Atheni, an AI adoption company, has raised £350,000 to further develop its platform designed to help organisations use AI more effectively across their workforce. The company is backed by angel investors, including Alex Chesterman OBE and is supported by Innovate UK. Founded by Mackenzie Howe and Louise Ballard, Atheni was developed through two years of client work before raising external funding. During that time, the company refined a methodology focused on embedding AI guidance directly into day-to-day workflows rather than relying on standalone training sessions or workshops. The funding will support the rollout of the Atheni Accelerator, a browser-based platform that provides employees with personalised, role-specific guidance for using AI tools such as ChatGPT, Claude and Copilot within their daily work. The platform is also designed to help organisations measure whether AI capability and practical adoption are improving across teams. Although access to AI has become more widespread, many organisations are still working to achieve meaningful adoption. According to the company, employees often remain limited to basic use cases and lack support in applying AI to improve decision-making, critical thinking and work quality. Over the past two years, Atheni has tested its approach across sectors including further education, executive education, manufacturing, financial services and private equity. The company says it has consistently achieved adoption rates above 90 per cent within 90 days of implementation. “Most AI startups are building better tools. At Atheni, we are building master craftspeople. Organisations can tell you how many people have access to AI, but not whether anyone is using it to think more clearly, challenge assumptions or do work they couldn’t do before. That is the gap. Atheni measures it and shows organisations how to close it, said Mackenzie Howe. Louise Ballard explained that while many organisations already have access to advanced AI tools, most employees are still using them in limited ways. She said Atheni is focused on helping people unlock the broader potential of AI within the work they already do. Atheni is currently rolling out the platform with existing clients ahead of a planned future funding round to support broader expansion.

Kopa.ai, an agentic AI platform for e-commerce teams, has raised €2 million in seed funding in a round co-led by XTX Ventures and Practica Capital, with participation from Inovia Capital and angel investor Etan Ilfeld. The company is building what it describes as an operating system for e-commerce businesses, designed to help teams delegate operational and analytical work to AI agents that can understand context, make decisions, and execute tasks autonomously. Founded by a team with more than a decade of hands-on experience in e-commerce, Kopa.ai is built around the idea that running a successful online business requires thousands of expert decisions every week. Rather than focusing solely on automation, the platform aims to enable merchants to delegate work to AI agents in the same way they would rely on experienced internal operators. Kopa.ai connects directly to a merchant’s existing tools and storefront, continuously analysing areas such as products, campaigns, inventory, customer behaviour and site performance. Based on this understanding, its AI agents identify opportunities to improve business performance and take action accordingly — including generating creatives, adjusting campaigns, reallocating budgets, or publishing updates across connected systems. The platform is designed to interpret intent rather than rely on prompts or predefined workflows. Teams provide high-level objectives, while the system determines how to execute them. Actions can run with human approval or autonomously, depending on customer preferences. According to the company, every action and outcome feeds back into the system, allowing the AI to improve its judgment and execution over time through a continuous cycle of analysis, decision-making, execution and learning. According to Donatas Benaitis, founder of Kopa.ai, many e-commerce businesses have the potential to scale significantly faster, but are often slowed down by increasing operational complexity: We’re building Kopa.ai to feel like handing work to your best expert - someone who understands what you’re trying to achieve from just a few words, makes smart decisions on your behalf, and delivers results that are often even better than you imagined. Unlike point solutions focused on individual functions such as advertising, analytics or inventory management, Kopa.ai takes a broader approach across the entire e-commerce operation. Under the hood, the company is developing proprietary systems for structuring business knowledge, managing operational context and orchestrating specialised AI agents at scale. The newly raised funding will be used to further develop the company’s core AI infrastructure, improve the intelligence and reliability of its agents, and expand its go-to-market efforts.

Orbital Industries, a London-based company developing industrial hardware and infrastructure using AI-driven engineering and materials discovery systems, has raised $50 million in a Series B funding round led by Plural, with participation from existing investors including NVentures, Radical Ventures, Compound, and Fly Ventures. Founded by Jonathan Godwin, James Gin-Pollock, and Daniel Miodovnik, Orbital Industries is focused on applying AI to accelerate how physical technologies are designed, tested, and brought to market. The company describes its approach as an “AI industrial” model, integrating materials discovery, engineering, and manufacturing into a single system aimed at reducing development timelines and enabling smaller engineering teams to develop industrial technologies more efficiently. Orbital Industries is initially targeting data centre infrastructure through Orbital IT, its commercial division focused on cooling and deployment systems for high-density AI computing environments. As AI workloads continue to increase, data centres face growing pressure around power consumption, heat management, and deployment speed, with existing cooling systems approaching technical limitations. To address these challenges, the company has developed a dielectric cooling fluid and refrigeration system designed for next-generation GPUs and high-density compute environments. According to Orbital Industries, the fluid is free from PFAS chemicals and was developed using its materials discovery platform. Underlying these products is Orb, the company’s simulation engine designed to model the quantum mechanical behaviour of atoms at scale. Orbital Industries says the system enables significantly faster materials simulations compared to traditional approaches and is being used to accelerate industrial product development. The company is also developing modular data centre infrastructure intended to reduce deployment timelines for new compute capacity. Orbital Industries says the systems are manufactured off-site and delivered as ready-to-deploy units designed to accelerate the rollout of AI infrastructure. According to Jonathan Godwin, co-founder and CEO of Orbital Industries, advances in AI are allowing smaller teams to move more quickly from scientific discovery to commercial hardware development. Frontier AI gives us PhD-level expertise across every discipline, meaning small, agile teams can move from materials discovery to commercial hardware in a way that simply wasn't possible before, so what used to take a decade, we can now do in months. We're starting with some of the most pressing challenges in data centres, but the scope of what this approach can unlock is much, much bigger. The funding will be used to scale Orbital Industries’ data centre products, expand its AI and engineering teams, and accelerate the development of industrial applications beyond data centre infrastructure.

