), Petfolk (US), Numan Health (UK), and FINN (Germany), as well as some exciting growth stories behind Flare (Canada), Ledn (Canada), and Spiko (France). White Star Capital has achieved 22 exits from a portfolio of 100+ companies.  According to the company, Fund IV represents a deepening of our commitment to our core venture strategy, focusing on backing exceptional teams at the Series A and B stages.  “Despite an evolving market, our thesis remains the same. We are looking to partner with founders who have the ambition, talent, and product to scale internationally, and in return we provide the global network and operational expertise they need to scale.  We believe the next generation of category-defining companies will be built by founders who understand their local ecosystems but also possess the ambition to expand globally from day one.” Since founding, the company has expanded across New York, London, Montreal, Toronto, Paris and Milan, with a growing presence in Berlin, the Middle East and Asia. According to the company, the current market environment requires more than just capital. It requires disciplined, thematic investing and a partner who understands the challenges of scaling across borders.  “We are here to meet founders where they are, from their first institutional round, and stay with them as they navigate the path to IPO and beyond.  If you are building a business that can reshape its industry, we want to hear from you. Our team is ready. Let’s build something enduring together.” Lead image: Eric Martineau-Fortin, Founder & Co-Managing Partner, and Jean-Francois Marcoux, Co-founder & Co-Managing Partner. 

Portuguese space technology company Neuraspace has secured €15.6 million in new financing to expand its AI-enabled Space Domain Awareness (SDA) and Space Traffic Management (STM) capabilities. The financing combines strategic private investment from Lince Capital, Explorer Investments and Armilar Venture Partners with funding awarded under Portugal's Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP). Founded in 2020 by Chiara Manfletti, Neuraspace develops an AI-powered platform that helps commercial, institutional and defence satellite operators monitor and manage increasingly complex space environments. The platform combines data from commercial and sovereign sensors with high-precision orbit determination, AI-enabled risk and threat assessment, and autonomous decision support to detect, assess and respond to collision risks, cyber threats, radio-frequency interference, and other emerging space security challenges. The investment comes as satellite operators face growing operational and security challenges in an increasingly congested and contested space environment. Alongside rising collision risks, operators must contend with cyberattacks, GNSS spoofing and jamming, radio-frequency interference, and increasingly sophisticated counterspace activities that require continuous monitoring and rapid decision-making. According to Chiara Manfletti, CEO of Neuraspace, the company has expanded its mission beyond making space safer to helping operators respond to both accidental and intentional threats, as the distinction between safety and security continues to narrow. This investment marks the beginning of Neuraspace's next phase of growth as we expand Europe's sovereign capabilities in space domain awareness while delivering the AI-enabled operational services required by the next generation of commercial, institutional and defence missions. The funding will support the expansion of the company's commercial and defence capabilities through further development of its AI platform, accelerated autonomous mission operations, and expansion of its proprietary optical sensing infrastructure. It will also support continued investment in NeuraspaceDEF, the company's dual-use solution for government and defence customers.

Europe’s €5bn investment fund aimed at scaling up future European tech giants has disclosed that its first investment is in Finnish satellite startup Iceye. The Scaleup Europe Fund, managed by Swedish investment firm EQT, co-led Iceye’s €1bn funding round, the fund said. It co-led the round with US private equity firm General Atlantic, which was announced in June this year. The Series F funding round valued the company at around €10bn. The much-trumpeted fund is the latest move by the EU to help EU challengers grow from startup to tech leaders without moving to the US. The Scaleup Europe Fund is investing in tech startups across the bloc in strategic sectors, such as AI, quantum, space and biotech. Iceye, headquartered in Finland, uses what is called synthetic aperture radar technology to capture images through cloud cover. Victor Englesson, partner at EQT and co-head of the Scaleup Europe Fund, said: "Our first investment reflects exactly what the Scaleup Europe Fund was created to support: ambitious European founders building globally competitive companies in strategically important technologies." Rafał Modrzewski, co-founder & CEO, Iceye, said: “Europe has the talent, technology and ambition to build globally leading companies in strategically important industries. Our own journey reflects that. My co-founder Pekka Laurila and I met as students on an Erasmus exchange, received our first funding through Horizon 2020, and we are grateful for the European Commission's role in initiating the Scaleup Europe Fund.” Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, added: “When Europe invests in its innovators, Europe invests in its future. This is the goal of our Scaleup Europe Fund: it will ensure our scale-ups can find what they need right here in Europe to grow into world-leading companies. To turn European innovation into our competitive edge.” Image: Iceye

