Flagright, the AI operating system for financial crime compliance, has raised a $12.5 million Series A funding round led by Infinity Ventures, with participation from Sella Bank and continued backing from existing investors including Frontline and Y Combinator. The funding will support Flagright’s continued growth as it expands explainable AI capabilities across compliance operations and strengthens its presence in the United States market. Financial institutions are facing growing pressure to manage increasing transaction volumes, evolving financial crime threats, and rising regulatory expectations, while AI is rapidly becoming part of everyday compliance operations. Yet much of the existing compliance infrastructure was not built for this environment. Many organisations still rely on rigid legacy systems or fragmented point solutions that create operational complexity and limit adaptability. Flagright was built to address this challenge. The company provides a unified AI operating system for financial crime compliance that brings together transaction monitoring, watchlist screening, risk scoring, case management, AI forensics, investigations, and governance workflows within a single platform. By combining enterprise-grade compliance infrastructure with explainable AI, Flagright enables compliance teams to improve alert investigations, optimise monitoring systems, strengthen decision-making, and enhance operational efficiency while maintaining transparency, auditability, and human oversight. Baran Ozkan, co-founder and CEO of Flagright, said: The financial crime compliance stack is being rebuilt, and Flagright is the company to define the operating system layer for this category. Regulated financial institutions need a system that gives them speed, control, explainability, and auditability in one place. This round helps us accelerate our position as the enterprise standard for financial crime compliance by expanding explainable AI use cases across compliance operations and increasing our US market presence. Highlighting the role of explainable AI in modern compliance operations, Madhu Nadig, co-founder and CTO of Flagright, said financial institutions increasingly require integrated systems that bring together monitoring, screening, investigations, governance, and AI within a single environment. We are building the system of choice for sophisticated institutions that need AI they can trust, audit, and operationalise at scale. Today, Flagright serves more than 100 fintechs and banks across 30 countries. Its unified platform brings together transaction monitoring, watchlist screening, investigations, and governance in a single audit-ready system. Designed for modern compliance teams, it combines no-code controls, dynamic risk profiling, and explainable AI to support efficient, transparent, and governed compliance operations. As the industry moves toward a more unified and intelligent compliance infrastructure, Flagright aims to help shape the next generation of compliance technology. The new capital will support that effort by expanding AI capabilities across investigations, alert intelligence, rule optimisation, decision support, and audit-ready workflows, while growing its enterprise presence among banks, fintechs, credit unions, and other regulated financial institutions seeking to modernise legacy or fragmented compliance infrastructure.

NeuralTrust, a platform for securing AI agents, has raised a $20 million seed financing round, led by Alstin Capital, with participation from VentureFriends, Seaya, Kibo Ventures, Banc Sabadell, EA Ventures Plug and Play Fund, and Finaves, the venture capital fund of IESE Business School. NeuralTrust also receives public support from the European Innovation Council and Spain’s State Research Agency (AEI). The investment comes as enterprises expand the use of AI agents across business functions. As these systems are deployed across multiple teams, platforms, and vendors, organisations are placing greater emphasis on visibility, governance, and security. Industry analysts expect governance and oversight requirements for AI agents to become increasingly important as adoption continues to grow. Founded by Joan Vendrell (CEO), Victor Garcia (CTO), and Alejandro Domingo (COO), NeuralTrust provides a unified platform that enables organisations to discover, monitor, govern, and secure AI agents across their environments. The company currently inspects millions of AI agent interactions every day. Approximately 1.2 per cent of these interactions require intervention, including attempts to extract sensitive data, manipulate tools, or bypass operational controls. These threats are identified and mitigated in real time. Joan Vendrell, co-founder and CEO of NeuralTrust, said that as AI agents become increasingly integrated into enterprise operations, organisations are working to establish the controls and governance mechanisms needed to support their use. He added: Our mission has not changed since day one: turn AI security into a strategic advantage for the enterprises that will define the next decade. NeuralTrust’s platform combines three products: TrustGate, which manages agent traffic across models and tools; TrustGuard, which provides runtime security for AI agents; and TrustLens, which offers visibility into agent deployment and behaviour. Together, they provide a unified approach to AI agent governance, security, and monitoring. The company also contributes to AI security research and has identified and documented new attack techniques, including the multiturn jailbreak method known as “Echo Chamber” and the multimodal attack vector “Semantic Chaining,” both of which have been incorporated into the OWASP AI Security Project taxonomy. The new funding will be used to further integrate the company’s platform, expand its engineering team, and broaden support for the growing range of AI models, tools, and platforms being adopted by enterprises.

Good Tape, the Copenhagen-based creator of the novel security-first AI-powered transcription tool, has announced today the launch of its global initiative Names. The Names  campaign signifies Good Tape’s transition from a transcription utility into a champion for physical safety, mental health and professional integrity of journalists and truth-tellers worldwide. The campaign arrives at an era where press freedom faces growing challenges. According to the data from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a record number of 129 journalists and media workers were killed worldwide in 2025  — with Israel responsible for 2 of 3 deaths — more than any other year since the CPJ began collecting data in 1992.  Entering mid-2026, that number reached over 140 deaths since 2025 started, marking the second consecutive year-on-year record for press deaths in modern history.   Beyond physical fatalities, global media workers also experience severe censorship, surveillance, and a staggering 85 per cent rate of impunity for crimes committed against them. "When there's an increase in the killing of the ones that are out there trying to tell us the truth of what's going on, that's much bigger than anything we can do," shares Lasse Finderup, CEO and co-founder of Good Tape.  "The journalists that are on the front lines are not there for any reason of their own. They're there to do good... they're actually there to help and to inform and to bring a message on. So for those to be targeted and to be killed is tough. We need to protect journalists, because they are the truth tellers”. Founded in 2022, Good Tape has already been trusted by 2.97 million users worldwide while having transcribed more than 14 million files. Good Tape is renowned for its exceptional security, accuracy, and user-friendly interface. Check out an earlier interview with  Lasse Finderup, CEO and co-founder of Good Tape. To bring justice to those truth-tellers who are forever silenced, Good Tape has released an unconventional 8.5-minute video statement on YouTube and other Social Media channels, in which Good Tape CEO Lasse Finderup, alongside award-winning war correspondent and author Nagieb Khaja, reads aloud the names of journalists killed in the line of duty since 2025.   "Behind every name there is a person with a family, with a life, with beloved ones who are left... and behind every name you have a person who has risked their lives, and paid the ultimate price for telling us about what is happening”, said Nagieb Khaja, award-winning war journalist and documentary filmmaker.  "They're not in it for the money. They're not in it for fame. They're in it to convey the truth, showing how the world looks like. And if we don't understand how the world looks, we won't be able to act on it in the best way." As an extension of this campaign, Good Tape has introduced the Good Tape Grant. This new micro-funding initiative provides up to €500 in support to independent journalists and storytellers, along with the opportunity to have their pieces published on Good Tape’s homepage, which is visited by millions of people worldwide. While designed to fill the gap and primarily to empower media workers in developing countries, the grant is open to anyone who is working on a meaningful story and lacking the funds. With the Names campaign, Good Tape also honours, acknowledges and encourages its global community to support the vital work of NGOs International Media Support, The Rory Peck Trust and the Global Center for Journalism and Trauma, which support media workers with emergency financial aid, mental health care, professional development in crisis and life-saving safety training.