Monzo, the UK digital bank, today unveiled details about its move into offering mobile phone contracts, with Monzo Mobile pitching itself as rewarding “staying, not switching” customers. Built on top of the Virgin O2 network, Monzo Mobile will launch this summer and is offering mobile plans as cheap as £8 a month. Monzo will hope to be able to cross-sell its mobile proposition to its more than 15m banking customers, as it looks to shake up the mobile industry and offer its banking customers more products. It will go up against the likes of EE and VodafoneThree while newer entrants like Revolut and Klarna have also made moves into offering mobile services. Monzo is offering three plans using a digital sim priced £8, £12, and £20 a month, with varying data allowances. The digital bank says it will offer customers five per cent off their monthly bill every year, increasing to a maximum of 30 per cent, as Monzo rewards longevity. Monzo customers will be able to track data usage, roaming and mobile spend all within the Monzo app and customers can upgrade or cancel at any time with no hidden fees, Monzo said. The waiting list for Monzo Mobile opens today. Duygu Yenidogan-Schmidt, general manager, core banking, Monzo, said: "Monzo Mobile is a natural extension of our mission to make money work for everyone.  “By bringing mobile connectivity into the Monzo app through a simple eSIM experience, we’re giving customers more visibility and control over another essential part of their everyday spending.”

London has reclaimed its position as Europe’s top tech ecosystem, knocking Paris off the top spot, driven by record AI investment, according to new data. The Dealroom Global Tech Ecosystem Index data also shows that Europe is home to more of the world’s highest-performing tech ecosystems relative to population size than North America and every other region in the world.   In 2024, London lost its position as the top tech ecosystem to Paris, but in 2025 it has reclaimed the top spot, powered by a record $7bn in AI investment, up from $3.9bn in 2024, the creation of new unicorns, and its depth across sectors, Dealroom said. In 2025, London tech companies raised $17.8 billion, up 45 per cent from 2024, with the city now home to 138 unicorns, including the likes of Wayve, Granola and ElevenLabs.   ChatGPT developer OpenAI is to make London its largest research hub outside of its San Francisco headquarters, while Anthropic recently announced plans for a major new London with capacity for 800 staff. London, ranked fourth globally, came in ahead of Paris, Stockholm, Berlin and then Munich across Europe. Paris, home to AI startups like Mistral and the newer AMI Labs, raised $5bn in VC funding in 2025.   The data shows that AI now accounts for around 30 per cent of VC investment in Europe, underlining the region’s focus on next-generation technologies.   The data also shows that Europe dominates the global Density Leaders rankings, with 45 European cities featured in the global top 100, ahead of North America’s 40.  Cambridge ranks as the world’s third-highest Density Leader behind only the Bay Area and Boston.   The Density Leader rankings measure innovation output per capita, including startup activity, enterprise value creation, unicorns and university linkages.   The data also shows that specialist ecosystems focused on AI, defence tech and deep tech, like Munich, Kyiv, Athens and Sofia, are accelerating rapidly.   It also shows that smaller specialist ecosystems, including Ghent and Lausanne, are emerging as globally competitive centres for research, deep tech and entrepreneurship.   Yoram Wijngaarde, founder & CEO, Dealroom.co, said: “What stands out is not just the strength of leading hubs like London and Paris, but the rise of high-performing smaller ecosystems often built around leading research and academic institutions." Bobby Jäckle, Partner at Visionaries, said: “From London’s leadership in AI and fintech to deep tech hubs like Munich, Cambridge and Lausanne, we’re seeing a new generation of founders building with greater ambition and urgency." The data scrutinised venture capital investment, enterprise value creation, unicorns, ecosystem momentum and university linkages.   But comparing 2025 and 2024 data is not directly comparable, as the 2025 data accounts for more factors. IMAGE: PIXABAY

Germany conducts research at a world-class level. Yet many technologies fail to make the transition from the laboratory to the market, not because of their quality but because of a lack of capital. The Joachim Herz Foundation and the Berlin-based investment platform Marvelous are addressing this with the new Marvelous Scito Fund, which has a volume of €20 million.  German venture capital volume has fallen from $24.7 billion in 2021 to $9.8 billion in 2025. By 2030, the growth capital gap in the deeptech segment could increase to around €10 billion annually. Traditional venture capital funds avoid these early stages because technological, market-related, and operational uncertainties do not align with their risk-return profiles.  The Marvelous Scito  Fund offers foundation capital with a long-term investment horizon and social mission that can provide stability and momentum during these phases. It invests in teams developing and commercialising technologies with clear potential for industrial scaling, societal benefit and ecological impact. It focuses on Advanced Materials, Waste Valorisation and Robotics.  The Joachim Herz Foundation was founded in Hamburg in 2008 to enable effective solutions for resource efficiency, climate protection, and the securing of skilled labour. It helps ensure that more innovations from cutting-edge research reach practical application and supports entrepreneurial talent in developing innovative business models. It promotes future skills and digital transformation to provide new impetus for vocational education and training.  With its investment, the Joachim Herz Foundation aims to set an example within the German innovation ecosystem – and serve as a model for how philanthropic capital in Germany can play a stronger role as an innovation driver.  Marvelous is a European investment platform focused on the commercialisation of physical deeptech innovations. Based in Berlin, the company combines scientific excellence with industrial execution capabilities, investing in early-stage technologies that support the transition to an emission- and waste-free economy. Marvelous Capital manages the Marvelous Scito Fund and operates through two complementary investment strategies. First, through its early-stage vehicle, Marvelous Ventures, the firm invests directly in deeptech startups at the pre-seed and seed stages. Second, through the Marvelous Scito Fund, Marvelous manages capital on behalf of the Joachim Herz Foundation, investing both in selected deeptech venture funds and alongside them in startups. This dual approach provides broad yet targeted exposure to Germany’s deeptech ecosystem. According to Ulrich Müller, CFO of the Joachim Herz Foundation, the Foundation’s asset management strategy is being continuously developed.  “By expanding into venture capital, we are complementing our existing investment strategy with another asset class, aiming to generate sustainable market-level returns here as well.  At the same time, we are increasingly investing part of the foundation’s capital while taking impact-oriented aspects into account.”  Chris Heyer, General Partner at Marvelous, sees this as the core of the platform strategy: “The  Marvelous Scito Fund is a consistent step in implementing our vision of a platform. Marvelous  Capital and Marvelous Catalyst work hand in hand: while we invest specifically in startups  through our various funds, we also support them operationally through the Catalyst in achieving market readiness.” Lead image: Magnific.

