Italian startup Liablix, an AI-powered platform that automates motor-claims analysis, has raised a €1.2 million pre-seed round led by DFF Ventures, with participation from FJ Labs, Plug and Play, and a select group of angel investors. Liability is a key financial driver in insurance workflows, and fraud can significantly distort outcomes, with estimated losses ranging between $6.8 and $9.3 billion. Automating fraud detection at scale is therefore critical for reducing these losses and improving insurers’ financial performance. Liablix addresses this challenge by converting photos of damaged vehicles and incident data into an objective 3D reconstruction that clarifies accident dynamics and liability. Traditional liability assessment is often vulnerable to human error and subjective judgment. Liablix instead delivers automated, evidence-based evaluations, verifying whether vehicle damage is compatible with the reported accident and whether declared bodily injuries are consistent with the reconstructed dynamics. This accelerates decision-making and helps prevent financial losses linked to inaccurate or inconsistent payouts. The platform is built to tackle the day-to-day bottlenecks of claims handling. By combining advanced AI, 3D reconstruction technologies, and physics-based simulation, it provides a system focused on transparency and objectivity, with reports that are legally admissible and suitable for use in court. Our goal is to innovate a highly specialised market by applying advanced physics and building software that is exceptionally difficult to replicate. Demand signals are clear, but the technological complexity required to solve this problem has historically been extremely high, said CTO and co-founder Davide Moricoli. The new funding will support Liablix’s international expansion, with a focus on major global insurance groups, particularly those facing substantial fraud-related losses and still operating with slow, manual, and under-digitalised processes.

Ghent-based Donna, a proactive AI assistant for field sales teams, has raised $4.8 million in new funding to accelerate international expansion and cement its position in field sales enablement. The round is led by Frontline Ventures, with participation from existing investors and a group of seasoned angel investors. Field sales teams across industries have long been underserved. Although these professionals spend most of their time on the road, most sales tools are designed for desk-based users. Mobile apps are often difficult to use, CRM adoption is low, and important context is frequently lost between meetings. Donna aims to address this gap by turning commute time, customer visits, and other on-the-go moments into productive selling time. The assistant provides timely prompts, prepares reps with relevant information before each meeting, and manages sales administration end-to-end by automatically capturing interactions. As a result, customers report up to 75 per cent less admin, higher CRM adoption and data quality, and up to 20 per cent higher close rates. Donna has evolved from a voice-to-CRM tool into a multimodal, always-on AI assistant that anticipates the needs of field sales teams, understands their business context, and automates routine tasks such as meeting notes and follow-up emails in real time. By building a comprehensive “system of context” around each salesperson, Donna is designed to help them work more efficiently and consistently. Donna’s co-CEO and co-founder, Nicolas Christiaen, noted that field sales teams have long been overlooked: They’re under pressure to do more with fewer resources, yet the tools designed for them have barely evolved. Donna changes that. She briefs you before every meeting, captures every detail during, and handles the admin after so field sales teams can focus entirely on their customers. Since its launch in 2023, Donna has been adopted by field sales teams at companies such as ABB, Atlas Copco, Luminus, and Liantis, and has established partnerships with Deloitte, PwC, and Orion Global Solutions. The platform offers deep integrations with major CRM and enterprise systems, including Salesforce, SAP, Microsoft Dynamics 365, and HubSpot. The new funding will be used to further develop Donna’s product and expand go-to-market operations across Europe and the United States.