BAE Systems is committing €50 million to VC funds focused on backing European defencetech startups. The investments will expand on the Company’s longstanding approach to investing in future technology and forms the second stage of its recently announced Launchpad programme, which aims to accelerate disruptive innovation. Launchpad aims to address the challenge of moving defence technologies beyond prototype development by funding early-stage ventures or spinning them out as independent startups. This aligns with key priorities across Europe and the UK.  The programme is designed to leverage BAE Systems’ position as a technology innovator to support national priorities, including rapid technology incubation, sovereign capability and economic growth.  It also provides startups with access to customers across a broader range of sectors, like energy and advanced manufacturing. €25 million will be invested in two funds led by Expeditions and Lakestar, who are both working to help shape the future of European defence innovation by backing founders and technologies that aim to deliver next-generation capabilities for allies across the continent. According to Dave Ewing, Head of Technology Commercialisation at BAE Systems, the company has always valued the capabilities and ingenuity that early-stage founders bring to the table. “Building on our long-standing investment in innovation, we recently set up Launchpad as a win-win, aiming to spin out some of our own defence technologies to commercial markets while also backing start-ups who can bring something new to defence. This latest step means we’re full steam ahead on making that a reality.” Klaus Hommels, Founder and Chairman of Lakestar, said: “Europe is at a pivotal moment in redefining its security and technological sovereignty, and supporting the next generation of defence-tech founders will be critical to that effort. BAE Systems’ investment is significant as it brings together capital, deep sector expertise and access to markets to accelerate the development and deployment of the capabilities Europe needs to remain secure in an increasingly complex world.” According to Dr Mikolaj Firlej, co-founder and General Partner of Expeditions: “European defence-tech can drive the most transformative shift for our continent in a generation and Expeditions has been investing with this conviction for years. Our security can no longer be assumed; it has to be built. Its architects will be the founders deploying innovative products at scale, in weeks and months rather than years, drawing on lessons from the frontline.”   

HR SaaS startup Sloneek has raised $6 million in a new funding round led primarily by Orbit Capital and Venture to Future Fund, significantly exceeding the company’s original target. The investment will support Sloneek’s expansion into new European markets, the development of local integrations, and the completion of its AI capabilities as it evolves into an agentic HR platform. The funding comes as demand for digital HR systems and AI-powered workplace tools continues to grow across Europe. The European HR software market exceeded $4.8 billion last year and is projected to nearly double by 2033, driven by increasing adoption of cloud-based HR systems and AI-enabled workflows. Founded in 2019, Sloneek has evolved from a regional HR tool into an AI-powered platform serving companies across Europe. The company was among the early adopters of generative AI in HR, integrating AI natively into its product in 2023, which accelerated customer adoption and supported international expansion. At the core of the platform is Sloneek Intelligence, an AI-powered HR agent designed to automate routine tasks and provide HR teams with a unified view of their workforce. The platform enables organisations to manage employee data, workforce planning, talent management, and analytics within a secure environment designed for sensitive HR information. The company’s long-term vision is to create an HR platform that can be controlled naturally through chat or voice commands and integrated across workplace tools and AI systems. We want to be the first agentic HR platform that you can control entirely by voice or written commands. The trend is clear: in a few years, no one will think of Sloneek as an application - they will think of it as a partner wherever it is needed. Embedded in email workflows, in the tools people use every day, natively integrated into AI solutions and company-wide data, says Filip Lukáč, CEO and co-founder of Sloneek. Today, Sloneek is used by more than 500 enterprise customers across 25 countries, collectively managing HR processes for approximately 50,000 employees. Customers include Grant Thornton, MAN, WPP Media, and Twisto. Annual recurring revenue currently stands at €2.5 million, having more than doubled over the past year. A significant portion of the new funding will be used to expand into the United Kingdom and Poland, where Sloneek plans to establish dedicated local go-to-market teams. The company also intends to deepen integrations with key market players, enabling HR data to flow across the employee lifecycle, from recruitment to payroll.

Belgian agritech startup Rainbow Crops has raised €9.7 million in an oversubscribed seed funding round to advance its crop engineering platform, expand its application across multiple crops, and grow its scientific and technical teams. The round was led by Italian venture capital firm LIFTT and its investment vehicle LIFTT EuroInvest. Existing investors AIF (Agri Investment Fund), PINC, and VIB also participated, alongside new investors Corteva, through its Corteva Catalyst investment platform, and Maia Ventures. Founded to address some of agriculture's most pressing challenges, Rainbow Crops develops technologies aimed at accelerating the creation of higher-performing and more resilient crop varieties. As climate volatility increases, input costs fluctuate, and regulatory changes support wider adoption of gene editing technologies, crop developers face growing pressure to improve productivity and predictability while shortening development timelines. To address these challenges, Rainbow Crops has developed Trait Foundry™, a platform that combines artificial intelligence, multiplex genome editing, precision breeding, and automated phenotyping. The platform is designed to identify and evaluate combinations of genetic variants associated with complex agronomic traits such as yield and stress resilience. By integrating genome editing with breeding approaches, Rainbow Crops aims to accelerate the development of improved crop varieties while enabling the exploration of multi-gene traits at scale. The company has already demonstrated proof of concept in corn. The new funding will support the development of the company's AI-assisted multiplex genome editing capabilities, the deployment of its platform across additional crops, and the expansion of its scientific and technical teams.

