It’s the week after Italian Tech Week and the likes of Jeff Bezos have packed up their private jets and zoomed back to wherever the Tech Bros go next. The Jet Set are always on the move, but sometimes it’s better to go to a place after they’ve left. So it was in Turin last week, lying provocatively in the foothills of the Alps to the north-west of the city. The sun was out and the atmosphere felt Himalayan. Fresh air and the days that autumn sometimes delivers. Crisp and optimistic, beautiful and powerful. Bezos spoke the previous week about AI while President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen effused about the European tech ecosystem, perhaps over-effused about it, but maybe that was the point. As China and the US apparently race ahead, it is sometimes wise to listen to Aesop and the tale of the hare and tortoise. Slow and steady regularly wins that race. Italy often gets overlooked when it comes to that ecosystem of Europe. London, Paris and Berlin abound, and the likes of Lisbon, Madrid, and Stockholm make it on to the PowerPoint slides of venture capitalists everywhere. But Italy, quietly and historically, has great DNA when it comes to the history of global technology. Because before Silicon Valley, before the Valley was Silicon, before the word ‘startup’ was even coined, there was Olivetti. The House of Olivetti Olivetti was not merely a company; it was an idea dressed in steel and typewriter ribbon. Founded in 1908 in Ivrea, a small town an hour north of Turin, Olivetti made machines that looked and felt like the future. Sleek, ergonomic; sensual even. They were Italian design meeting industrial modernity, la dolce vita for the office desk. In an era when machines were built to intimidate, Olivetti built machines to seduce. The Lettera 22 typewriter, still a design classic, was so elegant it made Hemingway switch from pen to typewriter keys. Its lines were the Ferrari of the literary world. The Valentine, designed by Ettore Sottsass in 1969, turned the typewriter into pop art, bright red plastic and portable, a statement of joy in a world of grey. But beauty wasn’t the only thing Olivetti understood. They were a company decades ahead of their time in understanding the human side of technology. Adriano Olivetti, the founder’s son, believed that capitalism could be compassionate. Workers were given healthcare, housing, cultural activities - an ecosystem before ecosystems were fashionable. And when the computer age came calling, Olivetti didn’t shy away. They built one of Europe’s first commercially available electronic computers, the Elea 9003, in 1959, designed by architect-engineer Mario Tchou. It was modular, modern and magnetic. Italy, not California, had the world’s first programmable transistorised computer. For a brief, incandescent moment, Europe had its own Silicon Valley in Piedmont. But the dream was fragile. Tchou died in a car accident in 1961, and Adriano Olivetti had passed away the year before. Without its visionaries, Olivetti faltered. The Americans came, the Japanese came, and Ivrea became a footnote. But DNA, as any biologist or investor will tell you, doesn’t disappear. It mutates. It re-emerges and Ivrea wasn’t a footnote at all because it gave rise to the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea (also known as Interaction Ivrea or IDII), which brought together the founders of Arduino… and the reason I’ve flown into Turin. From Typewriters to Tinkerers Fast forward six decades, and Italy’s technological pulse beats again. Not in the boardrooms of multinationals, but in the workshops and labs of a new kind of maker, the open-source engineer. And like Olivetti, this rebirth began not in a metropolis but in a small town with a big idea. In 2005, in Ivrea, yes, the same Ivrea, five academics at the Interaction Design Institute created Arduino. Named after a local bar, the project aimed to make electronics accessible to artists, designers, and anyone with curiosity and a soldering iron. It also makes for a cracking founders’ story. Arduino’s open-source microcontroller became the democratisation of hardware. Suddenly, creators didn’t need to work for Intel or Apple to build something smart. They could be a teenager in Naples, a teacher in Nairobi, or an engineer in Nagoya. If they had an idea and a USB cable, they could prototype the future. Arduino became the quiet backbone of the maker revolution, powering everything from drones to 3D printers to wearable tech. Its ethos was pure Olivetti: design for humans, technology for all. And last week, in the autumn of 2025, history looped back on itself. The Qualcomm Connection Qualcomm announced its acquisition of Arduino last week, in a move that surprised some but made perfect sense to anyone who’s followed both companies closely. The announcement was made to the press in the Museo Nazionale dell'Automobile, another stunning example of Italian design. Later that afternoon, the buoyant founders of Arduino invited their fans to watch a two-hour show of the company where much whooping ensued. When people love Arduino, they really love Arduino. For Qualcomm, the deal is about cementing dominance in the edge-computing and IoT markets. For Arduino, it’s the next evolutionary step, from a homespun and beloved open-source ecosystem to a scalable industrial force. But there’s a poetic resonance too. Once again, a company born in Ivrea finds itself at the crossroads of design and computation, of Europe and America, of idealism and industry. Qualcomm’s CEO, Cristiano Amon, was quick to praise Arduino’s ‘deep community roots and agile innovation culture’, but beneath the corporate phrasing lies something more symbolic. Arduino represents a continuity of European ingenuity that refuses to die, even when the capital, headlines, and hype migrate elsewhere. This acquisition, if handled wisely, could turn Arduino into the beating heart of Europe’s next industrial renaissance. Picture the combination: Qualcomm’s chip architecture and global reach married to Arduino’s ecosystem of millions of developers, educators and makers. Everybody wins. Europe’s Eternal Autumn Turin in autumn is a metaphor for Europe itself, mature, reflective, quietly confident. The leaves turn gold not because they’re dying, but because they’re transforming. Europe has long been accused of being the old continent, content to watch the technological revolutions happen elsewhere. But maybe, just maybe, that’s changing. The EU’s newfound assertiveness on AI regulation, digital sovereignty and semiconductor independence, backed by initiatives such as the Chips Act, suggests a Europe finally aware of its strengths. Italy, in particular, has a knack for reinvention. Its art, architecture and cuisine have evolved for centuries without losing their soul. Now, its technology seems poised to follow suit. From Olivetti’s typewriters to Arduino’s microcontrollers, the country’s influence has always been about elegance meeting engineering. As the world wrestles with the ethical and existential questions of AI, it’s worth remembering that innovation doesn’t just happen in code; it happens in culture. And culture is something Europe has in abundance. The Long View If Adriano Olivetti were alive today, he might smile at the symmetry. The machines have changed, no more typebars or ribbons, but the principles haven’t. Design still matters. Accessibility still matters. Human-centred technology still matters. Arduino’s story, culminating (or perhaps beginning anew) with Qualcomm, is proof that Europe’s technological past is not a museum piece but a living continuum. It’s not nostalgia; it’s lineage. Maybe it takes an American acquisition to remind Europe of its own potential. Or maybe this time, Europe will take the lesson and build something lasting again, something that doesn’t just compete with Silicon Valley but complements it, offering a different vision of what technology can be. As the mist rolls down from the Alps and the streets of Turin glow in the soft light of October and the Arduino fanboys and fangirls leave the Museo Nazionale dell'Automobile, it’s been a very good day. Because autumn, after all, isn’t the end of something, it’s the preparation for renewal. And in that sense, Europe’s best season may just be beginning. Maybe that’s what Ursula von der Leyen was really trying to say last week.

Last week, we tracked more than 65 tech funding deals worth over €1.1 billion, and over 15 exits, M&A transactions, rumours, and related news stories across Europe.Click to read the rest of the news.