 UK-based materials innovation startup Mater-AI has raised £1.5 million.  Over 70 per cent of global energy, worth over $152 billion annually, is lost as waste heat, from data centres to heavy industry. Yet the last major breakthrough in thermoelectric materials happened in the 1950s with bismuth telluride, the semiconductor used in everyday technologies like heated car seats and portable coolers. Mater-AI has developed a new platform for the discovery of more efficient thermoelectric materials that can turn heat into electricity or provide cooling without refrigerants. It combines AI and physics-based modelling to accelerate design from decades to weeks – up to 438× faster than traditional R&D – optimising for properties like thermal and electrical conductivity to achieve higher efficiency, lower cost and scalability.  Founded by Dr Nickel Blankevoort (CEO), Gatleen Bhambra (COO) and Chelsea Williams (CTO), Mater-AI builds on research conducted by Dr Blankevoort at the University of Warwick in theoretical modelling of quantum nanoelectronics and thermoelectrics.   During his PhD, he discovered three new material structures in a year through traditional methods. Mater-AI's platform now generates and evaluates 100 structures every hour. I spoke to Bhambra and discovered the genesis of Mater-AI, how the startup was able to carve out a niche, and significantly achieved repeat funding at an extraordinarily rapid pace in their startup journey.  From Gen AI to material science Bhambra was previously working at a generative AI company called Kira, building LLM-based technologies for the legal sector. It was just after ChatGPT came out, and she knew AI would fundamentally reshape everything.  “I’d always wanted to build a company, but I didn’t come from a background where entrepreneurship felt obvious. You don’t know where to start — it just feels like an abyss,” she admits. Bhambra  turned to the Y Combinator matching platform — which she describes as “basically like dating for founders.” After a year of conversations, she met Chelsea, now Mater-AI’s CTO, who holds a PhD in machine learning and quantum computing. Their skills aligned: Bhambra brought product, commercial, and operational experience, while Chelsea had deep technical expertise. The pair went through Conception X’s Deep Tech Accelerator and the Barclays Product Builder Accelerator, exploring what kind of meaningful, commercially viable, defensible problem they could tackle. Bhambra admits that materials science wasn’t initially on their radar. “One of our Conception X mentors asked if we’d thought about material science — essentially applying the principles of AI-driven drug discovery to materials discovery. They called it ‘the unsexy side of drug discovery.’ But we immediately saw the need.” Recognising their own limits, they again turned to YC’s platform in search of a domain expert. That’s where Chelsea met Nick — now Mater-AI’s CEO and third co-founder — who holds a PhD in computational materials science with a focus on quantum electronics and thermoelectrics. “After one call, Chelsea told me, ‘You have to meet him — this is our idea.’” And with that, Bhambra says, the founding team clicked into place. “And that was it. We’d found the founding team.” What thermoelectric materials actually do I asked Bhambra to explain the functionality of thermoelectrics for readers unfamiliar with the field.  She shared:  “Thermoelectrics convert heat into electricity and vice versa. They’re plug-and-play devices with no moving parts — extremely durable and maintenance-free. For example, A 40mm x 40mm thermoelectric module under a heated car seat can either cool the seat or generate electricity from heat.” But the real opportunity lies in industrial and energy systems where enormous amounts of heat are currently wasted. Thermoelectric devices can be deployed to recover that energy, extend component lifetimes, or provide precise thermal control — all without moving parts or complex maintenance. Today, applications span a wide range of sectors: Data centres: cooling GPUs, CPUs, and servers; reducing heat-related throttling. IoT and remote sensors: replacing batteries when only ~1 watt of output is needed. Automotive and defence: powering remote sensors, managing heated seats, extending battery life. Energy and heavy industry: improving efficiency across grids, transformers, EV batteries, and industrial machinery. Turning wasted heat into usable energy is no longer optional — it’s increasingly essential. “Make heat useful again” Because thermoelectric modules scale easily — from tiny chips to surface-level arrays — they offer a flexible pathway to energy recovery and thermal management across both consumer electronics and large-scale infrastructure. The company is initially targeting thermoelectric generators for defence, automotive and industrial IoT applications, where improved performance could unlock £3.4 to 4.6 billion in new market value.  The technology could enable silent, solid-state power sources for next-generation defence systems, extend battery lifetimes, and enable self-powered industrial sensors for continuous monitoring of machinery and remote infrastructure. Bhambra shared:  “Our mission is simple: make heat useful again. We want to build a world where every car, data centre, battery, and industrial system reuses its own heat — turning waste energy into recovered energy. Imagine data centres generating their own power from waste heat, electric vehicles that travel further by recapturing their thermal energy, and infrastructure that never needs batteries. Our platform finds new materials in weeks instead of years, bringing us closer to a world with a fundamentally different energy architecture – where everything powers itself.”  