Caudal Energy, a company developing a new class of predictable renewable power systems, has raised £4.3 million in funding, led by Oxford Science Enterprises (OSE) and Empirical Ventures, with participation from other investors, including existing investors Zero Carbon Capital and Creator Fund. The funding represents one of the most significant recent institutional venture investments into tidal energy in the UK, reflecting the important role predictable renewable power will play in balancing costs and system volatility.  Caudal Energy, founded as Porpoise Power in 2024 on breakthrough hydrodynamic research originating from co-founder Professor Adrian Thomas at the University of Oxford, is rethinking how tidal energy is generated from first principles.   Inspired by the efficiency of the tail or caudal fins of marine mammals, the company’s proprietary oscillating foil system works with tidal flows rather than against them, enabling a simpler, smarter and more commercially scalable approach to marine energy generation.   Its modular design simplifies installation, reduces maintenance costs and lowers operational complexity, creating a more commercially practical pathway for tidal energy to scale as part of future renewable infrastructure and complement intermittent renewable sources with dependable baseload generation.  The Caudal Generator is designed to deliver predictable, reliable and scalable renewable power from a significantly broader range of tidal sites than traditional systems, at costs competitive with established technologies such as offshore wind. At a system level, tidal energy enhances energy security and significantly reduces grid system costs by providing a consistent source of baseload energy.  Caudal’s fin-based technology will dramatically expand where tidal energy can be deployed. While tidal energy has long been recognised for its predictability, commercial deployment has historically been constrained by the complexity and economics of turbine-based systems operating in a limited number of extreme conditions with peak flows above 5 knots.  Caudal Energy’s modular, surface-mounted architecture is designed to overcome these constraints. By operating efficiently in abundant mid-flow tidal locations, with peak flows above 3 knots, the platform dramatically expands the viable deployment footprint for tidal energy.  This unlocks a materially larger global market opportunity across utility-scale, industrial and distributed energy applications.  Already at Technology Readiness Level 5 (TRL), the investment will support the next phase of development and full-scale testing of Caudal Energy’s breakthrough fin-based tidal technology at Strangford Lough, Northern Ireland. The company’s first commercial deployment is targeted for 2028, taking it to TRL8. According to John Kennedy, CEO of Caudal Energy, the future energy system needs renewable power that is not only clean, but dependable and built to scale.  “We founded Caudal to challenge the assumption that tidal energy has to remain complex, costly and niche. Our approach combines smarter hydrodynamic design with modular deployment architecture to create a system designed for real-world performance.  By unlocking the potential of mid-flow tidal sites, we believe Caudal can dramatically expand where tidal energy can be deployed and how commercially competitive it can become.” Andy Straiton, Investment Lead at Oxford Science Enterprises, commented: “Caudal Energy is addressing one of the most important challenges in the transition to renewable energy: how to provide predictable, scalable generation that complements intermittent power sources such as wind and solar. Caudal’s approach is designed around the economics required for large-scale deployment, not just technical performance. The combination of simpler deployment, lower operational complexity and access to a far broader range of viable sites can make tidal energy cost competitive with established renewables such as solar and wind.”  Johnathan Matlock, General Partner at Empirical Ventures added: “Grid operators are increasingly pricing predictability into the system, and the renewables that benefit are the ones that can deliver deterministic output without storage costs. Caudal is one of the only tidal platforms we have assessed with a credible path to LCOE parity with offshore wind, and the team has done the detailed engineering work to back up the modular deployment claim at scale. This is what made it investible for us.” The funding will be used to expand Caudal Energy’s engineering and modelling capabilities, advance demonstration and deployment activities, and accelerate commercial partnerships across utility, industrial and distributed energy markets.  Caudal Energy is currently progressing development and deployment discussions with a range of strategic partners as it moves toward commercial-scale demonstration. Lead image: Magnific.

UK biotech iFAST Diagnostics has closed a £5 million funding round. iFAST is addressing the $4 billion (and growing) Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing (AST) market. It has developed a test delivering results in under three hours from a positive blood bottle or 3 to 4 hours from a raw urine sample, saving lives and reducing the spread of antimicrobial resistance.. The round was led by Meridian Health Ventures (MHV), with continued participation from almost all existing subscribers, including QantX, RAW Ventures, and OKG Capital, as well as members of Cambridge Capital Group, and included £2.1 million of non-dilutive loan funding from Innovate UK.   The over-subscribed round values the company at almost 5 times more than the previous funding just 18 months ago and brings the total investment to date to £12 million. Tim Irish, General Partner at Meridian Health Ventures, said: “We are exceptionally proud to be partnered with iFAST Diagnostics. Their breakthrough technology has the potential to transform clinical practice, improve patient outcomes, and significantly slow the spread of Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR). AMR is one of the defining public health challenges of our generation – and iFAST is taking that challenge head-on with a cost-effective solution already being placed in UK hospital laboratories. The iFAST rapid AST system is a game-changing innovation, delivering susceptibility testing in less than 3 hours, significantly faster than the current standard process which takes more than 40 hours.” Dr Toby King, iFAST CEO, said:  “We are hugely grateful and motivated by the continued enthusiasm and confidence from our investors to support our mission to meet the urgent global need for rapid, low-cost antimicrobial susceptibility testing. This investment is hugely significant as it allows us to continue our go-to-market strategy at pace, only three years after founding the company.” The funding will be used to expand the UK rollout, secure EU approval, and accelerate our clinical and regulatory programme for the company’s US regulatory approval through the FDA.