Construction technology startup conmeet has raised €6 million in an oversubscribed seed funding round to accelerate the rollout of its AI-centric operating system for trades and construction businesses. The round was co-led by Reimann Investors Venture Capital and Smedvig Ventures, six months after the company's pre-seed financing led by May Ventures, which remains an investor. Founded in 2023 by Benedikt Kisner, Leandro Ananias and Lennart Eckerlein, conmeet has developed a platform that unifies project management, procurement, scheduling, construction site operations, documentation, finance and invoicing in a single system. Designed for mid-sized trades and construction companies with 10 to 500 employees, it replaces fragmented software tools with a shared data foundation that supports end-to-end business management. The company is addressing inefficiencies created by disconnected software systems that require duplicate data entry, manual handovers and fragmented workflows. Instead of relying on separate tools for each stage of a project, customers can manage the entire workflow - from initial customer contact and procurement to project execution and payment - within a single platform. By bringing all operational data together, conmeet provides office teams, commercial departments and construction sites with a shared, real-time source of information. Built around a unified data model, the platform integrates artificial intelligence directly into operational processes, automating recurring tasks and enabling increasingly autonomous workflow execution. Its architecture has been designed specifically for AI, allowing new capabilities to be embedded into day-to-day operations rather than added as standalone features. Commenting on the investment, Benedikt Kisner, co-founder and CEO of conmeet, said the industry's need is not for another standalone tool, but for a unified platform that manages end-to-end business operations: AI is now creating entirely new possibilities: processes can not only be represented digitally but also automated intelligently and increasingly executed autonomously. Because conmeet is built on a shared data foundation and an architecture designed for AI from the ground up, we can integrate these capabilities directly into companies' day-to-day operations. Samuel Schuler, Managing Director at Reimann Investors Venture Capital, said the market is increasingly demanding software built around the specific workflows of trades and construction businesses, adding that conmeet's combination of industry and technology expertise was a key factor in the investment decision. conmeet addresses these problems with a central system and a team that combines unique domain expertise across the trades, company building and software development. This combination was decisive in our investment decision, said Schuler. The new funding will support the company's expansion across the DACH region, further develop its AI capabilities, and grow its team.

HappyRobot, a company developing agentic AI for supply chains has raised $150 million in Series C funding led by Prysm Capital and co-led by Eurazeo. Existing investors a16z, Base10, Y Combinator are doubling down with participation from strategics like Koch Disruptive Technologies (KDT), KFund, Orange, and T.Capital (Deutsche Telekom), Bankinter, Endeavor Catalyst and Wave-X. The round values the company at $1.2 billion post-money, bringing total  funding to around $200 million. Enterprise operations continue to rely on millions of phone calls, emails, documents and disconnected systems every day. While AI has made it easier to generate information, many organisations still struggle to automate the work required to keep their businesses running. HappyRobot bridges that gap by deploying AI agents that can execute and reason within existing enterprise systems while working alongside employees.  HappyRobot’s platform enables organisations to build, deploy, and manage AI agents that automate complex operational workflows across voice, email, documents, and the web. By learning from every interaction and execution, it helps organisations capture operational knowledge, streamline information exchange, and gain real-time visibility across their operations.  Through the millions of tasks HappyRobot agents execute each month, customers are seeing measurable impact across departments. Deployment isn't a one-time project but an ongoing partnership: initial agents typically go live within 4 to 12 weeks, and each sprint that follows refines the agents already in production and adds new ones. One customer is automating 28,000 hours of work every month. In customer care, agents are achieving 9.4/10 customer satisfaction scores and more than 70 per cent autonomous resolution on average. Operational teams have increased capacity by 10x, and sales teams have generated 5x more revenue through previously underutilised channels. The company works with more than 150+ enterprise customers, including DHL, Kuehne + Nagel, Naturgy, Repsol, and Uber, and has grown 5x since raising its Series B late last year. After first proving its platform in logistics, one of the world’s most operationally demanding industries, HappyRobot is expanding across the supply chain as well as into insurance, energy and utilities, telecommunications, airlines, and other sectors where business-critical work still depends on manual coordination across fragmented systems. “Getting agents to do work is the starting point, not the destination,” said Pablo Palafox, co-founder and CEO of HappyRobot. “HappyRobot's thesis is that enterprise superintelligence, where an organisation's collective intelligence compounds as agents and people learn from one another, requires far more than task-performing agents. It requires a platform and a deployed motion capable of operationalising that platform inside a specific business.” “Many industries have a surprising share of their costs locked up in coordination, the calls, emails, and handoffs that keep work flowing,” said Kerry Wei, Partner at Prysm Capital  “While getting an agent to complete a discrete task is increasingly simple, deploying them across multi-step enterprise workflows has proven far more difficult.  