Paris-based wellness venture studio Rocapine has raised a $13 million Series A round led by Educapital, with participation from Daphni, Ring Capital, Centre Court Capital, Athletico Ventures and Better Angle. The round also included backing from prominent founders and operators across health, consumer apps and mobile gaming, including Jean-Charles Samuelian-Werve (Alan), founders from Yubo and Opal, and entrepreneurs behind companies such as Photoroom, Madbox and The Sandbox. Founded in late 2024 by Stanislas Marchand, alongside Jean-Gabriel Boinot-Tramoni and Sammy Teillet, Rocapine is building a new generation of wellness apps designed to improve daily life. The company’s mission is to create products that support healthier habits and deliver lasting value, rather than optimising for engagement or attention. As digital technologies become increasingly embedded in everyday life, digital wellbeing has become an area of growing interest. DataReportal 2025 estimates that the average person spends 5 hours and 16 minutes per day on a smartphone, amounting to roughly 15 years over a lifetime. At the same time, public discourse around the effects of technology on health and behaviour has intensified in recent years. Technology was supposed to make us smarter, healthier and more connected. Instead, too much of it has become addictive, extractive and exhausting. Our phones now track the stress, the sleep loss and the racing heart rates they ironically cause, and still the system pushes us to scroll more. Rocapine was founded to change that, says Stanislas Marchand, co-founder and CEO of Rocapine. Rocapine describes its approach as building products that “hold instead of hook.” Its apps are designed to become part of users’ daily routines by delivering tangible benefits rather than engineering compulsion. The company has already launched apps across women’s health, addiction therapy and nutrition. These include Harmony (focused on cycle tracking and women’s wellbeing), That Girl (which helps users build healthier habits), and Unchaind (designed to help people break free from compulsive behaviours). The new funding will support Rocapine’s next stage of growth, including turning early successes into category leaders, scaling its testing engine to 400 apps this year, and strengthening the AI, data and marketing infrastructure underpinning its portfolio.

Berlin-based hiring platform WhyBrilliant has launched publicly with €1 million in pre-seed funding from Merantix. The company is developing an AI-powered recruitment platform designed to help professionals find suitable roles through conversational AI rather than traditional job applications. WhyBrilliant was founded by Patrick Böert and Aleksander Heimrath in response to growing frustrations with conventional hiring processes. As recruitment increasingly relies on automated screening tools, candidates often face lengthy application processes with limited feedback, while employers struggle to identify suitable talent efficiently. The company takes a different approach to hiring by reversing the traditional application model. Instead of candidates searching and applying for jobs, WhyBrilliant uses a pair of AI agents to represent both sides of the recruitment process. One agent engages with candidates to understand their skills, experience, and career goals, while another works with employers to understand hiring requirements. Candidates are only introduced to hiring teams when a strong match is identified. Every job platform built in the last twenty years asked candidates to do more — more applications, more keywords, more tailoring. We think that's the bug, not the feature. On WhyBrilliant, talent doesn't apply. Jobs are delivered to them and companies can request a meeting. That inversion changes everything downstream — who has leverage, who does the work, what "match" actually means, said Patrick Böert, co-founder & CEO of WhyBrilliant. The company has spent recent months building its talent network, attracting more than a thousand mid-career technology professionals across Germany, including senior specialists, lead-level operators, and first-time managers. WhyBrilliant's platform is built around two AI agents: Nova, which represents job seekers and continuously searches for relevant opportunities, and Atlas, which supports employers by helping create pre-screened candidate shortlists. The company operates on a success-based model, generating revenue only when a hire is completed. The new funding will support further product development, platform expansion, and the growth of the company's talent and employer network as it seeks to reshape how professionals and companies connect in the hiring process.

Swedish legaltech startup Lightbringer has raised $10 million in Series A funding to accelerate the development of its AI-powered patent platform and support its expansion into the US market. The round was co-led by London-based 6 Degrees Capital and Amsterdam-based Newion. Following the investment, Thomas Olszewski, Partner at 6 Degrees Capital, and Dorus Olgers, Partner at Newion, have joined Lightbringer's board. Founded in 2023, Lightbringer aims to simplify and accelerate patent protection for startups and SMEs. Its platform combines intellectual property strategy, patent filing, and portfolio management in a single offering, automating processes that have traditionally been handled by external law firms. The platform combines agentic AI with oversight from expert patent lawyers to reduce patent filing timelines from around two months to just a few days, while lowering costs through a fixed-price subscription model. Lightbringer operates in a market where many companies continue to face challenges protecting intellectual property due to lengthy, expensive, and complex patent processes. The company argues that traditional patent services remain heavily dependent on manual collaboration between technical teams and legal specialists, creating barriers for innovative businesses seeking to secure and commercialise their inventions. These challenges are further compounded by a global shortage of patent lawyers with expertise in highly specialised technical fields. While many AI solutions in the patent industry focus on improving productivity for legal professionals, Lightbringer has positioned itself differently. The company has developed an AI-native platform designed to handle much of the patent process directly, enabling businesses to secure intellectual property more quickly and efficiently. The new funding will be used to expand Lightbringer's presence in the US and further enhance its AI-powered patent platform for deeptech companies. Check out our earlier interview with Dominic Davies, CEO and co-founder of Lightbringer.   