Mykor, a UK biotechnology company developing low-carbon construction materials from industrial and agricultural waste, has secured £4 million in funding to accelerate the scale-up of its industrial biofabrication technologies. The round was led by Clean Growth Fund, with participation from the British Business Bank’s South West Investment Fund via The FSE Group, Green Angel Ventures, and support from Innovate UK’s investor partnership programme. The construction sector remains a major contributor to global emissions, with growing pressure on developers and contractors to reduce both embodied and operational carbon in buildings. At the same time, many traditional insulation and construction materials remain carbon-intensive, non-renewable, and difficult to recycle. Founded in 2021, Mykor develops construction systems using engineered mycelium, green chemistry, and industrial manufacturing processes to create low-carbon alternatives to conventional building materials. The company focuses on converting agricultural and industrial waste streams into scalable construction products designed to meet mainstream fire safety, acoustic, and performance requirements. Rather than operating solely as a materials manufacturer, Mykor positions itself as a technology and process platform, enabling contractors and manufacturers to integrate biomaterials into existing production lines and construction systems. Its first commercial product, MykoSIP, is a prefabricated partition wall system designed to reduce embodied carbon while maintaining comparable thermal and acoustic performance to conventional alternatives. According to the company, the panels also use significantly less water and electricity during production compared to polystyrene-based systems. According to Olivia Page, the company was built around the idea that lower-carbon construction materials must remain commercially viable and practical for large-scale adoption. We’ve built Mykor around the idea that decarbonising construction cannot come at the expense of cost, performance or practicality. The challenge has never just been inventing a biomaterial - it’s been manufacturing these systems at an industrial scale and integrating them into real construction supply chains. The funding comes as tightening building regulations across the UK and Europe increase demand for lower-carbon construction materials and more energy-efficient building systems. Mykor is already working on active construction projects and has signed large offtake agreements with contractors across the UK and Europe, while the new funding will support production scale-up and expansion into additional markets.

A London-headquartered data centre firm today said it had secured $2.7bn in financing, with the funds earmarked to expand across Europe and the Middle East amid soaring AI workload demands.   Pure Data Centres (Pure DC), which is backed by Oaktree Capital, purchases land to build data centres, which are then leased out to hyperscalers to run AI and cloud workloads. Hyperscalers include the likes of Microsoft, Google and Amazon.   A big chunk of the $2.7bn loan was secured against Pure DC’s Dublin and Amsterdam data centre campuses. The fresh funds brings in new lenders SMBC, the Japanese multinational bank, Allianz Global Investors (the investment management arm of Allianz), and Dutch bank ABN AMRO.   Pure DC is investing over €1 billion in a giant data centre campus, which will support AI workloads, in Amsterdam. The 78MW campus is fully leased to Microsoft, according to Dutch media.    It says the site, which comprises three 85-metere towers, will provide over 1,000 jobs. There is no firm date on when the data centre will be fully operational. Pure DC, which also operates a data centre in Abu Dhabi, is looking to expand its presence in the Middle East, which it believes is a key AI growth market.   However last month, Pure DC told CNBC that it paused investment in AI infrastructure projects and data centres in the Middle East amid the Iran war. Pure DC CEO Gary Wojtaszek said: "Over the past 12 months, we have materially strengthened and diversified our financing platform, bringing in high-quality institutional partners and increasing available capital.    "The successful syndication of the $2.15 billion facility and the expansion of our corporate facility demonstrate both the depth of market demand and the confidence lenders have in our assets, structure and strategy."

RevEng.AI, a cybersecurity company focused on software supply chain verification, has raised $15 million in a Series A funding round led by NATO Innovation Fund, with participation from Sands Capital, In-Q-Tel, IQ Capital, and Episode One. The company is building a binary-native verification layer for the software supply chain, helping organisations analyse compiled software to determine what is actually inside executables, firmware, and third-party applications without requiring access to source code. Software supply chain attacks are becoming a growing risk as organisations increasingly rely on third-party software, open-source components, and vendor updates. At the same time, AI-generated code is making it harder for security teams to verify that deployed software is secure and free from hidden vulnerabilities or malicious functionality. RevEng.AI aims to address this challenge through its foundational AI model, BinNet, which analyses software directly at the binary level. Trained alongside government cyber units and commercial security teams, the system is designed to automatically identify hidden vulnerabilities, backdoors, suspicious functionality, and abnormal changes in released software before it is deployed or purchased. According to James Patrick-Evans, PhD, Founder and CEO of RevEng.AI, as AI takes on a growing role in software development, executable binaries are becoming the most reliable way to verify what software actually does once it runs on machines. RevEng gives organisations an independent way to verify software at the binary level before it is released, bought, or deployed. This is critical because much of the software being built today is never reviewed or seen by a human, making it untrustworthy. It needs to be automated, and that’s exactly what RevEng delivers. Unlike traditional application security tools that primarily focus on source code and repositories, RevEng works directly on compiled executables, including closed-source and third-party software. The platform is designed to help organisations identify hidden or undeclared components, detect vulnerabilities and malicious behaviour, compare releases against trusted versions, and verify software before deployment or procurement decisions are made. David Ordonez, Senior Associate at NATO Innovation Fund, said modern economies and critical national infrastructure increasingly depend on software across sectors such as energy, transportation, healthcare, finance, and defence. RevEng.AI gives organisations the ability to understand what is actually inside the software they rely on, even when that software is closed-source or delivered by third parties. That closes a critical gap in software supply chain security and strengthens the resilience of the systems our societies depend on. The company says it is already seeing early demand from enterprise and defence customers, while continuing to integrate its technology into existing security and software delivery workflows to support more proactive software verification processes. The funding will be used to support the growth and deployment of RevEng.AI’s binary-level software verification platform as demand increases from enterprise and defence organisations.