HappyRobot has built the missing link – the governance, interfaces, and context layer – that enables agents to work seamlessly across complex workflows, driving real ROI by allowing companies to capture value without asking employees to adopt anything new.” "It had been a while since we met a company that fundamentally expands what enterprise AI can do,” said Anne-Charlotte Philbert, Partner at Eurazeo:   “From day one, we knew Pablo and the team were building something special: a truly AI-native platform, world-class technical depth, and customers seeing exceptional ROI in mission-critical industries such as supply chain, energy, telecommunications, and banking." Over the past year, HappyRobot has expanded from two offices to eight locations across North America, Europe, LATAM, and Australia, reflecting growing demand from enterprises looking to automate complex operational workflows.   The new funding will accelerate investment in HappyRobot’s platform, including expanded AI capabilities, enterprise integrations and the infrastructure required to deploy AI agents at scale. The company will also continue growing its engineering, deployment and go-to-market teams globally to support increasing demand from enterprises across industries.

More than 2,000 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have participated in projects funded by the EU's Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) over the past five years, giving companies access to international research networks and highly skilled researchers. In the last 30 years, the MSCA has supported the careers of excellent researchers from Europe and beyond, enabling them to pursue their ideas across academia and industry. Collaboration between universities and companies has been a fundamental part of the MSCA since its inception in 1996, and the involvement of Europe’s SMEs has grown ever since. Over the last five years, over 4,300 businesses took part in MSCA projects, and more than half of them were SMEs. Since 2014 – when the EU’s Horizon 2020 funding programme was launched – more than €1 billion in funding has supported the participation of over 8,500 private companies across more than 3,000 projects. To help companies get the most out of the doctoral training networks, postdoctoral fellowships and staff exchanges on offer, the MSCA has created a business hub page. For example, it explains how SMEs can team up with academia to apply for MSCA Staff Exchange funding, which enables research and research support staff to move across countries, sectors, and disciplines, gaining experience and sharing expertise. SMEs can also reduce R&D costs and administrative effort by applying for an MSCA COFUND grant, which helps cover the cost of selecting, recruiting and training researchers. The recently launched Choose Europe for Science pilot further expands opportunities for organisations to recruit outstanding researchers into longer-term positions. The action supports projects where both academic and private sector organisations hire postdoctoral researchers with a view to offering employment beyond the project period. The idea is to also widen adoption of MSCA’s best practice in research, promoting high standards and good working conditions. The MSCA Doctoral Networks, which support doctoral training, offer SMEs an opportunity to collaborate with universities in seeking MSCA funding. For every three educational establishments participating in the Doctoral Networks, there were almost two private sector organisations, according to data gathered from 2021 to 2023. MSCA sees the highest engagement in Staff Exchanges and Doctoral Networks, where around half of the organisations involved come from the non-academic sector. International networks Doctoral Networks must include members from at least three different countries, showing how a commitment to international mobility runs through the MSCA. Another example is the Postdoctoral Fellowships, where the mobility rules say that applicants should not have lived or worked in the beneficiary country for more than 12 months out of the 36 immediately before the call deadline. This international focus benefits SME partners because they get to participate in stronger international research networks. This means they get access to advanced technologies and specialised expertise, while at the same time it encourages greater collaboration, enabling SMEs to strengthen the skills of their teams. International mobility is a core feature of the programme. Many researchers remain in Europe after their fellowship, helping to strengthen the continent's research and innovation ecosystem. One example is SERENADE, an MSCA-funded Doctoral Network coordinated by BSH Appliances in Spain. The project brings together universities and companies to train seven doctoral candidates working on technologies to reduce food waste, including sensor-equipped food containers and artificial intelligence (AI)-powered freshness analysis. The initiative is training doctoral candidates from academic institutions in Belgium, Germany and Italy, who are splitting their time between academic research and industry work with one of the companies partnering in the project. It aims to produce two innovations to tackle food waste: sustainable containers with sensors to monitor whether the food inside them is still fresh, and a portable food analyser that uses AI to examine the freshness of unpackaged products. The networked approach of the project is more efficient in addressing the complex challenges required to achieve these goals, compared with solo efforts, according to Sergio Gomez Ortiz, head of product development shared services at BSH Group in Zaragoza, Spain. Revathy Gurusamy, an MSCA doctoral candidate who is working on SERENADE, says she chose the project partly because of the real-world impact it could have. Working at BSH Appliances, she sees the potential for her team’s smart food-monitoring devices to reach millions of households, directly contributing to reducing food waste on a global scale. As demand grows for closer collaboration between research and industry, the MSCA continues to provide companies with opportunities to engage with international talent and collaborative research.