London-based AI home care platform Gladys has raised £1.5 million in seed funding led by Cornerstone VC, with participation from Exceptional Ventures, Embryo Ventures, Ufi Ventures, Houghton Street Ventures, and Conduit EIS Impact Fund. Gladys connects families with local caregivers and helpers through a streamlined, AI-supported experience, enabling direct matching and coordination without traditional intermediaries. Co-founded by Georgina Robinson and Alex Sorisi, the company focuses on simplifying access to support, improving care quality, and solving the logistics needed to deliver home care at scale, reducing client costs and increasing carers’ earnings. The platform matches people seeking care with top local carers across the UK, offering high-quality support at fair prices, alongside industry-leading pay and career-development tools for carers. According to co-founder and CEO Georgina Robinson, Britain’s care system is fundamentally broken, and incremental fixes aren’t enough, with preventable deaths continuing as carers remain underpaid and undervalued. Gladys is using this investment to supercharge its technology and deliver the service we’d want for our loved ones. To date, Gladys has delivered care across a 20,000 km area and supported tens of thousands of hours of independent living. Its AI-powered agents simplify finding and managing community care and help carers earn up to 65 per cent more than typical agency rates. The new funding will support a national rollout, deployment of AI back-office agents, and investment in trusted local care communities, with the goal of delivering hundreds of thousands of hours of support by the end of 2026.

Resistant AI, a provider of native artificial intelligence models for financial crime and fraud prevention, has raised $25 million  Series B funding.  Resistant AI produces document fraud detection and transaction monitoring models that make fintech AI and automation systems resilient to manipulation and attack — without replacing their existing tech stack. Resistant Documents checks any document, from anywhere, for fraud and authenticity in seconds, while Resistant Transactions upgrades existing rules-based transaction monitoring systems with over 80 models targeting advanced fincrime typologies.  Its customers include Dun & Bradstreet, Payoneer, Close Brothers, AXA, PennyMac,  Bank of Valletta and Finom. Investors include DTCP, GV (formerly Google Ventures), Index  Ventures, Notion Capital, and more. The new funding comes as the anti-fraud and regtech market is being transformed by fully native or bolted-on agentic solutions that replace static workflows with cheaper, smarter adaptive ones.  However, these LLM-based agents are structurally unable to perform the quantitative risk analysis needed to combat fraud and finance crime, suffer from high systemic hallucination rates of 10-30 per cent, and have proven extremely difficult to keep secure from adversarial manipulation.   Resistant AI aims to protect and empower these AI agents and their overwhelmed fraud,  risk and compliance teams. Its machine learning models detect fraud in documents, transactions, and behaviours, and can leverage signals from the rest of the customer’s risk tech stack. This unique approach creates unparalleled uplifts in recall, precision, and contextual decision-making in detecting sophisticated financial crimes such as real-time payment (APP) fraud, synthetic corporate identity fraud, money muling, generative AI document fraud, and complex money laundering schemes.   Since its $27 million Series A, Resistant AI’s ARR has increased 10x, while its customer base has grown 4x, with over 150 million documents verified, and the number of transactions analysed for fraud and AML has grown 100x as demand for advanced fraud detection capabilities across the financial services sector soars.  Martin Rehak, CEO and Founder of Resistant AI, said, "The financial crime landscape has fundamentally changed with the deployment of LLMs and AI agents in risk prevention settings, and the weaponisation of generative AI by fraudsters.” “Our fraud and finance crime models offer any institution the tools to empower both their human and agentic co-pilots to combat these AI-powered threats at scale. This funding, combined with our near-term  path to profitability, allows us to accelerate our mission of protecting the global financial  system from increasingly sophisticated criminal networks."  DTCP led the round, with strong participation from existing investors including GV, and Notion Capital, who are doubling down on their investment.  Michael Rager, Partner at DTCP Growth, comments: "Resistant AI represents the future of financial crime prevention, with their in-house built multi-model approach to fraud detection marking a paradigm shift in how financial institutions can protect themselves and their customers. We look forward to partnering with Martin and the Resistant AI team to  support the business in its next stage of growth."  The company, which was breakeven in September, will use the capital to solidify its position as a profitable EU AI champion by expanding its document fraud detection and transaction.

Meta-Flux, a Dublin-based biotech startup, has raised €1.8M in Seed funding to expand its decision-support platform for preclinical drug development, bridging the gap between preclinical research and clinical application.  Acting as an “AI biologist,” the platform analyses complex biological, clinical, and experimental datasets to help scientists test hypotheses, identify promising therapeutic pathways, and make faster go/no-go decisions.  Specifically, Meta-Flux combines data from genes, proteins, and metabolic pathways, applying biological reasoning with AI to reveal how biological systems function as a whole.  By turning vast amounts of data into clear, actionable insights, Meta-Flux helps researchers reduce wasted effort, lower costs, and accelerate the development of new treatments. This systems-level view helps drug developers discover better treatments faster, avoid costly dead ends, and bring medicines to patients sooner. “Bringing a new drug to market is slow, expensive, and uncertain. Too often, promising drugs fail because researchers can’t clearly predict how they’ll behave,” said founder Lee Sherlock.   “A lot of drugs end up failing because they have the wrong application. Our goal isn’t just to get more drugs to market, but to make sure the ones that do actually help the right people. Once you have that drug and once you have the target, we help you figure out what application you should go after, what particular type of disease, what subtype of that disease, and what patients you’re going to be treating.” The round includes backing from senior executives at Pfizer, Merck, and Gilead Sciences, along with technology leaders from Google, Amazon, and Indeed. “In a market saturated with AI claims, Meta‑Flux stands out because it delivers actionable answers,” said Fernando Ferrer, a data engineering leader and investor in Meta-Flux. “Their platform gives scientists a way to cut through the noise and accelerate the path from development to decision.” A senior director in R&D at Gilead Sciences, also an investor in Meta-Flux, added: “Over the next 12 to 18 months, I expect AI to transform preclinical research, accelerate discovery, improve prediction accuracy, and reduce costs. The key for big pharma is identifying valuable AI partners in an increasingly crowded space, those who marry deep biological insight with advanced modelling to address focused, high-impact questions. Meta-Flux exemplifies this biology-first approach, zeroing in on niche scientific challenges that unlock outsized commercial value and turning AI’s promise into tangible breakthroughs.” Meta-Flux recently completed Techstars Chicago (powered by J.P. Morgan), MassBio DRIVE in Boston, and the NDRC Accelerator at Dogpatch Labs in Dublin, programs that connect emerging techbio companies with pharma mentors and investors. The company is now building out its team to support pharmaceutical collaborations across the EU and the United States. Lead image: Meta-Flux. Photo: uncredited. 