Global prime broker EXANTE has launched Gecko Fund, a €1 million grant programme designed to support open-source software projects that play a critical role in trading systems, financial data infrastructure, and broader financial technology ecosystems. The initiative aims to provide direct funding to maintainers of widely used but often underfunded open-source technologies, including APIs, developer tools, core infrastructure libraries, and projects that support modern financial services. The launch comes amid growing concerns about the sustainability of open-source software. While businesses increasingly rely on open-source technologies, many of the maintainers behind critical projects continue to operate with limited financial support. This has increased concerns around software resilience, cybersecurity, and operational risks, particularly as AI accelerates the discovery and exploitation of vulnerabilities. Gecko Fund will focus on established open-source projects that are widely adopted but receive limited funding relative to their importance. Priority areas include Erlang/OTP, Scala, Java and JVM technologies, JavaScript, developer tooling, and core infrastructure software, although applications from other projects relevant to the financial ecosystem will also be considered. The programme has already awarded its first grant, providing €10,000 to Kryo, an open-source Java serialisation framework widely used in high-performance data processing and trading environments. Our goal is not simply to fund software. It is to strengthen the communities and maintainers behind the infrastructure that modern finance depends on every day. We believe the industry that benefits from these tools should play a role in sustaining them, said Anatoly Knyazev, founder of Gecko Fund and co-founder of EXANTE. Applications will be reviewed on a quarterly basis, with grants ranging from €10,000 to €150,000 depending on a project's adoption, impact, funding needs, and relevance to the financial sector. Individuals, project teams, communities, and organisations are eligible to apply.

Nordic venture capital firm Wave Ventures has announced the final close of its third fund at €10 million, marking a significant increase from its previous €2 million fund and a decade since it was founded as a student-led initiative in Helsinki. Fund III is managed by a team composed entirely of investors aged 25 and under and is backed by founders, operators, and investors from companies including Spotify, Wolt, Slack, Bolt, Oura, Nokia, Supercell, GANNI, and Voi, alongside European early-stage venture capital firms and family offices. Founded in 2016, Wave Ventures focuses on angel and pre-seed investments and is often among the first institutional investors backing Nordic startups. To date, it has made more than 50 investments, including companies such as Inven and Tzafon. In 2024, Wave backed three of the five Nordic startups accepted into Y Combinator. With the new fund, Wave plans to expand its investment activity across the Nordics, investing up to €300,000 in early-stage companies and backing between 10 and 20 teams annually. Alongside the fund close, Wave Ventures has launched the Wave Rebellion Grant, a €240,000 programme designed to support early-stage founders across the Nordics. The initiative will provide grants and partner credits to selected entrepreneurs, with support from AWS, Anthropic, Lovable, Modal, and Verda. The programme is aimed at founders at the earliest stages of company building, including those who are pre-idea, pre-funding, or just beginning their entrepreneurial journey. Some of the most exceptional founders don't fit neatly into existing startup programs, accelerators, or university tracks. Venture capital often relies on pattern matching, but the best founders rarely look obvious before their breakouts. The Rebellion Grant is our way of supporting them earlier, said Johannes Korpela, CEO, Wave Ventures. Beyond its investment activity, Wave Ventures has also played a role in developing the Nordic startup ecosystem through its talent network. Alumni of its rotation-based investment programme have gone on to found startups, investment firms, and entrepreneurial communities across Europe, including Founders House, a startup hub operating in Helsinki and Stockholm.

Finnish EV charging software company eMabler has raised €5.5 million in Series A funding to support its expansion across Europe and further develop its grid-aware charging platform. The funding round was led by Greencode Ventures, with participation from Swiss Post Ventures, Rethink Ventures, and Helkama Kiinteistöt. The financing package also includes a €1 million Digitalisation and Innovation Loan from Finnvera, supported by the European Investment Fund and the InvestEU Guarantee Programme, alongside a €1 million grant and loan package from Business Finland's Young Innovative Company programme. eMabler provides a software platform that enables retailers, energy companies, parking operators, and other businesses to integrate EV charging directly into their own digital services, applications, and loyalty programmes. Rather than relying on standalone charging apps, the company focuses on embedding charging into existing customer experiences. The approach has gained traction across the Nordics. Finland's largest retailer, S Group, operates its ABC Charging network on eMabler's platform, while customers including Neste, AimoPark, TimePark, and EasyPark use the company's technology to combine charging with services such as fleet management, parking, and customer loyalty programmes. As EV adoption grows, eMabler also sees charging infrastructure becoming an increasingly important part of the energy system. The company is developing software that helps operators optimise charging based on electricity pricing and grid conditions, enabling EV charging networks to function as flexible energy assets while improving operational efficiency. The Nordic market has reached a level of maturity where standalone, vertical-specific charging propositions no longer make sense. End-users want charging built into the apps and services they already use. We’ve proven that when you make charging a native part of a brand’s core offering, you win the market. This round allows us to meet the surging demand for this integrated model to a much broader European market, says Juha Stenberg, CEO and co-founder of eMabler. The new funding will be used to accelerate eMabler's expansion into Central Europe, with a particular focus on Germany and the UK, while supporting the continued development of hardware-agnostic, grid-aware charging solutions.

Anterra Capital, a specialist venture firm investing in food and agriculture, today announced its $100 million first close of Fund III. Founded in 2013  with offices in Amsterdam and Boston, the firm manages over $500 million across three funds. Anterra invests in and builds companies that apply life-science and software innovations to food and agriculture.   The Fund III's first close marks an important milestone for Anterra. The firm was built on the conviction that the tools that had already transformed other industries — life science tools that reshaped human health, and software that rewired sectors from logistics to financial services — would eventually transition to, and transform, food and agriculture.   “The firm has now successfully navigated two capital cycles in food and agriculture,” said Maarten Goossens, Partner at Anterra Capital.  “Each one rewarded the same discipline: backing companies that deliver real returns for their customers and to their investors. What's different this time is that the real-world industries we operate in — large, complex and historically resistant to change — are now ready to be rewired, and the tools to do it have arrived.”   Food and agriculture remains the largest industry on the planet, roughly $10 trillion in size, employing around 1.3 billion people, nearly 40 per cent of the world's workforce. It is also where a set of structural forces converges — margin volatility, food security, climate and water constraints, tightening regulation, and health outcomes increasingly tied to what the system produces — each a reason the old way of operating no longer holds. Global investment in food and agriculture technology surged to a historical peak of nearly $52 billion in 2021 before falling back to roughly $16 billion — 2016 levels. Much of that generalist capital backed ambitious, capital-intensive bets that failed to scale: indoor vertical farms, plant-based processed meat alternatives and 10-minute grocery delivery.  Anterra took a different approach — backing science-backed companies built on real unit economics and designed to scale through existing industry channels. That retreat of capital from hype back to fundamentals is precisely what now opens the door for disciplined specialists. Anterra's investment thesis has been consistent across two funds — and with valuations reset and AI now changing the economics of building in both software and biology, the moment has finally arrived to deploy it at scale.  "We've spent twelve years and two funds proving you can build category-defining companies in food and agriculture — and generate real returns doing it," said Brett Wong, Partner at Anterra Capital. "What's changed is that the world has finally caught up to that thesis. The technology is here, the valuations make sense, and the founders building in this sector are the best we've ever seen. This is the most exciting moment in our firm's history, and Fund III is how we intend to make the most of it."       Lead image: Anterra Capital partners. Photo: Anterra Capital.