Swedish-Finnish defencetech Monava, which specialises in acoustic drone detection, has closed an investment round with Gungnir Capital as the largest investor, together with Foundry Ventures and Hede Capital. Monava combines advanced acoustics with AI to detect, track and classify drones.  The system is fully passive, emits nothing that can be detected or jammed, and identifies threats where traditional sensors such as radar fall short. The capability has become operationally critical as the drone threat has grown worldwide.  Monava's acoustic systems are today found across the Nordics and in Ukraine. Close cooperation and extensive testing with armed forces have built strong trust, and global demand for Monava's sensors is growing rapidly. The growing order book now requires rapid scaling of the organisation.  According to Alexander Hebbe, CEO, Monava: "The drone threat is evolving faster than most defence systems can keep up with. Demand for our technology is now increasing sharply, and the number of enquiries for our sensors exceeds our expectations daily. With Gungnir Capital, Foundry Ventures and Hede Capital behind us, we can accelerate development and meet the demand from European defence customers."  According to Max Villman, Managing Partner, Gungnir Capital, today, drones account for roughly 70 per cent of all casualties in the war in Ukraine, and we must develop the means to counter that threat.  “Monava solves a real operational problem with technology that works in the field, and that is exactly the kind of company Gungnir Capital exists to back."  Patrik Olson, CEO, Hede Capital, shared: "Monava solves a problem that is only becoming more and more important: detecting and identifying threats before they can be seen. By combining advanced acoustic sensor technology with AI, they can pick up signals in the air, on the ground and in the water that other systems miss. This investment is a perfect fit with our investment strategy: smart, scalable and with real operational relevance for both defence and civil protection in the Nordics and internationally."  As part of the investment, Gungnir Capital's Managing Partner Max Villman joins Monava's board of directors.  The capital will be used to commercialise the product and rapidly scale the organisation to meet market demand. 

Advanced Electric Machines Group (AEM), a UK-based manufacturer of rare earth and magnet-free electric motors, has secured £16 million of funding to support the expansion of its product portfolio and accelerate development of new electric propulsion solutions.   Its technology is applicable to a wide range of applications, including passenger car, motorcycle, ATV, the full range of trucks, buses and construction machinery and into the marine sector, The company's motors (which can be used for both primary and secondary drive applications) eliminate the need for permanent magnets and rare earth materials, including replacing copper windings with aluminium, helping customers reduce supply-chain risk while delivering competitive performance, efficiency and cost with reduced weight and improved recyclability. By eliminating permanent magnets, customers can reduce their exposure to the supply-chain challenges and the price volatility associated with rare earth materials.  AEM’s technology portfolio includes advanced control strategies, aluminium coils, and higher-speed, smaller, lighter designs that are being productionised. AEM manufactures its motors at its facility in Washington, where rare earth and magnet-free technology can already be produced at commercial scale. The company is leveraging this proven manufacturing capability to support the development and future production of higher-torque products aimed at some of the most demanding electric powertrain applications. The funding round was led by existing shareholders Barclays Climate Ventures, PXN Ventures, Northstar Ventures and the Low Carbon Innovation Fund, alongside participation from new investors. Their equity investment is complemented by loan support from Innovate UK, and allows for expansion of facilities, expertise and production capability in Washington. According to Dr James Widmer, CEO and co-founder of AEM, OEMs are increasingly looking for motor technologies that can deliver performance, cost competitiveness and manufacturing scalability without dependence on rare earth materials and magnets.  “Our technology has already demonstrated that this is possible in production environments. This funding enables us to accelerate development of our next-generation of products and expand our offering into higher-power and higher-torque applications. We are building on a platform that is already proven in production and the field and designed to help customers strengthen supply-chain resilience while meeting increasingly demanding performance requirements.” Greg Debicki, Director, Principal Investments at Barclays Climate Ventures, said:    “Developed at Newcastle University, AEM’s innovative motor platform has the potential to support businesses around the world, while reinforcing the UK's reputation for advanced engineering.  