This week we tracked more than 65 tech funding deals worth over €1.1 billion, and over 15 exits, M&A transactions, rumours, and related news stories across Europe. In addition to this week's top financials, we've also indexed the most important/industry-related news items you need to know about. 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 ?? Hyped AI business automation startup n8n raises $180M, valuing it at $2.5BN ?? Biotechnology startup NanoPhoria received €83.5M in investment ??  FBI cyber threat adviser Filigran raises $58M ??‍?? Noteworthy acquisitions and mergers ?? Qualcomm acquires Arduino to supercharge the global maker movement ? SoftBank bets on “Physical AI” with $5.4B acquisition of ABB’s robotics division ?? Helsing acquires Australian manufacturer of underwater drones ?? Tax System acquires AI vendor Loctax ? Interesting moves from investors ? From community roots to AI ambitions: byFounders shapes the 'New Nordics’ next chapter ?? Deep Tech Momentum secures €1M to accelerate Europe’s sovereign tech ambitions ? 4Founders Capital successfully closes its third fund with €70 million, exceeding its initial target ?️ In other (important) news ?? Europe’s tech rebounds to €21B in Q3 2025 — but fewer deals signal a more selective market ?? The biggest European semiconductor deals in H1 2025 ? ChatGPT has more than 800 million weekly active users, says Altman ? Recommended reads and listens ?? Bologna Gathering showcases Italy’s rising innovation momentum ? LIfT BioSciences is engineering the body’s oldest defenders to fight cancer ♀️  Sylvia Health takes on a global women’s health crisis ♀️ Choice and SilMach unveil world’s first wireless micromotor-powered contraceptive implant ? European tech startups to watch ??  Ewake secures €2M to boost software reliability with AI agents ?? Datamonk raises €1.6M pre-seed to speed imaging data migrations with agentic AI ?? Austrian startup newsrooms raises €750K to transform AI-driven content creation ?? BiMA raises €500K for screen-free projector bringing mindful entertainment to children ?? Crasner Ventures backs British legaltech NuCAS

Over the past five years, several major micromobility operators have exited European markets or specific cities due to regulatory changes, financial pressures, or strategic pivots. Bird pulled out of Germany, Sweden, and Norway in October 2022. Spin, which Ford later sold to TIER, withdrew from Germany, Spain, and Portugal in early 2022. Superpedestrian, operator of the LINK brand, shut down globally in late 2023 and officially dissolved its European entity in July 2025. Paris banned shared e-scooters in September 2023, prompting Lime, Dott, and TIER to leave, resulting in the removal of 15,000 e-scooters; Madrid followed suit in October 2024, affecting the same operators; and in Brussels, Lime suspended operations in mid-2025 after a licensing ruling. But what happens to the fleets afterwards? It's a problem Max Schalow knows first-hand. In a fast-changing micromobility landscape shaped by regulation, market exits, and circular economy pressures, Max Schalow stands out as a young entrepreneur who has navigated nearly every part of the value chain — from launching shared mobility services and building legal vehicles, to creating secondary markets and exploring new geographies. From student to startup founder Schalow's mobility journey began in 2019 in the Netherlands, a time when e-scooters were banned from use on public roads. He recalled: "If you rode one, you could get a €400 fine. We wanted to introduce scooter sharing in the Netherlands, but to do this, we needed to obtain a legal scooter first. So then we had to become a manufacturer. After setting this up for a year, going through the developments and everything, we saw it was going to take a little bit longer than expected." Never one to sit idle, Schalow seized the chance to launch an e-bike sharing venture, co-founding Bondi with fellow student Chingiskhan Kazakhstan during their first year at the University of Applied Sciences of Arnhem and Nijmegen. Developed during their studies with €135,000 from the Gelderland Valoriseert program, Bondi introduced sustainable e-bike and e-scooter sharing in Dutch cities and grew to a 10-person team. Schalow modestly recounted: "It was an opportunity to build up a customer base, get the brand out there, learn how to do the operations and everything else. We ran that for two years and scaled that to eight cities." However, the duo decided to focus on manufacturing the e-scooter.  Selling off e-scooters was hard — so they built a marketplace But Schalow discovered it was not easy to sell their existing fleet of electric vehicles: "We just reached out to everyone. So first, the big companies — because we thought, okay, they probably want vehicles for a good price or like the ones that are close by. But in the end, we started reaching out to all these small operators who have fewer vehicles.Ultimately we went through a painful process of trying to find buyers. But a lot of operators don't know who to reach out to." Enter Fleetser, a curated marketplace for buying and selling (new and used) mobility fleets — primarily e-bikes, e-scooters, and other shared micro-mobility vehicles.  The platform positions itself as a more efficient, transparent way for mobility operators to offload or replenish inventory.  The team's experience operating in the shared mobility sector gives them domain credibility in matching buyers and sellers, and they have sold over 6,000+ vehicles to date," offering support such as payment, transport, and software to smooth the process.  It's a fairly simple process: you specify what you want to buy or sell via a form, they connect you to interested parties, and then you arrange pickup/shipment (which they can assist with Circular mobility meets market opportunity "We're literally getting new offers every day. We've got a lot of buyers, shared Schalow.  "We have a big mailing list, and sometimes we can sell them already within two days of the listing going up." The 2010's were abundant with stories of e-bike graveyards following the demise of operators and fleets.  The 2020s have brought greater awareness of circularity and recycling, but Schalow notes that many fleet companies still scrap unused vehicles for little to no return. "It's surprising how many operators have hundreds, if not thousands, of vehicles just standing around," Schalow says. "They don't have time to repair them, they lose their city license, or they run into cash-flow issues.Typical fleet sales range from 200 to 500 vehicles. Before Fleetser, owners would often offload their e-scooters and e-bikes for "peanuts." Schalow explains, "A lot of the time, we can actually sell them for a much higher price. A guy we just helped today had his fleet sitting around since winter. That's a real shame — and not good for the scooters either. If they're left idle too long, the batteries start to degrade." Fleetser's buyers fall into two main groups. The first are small operators looking to establish their own fleet affordably, since buying new vehicles is expensive. The second are mid-sized operators with 1,000 to 5,000 vehicles who need to expand for the summer season. Larger operators also purchase, but typically only specific models they already use and maintain. While Fleetser has sold fleets to the US and South America, there's definitely potential worldwide.  "I spoke to somebody recently in Japan — he has 40,000 vehicles. It could be done everywhere, really," shared Schalow. Legalising e-scooters in the Netherlands In July, the next evolution of Schalow's micromobility dream came true with the launch of e-scooter SELANA Alpha on July 1, 2025, which secured RDW approval and became the first fully legal e-scooter in the Netherlands. Priced at around €1,900, the Alpha is built for urban mobility with a 250 W motor, a top speed of 25 km/h, and a range of up to 60 km on a single charge. Key features include a mechanical drum and regenerative braking, LED lights with turn indicators, 10-inch pneumatic tyres, an NFC keycard unlocking system, and a digital IoT display. SELANA also offers a two-year limited warranty plus insurance and registration support, making road legality seamless. In the meantime, Fleetser has expanded its reach to South Africa, where the company is exhibiting at Smarter Mobility Africa. "We have already shipped vehicles to various countries in Africa and are getting more and more requests," said Max Schalow. While the African market differs significantly in terms of infrastructure and mobility needs, he sees "a big opportunity for bringing electric two-wheelers to more cities." Reflecting on their trip, he added, "It's been an interesting first day at the conference — and we saw some sleepy lions the day we arrived. Can recommend a visit to South Africa."

Santander has confirmed that Openbank, its digital banking platform, will soon enable cryptocurrency trading in Spain. The service, which is already available in Germany, will launch in the coming weeks and allow customers to invest in cryptoassets starting from just 1 euro. The initial rollout will support five digital assets: Bitcoin, Ether, Litecoin, Polygon and Cardano. Transactions will carry a 1.49 per cent fee, with a minimum charge of 1 euro, and there will be no custody fee. The service will operate under the European Union’s MiCA (Markets in Crypto-Assets) regulation, which came into full effect earlier this year. Speaking at Merge Madrid 2025, Coty de Monteverde, Group Vice President of Crypto and Blockchain at Banco Santander, said: “We have already launched crypto trading with Openbank in Germany, and in a few days or weeks, we will do the same in Spain.” De Monteverde described the approach as gradual: “We are entering gradually: we start with a few tokens and, once we learn, we will add new functionalities when regulation allows.” The integration of crypto into Openbank’s investment platform will enable users to manage both traditional and digital assets within a single, regulated banking environment. Santander aims to meet growing customer demand for secure and compliant access to crypto investments through a familiar financial institution. The announcement was made during a panel titled “Bank Strategies for Crypto in Spain and Latin America”, which included representatives from Börse Stuttgart Digital, Bancolombia’s Wenia, and Binance. The discussion highlighted the varying strategies banks are adopting under MiCA, from launching their own stablecoins to forming partnerships with established crypto platforms. The launch comes as European banks increasingly move to integrate digital assets into their core offerings, following the implementation of MiCA, which provides a unified regulatory framework for cryptoasset services across the EU.