This provides a significant competitive opportunity for the startup. Mater-AI’s modular discovery engine gives it an edge  A lot is happening in AI-materials discovery, but according to Bhambra, very few companies focus on novel thermoelectric materials specifically. Instead, big players are tackling huge categories — silicon, carbon capture — which requires hundreds of millions and massive teams. Conversely, smaller companies are focused narrowly on things like magnets. “Our advantage is that our engine is modular: we focus on thermoelectrics today, but the architecture can be adapted for future material classes." Secondly, Bhambra asserts that because today’s thermoelectric materials are so inefficient, “if we can double efficiency, we essentially halve the price of energy recovery. Incumbents won’t be able to compete unless they come to us.” Why investors backed Mater-AI before the tech existed Mater-AI is unique in that it raised £1.5 million very early. Bhambra attributes its success to Conception X, a UK-based not-for-profit that runs the largest cross-university deeptech venture programme for PhD students across Europe.  Check out our earlier interview with Conception X’s CEO, Riam Kanso. Bhambra asserts that Conception X helped the team realise that this could genuinely be a company: “We shaped the pitch, understood the opportunity, and raised our first £100k from TTX Ventures. They also joined our main round.” The team pitched very early with an idea and a deck, not traction, but the Venture firm understood the problem. “They operate one of Europe’s largest GPU clusters,” explained  Bhambra. “They told us, If you can save even 1 per cent of wasted energy, that’s huge.” Data centres lose around 9 per cent of their energy as waste heat. The economic impact is enormous. That early conviction allowed us to build the tech we have today. Without that £100k, we genuinely wouldn’t be here.’ That said, Bhambra admits that, for its Pre-Seed round, validation mattered far more than it did in our first £100k. “Investors wanted evidence. We built faster than anyone expected. We thought it would take two years to build the discovery engine. We did it in six months with a team of four, after hiring our founding AI scientist, Dr Jack Broad. During due diligence, one of the toughest reviewers was Dr. Edward Grant (co-founded Rahko, acquired by Odyssey Therapeutics). He tried every way to rigorously stress-test the models: hallucination tests, edge cases, and ways to force errors. Mater-AI exceeded expectations, and he later joined as its AI advisor. “We also spoke directly to global leaders in energy, power electronics, and data centres — and they told us what they’d pay for and what pilot numbers would look like. That industry pull made a big difference,” shared Bhambra. The underrated power of non/less-technical founders in deeptech My experience as a journalist is that the best teams are a combination of highly technical folks and communicators. A lot of startups assume that the media prioritises the technical CEO, but plenty of people have a lot to say, from those close to the customers to communicators. After all,  you can have the best PhD-level innovation in the world, but if you can’t articulate why it matters, it won’t get funded. Bhambra has a product design background, so she’s used to working with engineers but admits, "I’m not technical — I can’t code. Honestly, that’s been an asset." Instead, she asserts that every deep tech company needs a translator — someone who can turn complex science into clarity for customers, journalists, partners, and investors. “I manage all stakeholder relationships, pitch decks, commercial strategy, and communication. A lot of technical founders underestimate how crucial that bridge role is,” Bhambra shared.  She has a message for prospective non-technical founders: “Don’t count yourself out of deep tech. You might be the missing piece.”  Twin Path Ventures led the funding with participation from Mishcon de Reya, One Planet Capital, XTX Ventures, the Conception X Angel Syndicate, Koro Capital and Tailored Solutions. "Mater-AI is addressing a fundamental bottleneck in the energy transition: the discovery of next-generation thermoelectric materials. Their AI discovery engine has the potential to unlock entirely new applications, such as harvesting 'waste' heat in extreme environments, like powering sensors, vehicles, and defence infrastructure. We believe this is a truly foundational technology that will accelerate the path to a sustainable and efficient energy future." Nick Slater, Partner at Twin Path Ventures. "Mater-AI has turned decades-old limitations in materials discovery into an opportunity for systems-level change. We're entering an era where the materials we build with are no longer determined by what we stumbled upon in the last century, but by what we can computationally design for the world we need. That future is closer than most people realise, and this team is building it." Riam Kanso, Conception X Angel Syndicate Lead. Mater-AI’s 18-month path to commercial thermoelectric breakthrough Over the next six to eight weeks, the team will begin laboratory testing of its first AI-discovered thermoelectric materials in collaboration with the University of Cambridge, Imperial College London, and the Henry Royce Institute. “That takes us from TRL (tech readiness level) 4 to TRL 5 for the first time,” Bhambra says. From there, Mater-AI will embark on a fast cycle between experimentation and computation. Lab results will feed directly back into the company’s physics-based AI models, sharpening predictions and accelerating the search for a commercially viable material. Then over the next 12 to 18 months, the company will iterate quickly between lab results and our AI model to refine predictions. “The goal is a commercially viable material with higher efficiency and lower toxicity,” explained Bhambra.  Ultimately, the aim is to achieve a new class of thermoelectric material that not only outperforms today’s 5 to 7 per cent efficient gold standard but is also less toxic, cost-effective, and scalable to manufacture. Once a leading candidate is validated, Mater-AI will move toward device-level prototyping, embedding its materials into thermoelectric modules for the first time. Because industrial timelines are long — often 15 to 24 months — the company is already nurturing relationships with major players worldwide. Together, these milestones set Mater-AI on a clear trajectory to real-world deployments. Lead image: Photo: Ruffled Media.