Barcelona-based Publicit has raised €700,000 in a pre-seed funding round co-led by BStartup Banco Sabadell and Successful Fund, with participation from AticcoLab and several business angels from the Spanish technology and media sectors. Founded by former CERN engineer Gabriel García Asensio alongside Andrés Buendía and Jordi Orteu, Publicit is developing an advertising infrastructure designed to improve access to digital and omnichannel advertising for small and medium-sized businesses. The company is focused on addressing what it describes as a structural limitation within the advertising industry, where access to channels beyond platforms such as Google and Meta often requires manual negotiations, agency involvement, and large advertising budgets. This has historically limited access to formats such as connected TV, out-of-home advertising, digital audio, radio, and local press for smaller companies. Publicit is building an omnichannel advertising platform centred around an AI-powered media planning system capable of autonomously planning and activating campaigns. The platform enables businesses to launch campaigns across connected TV, out-of-home advertising, radio, digital audio, and press through a single interface without minimum spending requirements. The company has also developed its own European bidding infrastructure capable of processing advertising auctions in milliseconds while applying AI-based optimisation during campaign delivery. The funding comes amid continued growth in connected TV advertising and broader changes in the digital advertising market, with companies increasingly exploring alternative self-service advertising tools beyond major online platforms. Publicit plans to use the new funding to continue developing its advertising infrastructure, expand its AI capabilities, and further simplify access to omnichannel advertising tools for smaller businesses.

WeRoad, a European adventure travel company focused on group and social travel experiences, has raised $58 million in a Series C funding round led by Airbnb, with participation from existing investors including H14. The round brings the company’s total funding to $100 million. Founded in Italy in 2017, WeRoad organises group travel experiences designed primarily for solo travellers, combining curated itineraries with shared travel experiences aimed at fostering social connection. Since launch, WeRoad has taken more than 300,000 travellers across over 1,000 itineraries worldwide and built a network of more than 4,000 group coordinators across Europe and other markets. According to Paolo De Nadai, the company’s focus on in-person experiences reflects growing demand for genuine human connection in an increasingly digital environment. In a world increasingly shaped by AI and social media, genuine human connection is becoming both rarer and more valuable. At WeRoad, we’ve built our entire product around enabling real-world connections through shared travel experiences. People today are not just looking to visit new places, they’re looking to belong. Expanding into the US is a milestone we’ve been working towards for years, and having Airbnb alongside us is both a strong validation of what we’ve built and a powerful signal of the opportunity ahead. The funding will support WeRoad’s first major expansion outside Europe, with the company preparing to enter the United States market. As part of the rollout, WeRoad also plans to expand WeMeet, a platform launched in 2025 that organises local social events, including hikes, dinners, sports activities, and wellness sessions. The company positions WeMeet as part of a broader shift toward what it describes as the “IRL economy,” where technology is used to facilitate offline experiences and in-person social interaction rather than long-term online engagement.

Glasgow-based Go Swag, a technology platform focused on corporate gifting and branded merchandise, has raised $5 million in a funding round led by Mercia Ventures, with participation from Techstart Ventures and strategic angel investors. The latest round brings the company’s total funding to $6.2 million. The corporate gifting industry is projected to grow significantly over the coming years, but the market remains fragmented and heavily reliant on manual processes, disconnected suppliers, and low-quality merchandise. Companies operating international gifting programmes often face operational challenges tied to sourcing, logistics, customs, and recipient management, particularly when trying to maintain consistent brand standards and sustainability goals across multiple markets. Founded in 2019, Go Swag aims to address these challenges by helping companies manage and distribute branded gifts globally through a platform that combines AI-powered product curation, logistics management, warehousing, and international fulfilment. Its system is designed to streamline product selection and gifting programme management while reducing operational complexity. According to Conor McKenna, CEO and Co-Founder of Go Swag, the company was created in response to what it saw as an outdated corporate gifting market dominated by low-quality products and inefficient processes. The catalogue is dead and we're replacing it with smart AI-assisted curation and a better gifting process to match. The company’s platform includes tools such as its AI recommendation engine Sonny™ and Claim Pages™, a system designed to collect recipient information directly in order to reduce administrative work and improve fulfilment accuracy. Go Swag also operates warehouse infrastructure across the UK, the Netherlands, and the United States to support international distribution and inventory management. The new funding will be used to accelerate international expansion, particularly in the United States, establish a warehouse in Southeast Asia, expand the company’s workforce, and continue investing in automation and product development across quoting, account management, and recommendation systems.