Crasner Ventures has invested in newly launched NuCAS, a UK-based provider of alternative legal services founded by legal sector veterans Lucy Nixon and Richard Tapp. NuCAS aims to support law firms and in-house legal teams through its platform, offering a range of managed legal services that streamline day-to-day legal work. The company positions itself as an integrated partner rather than a traditional outsourcing or staffing provider. “Crasner Ventures will be able add significant value to NuCAS on multiple fronts given our unique experience and vast network within the legal industry,” said Nick Crasner, Founder of Crasner Ventures. “We see enormous potential for NuCAS to become a market leader in this rapidly expanding sector.” The global alternative legal services market is currently valued at $28.5 billion, with more than one-third of legal buyers planning to increase their spend on managed services. NuCAS has already secured its first major client, the corporate legal department of UK manufacturer Numatic International, known for its Henry vacuum range. Nixon and Tapp previously collaborated at Carillion Advice Services (CAS), one of the UK's early managed legal services providers. CAS was acquired by Clifford Chance in 2018, after which Nixon led the firm’s Northern Innovation Hub in Newcastle. Tapp, a former global general counsel at FTSE-listed companies, brings more than two decades of in-house legal leadership to the venture. “With Nick and Crasner Ventures’ backing, NuCAS has the opportunity to scale rapidly,” said Nixon, who will serve as Chief Executive. Crasner Ventures and NuCAS also emphasised a shared commitment to improving social mobility and inclusion in the legal profession. The company plans to offer experience and career opportunities to aspiring legal professionals from diverse and underrepresented backgrounds. NuCAS will operate as an independent legal services provider based in the UK, with a focus on high data protection standards and conflict-free operations.

As the UK grapples with pressure on its health systems, food supply chains, and digital service delivery, one global tech player is scaling up solutions that change the game. Building on UK foundations The UK has long been a proving ground for global innovation. With an advanced health sector, one of Europe’s most ambitious net-zero agendas, and a digital economy undergoing constant reinvention, demand is growing for technology solutions, including AI, that are practical, scalable and human-centred. This makes the UK an ideal location for TELUS’ ongoing global expansion. Headquartered in Canada, TELUS is a global communications technology company that operates in more than 45 countries and serves over 200 markets. Here, it has a 20-year track record of investment through TELUS Health, TELUS Agriculture & Consumer Goods, and TELUS Digital, employing hundreds of people nationwide. TELUS is also a global leader in social capitalism, its purpose-driven model of combining business growth with lasting community investment. Building systems that last TELUS focuses on sectors where complexity runs deepest, and where technology can deliver the greatest benefits to society: Health: Scalable employee assistance programmes (EAPs), mental health services and digital health platforms that help business leaders and organisations take care of their greatest asset - their people. Food systems: Agriculture, farm management and compliance software that help farmers and agri-businesses stay sustainable, compliant and efficient, from seed to shelf. Consumer goods: Trade Promotion Management and Retail Execution software that helps manufacturers plan, execute, and optimise trade promotions to boost performance, visibility, and profitability at the shelf. Digital life: AI-powered solutions that deliver transformational, human-centered experiences, while safeguarding every interaction and transaction. Each of these pillars is already in motion in the UK. TELUS’ agriculture technology is supporting compliance for British farmers navigating regulations. Its health platforms are helping UK companies provide 24/7 wellbeing resources to thousands of employees. And its digital services are delivering workflow automation for clients in retail and logistics across the country. Growth with purpose What sets TELUS apart is how it combines commercial growth with community investment, grounded in the belief that business success and social good reinforce one another. This month, TELUS launched its first Community Board in the UK, committing £1 million by 2027 to grassroots non-profit organisations supporting disadvantaged youth in Greater London. The board will be made up of London-based leaders from business, entertainment or arts, and non-profit sectors. Their task: to direct support to non-profits delivering programs that support health, food production, education, the environment, and digital inclusion for youth. The funding is expected to benefit thousands of young people through dozens of grassroots non-profits across Greater London. “The TELUS Community Board model is unlike anything I’ve seen in UK philanthropy,” said Johnny Hornby, Founder & CEO of T&P and member of WPP’s Executive Committee. “It brings decision-making closer to the ground, ensuring local organizations, often overlooked by traditional funding models, get the support they need to thrive.” The first round of grant recipients include organisations such as: Lady Garden Foundation - expanding gynaecological cancer awareness and education among young women across Greater London; Orange Bow - providing young men with peer support networks and digital resources to address mental health and promote social connection; and The Amos Bursary - equipping students from low-income backgrounds with digital and employment skills for academic and professional success. Other grant recipients announced at the Board’s first meeting include Action Breaks Silence, Barnet Youth Zone, CAYSH, Club Soda, Dreams Come True Charity, Enter Tech Opportunities CIC, Future Men, PALS West Berkshire, Since 9/11, Stripey Stork, Success Club CIO, The Great London Friendship Project, The National Youth Theatre, Tomorrow’s Warriors Trust, and Treloar Trust. The TELUS Greater London Community Board is the company’s 21st board worldwide, builds on a 20-year track record of community-led giving. Since 2000, TELUS and its team members have contributed over £1 billion and 2.4 million volunteer days globally. Its Community Boards have supported more than 11,000 programs, enriching the lives of over 35 million children and youth. To mark the launch, TELUS team members joined grant recipients and guests for a TELUS Day of Giving, a hands-on volunteer event reinforcing the company’s guiding philosophy to ‘give where we live and work’. Guided by this philosophy, TELUS has been recognized as the world’s most giving company by the Association of Fundraising Professionals, a testament to its unique philanthropic model. What to watch next From crop analytics and AI-powered solutions to human-centred employee wellbeing services, TELUS works with UK organisations that want more than a vendor. The company’s blend of digital transformation and social impact meets the expectations of partners who share the belief that doing business and doing good go hand-in-hand. With roots in London, operations across health, agriculture, consumer goods and digital services, and a community model supporting young people, TELUS is committed to building technology that delivers both business value and social impact for years to come. Learn more about TELUS Health in the UK | Explore TELUS Agriculture & Consumer Goods | Discover TELUS Digital | Find out more about the Greater London Community Board Photo by Getty