Former Swedish foreign minister Tobias Billström has joined Swedish defence tech startup Nordic Air Defence (NAD) as Director of Strategy and Government Affairs, his first full-time role since leaving frontline politics last year.  Nordic Air Defence is a Stockholm-headquartered company developing high-tech defensive solutions for both civilian and military use. NAD is a true hardware-software company focused on electronics, mechanical design, embedded systems, software engineering, and AI. The team includes veterans from Anduril, Palantir, Teledyne FLIR, Kratos, FOI (the Swedish Defence Research Agency), Acast, Zipline, SAAB, and Quantum Systems.  Billström held multiple ministerial offices during a political career spanning three decades, most notably Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Migration. He also held key political roles such as Parliamentary Group Leader of the Moderate Party as well as First Deputy Speaker.  At NAD, Billström will continue his career of public service: advocating for a stronger Europe in the face of renewed, ever present threats. He will lead NAD’s engagement with governments, defence departments, and security organisations, utilising his decades of experience and diplomacy for a safer Europe. Billström will work across the entire company and be operationally involved in NAD’s wider activities.  As European nations refocus efforts on border defence and protection of key infrastructure, NAD's Kreuger 100XR, its flagship technology, a high-speed kinetic interceptor with an optional warhead, has emerged as a frontrunner to solve the global issue of drone warfare. The current reality that drones can destabilise entire blocs, causing death as well as deep strategic and logistical problems, has revived regional geopolitical instability.  Kreuger 100XR: AI-powered, high-speed anti-drone interceptor Made in Sweden, patent pending, the Kreuger 100XR is a high-speed kinetic interceptor with an optional warhead, designed for maximum flexibility and performance. Featuring a fixed-wing design, it offers an intercept range of 5+ km with high manoeuvrability, with future versions planned to extend its range and introduce foldable wings. Its embedded AI enables “fire-and-forget” operation with autonomous detection, classification, and tracking, while continuous ground control is available in radio frequency-stable environments. Equipped with an integrated thermal infrared seeker, the system can operate in radio-silent autonomous mode when needed. The K100XR’s stackable form factor allows seamless integration onto various platforms and vessels, and its versatile launch mechanism supports deployment from the ground, handheld units, vehicles, boats, and even airborne systems.  By cutting much of the hardware previously required by drone interceptors, and replacing it with software, the Kreuger 100XR is ten times cheaper to produce per unit than conventional anti-drone technology, such as interceptors or missiles. This allows for mass manufacturing, and results in customers being able to scale their arsenals of interceptors to meet threats. It is battery-powered and extremely lightweight for optimum portability.  According to NAD Director of Strategy and Government Affairs Tobias Billström: “I am energised to start at Nordic Air Defence. From when I first met the senior team and discussed the prospect of joining, I instantly had a deep alignment with the company mission. Our Swedish ethos of Total Defence — that by mobilising all of society, contributing in their own way, national security can be achieved — are central to NAD’s founding principles." He asserts that it's impossible to ignore the very real threats to national security: "We must urgently get the best technology to market in order to deliver a safer Europe. In a world of bad actors, we must ensure our allies have the best defensive technology to protect lives and safeguard critical infrastructure.”  Nordic Air Defence CEO Karl Rosander shared: “We are delighted to welcome Tobias to Nordic Air Defence. His knowledge and appreciation of the global political and defence landscapes will complement our mission to contribute to a safer and more stable world. His experience is unrivalled, and we share a great sense of purpose and public service. Tobias will enable NAD to cut through the noise and deliver our life-saving technology to our allies.”  Lead image: Tobias Billström (Director of Strategy and Government Affairs) and Karl Rosander (CEO) Nordic Air Defence. Photo: uncredited. 

Bending Spoons is acquiring the global event management platform Eventbrite in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $500 million.  Eventbrite would become the latest major global brand to join the Bending Spoons portfolio. Last month, the company announced a definitive agreement to acquire AOL, pending customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals. Bending Spoons also recently completed its $1.38 billion acquisition of Vimeo. “For two decades, Eventbrite has stood at the forefront of the experience economy, helping tens of millions to create, discover, and attend unforgettable events,” said Luca Ferrari, Bending Spoons CEO and Co-Founder. “Joining forces with Bending Spoons will accelerate innovation and strengthen Eventbrite’s tools and resources to bring even more people together through shared live experiences for many years to come."   Ferrari shared that these tools include building a dedicated messaging feature, introducing AI for easier event creation, improving searchability, and creating a system for the secondary ticket market.   "We’re committed to investing in Eventbrite for the long run, and hope we’ll be able to help it reach new heights.” According to Julia Hartz, Eventbrite Co-Founder, Chief Executive Officer, and Executive Chair: “Eventbrite helped unlock something profoundly human: the need to gather, to connect, and to build community around the passions we share. What began as an unmet need - to empower local creators and community leaders to bring people together - has grown into a global movement that has shaped millions of meaningful experiences and helped event-goers find their people in moments that matter most,”  Under the terms of the agreement, Eventbrite stockholders will receive $4.50 in cash for each share of Eventbrite capital stock that they own. The per-share purchase price represents an 82 per cent premium over Eventbrite’s 60-day volume-weighted average share price as of market close on December 1, 2025. The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2026, subject to customary closing conditions and approvals, including receipt of required regulatory approvals and approval by Eventbrite’s stockholders.  Upon the consummation of the proposed transaction, Eventbrite will become a privately held company and its capital stock will no longer be listed on any public stock exchange.