The boss of Tide, a British fintech which offers banking services to SMEs, says he is not one for showing off.   “I am quite a humble person, maybe too humble to be in our industry,” says Oliver Prill, its CEO, speaking over video.   You are unlikely to get a “war story” about Tide’s latest funding round from Prill, who says that Tide’s recent elevation to unicorn status was an achievement he “personally didn’t need”.   This might make the 55-year-old UCL economics graduate sound dour, a party pooper even, but it’s more that he talks in facts, not hyperbole.   “I am a very straight talker. I am never impolite, but I am to the point; maybe it’s a bit my German heritage,” the Hamburg-born Prill says. That said, Prill, as is de rigueur in 2026, is not immune to at least some social media strutting. On his LinkedIn page, where he goes by the honorific doctor, courtesy of his Oxford University philosophy doctorate, Prill has posted images of himself in elevated circles.   In one post, he can be seen grinning outside Number 10 Downing Street while another post sees him dressed to the nines sporting a white dickie bow, pictured next to fintech leaders at a banquet for German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier.   Two million customers   One achievement Tide and Prill are talking about is Tide today crossing two million customers, or “members” as Tide calls them, less than 10 years after its 2017 launch.   “It’s an important metric,” says Prill, saying it shows Tide has product-market fit and the unit economics work.   The two million “milestone” is a far cry from 2018, when Prill joined a “very very tiny” startup with just 30 employees, which had “all the potential in the world”.   Prill, with a background in financial services and working with SMEs, was drafted in to “scale it”, anchored by a seed round investment from Eileen Burbidge’s Passion Capital.   He says: “It was quite exciting. A true early startup at this stage. The business was at a level where it had early proof points, but it needed someone to scale.”   What does Tide do?   Tide, like a raft of digital-only fintechs, is looking to shake up the sedate world of traditional finance.    It describes itself as a “business financial platform”, which is aimed at small businesses, freelancers and sole traders.   It is not technically a bank, but an e-money institution which provides business current accounts in partnership with ClearBank, which is a licensed bank.   It also offers loans and services like expense management, invoice and accounting and, most recently, insurance.    It makes its money through plans and business tool subscriptions, interest earned on deposits, interchange and transaction fees, as well as lending and insurance products.   International expansion   One of the most eye-catching things about Tide is its unusual geographical split, with a presence in the UK, Germany, France and India, something of an outlier amid a roll call of British fintechs selling their wares stateside.   The London-headquartered fintech's core market is the UK, which makes up the “vast majority” of its revenues, and which is subsidising its international push.   Tide Holdings, the parent company, made revenues of £190m in 2024, on losses of £26m. Prill says: “The UK is structurally profitable, so what we are doing is we’re taking the money we are making in the UK and investing it abroad.”   The UK market   Tide has 900,000 customers in the UK, which equates to around 15 per cent of the small business market in the UK, helping businesses access over £1.75bn in credit.   However, a handbrake on its growth has been new rules on so-called “Authorised Push Payment” (APP) fraud, which has meant payment services providers like Tide must reimburse customers who fall victim to it. In a dig at the rules, Prill says: “The APP fraud regulation meant we had to direct a lot of investment into the technology that prevents APP fraud. Fraud has still increased net in the market, so not sure how successful that regulation was.” Probably “the biggest headwind", though, is the faltering UK economy, putting a lot of pressure on Tide’s core market of SMEs, he says.   India   Tide has boots on the ground in Germany and France, where Tide is “just beginning its journey”.    Like in the UK, SMEs are the spine of their economies, with the bounty being that the digitisation of financial services are five years behind the UK, says Prill.   Tide’s entry into the Indian market came via the circuitous route of it setting up an engineering hub in Hyderabad, as it scrambled for engineering talent post-Brexit, giving Tide a “strong conviction” about the market.   Tide’s India business now has 1.1m customers, its biggest in terms of customers, albeit this represents less than a paltry one per cent of the estimated 120m SMEs in India.   Prill says: “The Indian government has been very good at putting infrastructure in place, with UPI (United Payments Interface), the payment system for example.   “So a lot of things, in a bizarre sort of way, are digitally infrastructure-wise much more advanced than we have in Europe.”   The former McKinsey executive gets out to India at least twice a year, in a market where the “biggest competitor is cash”, trying to stay for a minimum of two weeks.   He says: “There is this thing about building social bonds, meeting government officials and so on.”    US investor-led funding round Last year, Tide raised $120m at a valuation of $1.5bn, in a funding round led by US private equity firm TPG and including Tide’s existing investor Apax Digital Funds.   That Tide received funding from a US investor amid a UK government push to increase homegrown funding of British success stories, with endeavours like the Mansion House Accord agreement and Sovereign AI, is a reminder of where venture power rests.   Prill said the priority of the funding round was less about capital raising and more about giving exits to angel investors and early employees.   On the funding round, he says: “We have a lot of angels that have made a lot of money and where looking for the ability to do secondaries.   “What we wanted to do is have more late-stage investors. We bought Apax in at the beginning of it, and we wanted TPG as a second late-stage investor.”   On reaching unicorn status, he says: “I didn’t personally need the unicorn status. But it is very meaningful for a lot of people.”   2026 agenda and IPO prospects   On a possible Tide IPO, Prill says: “It’s not anywhere near-term. We are not on a path to an IPO anytime soon.”   Instead, the focus is on scaling the business in the UK and overseas, which he says will be aided by its use of AI advancements.   Currently, Tide is leveraging AI heavily internally for product engineering, with a consumer-facing AI product soon to launch.   “Often we are not as vocal as others” on AI, says Prill.   Still enjoying the job?   Prill, whose wife is German, whom he met at Oxford University and who splits him time between the UK and Germany, says his strengths are that he’s a “strategic” thinker.   He says: “I am a very structured, organised person. I can really mobilise people to get a job done.”   A weakness is his brusqueness and impatience, he admits. Eight years at the helm of a fintech is a long tenure, but as Prill points out the role has not stuck in aspic.   He says his role has evolved from being hands-on to now dealing with big decisions, where there are “blockers”.   He adds: “Every year Tide is quite different. I like new challenges."