The Austrian company newsrooms has secured pre-seed financing of €750,000 for its AI-supported content creation platform.  Founded in 2024, the platform describes itself as an "AI text manufacturing company" and enables users to quickly generate different formats, such as articles, press releases, social media posts, and even entire books from texts, documents, or audio recordings without prompting.  Its AI-supported tool helps communication departments, agencies, and editorial offices with efficient content production, creating time for strategy, creativity, and in-depth research.  Compared to other AI solutions, newsrooms stands out especially through its high language quality – the tool allows precise, individual linguistic adaptation for each user – as well as data security – all data is processed exclusively in the EU. Using newsrooms works entirely without prompts. Users can upload texts, documents, audio or video files, or compose content directly within the tool, which is then automatically transformed into various formats such as blog articles, press releases, or social media posts. This allows a text to be adapted to all communication channels with just one click.  The company was initially founded within Hermann Futter's Compass Group, then transferred to the founding team's ownership after a successful initial phase.  Futter remains on board as an investor, while Hansi Hansmann, with his Hans(wo)men Group joins as a new investor.  newsrooms.acquired Austrian tech media platform Trending Topics in June this year. Erek Stoisser, CEO and co-founder of newsrooms, shared: "With newsrooms, we are not only striving for a simplification of work processes, but a sustainable transformation of content production and journalism. Due to the high response in Austria, we are already planning expansion into other European markets in the coming months." In addition to Stoisser, an experienced PR and advertising professional, the founding team includes CTO Matteo Rosoli, Head of AI Alexander Maitz, and, since the acquisition of the online media Trending Topics, its founders Jakob Steinschaden and Bastian Kellhofer. "With this team, we precisely combine the expertise that our target groups need daily with the technical know-how that translates these requirements into practical solutions," says CEO Erek Stoisser.  Hansi Hansmann shared:  "I find the vision of newsrooms fascinating. In the future, just one person can take over the content creation of an entire publishing house. I find the quality of their work particularly convincing.  When Hermann Futter first told me about newsrooms, I absolutely wanted to be part of this idea. The communications industry is experiencing the second major disruption after search and social media. With new tools like newsrooms, this crisis-tested industry can now work efficiently and generate profits." According to Hermann Futter. "When I saw the tool for the first time, I immediately recognised the impact it would have on communication departments and the media industry. AI must be seen as an opportunity to produce content more efficiently and synergistically."

Lithuanian cybersecurity startup CBRX has raised a €540,000 pre-seed round from Coinvest Capital and partners including Scalewolf, Plug and Play Tech Center, and Firstpick. Coinvest Capital invested €270,000, marking its 80th deal and adding CBRX as the 51st company in its portfolio. CBRX simplifies cybersecurity for businesses and IT providers. Its AI-driven cloud platform strengthens threat detection, streamlines incident response, and protects against evolving attacks while automating monitoring, analysis, and customer support. Designed for today’s risks and tomorrow’s, the platform also enables managed service providers (MSPs) to become managed security service providers (MSSPs) with minimal investment. Kazimieras Sadauskas, CEO of CBRX, said the goal is to help providers transition from MSP to MSSP quickly, without upfront costs, complex infrastructure, or large specialist teams, so they can begin serving clients immediately. CBRX will allocate most of the new capital to expansion and technology development. The company plans to deepen its presence in Europe by growing its sales and partner network in the DACH region (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) and the Nordics. It will also enhance its AI capabilities to further automate incident management and reduce human error. In parallel, CBRX will broaden the platform’s functionality so MSPs can deliver advanced cybersecurity services more efficiently. Team growth is planned as well, with priority hires in product development and AI.

Funding surges but deal volume shrinks, as big rounds in AI, telecom, and fintech drive Europe’s more selective, mature market.Click to read the rest of the news.

London-based software company Unaric has acquired US-based Salesforce independent software vendor (ISV) DESelect, marking its ninth deal in just two years. The transaction, which closed for an undisclosed eight-figure sum, strengthens Unaric’s position in the growing market for AI-driven tools built on the Salesforce platform. Founded in 2023, Unaric has pursued an aggressive acquisition strategy aimed at building a suite of AI-powered Salesforce applications. Its tools are designed to turn fragmented apps into integrated AI agents, helping Salesforce customers scale operations and improve performance across departments such as sales, marketing and payments. DESelect, which offers marketing optimisation tools for Salesforce Marketing Cloud, expands Unaric’s capabilities in data segmentation and audience engagement. The US company brings a strong enterprise customer base, including Motorpoint, Transport for London, Eroski and ShareNow, with sector reach across automotive, financial services, retail and the public sector. The acquisition comes as Salesforce continues repositioning itself from a customer relationship management (CRM) provider to what it calls a “digital labour platform,” driven by AI-enabled agents that operate across its cloud offerings. The shift is supported by Salesforce’s Agentforce strategy and a $6 billion UK investment pledge made earlier this year, positioning the country as its European AI hub. Unaric’s model feeds directly into that strategy by integrating and scaling previously disconnected applications. Unaric’s software consolidates and structures data from marketing, payments and telephony, with its existing Reports product already handling over 25 million calls, $2 billion in payments and 200 external data sources. DESelect will enhance this by making the data more actionable for marketers, particularly within Salesforce Marketing Cloud, which generates over $4.4 billion in annual revenue for Salesforce. Unaric’s founding team includes Peter Lindholm (formerly of OLX Autos), James Gasteen (ex-Precursive), Moritz Birke and Neil Crawford. The company has raised $35 million to date from investors including LocalGlobe, Concentric, FJ Labs and Atempo Growth, alongside angel investors such as OwnBackup’s Sam Gutmann and Hotjar’s Johan Malmberg.

In the first half of 2025, European semiconductor companies raised €1.4 billion across 30 deals, accounting for roughly 4 per cent of total capital and 1.5 per cent of deal activity within European tech, which reached €33.7 billion across 1,941 deals. Investment focused on scaling fabrication and power-semiconductor capacity, alongside emerging technologies in edge AI, photonic computing, and materials engineering. The ten largest rounds reflect this balance, combining substantial infrastructure financing with innovation to strengthen Europe’s semiconductor competitiveness and resilience. Amount raised in H1 2025: €1B NXP Semiconductors is a global technology company that develops embedded semiconductors and systems for automotive, industrial, IoT, and secure connectivity applications. Their offerings include microcontrollers, processors, wireless solutions, and secure hardware, all designed to enable intelligent, connected, and autonomous systems. Their innovations span domains such as software-defined vehicles, factory automation, edge computing, and security. In January, NXP Semiconductors secured a €1 billion EIB loan to support EU chip ecosystem development under the Chips Act and the Netherlands’ technology strategy, boosting Europe’s semiconductor competitiveness. Amount raised in H1 2025: €61.6M Axelera AI develops edge AI acceleration hardware and software. Their Metis AI Processing Units (AIPUs) and Voyager SDK enable efficient, programmable inference across use cases like robotics, industrial automation, smart cities, and healthcare. The company integrates both hardware and software to bring high-performance and energy-efficient AI capabilities closer to the edge. In March, Axelera AI secured €61.6 million to advance the launch of Titania in 2028, a high-efficiency, high-performance solution for data-intensive AI applications and future zetta-scale HPC centres at a competitive price. Amount raised in H1 2025: £25M Cambridge GaN Devices (CGD) is a fabless semiconductor company spun out of the University of Cambridge. The company develops energy-efficient GaN-based power ICs using its proprietary ICeGaN™ technology to drive greener electronics and performance gains. In February, Cambridge GaN Devices raised £25 million in Series C funding to accelerate its growth and advance efforts to reduce energy consumption across multiple industries. Amount raised in H1 2025: €27M Swave Photonics is a fabless semiconductor company that designs holographic chips using proprietary diffractive photonics techniques. It's work powers reality-first spatial computing for AR devices via its Holographic eXtended Reality (HXR) platform, which sculpts lightwaves into 3D holograms. In January, Swave Photonics closed a €27 million Series A round, bringing total funding to over €37 million to advance its 3D holographic display technology. Amount raised in H1 2025: $30M Salience Labs develops photonic switching solutions for AI data centres. Their silicon photonic switches aim to eliminate networking bottlenecks by enabling full optical connectivity between compute nodes, improving bandwidth, latency, and energy efficiency. Salience Labs raised $30 million in February to advance its optical switches for large-scale AI networking. Amount raised in H1 2025: €25M CamGraPhIC is a photonics company developing graphene-integrated optical interconnects and transceivers for telecom, datacom, and AI workloads. Its technology aims to deliver ultra-high bandwidth, low-latency, and energy-efficient data links by integrating graphene with silicon photonics, providing a scalable path for next-generation networks. CamGraPhIC raised €25 million in Series A in March, to expand R&D in Pisa, build its senior team, and begin scaling in Milan, optimising the technology for high-volume semiconductor foundry manufacturing. Amount raised in H1 2025: €20M iPRONICS is a company developing software-defined photonic networking solutions for AI data centres. The company builds lossless optical switches and programmable photonic engines under its iPRONICS ONE product line, aiming for low latency, high bandwidth, and rapid reconfiguration. In January, the company raised €20 million in a Series A round to accelerate the deployment of its iPRONICS ONE optical networking engine in AI data centres, supporting scalable, high-bandwidth, and energy-efficient communication with dynamic topology reconfiguration at the physical layer. Amount raised in H1 2025: €20M Vertical Compute is a deeptech semiconductor startup spun out of imec that is developing a vertically integrated memory-and-compute architecture to overcome AI’s “memory wall.” Its chiplet approach places vertical data columns directly above processing cores and leverages nano-magnetism, aiming to slash data movement, cut energy use, and boost throughput for large AI workloads. The company raised €20 million in January 2025 to develop next-generation AI systems that deliver greater performance and memory density than conventional DRAM. Amount raised in H1 2025: $22M IceMOS Technology is a semiconductor company specialising in thick-film SOI and SiSi wafers, advanced engineering substrates, and high-voltage Superjunction MOSFETs and MEMS solutions. IceMOS delivers custom silicon wafers (100 mm to 200 mm) and dielectric isolation technology using deep trench etching and bonded silicon processes. The company offers foundry services, high-resolution acoustic wafer inspection, and tailored substrate engineering for MEMS and IC applications. In April 2025, it raised $22 million in a Series E round to support the launch of its novel mSJMOS power semiconductor device technology and scale production and engineering capabilities. Amount raised in H1 2025: $15M AccelerComm is a company offering physical layer (PHY) solutions and accelerator IP cores for 5G and 6G, including hybrid satellite (NTN) networks. They provide configurable, standards-compatible IP cores for CPUs, SoCs, ASICs, and space-qualified silicon, along with reference systems and consulting. Their solutions aim for high performance, low power, and flexibility across hardware platforms. In June, AccelerComm secured $15 million in funding to advance its 5G satellite network solutions to accelerate the rollout of universal mobile connectivity through space-based infrastructure.