This investment will help accelerate AEM's growth and we are glad to support the expansion of this regional champion.”     Alex Buchan, Investment Director at Northstar Ventures, said:   “The North East has a long-held reputation for producing landmark technological innovations capable of operating in the global arena. Ensuring companies at this stage have access to the capital required to scale is vital. Northstar Ventures has worked with AEM through its evolution and has always been committed to backing the companies whose technologies will be the driver of future prosperity.”  The investment will support development of AEM's next-generation high-torque motor platform, extending the company's existing technology into more demanding commercial vehicle and industrial applications.

The UK fintech founded by a former Barclays bank CEO, which provides banking technology for JP Morgan's UK digital bank, has secured £40m in new funding. 10x Banking, founded by former Barclays CEO Antony Jenkins, provides core, cloud banking software for banks and financial institutions. Its clients include Chase UK, Westpac and Old Mutual. 10x has received the funding, a mix of equity and debt, from AshGrove Capital, a pan-European B2B software investor. 10x, which Jenkins founded in 2015, a year after he left Barclays, declined to disclose what valuation the funding was raised at. The fintech said it will use the new funding to finance its go-to-market offering. The new funding marks the challenger’s first fundraise since 2024, when it raised around £34m, led by existing investors BlackRock and JP Morgan. 10x said that in the last 12 months it has onboarded more than 10 new financial institutions, but did not disclose their names. Jenkins, founder, chair and CEO of 10x, said: ”Financial institutions have a clear ambition to innovate, but many remain constrained by infrastructure that was not built for real-time, digital banking. We created 10x to remove those constraints, enabling financial institutions to launch products faster, serve customers in real time and compete more effectively. Our platform is now proving its value at significant scale. AshGrove’s investment is a strong endorsement of the progress we have made and will help us meet growing demand from banks around the world.”

Legaltech Aavalynx has raised £1.5 million in pre-seed funding to help enterprises tackle the financial risk of legal disputes. Founded in 2023 and commercially live in 2024, Aavalynx has developed proprietary AI tech that enables legal teams, law firms and litigation funders to structure, analyse, and interrogate dispute data at scale. It helps companies intervene earlier, make better-informed strategic decisions, improve litigation outcomes, and regain control over legal spend. I spoke to Hanna Roos, founder and CEO of Aavalynx, to learn more. The hidden cost of corporate litigation Today, about 30 per cent of total corporate external legal spend is on litigation, and 80 per cent of companies were involved in at least one lawsuit in 2025, with more than 46 per cent expecting an increase in lawsuits, according to a 2026 study survey of US corporate counsel. Despite the scale of this risk, organisations still lack the structured data and tools to systematically analyse dispute portfolios, identify emerging trends, or forecast likely outcomes with accuracy. As a result, they remain heavily dependent on external law firms for strategic decision-making. Yet classic law firm models are not equipped to provide a holistic risk assessment, for example, the impact on reputation and customer trust. Roos brings almost two decades of legal experience, having led complex, high-stakes international disputes in roles at Freshfields, Latham & Watkins, and Quinn Emanuel. Roos says the idea for Aavalynx emerged after years of seeing the same structural problems repeated across high-value disputes. “I loved the business of disputes. At university I was fascinated by Plato and Aristotle and their vision of how to live well, and by the idea that you could help deliver justice internationally through global disputes.” But once she started practising, she realised there were three fundamental problems. The first concerns law firms and the difference between the business of law, which is what law firms do, and law for business, which is what in-house legal teams need to deliver.   "Traditional law firm models are based on volume and hourly billing. Clients don't pass resolutions based on volume, but if your business model depends on volume, that's what happens. The average dispute involving states lasts 4.8 years. That's an average, and it's incredibly high.” Disputes often run for several years, if not decades, and can cost enterprise clients hundreds of millions per year. The total exposure of ongoing cases can greatly exceed a company’s annual revenue. In some cases, law firm profit margins can approach 80 per cent. Further, according to Roos, the larger the company's revenue, the larger its disputes portfolio. “To anonymise actual figures, you might have a business generating $50 billion in revenue with annual legal spending on disputes alone of around $200 million.” She further shared that if you compare the size of a company's disputes portfolio, particularly in sectors like defence, that portfolio is effectively a risk asset. “The total exposure can greatly exceed annual turnover, meaning the company is carrying a significant sub-optimal risk asset on its balance sheet.” The second problem is with in-house legal teams. She contends that when LLMs first emerged, her team started looking at the in-house space and realised many organisations didn't readily know where their data sat or how to harness it effectively. “That leads to a lack of transparency, slower decision-making and sub-optimal processes.” The third issue is the lawyers themselves. Roos contends that law is a sector built entirely around talent, but it doesn't always recognise that. “If you harness AI properly, combine it with good leadership and bring cognitive science into the way teams operate, suddenly you can deliver brilliant results without humans burning out. My tagline is "bringing joy back to lawyers."” Building AI to prevent disputes, not just manage them Currently, there's an abundance of legal AI tools from companies such as Harvey and Legora designed to improve lawyer productivity. Roos believes Aavalynx is solving a different problem. “Current AI tools by and large improve lawyer efficiency,” said Roos. “But efficiency is not good enough. Generic LLM models cannot address the unique complexities of a sector like dispute resolution. Good tools make disputes efficient, but great ones make them disappear. Even affirmative litigation (for a tech company pushing licence fees) should be as short and impactful as possible." Aavalynx gives companies the data and visibility to make better decisions earlier in the lifecycle of a dispute, where the financial impact is greatest. That shifts them from reactive firefighting to proactive decision-making. If clients can better understand their data, dispute length and cost won’t run wild.” Today, organisations have entire ecosystems involved in disputes, including external law firms, in-house teams, financial experts and local legal teams. “It's not unusual to have twenty people working on a single matter,” Roos reveals. Avalynx aims to provide one central repository for information on a dispute. “I think of Aavalynx as the control panel of an aircraft. If you're the pilot, what information do you need in front of you to fly safely? We bring everyone onto that platform so they can make more strategic decisions and resolve disputes faster.” ​ Making the business case for legal AI When it comes to measuring the success of legal AI, Roos argues there are two distinct levels. “The first is straightforward: if you're the Head of Disputes or General Counsel, your role is to solve difficult business problems. The question is whether you're resolving disputes more effectively and what financial impact that creates. The second is demonstrating the overall value the legal function delivers to the business.” Roos believes this is particularly important for in-house legal teams, which are often viewed as a cost centre despite creating significant commercial value. “The best lawyers in private practice are seen as revenue generators. When those same brilliant lawyers move in-house, they suddenly become part of the back office and are viewed as a cost. But they're creating enormous value for the organisation.” Legal AI can help quantify that contribution through measurable outcomes. “If you can resolve disputes three years earlier than expected, reduce legal fees by $30 million, save another $40 million on quantum, or preserve a contract by avoiding reputational damage, you've demonstrated value not just on individual disputes but across the entire portfolio." The data allows a team to identify patterns: "Perhaps procurement is responsible for a disproportionate number of disputes. You can work with that team, improve the underlying business process and prevent those disputes from arising in the future. Ultimately, it's about putting in-house legal teams in a position where they can articulate the value they create using data." Roos further says enterprise clients increasingly want AI investments to deliver measurable commercial outcomes. “Clients want to know: what savings have been generated for us? How has AI improved outcomes?” As a result, Aavalynx is developing a billing analytics capability. Clients will be able to understand how work is being delivered and where value is being created, rather than simply looking at hours billed. Legal AI needs evidence, not hallucinations Aavalynx was designed to minimise hallucinations by grounding its AI in evidence rather than relying on the model's general knowledge. Roos recalled her own experience, sharing: “I was working on a live dispute when a client called and said, ‘I’ve proved that the chair of this tribunal is corrupt. ChatGPT found two articles they co-authored with the opposing lawyer’s spouse.” The articles looked completely