PacificoBiolabs, a mycelium fermentation protein company, has raised €7 million in a Series A funding round backed by Stray Dog Capital, TGFS, Sprout & About Ventures, Simon Capital, FoodLabs, and a regional brewery partner. Pacifico Biolabs develops protein ingredients using mycelium fermentation technology. Instead of relying on purpose-built bioreactors, the company uses standard beer brewery fermentation tanks, enabling it to leverage existing industrial infrastructure while avoiding the high costs typically associated with fermentation-based food production. The approach comes as breweries across Europe face declining beer and alcohol consumption, leaving fermentation capacity underutilised. Pacifico sees this as an opportunity to scale production more quickly and cost-effectively by repurposing existing brewery infrastructure rather than building new facilities. At the same time, Europe continues to rely heavily on imported feed protein despite producing most of its own meat, leaving supply chains exposed to environmental and geopolitical risks. Pacifico aims to provide a domestically produced protein alternative manufactured closer to where it is consumed, using regional industrial capacity. By using existing brewery infrastructure, the company aims to lower production costs and move closer to price parity with conventional meat products. The funding will support production scaling in Saxony, Germany, team expansion, and commercial launches across the DACH region and Nordic Europe ahead of planned retail launches by late 2026.

Traditional real estate investing has historically been difficult for most people to access, requiring large amounts of capital, complex legal processes, and direct property management.  Cross-border property investing can also be fragmented and difficult to navigate for retail investors.  InRento aims to solve this by making income-generating real estate investments more accessible through a digital platform that allows users to invest smaller amounts into professionally managed property projects. InRento is a European real estate crowdfunding platform that lets people invest in income-generating property projects — such as the conversions and retrofitting of existing buildings, often too small or not standard enough for bigger investors, as well as publicly listed companies, like the Alvernia Planet film studio in Krakow, Poland. The platform focuses on asset-backed, lower-risk real estate investments across European markets, including Lithuania, Poland, and Spain.  Investors earn returns through rental income and potential capital gains. It operates as an alternative financing platform that connects investors with medium-sized and large borrowers, including publicly listed companies, providing an alternative to traditional bank financing. That model has now financed more than €100 million worth of projects across Europe. I spoke to founder and CEO Gustas Germanavicius to learn all about it.  A €100 million milestone built during market turbulence For Germanavicius, what matters is not just the number €100 million but that it represents projects in eight countries with zero defaults. That, he says, is the real KPI, demonstrating disciplined risk management and proving the model can scale across Europe. Germanavicius founded the company in his early 20s, which he admits was probably the worst possible time to launch a business focused on cash-flow-generating real estate assets. “We launched in the middle of COVID, then faced the impact of the war in Ukraine, followed by sharp interest rate increases. It felt like there was always another challenge around the corner. But we kept moving forward.” Those crises also reshaped the wider European financing environment. Why alternative real estate finance is growing across Europe In the real estate sector, alternative finance has become far more mainstream. Crowdfunding continues to grow rapidly, alongside private debt funds and bond financing. According to Germanavicius, this reflects a broader structural issue in European finance: traditional banks are often too slow and inflexible to meet the needs of modern real estate developers, particularly SMEs and more complex redevelopment projects. In some markets, even securing an initial meeting with a bank can take weeks, while financing decisions themselves can take months. “We’ve financed publicly listed companies with tens of millions of euros in assets because they needed financing within weeks and traditional banks could not move quickly enough,” he said. Those delays have wider consequences. Developers can spend two, three, or even five years navigating permitting and licensing processes while continuing to carry land and financing costs — expenses that are ultimately passed on to buyers and tenants. “Real estate lending has become significantly more expensive,” said Germanavicius. “Debt costs have increased substantially since we launched. At the same time, developers, particularly in Eastern Europe, have become much more sophisticated in how they source capital, with access to more options than ever before.” InRento positions itself as a faster and more flexible alternative. The platform focuses exclusively on projects that have already secured the necessary development approvals, removing permitting risk from the financing equation. “I believe this is one of the main reasons we’ve maintained a zero-default track record,” he said. The challenge of cross-border lending  Currently, InRento is focused on market traction in Poland and Romania. But one of the biggest problems in Europe when it comes to real estate financing  is that cross-border lending still does not work efficiently. InRento aims to build a genuinely cross-border financing platform. From the investor side, a single account should provide access to opportunities across Europe without having to navigate different local platforms, languages, or legal systems. For borrowers, financing should be accessible regardless of where they are located. “I believe no one has truly solved this at scale yet, and that is the opportunity we are pursuing,” shared Germanavicius. Faster financing, lower permitting risk While InRento’s financing can be more expensive than traditional bank loans, Germanavicius argues that speed creates significant value for developers. “Because developers avoid lengthy permitting delays, projects can move much faster,” he said. “Most of our projects are completed within five to nine months.” That acceleration, he argues, also has broader urban and housing benefits. “That speed allows developers to deliver more housing stock to the market, including more affordable housing,” he said. “Personally, this is important to me from an urban development perspective as well. In many cities, you still see neglected or outdated buildings sitting in prime areas. I want to help make cities more attractive, more liveable, and housing more accessible.” That opportunity is particularly visible in adaptive reuse projects. The opportunity in office-to-residential conversions One of InRento’s areas of activity is office-to-residential conversions. Older office buildings are increasingly inefficient and expensive to maintain, which Germanavicius contends creates a major opportunity for conversions. Instead of leaving outdated office buildings vacant, developers can transform them into residential lofts or apartments.  “In many of the projects we finance, the final price per square metre is lower than the surrounding market while still delivering newly refurbished housing. This is also where banks tend to underperform. Many banks simply do not understand these types of projects and lack the internal processes to evaluate them efficiently. A financing decision can take three to six months, which is often too slow for developers. That inefficiency creates significant opportunities for alternative lenders like us.” Choosing profitability over venture pressure Today, InRento has a 13-person team operating across Lithuania and its international markets. In April, the company opened an office in Bucharest and launched its first Romanian investment opportunity, marking its expansion into one of Europe’s more underpenetrated real estate markets. That focus on sustainable expansion also shapes the company’s financing philosophy.  Recently, Germanavicius bought back shares from an early-stage VC investor after becoming profitable, explaining: “Our long-term interests were no longer aligned. After becoming profitable, explaining: “Our long-term interests were no longer aligned. Venture investors typically want either rapid fundraising or an exit. I want to continue building a profitable, independent company. Our strategy has never been about chasing 10x growth in a single year. Instead, we focus on doubling or tripling steadily while maintaining profitability and operational discipline.” The “1 per cent better every day” philosophy Germanavicius  describes his management philosophy as “ improve by one per cent every day.” “We focus relentlessly on the few things that matter most to clients and continuously improve them. Most progress is incremental, so you do not notice dramatic changes day to day. But over months and years, those small improvements compound into significant growth.” Inherent to this is simplifying complexity. Early on, InRento had high employee turnover, which taught the importance of systems and onboarding. “ Today, we have a 120-page internal operations document that explains exactly how the company works, who is responsible for what, and how processes should run. It is a living document that the whole team contributes to.” As InRento expands across Europe, Germanavicius believes disciplined systems — rather than aggressive hypergrowth — will ultimately determine whether cross-border real estate financing can truly scale.