As scientists seek to understand the molecular basis of energy production, ageing, and disease, one area remains especially elusive: cellular redox metabolites.  Finnish biotech company NADMED is launching the NADMED Award 2026, a global call for innovators in science and medicine, with an initiative providing $30,000 in technology and expert collaboration to help uncover new insights in metabolomics, the field that examines the molecules underpinning cellular health and dysfunction. By providing access to NADMED’s advanced metabolomics platform, the initiative supports discovery and collaboration that could shape the next generation of biomedical innovation. Founded in 2022, as a spinout from the University of Helsinki, NADMED has developed the most accurate measuring technology on the market, capable of quantifying all four forms of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD), (NAD⁺, NADH, NADP⁺, NADPH) and both reduced and oxidised glutathione (GSH, GSSG) directly from biological samples, including blood.  In other words, NADMED turns complex cellular chemistry into a simple, accurate test — giving scientists and doctors a real-time picture of how well the body’s energy and repair systems are working. This breakthrough enables fast, accurate, and reproducible analysis, surpassing traditional mass spectrometry and unlocking new insights in both research and clinical diagnostics. “The goal of the NADMED Award is to lower the barriers for scientists to explore what has until now been largely invisible in biology: the dynamics of redox metabolism,” said Kai Herdin, Chief Marketing Officer at NADMED. “By making our tools available to the research community, we want to accelerate discoveries that could transform how we understand cellular function and disease.” The NADMED Award 2026 is open to academic institutions, clinical laboratories, pharmaceutical companies, and biotech innovators worldwide.   Submissions will be reviewed by a scientific jury of global experts, including Prof. Charles Brenner (City of Hope) and Prof. Rita Horvath, Professor of Neurogenetics and Director of Clinical Neurosciences at the University of Cambridge. Selected projects will receive CE-marked metabolomics kits, consultation, and in-house measurement services valued at up to $30,000. “Redox metabolites are central to life, yet historically, they’ve been nearly impossible to measure reliably,” said Prof Charles Brenner, member of the NADMED Award jury. “NADMED’s technology is changing that, and this award is a powerful way to stimulate discovery across multiple fields of biology and medicine.” Applications open January 1–31, 2026, with results announced February 28, 2026.

Intelligent Core,  the UK AI-powered company delivering real-time, autonomous intelligence to crucial industrial sectors including energy, oil and gas and manufacturing, has secured £2 million in investment led by Fuel Ventures. This new investment follows on from a £500k funding round earlier this year. Led by CEO Tom Greenlees, Intelligent Core is transforming crucial industrial sectors — such as oil and gas, water, manufacturing and transport —  that have historically relied on slow, siloed and reactive systems.  Its modular AI platform takes live data from sensors, equipment and field environments and converts it into real-time visibility, accurate forecasting and autonomous decision-making. Built to run seamlessly in the cloud, on-premises and at the edge, the platform delivers intelligence directly to the most remote and mission-critical parts of an organisation. At a time when energy networks, utilities, manufacturers and transport operators face rising costs, complex operations and escalating sustainability demands, Intelligent Core gives them a completely new level of control.  Instead of waiting hours or days for visibility, organisations can now act in milliseconds,  predicting failures before they happen, optimising performance continuously, and reducing emissions through smarter automation. This technology has helped organisations cut operational costs by up to 80 per cent. According to Tom Greenlees, CEO at Intelligent Core, industrial organisations are under pressure to run more efficiently, safely and sustainably: “But the reality is that most are still limited by outdated tools and legacy systems that simply can’t keep up. We built Intelligent Core to give organisations real operational intelligence - live, predictive, and autonomous — no matter how remote, complex, or distributed their operations are. In heavy industry, data is often the biggest roadblock to meaningful AI deployment, and that’s exactly why we’ve developed proprietary hardware that allows us to collect the critical data ourselves and deliver results rapidly.  This investment accelerates our mission to bring truly intelligent infrastructure to the sectors that need it most and to redefine what industrial AI can achieve in the real world.” The raise also included additional investment from Plug & Play Tech Centre and Helion Partners.  Mark Pearson, Founder of Fuel Ventures, commented: “Since initially investing in Intelligent Core earlier this year, we’ve been impressed by the momentum they’ve built and the speed at which they are reshaping industrial operations with real-time, autonomous AI. We’re strong believers in the power of AI, and Intelligent Core is an excellent example of real-world AI deployment at scale. The team is solving challenges that have held major industries back for decades, and their technology has the potential to redefine how critical infrastructure runs.” The new investment will accelerate Intelligent Core’s mission to modernise and transform outdated industrial infrastructure. The company will use the capital to scale its team, advance product development of their hardware solutions and deliver large-scale customer deployments across global markets. Lead image: Tom Greenlees, CEO of Intelligent Core. Photo: uncredited.