Spanish AI workforce platform Orbio today announced a $21  Series A led by Dawn Capital, alongside existing investors including Visionaries. 80 per cent of the world’s workforce operates on the frontlines of essential industries: the 2.7 billion healthcare workers, retail associates, warehouse operators, hospitality staff and logistics drivers who keep economies running. The difference between a staffed shift and an unstaffed one directly impacts revenue, customer experience and operational performance. Yet most enterprise software built over the past two decades was designed for desk-based knowledge workers.  Frontline employees are often deskless, without corporate email addresses, and are reached through messaging and phone calls rather than software logins.  As a result, frontline hiring and workforce management still relies heavily on fragmented manual processes, spreadsheets and large operational teams, consuming significant time and costing organisations billions every year. Orbio is building an AI workforce platform designed for frontline industries. Its agents can conduct interviews, assess candidate fit and motivation, guide new hires through onboarding, monitor engagement and churn signals, and remain in contact with employees throughout their lifecycle — from first application through to tenure and exit. For employers, this creates a fundamentally new operating model: the ability to engage and support frontline workforces 24/7 while delegating large parts of workforce operations to AI agents. The result is faster hiring, lower administrative burden, improved retention and a more resilient operational workforce. “This is not a talent shortage problem, it’s a talent allocation problem,” said Sergi Bastardas, co-founder and CEO of Orbio. “The people are there. The work is there. What’s been missing is the ability to connect frontline workers with opportunities quickly, consistently and at scale."With Orbio, candidates can be contacted within seconds, onboarding can happen in hours rather than days, and employers can stay continuously connected with their workforce. The result is faster hiring, lower attrition and smoother operations, while workers get a better chance to start, stay and grow.” "What stands out about Orbio is the speed at which customers have completely rebuilt their operating models around it,” said Henry Mason, Partner at Dawn Capital.  “In a matter of months, some of the world's largest employers have embraced AI-first frontline workforce management with Orbio at the core, replacing labour budgets in a permanent way." Orbio already serves customers across Europe, the US and Latin America.  Orbio already works with global enterprise customers including Poke House and YUM! Brands (which owns brands including KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut).  In the United States, Orbio also works with The Stepping Stones Group, a US behavioural health provider serving children with autism and other special needs. What started as a small pilot has grown eightfold and now runs across the company's entire US operations.  Orbio took over interview scheduling entirely on day one, freeing up the team that had handled it. 20 per cent more candidates make it through to a hire, and Stepping Stones' own managers say the calibre of those hires has improved. The share of candidates who book an interview has climbed from 65 per cent to 85 per cent, and candidate satisfaction sits consistently above 98 per cent.  The new capital will fund further expansion alongside continued development of Orbio’s AI agent suite across the full employee lifecycle.