Certo, an AI-powered compliance platform for the beauty and consumer goods industries, has raised $4 million in seed funding to accelerate product development and support its international expansion. The round was led by Daphni, with participation from Entrepreneurs First, Motier Ventures, and Transpose Platform. The company is also supported by advisors, including Alexandre Godvin and Vincent Delacourt, co-founders of AQM, which was acquired by Eurofins Scientific. Consumer goods companies selling internationally must comply with regulatory requirements across dozens of jurisdictions, each with different rules and standards. New regulations around areas such as microplastics, greenwashing, packaging waste, and allergen classification have added further complexity, while many compliance teams continue to rely on manual reviews and fragmented systems. Certo develops compliance software designed for consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies operating across multiple international markets. The platform helps regulatory teams manage increasingly complex product compliance requirements related to ingredients, formulations, labelling, packaging, and marketing claims. We built Certo because we saw firsthand that regulatory teams were buried under growing requirements with no tools designed for their actual workflows. Our platform gives them the ability to review a product across all their target markets in minutes instead of days, with full traceability and sourced regulatory reasoning. explains Bastien Deliège-Coste, CEO and co-founder of Certo. The platform covers several stages of the product compliance lifecycle, including ingredient and raw material validation, formula compliance, claims verification, labelling checks, and market entry documentation. Certo’s system is supported by a proprietary regulatory database covering major global markets, including the EU, US, China, South Korea, Japan, and Latin America. Certo uses AI agents to review products against regulatory requirements, company policies, and retailer-specific standards while providing traceable findings and regulatory source references to support auditability. We didn't start with a product and then look for customers. We started with the workflows of regulatory teams — sitting with them, understanding how they actually review products — and built the technology around those realities. That's why the adoption has been fast: the platform fits how they work, said Jean Duquenne, CTO and co-founder of Certo. According to the company, the platform is already being used by major beauty groups, speciality brands, retailers, and consumer goods companies across Europe and the United States. The funding will be used to expand Certo’s engineering and regulatory teams, expand regulatory coverage across international markets, accelerate product development, and scale commercial operations in Europe and the United States.

ReVision Implant, a Belgian neurotechnology company developing a cortical visual prosthesis for people with severe blindness, has secured €4 million in an oversubscribed funding round backed by private investors. The round included participation from existing investors as well as new backers, including European business leaders and medtech operators. The funding builds on ReVision Implant’s existing support from public programmes, including several highly selective European Innovation Council grants such as the €2.4 million FlairVision project. The company is also supported by the Plug and Play and imec.istart incubators. ReVision Implant is developing a brain-computer interface designed to restore functional vision in patients who cannot benefit from retinal or optic nerve-based therapies. By interfacing directly with the brain’s visual cortex, the system aims to bypass damage to the eye and optic nerve and enable patients to perceive and interpret visual information. The company began building its own cleanroom infrastructure several months ago as part of preparations for future clinical trials and greater control over manufacturing and quality processes. According to Frederik Ceyssens, CEO of ReVision Implant, the funding represents a key milestone as the company moves from development into the next phase of clinical and operational expansion. We are investing in our own cleanroom environment to bring important manufacturing steps in-house, while expanding our team and advancing our regulatory compliance and clinical programme over the coming years. At the same time, we are continuing product development and strengthening our collaborations with other medtech companies as we move closer to bringing our technology to patients. The company’s progress comes amid broader advances in neurotechnology and brain-computer interfaces, with growing interest in devices designed to help address conditions including blindness, paralysis, amputations, aphasia, and locked-in syndrome. With the new funding secured, ReVision Implant is preparing for the next stage of clinical development and operational scale-up.

Mycelium foodtech company InfiniteRoots has acquired Bosque Foods, integrating Bosque’s expertise in solid-state fermentation and whole-cut product development into its mycelium platform. InfiniteRoots is a research-driven biotech company based in Hamburg, Germany.  Since 2018, the company has been developing novel foods inspired by mycelium — the underground root network of edible mushrooms.  With an international team of experts across biotechnology, data science, food science, fermentation, and culinary development, the company blends biotech with natural fermentation processes.  The mycelium sector is moving beyond the experimental phase.   After years of technological proofs-of-concept, the category is increasingly defined by scalability, IP, process data and industrial reproducibility. With the acquisition of Bosque Foods, InfiniteRoots expands its platform with solid-state fermentation expertise, whole-cut texture development and additional process data — strengthening the technical foundation for scalable industrial mycelium applications.