European defence startups have gained a formal, legally compliant route into Ukraine for battlefield testing and front-line user feedback. The programme, run by 17Tech.fi in partnership with Ukraine’s defence-innovation ecosystem, provides structured access to real combat environments—speeding up development and boosting NATO–Ukraine interoperability. European defence startups have long faced challenges in accessing realistic operational environments where new technologies can be tested and validated with end users. Selected companies will gain access to structured testing programs, front-line feedback loops, and opportunities to deploy prototypes in controlled operational scenarios in Ukraine as well as business support and access to several defence forces. Through structured collaboration with Ukrainian defence innovation bodies, including Defence Builder, 17Tech.fi provides a framework for controlled field testing, pilot deployments, and systematic front-line feedback. The approach significantly shortens development time, improves product relevance, and supports the alignment of European capabilities with urgent Ukrainian operational needs. 17Tech’s team brings extensive experience from the defence industry, knowledge, and startup innovations and accelerations globally. The team has designed and operated accelerators in Europe and Asia, financed hundreds of early-stage companies, and supported defence forces in multiple countries in building new innovation models and technology evaluation frameworks.  Sami Luukkonen, Founding Partner at 17Tech, emphasises the importance of structured access: “For years, European innovators have lacked a safe, legal, and operationally relevant environment to validate defence technologies. Ukraine offers a uniquely demanding testbed, and our role is to create a professional, transparent, and responsible pathway for companies to work with official defence counterparts. This is not about speed alone – it is about ensuring that the right technologies reach the right users with real data behind them.” Antti Kosunen, co-founder of 17Tech, has seen hundreds of startups succeed or fail depending on how quickly they gain access to real users and real operational environments over the past decade. Nowhere is this more critical than in defence technology.: "Our role is to ensure that companies enter this environment with the right preparation, the right partners, and a clear framework that benefits both innovators and front-line users. This accelerator is, in my view, the most effective way for defence startups to find real product–market fit. In defence, true demand is defined by the battlefield — not by presentations, prototypes, or theoretical use cases. When companies receive direct feedback from units operating under real combat conditions, they quickly learn what works, what fails, and what must be improved. That level of validation shortens development cycles by months or even years and prevents teams from investing in the wrong features. Nothing brings a product to market readiness faster than exposure to actual operational needs.” Defence startups in Europe and allied countries can now apply to join the 17Tech Defence Tech Accelerator until December 15th, 2025. Lead image: Freepik.

Berlin-based Shiftmove has acquired Ocean, the fleet management division of Orange Business in France. This acquisition positions Shiftmove as a significant European fleet technology provider, serving 27,000 corporate customers and managing 730,000 vehicles across the continent with a team of more than 500 employees. Although fleets represent a substantial share of emissions and mobility costs, only around 30 per cent of European companies currently use fleet management software. At the same time, rising fuel prices, higher insurance and repair costs, and stricter sustainability requirements are placing growing demands on fleet operators. Shiftmove’s AI-powered fleet management platform links real-time vehicle data with intelligent software to help organisations procure vehicles, control costs, and manage operations at scale. Its cloud-based solutions are used across sectors, including construction, healthcare, field services, manufacturing, logistics and the public sector, supporting fleets from a single vehicle to more than 10,000. Commenting on the acquisition, Francine Gervazio, CEO of Shiftmove, said: Ocean’s integration strengthens our European ecosystem and speeds our shift to fully connected, intelligent and highly automated fleet operations. Cars are becoming computers, and fleets need technology built for this new reality. With our group’s expertise, we’re setting the new standard for how Europe moves. Founded in 2003, Ocean serves around 8,000 corporate customers and manages more than 180,000 vehicles in France, with a strong track record in geolocation and embedded telematics. As a specialised fleet technology provider, Shiftmove plans to build on Ocean’s capabilities, enhance its innovation potential and integrate the company into its growing European ecosystem. Stéphane Peycelon, General Manager of Ocean, said that joining Shiftmove marks an important new stage for the company, noting that Shiftmove’s scale, technological capabilities and strategic ambition strongly complement Ocean’s established position in the French fleet management market: This partnership enables us to bring faster innovation, richer data insights and future-proof solutions to fleets in France and beyond. The acquisition strengthens Shiftmove’s role in a European fleet technology market facing increasing regulatory and economic pressure.