Munich-based BiMA, a mindful entertainment platform for children, raised €500,000 in a pre-seed funding round. Backers include Antler and angels from Oetinger Publishing Group (Julia Bielenberg, Thilo Schmid, Christian Graef), along with Andreas Peters (ex-Disney), Felix van de Sande (Kickbase/COBE), and Silvia Sommer (ex-Birkenstock/Roland Berger). BiMA is building a platform for mindful entertainment and creativity for children. Its first product is a child-friendly, screen-free projector that turns bedrooms into immersive, story-driven environments. Designed to inspire imagination and foster family connection, BiMA operates in a rapidly growing space that blends edutainment, well-being, and consumer technology. The market is sizable. In Germany, about 3.5 million households with children aged 0–5 represent an opportunity of over €730 million. Across Europe, this expands to 17 million households and a €3.7 billion addressable market. Globally, more than 420 million households imply a market exceeding €88 billion. Founded in 2024 by Larissa Ruf (CEO) and Greta Garkisch (CTO), BiMA’s team combines expertise in education, consumer science, and deeptech. Larissa Ruf explains the idea behind the company: Most toys are designed to keep kids busy, and that’s perfectly fine. But we wanted to create something different: a product that brings families together at the most meaningful time of day. With BiMA, evenings become magical moments of connection and imagination. The funding will support BiMA’s market launch, covering its first production run, marketing efforts, team growth, and content development.

N8n, the Berlin-based hyped AI startup which helps businesses automate tasks, has confirmed that it has raised $180m, valuing it at $2.5bn. Leading the Series C funding round was US VC firm Accel, with VC investors Meritech, Redpoint, Matt Miller's Evantic and Visionaries Club also taking part. T Capital, Deutsche Telekom's corporate venture capital arm, and Nvidia’s VC arm, NVentures, also took part, with previous backers including Sequoia, HV Capital, Highland Europe, and Felicis Ventures making follow-on investments as well. The funding round has been much talked about in the media over the summer, an indicator of the buzz surrounding n8n. N8n has now raised $240m in total since it was founded in 2019, having raised $60m in March this year. N8n calls itself an “AI orchestration platform”. Its tech allows businesses to connect hundreds of different apps and services and automate many business tasks, including integrating large language models, as well as leveraging AI agents to simplify business tasks. Jan Oberhauser, CEO and founder of n8n, said: "Billions have been poured into AI tools by businesses and governments, but many organisations are struggling to see meaningful results. "The fundamental challenge for the largest organisations isn't accessing AI, it's orchestrating it effectively. N8n allows teams to build their own adaptable infrastructure for AI, developing truly flexible, customisable systems that recreate how organisations work." The funds, says n8n, will be used to meet “huge demand” from enterprises for its services. Specifically, it will use the funding to expand its engineering offering, continue development of new features, and grow the team to support international expansion. N8n now has over 3,000 enterprise clients, including Vodafone, Softbank and Seat. The startup says it has grown revenues 10-fold in the past year, but did not disclose a revenue figure. It is supported by more than 700,000 active developers and builders who help to build integrations, develop content, including templates and 'how to' guides. Ben Fletcher, partner at Accel, said: "Jan and the n8n team balance power and simplicity to bring AI automation to all users. n8n’s platform has become the brain behind the orchestration for numerous workflows within enterprises, government organisations, and AI builders. "The explosive customer momentum is coupled with an impressive, vibrant community around n8n. We’re thrilled to be joining the n8n team on their journey, turning the promise of AI into a reality!”