European tech activity in May 2026 was characterised by a decline in deal volume but a substantial increase in capital raised compared to April. The ecosystem recorded 258 funding deals and €10.5 billion raised, compared to 290 deals and €5.1 billion in April, reflecting an 11 per cent decrease in deal activity and a 106 per cent increase in total capital invested. At the country level, the UK strengthened its position as Europe's leading funding hub. UK startups raised €7.9 billion in May, up from €1.9 billion in April, representing a more than fourfold increase driven by several large funding rounds. Sector dynamics also shifted during the month. Cloud emerged as the leading sector with €3 billion raised, replacing cleantech, which led in April, highlighting changing investor priorities across the technology landscape. Exit activity improved modestly in May, increasing from 35 exits in April to 39, suggesting a slight recovery in market liquidity after several weaker months. Ben Gibson, Partner at AshGrove Capital, commented on the May numbers within the European tech investment landscape in our monthly report: One of the most encouraging aspects of today's market is that investors remain willing to support businesses with strong fundamentals, even as capital becomes increasingly selective.While AI continues to dominate the conversation, sustainable value growth will ultimately depend on more than access to compute or model development. As AI becomes increasingly ubiquitous, the market is beginning to distinguish between software that is merely enhanced by AI and software that is genuinely indispensable to customer operations. The businesses that endure are typically those that own proprietary data which compounds with usage, solve mission-critical problems and become deeply embedded in customer workflows. For his more detailed review and more in-depth analyses of the European tech ecosystem, including industry and country performance, exit activities, and more, check out our May report. Here are the 10 largest tech deals in Europe from May, accounting for 69.5 per cent of the month’s total funding. Amount raised: $2.7B Pure DC is a digital infrastructure company that designs, builds, and operates hyperscale cloud and AI data centres across Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. The company develops large-scale facilities for some of the world's largest technology firms, with more than 1GW of capacity either operational or under development. Pure DC focuses on delivering resilient, high-performance infrastructure while addressing challenges such as power availability, sustainability, and the growing demand for AI and cloud computing. Pure DC secured $2.7 billion for European and Middle East expansion. Amount raised: $2.1B Isomorphic Labs is a London-based AI drug discovery company spun out of Google DeepMind. Founded in 2021, the company uses advanced AI models, including technology built on AlphaFold, to accelerate the design and development of new medicines. Isomorphic Labs combines artificial intelligence, biology, and drug discovery expertise to identify promising drug candidates across multiple therapeutic areas, with the goal of improving the speed, efficiency, and success rate of pharmaceutical research and development. Isomorphic Labs raised $2.1 billion in Series B funding to scale its AI drug discovery platform, expand its therapeutic pipeline, and advance AI-designed medicines toward clinical development. Amount raised: $790M Nscale is an AI infrastructure company that builds and operates full-stack computing platforms for artificial intelligence. The company provides GPU cloud services, AI data centres, and software infrastructure designed to support the training, deployment, and scaling of advanced AI systems. With operations across Europe and North America, Nscale focuses on delivering sovereign, high-performance, and energy-efficient AI infrastructure for enterprises, developers, and governments. Nscale secured $790 million in financing to underscore its commitment to the Norwegian data centre. Amount raised: £550M Ebury is a global fintech company that helps businesses manage international payments, foreign exchange, cash flow, and cross-border trade through a single platform. Founded in 2009, the company provides payment, collection, currency risk management, and financing solutions to businesses operating internationally, supporting transactions in more than 140 currencies across 160 countries. Ebury serves thousands of companies worldwide through a network of offices across Europe, Asia, the Americas, and other international markets. Ebury secured £550 million to support its growth strategy and further develop its global payments platform. Amount raised: $650M Recursive is an AI research company developing self-improving artificial intelligence systems capable of autonomously improving their own performance and research processes. Founded by leading researchers and engineers from OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Meta AI, Salesforce AI, and Uber AI, the company is pursuing recursive self-improvement as a path toward more capable AI systems. Recursive emerged from stealth with $650 million in funding to scale its research, compute infrastructure, and development of AI systems designed to accelerate scientific discovery. Amount raised: $550M ElevenLabs is an AI audio company developing technology that enables natural, human-like speech generation and voice interactions. Its platform offers tools for text-to-speech, voice cloning, dubbing, speech-to-text, and conversational AI, helping businesses, developers, creators, and publishers create and distribute audio content across multiple languages. Founded in 2022, the company focuses on making digital communication more accessible through advanced voice AI. ElevenLabs expanded its Series D financing to more than $550 million, as it scaled its AI voice platform and expanded enterprise adoption of voice agents, dubbing, and conversational AI products. Amount raised: €300M ICEYE is a space and Earth observation company that operates the world's largest synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite constellation. Founded in 2014, the company provides near real-time monitoring and geospatial intelligence for governments, defence organisations, insurers, and commercial customers. Its SAR technology can capture high-resolution imagery in all weather conditions, day or night, enabling applications ranging from disaster response and environmental monitoring to security and defence operations. ICEYE secured a €300 million credit facility to scale sovereign satellite intelligence. Amount raised: $240M Focused Energy is a fusion energy company developing laser-driven nuclear fusion technology with the goal of delivering clean, abundant, and commercially viable energy. Founded as a spin-out of the Technical University of Darmstadt, the company is building fusion power systems based on inertial confinement fusion, using high-powered lasers and proprietary fuel target technology. With operations in Germany and the United States, Focused Energy aims to commercialise fusion energy by translating decades of scientific research into scalable power generation infrastructure. Focused Energy secured $240 million in funding to advance the development of its laser fusion technology, with most of the capital earmarked for expanding operations and infrastructure at the former RWE nuclear power plant site in Biblis, Germany. Amount raised: $220M Fractile is a UK-based AI hardware company developing next-generation chips, systems, and software designed to accelerate AI inference. Founded in 2022, the company is building in-memory computing technology that integrates memory and processing to reduce the cost, latency, and energy consumption of running large AI models. By rethinking the AI inference stack from silicon to software, Fractile aims to enable faster and more efficient deployment of advanced AI systems at data centre scale. Fractile raised $220 million to tackle the growing inference bottleneck. Amount raised: €152M QuantWare is a quantum computing company developing scalable quantum processors and hardware infrastructure designed to accelerate the path toward large-scale quantum computers. The company provides superconducting quantum processing units (QPUs) and related technology to research institutions, governments, and commercial organisations worldwide. Through its proprietary VIO architecture, QuantWare aims to address the scalability challenges facing quantum computing and enable the development of more powerful quantum systems. QuantWare secured €152 million to scale its quantum processor technology, expand manufacturing capacity, and support the commercial deployment of large-scale quantum computing systems.

Edtech startup Sirius Game has closed a €1.3 million funding round led by Cassa Depositi e Prestiti, with participation from Trentino Invest, Ultra VC, 28Digital and Add Value. The newly raised capital will be used to strengthen the company’s structure and accelerate growth across three key areas: further development of its technology, expansion within the Italian and international education systems, and growth in the corporate training segment. As part of this new phase, Sirius Game has launched JOY, an educational product for primary schools developed in collaboration with Il Gruppo Editoriale La Scuola and the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano. Founded by Laura Cesaro, Sirius Game was created to address a challenge common to both schools and companies: learning is often perceived as passive, insufficiently engaging and limited in its long-term effectiveness. The company’s game-based learning model, grounded in scientific evidence, aims to make learning more engaging, effective and lasting while complementing traditional educational approaches. Through challenges, missions and interactive activities, learners take an active role in the learning process, developing transversal skills such as critical thinking, collaboration and digital awareness. The model is designed to be applicable across educational and organisational contexts. Laura Cesaro, CEO and co-founder of Sirius Game, described the funding round as an important milestone for the company, enabling it to scale the impact of its game-based learning model and expand its reach across schools and companies internationally. She emphasised that the company’s goal is not simply to make learning more enjoyable but to make it more effective and capable of delivering lasting outcomes. We want to show that learning can be engaging and rigorous at the same time, helping people develop skills that are truly useful to face change. Operating with an international outlook, Sirius Game maintains ongoing dialogue with educational and innovation ecosystems worldwide as it continues to expand the reach of its learning solutions.