Duvo, an AI-native automation platform that gives retail teams an AI workforce for day-to-day operations, has raised $15 million in seed funding. The round was led by Index Ventures, backers of Figma, Revolut and Wiz. Credo Ventures, Northzone and Puzzle Ventures also participated, along with angels Roy Reznik (co-founder of Wiz), David Singleton (former CTO of Stripe) and Kieran Flanagan (former CMO of Zapier). Retail, e-commerce and fast-moving consumer goods are complex sectors, with thin margins and large supplier networks. Many operations still rely on staff manually transferring data between multiple tools and third-party portals, often using systems that are more than a decade old and not designed to work together. Traditional enterprise software projects can be expensive, require retailers to replace core systems, or involve building complex integrations that take months or years and may not succeed. As competition increases and margins come under pressure, retailers that continue to depend on these slow and fragile processes may be at a disadvantage compared with those that modernise more quickly. Addressing this need for faster, lower-risk change, Duvo is designed primarily for business users rather than technical teams. Commercial, supply chain and finance teams can create and refine assistants themselves, without relying on large IT projects or specialised engineering support. The platform ships with ready-made AI assistants for tasks such as weekly margin reviews, activating promotions and price changes, reconciling supplier invoices, assortment optimisation and vendor onboarding. Retailers typically begin with a single team or country, demonstrate value within a few weeks, and then roll out the same automations to additional markets without a large-scale IT project. Working with Duvo’s agents is intended to resemble delegating tasks to trusted team members. The agents handle operational work that can slow retail teams down, executing complete tasks and processes across existing systems, from older portals to modern tools, and can also place phone calls when needed. In contrast to general-purpose assistants, Duvo is designed to run retail operations rather than simply assist from a chat interface. Its agents act directly within retailers’ systems to carry out tasks autonomously, supported by governance features, audit trails, security controls and user management. All actions are visible: managers can review what was done and when, set approval workflows once, and rely on assistants to surface only exceptions or decisions that require human input. The investment will support hiring and product expansion as the company scales across the retail sector, with plans to move into other verticals where operational complexity calls for resilient automation.

Italy-based Pack, the AI-native HR tech startup, has closed a Series A funding round totalling €5.8 million. Following an initial €3.5 million tranche in September 2025 led by Rialto VC, the second tranche marks the entry of US-based Acadian Ventures, a fund specialising in the future of work technology. The round also includes leading HR and SaaS figures such as David Clarke, Thomas Otter, Jason Corsello, Steven Hunt, Luca Saracino, Doris Tomanek and Jeroen Van Hautte. Pack was advised on the transaction by Bonelli Erede, with partner Giulia Bianchi Frangipane and senior associate Enrico Goitre supporting the legal structuring of the deal. Founded in 2022 by Pietro Maria Picogna and Giacomo Gentili, Pack is a people-development platform that helps companies map skills, assess potential and support personalised development paths, including coaching, mentoring and targeted training, through a continuous AI-powered monitoring system. Its goal is to help organisations grow through skills, making teams more agile, informed and prepared for future challenges. Companies don’t just need HR software; they need an intelligent partner capable of interpreting people data and turning it into strategic decisions. Our mission is to make organisations more aware, agile and future-ready, explains Giacomo Gentili, CPO and co-founder of Pack. With this round, Pack strengthens its position among Europe’s HR tech startups, supported by its international outlook, proprietary technology and AI-native culture. The company has grown to a 30-person team across two countries and plans to reach 50 employees within the next six months, with new hires focused on product, AI and customer success. The new capital will support this hiring plan, enable expansion into France, Germany and the United Kingdom, and accelerate Pack’s AI roadmap, with the aim of establishing the company as a European leader in Human Capital Intelligence.

Swiss cybersecurity startup Saporo has raised €7 million in Series A funding. The round was led by TIN Capital, with participation from G+D Ventures, CDP Venture Capital through its Corporate Partners I – ServiceTech fund, XAnge, Lightbird VC and Session VC. Beyond capital, each investor will play a strategic role in Saporo’s growth. TIN Capital will support expansion in Northern Europe, G+D Ventures will facilitate market development in Germany, and CDP Venture Capital will help drive opportunities in Italy. M&A and fundraising advisory firm Trachet advised Saporo on the transaction. Identity-based attacks are estimated to account for around 80 per cent of cyber incidents, with more than 90 per cent of successful breaches linked to weaknesses in access segmentation across systems such as Active Directory, Entra ID, AWS and Okta. Analysts suggest that approximately 85 per cent of breaches could be mitigated through stronger identity controls, yet many organisations still struggle with over-permissions, misconfigurations and shadow administrators, around 40 per cent of which may be exploitable in a single step. Saporo, a graph-native identity security company, helps enterprises understand their environments from an attacker’s perspective. Its platform maps and analyses millions to billions of potential attack paths across hybrid identity systems, including on-premises Active Directory, cloud directories and machine identities, and identifies the relationships, misconfigurations and excessive permissions that enable lateral movement and privilege escalation. Because