Conceptive provider Choice today announced a partnership with French deeptech SilMach to provide a new form of contraception for women.  The hormone-free approach is powered by a new microvalve that opens and closes the fallopian tubes to achieve contraception. It aims to provide greater reliability and addresses ongoing concerns about the impact of contraceptive pills & IUD’s on long-term well-being.  I spoke to Peter van de Graaf, CEO of Choice and Pierre-François Louvigné, SilMach’s CEO, to learn more.  Based in Eindhoven, Choice was founded in 2018 to develop a superior contraception alternative to current methods, which have not fundamentally changed in 60 years. This is necessary as worldwide 40 per cent of pregnancies are still unintended. Rethinking fertility: 'What if you could just switch it off?' While thinking about how to address this, something else became clear to van de Graaf; women were increasingly fed up with hormones.  “There was growing pushback against the available options. I started to imagine a different approach — what if you could simply be infertile until you want to be fertile? Essentially, close off your reproductive system when you’re not intending to use it.” Targeting the fallopian tubes — nature’s control point After many conversations with gynaecologists and scientists, Choice determined that the fallopian tubes are the optimal place to intervene.  “You can’t close off the cervix because fluids need to pass, but the fallopian tubes are a natural point of control. The basic idea was to make a removable obstruction in the most suitable place in the reproductive system.  So we set out to develop a wirelessly controlled valve that could be implanted once, like an IUD, and left in place permanently,” he shared. However, the fallopian tubes are extremely small — about 1.6 mm in diameter, roughly the size of an uncooked rice grain. That raised the key question: how do you find or build a motor small enough to fit and operate there?  According to van de Graaf, the answer came from a watchmaker friend: “I asked him if he knew anyone who could make very small motors, and he mentioned he’d read about SilMach. That’s how I reached out to them.” Meet SilMach: the MEMS pioneer powering aerospace, defence… and now contraception SilMach (Silicium Machinery) is a company I’ve had on my radar for some time. It was founded in 2003 in Besançon around a strong conviction: to bring to life the first hybrid MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems) micromachines.  SilMach designs, develops, manufactures, and integrates high-performance MEMS microsystems, including micromotors for mobile and connected systems or energy-free micromechanical sensors. According to Louvigné: “ Innovation is our DNA — all we do is imagine and develop the technologies of the future. We developed a new type of micromotor for the watch industry, which is already being used in commercial watches. There’s nothing else comparable to it.” Having won a number of innovation contests and awards, SilMach's patented PowerMEMS and ChronoMEMS solutions and technologies have endless application fields for high-stakes industrial markets such as aerospace, defence, transportation, medical, and of course, watchmaking.  SilMach has been contracted by France’s Defence Procurement Agency to integrate its ChronoMEMS sensors into ballistic plates used in soldiers’ body armour. The goal is to improve soldier safety by enabling real-time integrity checks of armour, reduce maintenance costs, and ensure traceability of protective gear in the field. The company was awarded a “Best Of Innovation” award, the highest distinction of the CES Innovation Awards in the “Embedded Technologies” category in 2024. “One of the most challenging implant technology projects ever attempted” Louvigné shared that “when Peter approached us, we saw the project as one of the most challenging implant technology projects ever attempted." "Initially, we thought the motor might be too small to move the valve. But after calculations and simulations, we realised it was technically feasible.  We redesigned the micromotor to fit inside a rice-grain-sized implant and proved it could activate the valve wirelessly. We then moved from lab simulations to prototyping, and today we’ve demonstrated the full integration of the micromotor with Peter’s valve. It’s still ongoing, but the technical foundation is there.” Louvigné admits that powering the device was one of the biggest engineering hurdles.  “Getting wireless energy 10 to 20 centimeters deep into the body is really hard. A pacemaker is just under the skin, but our implant sits much deeper, with an extremely small antenna. Long waves travel through the body better, but our short antenna means short waves — the worst scenario. We worked closely with TU Eindhoven, formerly the Philips University, and one of Europe’s best wireless professors. We also collaborated with some incredibly talented female students, who were very inspired by the project. “ Together, they found a way to deliver power deep into the body despite the constraints. Following three years of development, SilMach successfully developed a custom micromotor in line with Choice’s specifications, reliably opening and closing the valve.  Measuring 10 x 1 x 0.1mm, the micromotor is integrated into a chip and works on electrostatic actuation, wherein positive and negative voltages are applied on microscopic, comb-like structures. The resulting attraction or repulsion moves a mechanical gear that operates the valve.  The available energy is converted into movement in very small steps with almost no heat generation (video). The small increments also mean the energy requested can be delivered in small packages, ensuring precise performance and extending the longevity of the implant. The prototype antenna is wrapped around the implant, which is the size of a rice kernel. Power transmission is slow but reliable.  And that’s fine, shared van de Graaf— this isn’t something you use daily.  “If you want, say, two children in your life, you’ll activate it four times total — to switch from infertile to fertile and back again” Comfort, control, and reversibility Choice provides a reliable and reversible form of contraception, which is hormone-free, pain-free and requires minimal ongoing care unlike copper IUDs, which are painful to insert and cause heavier periods, or hormonal implants, which fail to rest in the place they were initially inserted. It reduces the risks associated with exposure to hormones and provides a valuable option for women having suffered from, or in remission from hormone-dependent cancers (such as breast cancers), who can no longer use traditional contraception. Switching fertility on or off becomes a 30-minute clinic visit In terms of utility, van de Graaf predicts that the external transmitter will be located in a medical clinic, not at home.  “The antenna is large and expensive, and since you only use it a handful of times in your life, you’d probably lose it between uses anyway.” The process would be: you visit the clinic, place the external antenna on your abdomen, and wait about 30 minutes while the valves turn.  “Because the SilMach motor is extremely energy-efficient — converting almost all electrical energy into mechanical energy — we can power it slowly, one step at a time. We tested this with women, and they were comfortable with the idea. This is a significant, meaningful moment in their lives — deciding to become fertile or infertile — so waiting half an hour is acceptable.” Why do women have to bear the responsibility for birth control? According to van de Graaf, there are social and biological reasons. Socially, women are the ones who bear the consequences of unwanted pregnancies.  “Even when women say they want men to take responsibility, research shows they don’t trust men with contraception outside of long-term, stable relationships. In many cases, women simply want the power in their own hands.” Further, biologically, male contraception is vastly more complex. An 18-year-old male produces 100 million sperm a day, compared to one egg per month — a three-billion-fold difference.  In addition, studies in men, such as the Chinese Gossypol trials, tried to develop male contraception, found that after five years of sterilisation, around 50 per cent of men become permanently infertile due to immune system changes.   “So from both angles, focusing on women makes the most sense.” Choice is originally targeting developed markets. The implant will cost around $2,500. Over a woman’s lifetime, this system can compete with or even undercut the total cost of other contraceptive methods. Countering conservative backlash with open-source resilience I wondered about the impact of health initiatives such as Choice, given the conservative push back in countries like the US where radical pro-life groups — and the Republicans — are already trying to reduce (or even in the future ban all contraception, calling the pill and IUD “abortive.”  despite broad opposition from the American public.  The US government also confirmed plans to destroy millions of dollars' worth of taxpayer-funded contraceptives meant for women in low-income countries. “We’re very aware of these issues,” stressed van de Graaf. “Especially as in some autocratic societies, a technology like this could theoretically be misused to control fertility. “Our solution is to make the external antenna design open source. Anyone with basic electronics knowledge and a soldering iron could build it. This ensures the technology remains under women’s control, not governments’.” The device is funded primarily through angel investors. A few months ago, Choice launched a crowdfunding campaign,  Supported by an EU Eurostars Innovation Subsidy worth €450 000 over 2022-2025, the first phase of clinical testing will commence Q4 2026, for a projected launch around 2032. van de Graaf shared: “If we don’t get everything perfect in the first generation, that’s okay. I compare it to the Wright brothers — we just need to get this damn kite off the ground. If we succeed, it will be revolutionary for the contraceptive world, and future generations of the product will become cheaper and more widespread.”