legitimate. They included citations and references to what appeared to be leading arbitration sources. But she couldn’t find them anywhere and, after an hour and a half of fact-checking with contacts in the field, concluded that the articles simply did not exist. Instead of relying on a model's general knowledge, Aavalynx analyses only the relevant dispute documents supplied by the user before generating an answer. Every statement is linked back to its source through detailed citations, allowing lawyers to open the document and jump directly to the supporting passage. Roos, however, contends that lawyers must avoid "cognitive surrender" by remaining actively involved in reviewing and validating the AI's work. “Lawyers have to stay alert, remain in the loop and verify the outputs. That is absolutely crucial.” The round was led by European Omega Ventures, with participation from West Coast-based Two Ravens and prominent angel investors, including senior law firm partners and a former Amazon European head. “We’ve seen a new generation of AI platforms attract significant capital over the past 12 months”, said Birgir Ragnarsson, a Founding Partner at Omega Ventures. “There is a lot of noise in the legal AI space, and much of this activity has focused on improving productivity within legal teams. Aavalynx is built around a more impactful premise: that the primary challenge for large organisations is not efficiency alone, but the ability to understand and manage disputes as a financial risk. As the legal AI market matures, the winners will be the solutions that can demonstrate clear commercial impact.” Isaac Kato, a Founding Partner at Two Ravens, adds: “Hanna is an extraordinary founder with deep disputes expertise who has amalgamated a team of internationally ranked disputes lawyers and leading Nordic tech specialists. It’s clear to us that Aavalynx is best positioned to lead that next phase of disruption.” Choosing investors for a global company In terms of fundraising experience, Roos admits it was a “completely new world.” “There was a huge amount to learn. I realised fundraising is a galaxy of its own, with its own jargon, mindset and priorities. One thing I learnt quite quickly was to identify the people I wanted to work with.” Roos says she looked for three qualities in investors. First, they needed to be "fiercely intelligent". Further, they needed to bring genuine specialism — whether that was domain expertise, client expertise or technology scaling expertise. “And they needed to be kind. I spent a lot of time on that journey and had some great conversations. I'm incredibly happy with the investor group we've built for the pre-seed round.” It was important to Aavalynx to raise from an international investor base because the company is building a global business. Roos explained: “Our clients are global. Their disputes are global. The underlying issues are remarkably similar whether you're dealing with a dispute in Japan or California. We're always looking for global talent and globally experienced investors.” Momentum has been strong since Aavalynx launched in 2023, with co-development partners including Vodafone. Early data shows that Aavalynx delivers an ROI of ca 30x in saved damages, legal fees, and interest. The figure is as high as 200x when including the rescued commercial opportunities. Aavalynx will use the funding to accelerate product development, expand the team and fast-track the company’s mission to bring “death to disputes”.

Dutch energy storage startup Ore Energy has raised more than $40m, as it looks to commercialise its long-storage batteries. The $43m Series A funding round was led by two new investors, tech-investor Plural and HV Capital, the European early-stage and growth VC firm. The round also included investment from Amsterdam VC Positron Ventures. The funding brings the company’s total raised to $61m. Ore Energy’s tech is looking to solve a key bottleneck in the energy transition to renewables, which is storage. It says its iron-ore batteries can store electricity for up to 100 hours, unlike lithium-ion batteries, which typically deliver energy over a few hours. Advocates of its tech say it will transform how we power industry, scale AI data centres and drive economic growth. Built using iron, water and air, Ore Energy say its batteries can be manufactured through a fully European supply chain, without relying on imported critical raw materials like lithium or cobalt. Ore Energy has signed what it says is the largest long-duration energy storage system deal in continental Europe, with Dutch energy supplier Budget Thuis. It says the new funding will be used to establish the startup’s first manufacturing facility.  Aytac Yilmaz, co-founder and CEO of Ore Energy, said: “Expensive energy is the biggest barrier to growth, something European businesses and politicians know only too well. Affordable, renewable baseload power is the foundation for the next generation of manufacturing, AI infrastructure and industrial growth globally. Ore Energy's long-duration storage is an essential part of that future."