Last week, we tracked more than 65 tech funding deals worth over €2.8 billion and over 10 exits, M&A transactions, rumours, and related news stories across Europe. ? In May, European tech startups raised €10.5 billion across 258 funding deals, with larger funding rounds driving strong capital deployment despite lower deal volume. ? The UK led the region, attracting €7.9 billion in funding, while cloud companies were the top-funded sector with €3 billion invested. Exit activity reached 39 transactions, reflecting a modest improvement in market liquidity and continued investor confidence. ? For a deeper dive into May's funding and exit trends, check out our May monthly report. ❗ Now, let's get you up to speed on everything that happened last week, including your handy.csv file, allowing for an even more in-depth analysis. Have a great week! Funding deals by amount GERMANY: NEURA Robotics secures up to $1.4B Series C to scale physical AI and cognitive robotics platform FINLAND: ICEYE raises €450M at €10B+ valuation as demand for sovereign space intelligence accelerates GERMANY: Europe conducted fewer than 10 orbital launches in 2025. Isar Aerospace just raised €270M to fix that UK: PhysicsX raises $300M at $2.4BN valuation FRANCE: Morpho received $175M in investment at a valuation of approximately $2 billion SWITZERLAND: CeQur raises $100M in Series E funding SPAIN: AI robotics outfit Theker raises $85M FRANCE: Alta Ares wants to make air defence cheaper than an attack, and it just raised €50M, led by Air Street Capital UK: CameraMatics raises up to €49M in new funding FRANCE: Eclipse raises $20M to create the battery financial market REPUBLIC OF SERBIA: Two Desperados receives $20M in user acquisition financing UK: Rem3dy Health raises £14M to power global expansion UK: NewOrbit raises $18.5M Series A to commercialise VLEO UK: Capsa AI raises $18M to expand its AI platform for private capital AUSTRIA: Led by 20VC, fonio.ai raises $17M for omnichannel AI platform UK: 01Health secures $15M to scale specialist healthcare platform FRANCE: Mendo secures €12M to scale enterprise AI adoption in Europe UK: Space Forge secures £10M for space-manufactured materials GERMANY: GALVANY secures €10M seed round for heat pump expansion IRELAND: Trustap raises $10M in funding POLAND: Spacetech startup Sybilla exits bootstrapped orbit with over €8M to strengthen space monitoring BELGIUM: Companion.energy raises €7.8M to help large enterprises manage energy in real time FINLAND: Skyfora secures €6.5M to scale its telecom-based atmospheric sensing platform FRANCE: Uncovr raises $7M to build AI infrastructure for surgery SWEDEN: Camphouse (formerly Mediatool) announces a €5M funding round GERMANY: Tawo secures €4.5M financing UK: Zaro lands $5.1M to build the next layer of enterprise AI FRANCE: Trading card game platform CardNexus raises €3.5M to support team expansion TURKEY: Promake received a $4M investment led by 212 ITALY: Rosso, the startup that wants to digitize blood donations in Italy, raises €3M SLOVAKIA: Definic raises €2.5M to scale its vendor intelligence platform FRANCE: Grapheal raises €2.5M in grant from EIC HUNGARY: Volteum bags €2.5M to power EV and mixed fleet operations POLAND: Fintech paymove secures €2.12M to drive European expansion FINLAND: Rotomate raises €2.1M to automate industrial reliability analysis NETHERLANDS: OurMind lands €2.1M to help reduce healthcare workloads BELGIUM: TurnUp raises €2M to help healthcare providers reduce no-shows SWEDEN: Haga Bioscience attracts a $2.3M seed round for spatial RNA technology development GERMANY: ShopAgentic raises a €1.9M investment CZECH REPUBLIC: Merchantee secures €1.8M for European marketplace expansion UK: Record OS raised $2M to fix Britain's self-assessment problem UK: Enera raises $2M to improve the EV charging experience ESTONIA: Nanordica Medical raises €1.6M to bring antibiotic-free chronic wound treatment to market UK: BeatpulseLabs raises $1.8M pre-seed to scale AI training data AUSTRIA: Deeptech startup Invisible-Light Labs raises €1.5M to identify sub-micron particles UK: Cybersecurity startup set up by former neighbours Strand Intelligence raises £1M UK: Cordon Technologies raises £1M to help farmers cut pesticide use through precision spraying UK: Breaking Change raises over £1M in funding BELGIUM: Duely secures €1.1M to reinvent M&A legal services with AI FINLAND: Granarium raises €1M+ to commercialise renewable supercapacitors for grid stability SPAIN: Toteemi closes a funding round of over €1M to accelerate its growth and international expansion ROMANIA: eCommerce startup Naratix raises €1M to accelerate market growth SWEDEN: Arkeon closes a €594,000 seed round to boost precision in quantum chip production POLAND: sunbay.io raises €550,000 to automate invoice collection for finance teams NORWAY: AI startup Mimir raises €518,000 pre-seed to automate e-commerce operations SPAIN: Ars Magna Semiconductors receives €180,000 thanks to BeAble Capital SWITZERLAND: Calmea receives €162,000 from Venture Kick UK: Cosine secures industry backing for Britain’s first sovereign frontier model UK: Barclays invests in CommonAI PORTUGAL: Augusta Labs closes an investment round FINLAND: Space safety startup Aavuus lands pre-seed funding to tackle space debris tracking GERMANY: Tokura receives a seven-figure investment AUSTRIA: Manuel Ortlechner is investing in Zone14 UK: Advancing Analytics receives strategic growth investment from Lead Edge Capital TURKEY: Mobile game company Spektra Games has received investment led by APY Ventures UK: Mobius receives investment from Motive Partners Exits and M&A activity AUSTRIA: Longevity company MoleQlar is acquiring biotech and skincare company Tomorrowlabs SWITZERLAND: Temenos acquires additiv to strengthen its wealth proposition GERMANY: DeepIP is acquiring Munich-based PatentMaker SWITZERLAND: Energy data and intelligence company TGS acquires Apparition Geoservices GERMANY: Berlin-based new carrier NexDash is acquiring the Rheinbach-based trucking company March Transporte UK: Barclays to acquire GoHenry, expand youth financial education offering in UK GERMANY: The Australian company Infomedia is acquiring the Munich-based startup Veact FRANCE: AI: Akeneo acquires Pricing Hub to bridge the gap between product data and prices AUSTRIA: The American headphone giant Bose is acquiring StreamUnlimited FRANCE: After Italy, Superprof sets its sights on Brazil with a new acquisition GERMANY: The American ChatGPT developer OpenAI is acquiring the Kiel-based AI company Ona