In a region famed for its collaborative spirit and global tech champions, byFounders has emerged as one of the most influential early-stage venture capital funds in the Nordics and Baltics.  Headquartered in Copenhagen, the firm backs globally ambitious startups at the pre-seed and seed stages, with initial tickets typically ranging from €500,000 to €4 million and the capacity to follow on in later rounds. Founded by experienced entrepreneurs, byFounders is built on a “founder-first” ethos, supported by a collective of more than 40 seasoned founders and operators who actively help portfolio companies scale across Europe and beyond.  The firm has invested in notable startups such as Lovable, Monta, Corti, Peergrade (acquired by Multiverse), and Omnio. “We started almost like a grassroots movement by unicorn founders and operators,” recounts Sara Rywe, Managing Partner at byFounders Community is often overlooked when founders are raising capital, but when they’re moving to New York with their families or launching internationally, the community becomes crucial. She contends: “In the Nordics, we’re exceptional at helping each other — even competitors. Investors here are friends and share deal flow.  In the US, top funds rarely talk because they want to protect stealth deals. The Nordic community spirit is a real advantage.” Rywe’s journey shows there’s no one path to VC Rywe, originally from Sweden, fell in love with entrepreneurship very young. It all began when I was 17 and started a dance school for young kids with low self-esteem. “That was the moment I realised you can have a job that’s your passion — where you decide what to do and how to do it." Rye comes from a simple background, with no family entrepreneurship or academic tradition. She previously worked in food services and retail.   “I was the first in my family to get a university degree. That opened up my eyes and set me on some adventures.” She worked for tech startup Fandom in New York and another called MyCube in Singapore. She also started a network for young entrepreneurs in Sweden. Then she won a spot to study at the Stockholm School of Economics through an entrepreneurship award, where the prize was a place at the school.  After three gap years, she went to university, gaining a Bachelor in Business & Economics from Stockholm School of Economics, an MBA from INSEAD and Wharton Business School, and spent two years as a Kauffman Fellow. Following a stint in consulting, she joined byFounders six years ago. At that time, the fund was still a startup — only a year and a half into its first fund. She got the chance to help build the fund almost from scratch. When it raised its second fund four years ago, she became a partner. She recently closed the first round of the third fund, where she serves as one of the GPs. The firm makes approximately 8-15 investments annually The “New Nordics” outperform Europe’s big three — and byFounders knows it Rywe admits that people always ask why the firm isn't broadening its geographic scope now that it's raising its third fund.  “Since day one, we’ve focused on what we call the “New Nordics” — the Nordics and Baltics. We coined the term internally, and now it’s widely used in the industry.” Rywe contends, “there’s still so much alpha to gain in this region. If you look at the stats — most unicorns per capita in Europe, highest graduation rates from Series A to exit, and the lowest capital required to reach unicorn status — the New Nordics outperform the UK, France, and Germany.” There are many reasons for this. One is the early huge successes — not just unicorns, but $40 billion+ outcomes like Spotify and Klarna that created momentum and reinforced talent and ambition. Then there’s culture.  “Lazy Nordic founders”? A new generation is proving otherwise Rywe praised the Nordics' “incredible safety net.” She admits that it can make people too comfortable, but it also allows those who want to build big things to take huge risks because they know they’ll be caught if they fall. "The level of risk-taking possible is extremely high compared to the rest of the world.” Further, the small populations of countries like Sweden and Denmark also mean that founders have to think globally from day one, which benefits the ecosystem. According to Rywe, Nordic founders are known for being intellectually sharp — “our educational institutions are excellent. But there’s still a perception, often true, that we’re not hardworking enough. Americans have the 'work until you drop' culture." "In the Nordics, we have 18 months of parental leave and six weeks of vacation. That’s fantastic for society, but for the 0.1 per cent building the next unicorns, they need to fight against the “lazy Nordic founder” stereotype. We’re seeing a new generation of founders who are passionate and willing to match the intensity of American companies. Anton from Lovable is a great example — they worked from our office, and you could show up any time and they’d be there. This new generation knows the trade-offs but wants to compete at that level.” Europe needs bold bets, not safe plays Rywe asserts that byFounders likes to take “as much risk as possible — which is counterintuitive in most investment areas. But only really risky decisions have the potential for great upside.” She contends that “we don’t “spray and pray,” because in Europe we don’t have trillion-dollar companies and few decacorns.” “To deliver top returns, we need proper ownership. We can’t rely on massive exits to make up for tiny stakes. So we aim to own 10–20 per cent of companies at exit and work closely with founders to deserve that stake.” byFounders invests in about 35 companies per fund.  “Some people think they’re smart enough to do pre-seed with 10 companies, but I don’t. You need enough shots on goal to hit the one that makes all the difference,” shared Rywe.  The new Nordics’ next act: becoming Europe’s AI engine According to Rywe, up until two years ago, the region’s strengths were consistent — Denmark produced strong climate companies, Sweden and Denmark were strong in health tech, Sweden excelled in consumer, and enterprise tech was big thanks to large enterprise customers. But in the last two years, AI has changed everything with the birth of globally competitive players building fundamental layers of the AI stack. “We now have some of the best AI companies globally, both at the application layer and under the hood,” asserts Rywe. “Infrastructure-wise, companies like DataCrunch are building GPU clusters in the Nordics using cold climates and renewable energy." In risk and governance, many companies are working on AI sovereignty in Europe.  And there are even companies building LLMs, like Corti, which has trained on healthcare data for eight years and is outcompeting others in that vertical.” Rywe shared that as a board member at Corti, she sees huge healthcare institutions that want to use AI but are reluctant to rely on American players training on random data sets.  “European institutions are keen to work with local, trusted solutions.” Rywe is optimising for the future, admitting “this is the most exciting vintage of my adult life.” “I’m only 35, but since the internet boom, nothing compares. The technology is exciting, and people are solving real-world problems. There are so many untapped aspects of AI.”

Swedish-Swiss company ABB today announced it has signed an agreement to divest its Robotics division to SoftBank Group for an enterprise value of $5.375 billion and not pursue its earlier intention to spin-off the business as a separately listed company.  ABB is a global technology leader in electrification and automation, enabling a more sustainable and resource-efficient future. By connecting its engineering and digitalisation expertise, ABB helps industries run at high performance, while becoming more efficient, productive and sustainable so they outperform.  The company has over 140 years of history and around 110,000 employees worldwide.  According to Peter Voser, Chairman of ABB, SoftBank’s offer has been carefully evaluated by the Board and Executive Committee and compared with its original intention for a spin-off.  “It reflects the long-term strengths of the division, and the divestment will create immediate value to ABB shareholders.  ABB will use the proceeds from the transaction in line with its well-established capital allocation principles. Our ambitions for ABB are unchanged and we will continue to focus on our long-term strategy, building on our leading positions in electrification and automation.” ABB CEO Morten Wierod added:  “SoftBank will be an excellent new home for the business and its employees. ABB Robotics will benefit from the combination of its leading technology and deep industry expertise with SoftBank’s state-of-the-art capabilities in AI, robotics and next-generation computing. This will allow the business to strengthen and expand its position as a technology leader in its field.” ABB Robotics has long been one of Europe’s strongest players in industrial and collaborative robotics. By divesting the division to SoftBank rather than spinning it off as a separate listed European entity, ABB is effectively ceding one of Europe’s few global-scale robotics assets to a non-European owner. Masayoshi Son, Chairman and CEO of SoftBank Group, said: “SoftBank’s next frontier is Physical AI. Together with ABB Robotics, we will unite world-class technology and talent under our shared vision to fuse Artificial Super Intelligence and robotics —driving a groundbreaking evolution that will propel humanity forward.” As a result of the agreement signing, ABB will adjust its reporting structure to three business areas.  As of the fourth quarter 2025, the Robotics division will be reported as Discontinued operations. At the same time, the Machine Automation division, which together with ABB Robotics currently forms the Robotics & Discrete Automation business area, will become a part of the Process Automation business area.  Upon closing, the divestment will result in a non-operational pre-tax book gain of approximately $2.4 billion with expected cash proceeds, net of transaction costs, of approximately $5.3 billion.  The ABB Robotics division has a workforce of approximately 7,000. With 2024 revenues of $2.3 billion, it represented about 7 per cent of ABB Group revenues and had an Operational EBITA margin of 12.1 per cent. The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals and further customary closing conditions and is expected to close in mid-to-late 2026.