Bestie Bite, the Italian app dedicated to authentic video reviews in the hospitality sector, has closed a €1.5 million fresh-money funding round through a SAFE instrument. The investment was led by the Grassi family through their family holding company G&G, a shareholder of E80 Group S.p.A. Raised less than four months after the company’s first €700,000 round led by Techstars, the new funding brings Bestie Bite’s total capital raised to €2.2 million. The proceeds will support growth in Italy and expansion into the United States. Founded to address a growing disconnect in hospitality discovery, Bestie Bite tackles challenges on both sides of the market. Consumers, particularly younger generations, increasingly struggle to find restaurants, cafés and hotels they can trust. Unreliable reviews, fragmented information, and content dominated by influencers and sponsored posts have made discovery more difficult. At the same time, the hospitality industry remains largely composed of small businesses: around 90 per cent of venues lack the budget or marketing expertise needed to stand out online. As a result, many local businesses remain difficult to discover. These challenges have become more pronounced since the pandemic, as discovery and booking habits have evolved. On the consumer side, Bestie Bite uses artificial intelligence to understand users’ preferences and guide them through video content, helping them make faster decisions. Unlike traditional review platforms, content is subject to verification measures, including user authentication, fraud prevention systems, and AI-powered video detection. The platform also rewards users for contributing videos through cashback and “Missions” at partner restaurants. For businesses, Bestie Bite introduces what it describes as the first “AI Marketing Employee” for hospitality: an AI system that automates activities traditionally handled by social media managers or agencies. Starting from a single community-generated video, the system creates and publishes a monthly editorial plan. Businesses also gain access to sentiment analysis and performance insights to monitor customer experience and service quality in real time. Bestie Bite is led by co-founders Carlotta Robbe Di Lorenzo (CEO), and Caterina Vertefeuille (COO), both second-time founders with extensive hospitality experience. The founding team also includes Placido Falqueto (CTO), a software engineer with a PhD in AI and Robotics. We want to change this market. Authenticity is the most valuable and scarce asset on the web: we are building a new standard and a technological layer that brings the full power of artificial intelligence to restaurants, always starting from real content. With this round, we are accelerating from Italy to the United States to make this the global standard, said Carlotta Robbe Di Lorenzo and Caterina Vertefeuille, co-founders of Bestie Bite. Bestie Bite has already recorded significant organic growth, surpassing 100,000 users and more than 120,000 uploaded videos across 80 countries. A key objective of the new funding round is international expansion, particularly in the United States, where the company is establishing a base in San Francisco to accelerate growth in one of the world’s leading hospitality and technology markets.

Qorelo, an AI startup focused on enterprise resource planning (ERP) transformations, has raised $3.5 million in seed funding just five months after launching. The round was co-led by HPI Ventures and Caesar Ventures, with participation from 10x Founders, Antler, Adesso Ventures, and Angel Invest. Founded in late 2025, Qorelo has built an AI-powered intelligence layer designed to automate and simplify ERP upgrade and migration projects based on SAP software. The platform focuses on reducing the complexity of large-scale enterprise transformations by automating functional delivery workstreams, helping organisations complete projects more efficiently and with fewer resource constraints. The company is targeting a growing challenge facing SAP customers worldwide. As businesses prepare to migrate to SAP S/4HANA before the 2027 deadline, demand for specialised delivery expertise is increasing, placing further strain on already complex and costly ERP modernisation projects. Qorelo aims to address this bottleneck by automating parts of the ERP delivery process, which it says can reduce project timelines by up to 45 per cent. The platform also serves as a continuous system of record for ERP delivery, helping organisations maintain operational data that is ready for future AI applications and ongoing optimisation. Nicholas Torabi, co-founder of Qorelo, said: Large enterprises are facing an unprecedented race against time to modernise their digital backbones before the 2027 deadline, but the industry simply lacks the human delivery capacity to make it happen. At Qorelo, we have built an elegant solution that automates the repetitive functional workstreams of these massive transformations. The company is already working with enterprise customers in the DACH region, including a major German automotive company that is using the platform for its SAP transformation programme and subsequent operational processes. The new funding will be used to accelerate product development and expand the company's team across engineering, SAP expertise, and enterprise sales as it looks to capture growing demand for ERP transformation solutions.

This week, we tracked more than 65 tech funding deals worth over €2.8 billion and over 10 exits, M&A transactions, rumours, and related news stories across Europe. We also released our monthly report for May with all the critical funding rounds, acquisitions, and other critical news.  If email is more your thing, you can always subscribe to our newsletter and receive a more robust version of this round-up delivered to your inbox. Either way, let's get you up to speed. ? Notable and big funding rounds ?? NEURA Robotics secures up to $1.4B Series C to scale physical AI and cognitive robotics platform ?? ICEYE raises €450M at €10B+ valuation as demand for sovereign space intelligence accelerates ??  Europe conducted fewer than 10 orbital launches in 2025. Isar Aerospace just raised €270M to fix that ??‍?? Noteworthy acquisitions and mergers ??  Longevity company MoleQlar is acquiring biotech and skincare company Tomorrowlabs ?? Temenos acquires additiv to strengthen its wealth proposition ?? Barclays to acquire GoHenry, expand youth financial education offering in UK ? Interesting moves from investors ?? German VC coalition calls for institutional capital shift to power next-gen startups ? Creator Fund closes $56M to back Europe's scientific founders ? Pitchdrive raises €60M to back Europe's AI-native founders ?? Barclays to acquire GoHenry, expand youth financial education offering in UK ?️ In other (important) news ??  Bending Spoons files for US IPO ⚖️  Legora to open Paris, Milan and Madrid offices and London engineering hub ⚛️. Deliverance AI exits stealth to power sovereign enterprise AI  ?? British startups to “scale here” and “stay here”, as UK PM unveils £400M chip plan ? European tech startups to watch  ?? Granarium raises €1M+ to commercialise renewable supercapacitors for grid stability ??  sunbay.io raises €550,000 to automate invoice collection for finance teams ?? AI startup Mimir raises €518,000 pre-seed to automate e-commerce operations ??  Cosine secures industry backing for Britain’s first sovereign frontier model ?? Space safety startup Aavuus lands pre-seed funding to tackle space debris tracking