attackers need only one viable route, Saporo computes all potential identity attack paths and highlights the smallest set of changes that can deliver the greatest reduction in risk. Large enterprises can face hundreds of millions of such paths, and few solutions can scan and prioritise risk effectively at this scale. Saporo’s co-founder and CEO, Olivier Eyries, noted that the identity security market can be misleading, as ITDR tools and access graphs often provide a false sense of protection and fail to address systemic risks or reflect how attackers actually see an environment: In large enterprises, identity graphs routinely surface over a billion attack paths; fixing them one by one is effectively a century-long project. Our customers use Saporo to remove around 80% of those paths within the first year, delivering faster risk reduction with far less remediation effort. Using graph databases and graph theory, Saporo surfaces the most critical paths to sensitive assets and the minimal configuration changes needed to disrupt the majority of them, work that is extremely difficult to perform manually. By continuously monitoring identity and configuration changes in real time, enforcing long-term segregation of duties and supporting alignment with hardening frameworks such as ANSSI and MITRE, Saporo helps prevent environments from drifting back into unsafe states. This approach is contributing to strong adoption in sectors such as financial services, healthcare, government, manufacturing and technology, where hybrid identity complexity and regulatory requirements are particularly high, and is reflected in customer retention above 140 per cent. Guillaume Eyries, co-founder and Chief Product Officer at Saporo, emphasises the shift to identity-led attacks, where adversaries log in rather than break in, making the key issue what a compromised account can do next: Saporo gives defenders the attacker’s view of their hybrid identity fabric so they can remove risky paths before an incident. This round lets us double down on automation and broaden multi-cloud and developer-ecosystem coverage to match how real-world attacks traverse Microsoft, Google, AWS, Okta and GitHub. Saporo will use the new funding to expand its R&D, sales and marketing teams throughout 2026, supported by internal AI tools that have already significantly increased engineering productivity. The capital will also be used to enhance one-click and assisted remediation workflows, extend hybrid identity coverage beyond Microsoft Active Directory, Entra ID and AWS to include Google Workspace/Cloud and GitHub, and strengthen the company’s presence in France, Switzerland, Benelux, Germany and Italy, alongside selective expansion in the United States.

Paris-based Bitstack, a Bitcoin savings application, has raised a $15 million Series A round led by 13books Capital, with participation from existing investors AG2R LA MONDIALE, Plug and Play Ventures, Serena, Stillmark, and Y Combinator. According to the European Central Bank (ECB), prices in the euro area increased by 23.4 per cent between October 2020 and 2025, indicating a significant decline in the currency’s purchasing power. Against this backdrop, Bitcoin, whose supply is capped at 21 million units, has emerged as an alternative asset with growing adoption. Founded in France in 2021 by Alexandre Roubaud and his team, Bitstack’s mission is to democratise Bitcoin savings and help Europeans preserve their purchasing power amid rising inflation. Launched in 2022, the platform aims to make simple, regulated Bitcoin-based savings products accessible to a broad audience. Bitstack is best known for its savings feature that rounds up everyday purchases to the nearest euro and automatically invests the difference in Bitcoin. The company is now broadening its range of services for users in France with a euro account featuring a French IBAN, enabling users to send and receive transfers and convert part or all of their salary into Bitcoin. It is also launching a VISA debit card designed to reward long-term saving through real-time, fee-free round-ups on card purchases and a “Stackback” programme that lets users earn up to 1 per cent in Bitcoin on all euro spending, at any merchant, with no upper limit. Bitstack now operates in around a dozen European countries, including Germany, Spain, the Netherlands and Italy, and offers content in the local language of each market where the app is available. This expansion is supported by the MiCA (Markets in Crypto-Assets) licence granted by the AMF on 30 June 2025. With the new funding and its MiCA licence in place, Bitstack plans to accelerate its European expansion, broaden its offering with a euro account and new card products, and aims to reach 1 million users within 18 months as it strengthens its position in the European Bitcoin savings market.

Brussels-based AILOS Robotics has raised €3.5 million in a seed round led by QBIC and High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF), with participation from Wallonie Entreprendre and finance&invest.brussels, reinforcing Europe’s commitment to developing local, strategic component supply for the rapidly growing humanoid and collaborative robotics markets.  AILOS is a spin-off from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) and its BruBotics research centre. Following a decade of research supported by VLAIO (Flanders) and Innoviris (Brussels), the company has developed and validated its minimum viable product, the R2poweR gearbox. The R2poweR architecture is designed for humanoids, cobots, exoskeletons and prosthetic devices. It enables smooth, human-friendly interaction through low backdrive torque, delivers high torque density for heavily loaded joints, and helps reduce overall robot weight, energy consumption and noise. The design also supports low-cost industrialisation, is scalable, and is well-suited to high-volume robotics manufacturing. According to Pablo López García, CEO and co-founder of AILOS Robotics, modern robots demand a new category of actuation: We combine quasi-direct drive-like backdrivability with the high torque density of advanced gearing,  finally removing one of the main barriers to agile, lightweight, and safe robots that can operate alongside humans. Having completed the transition from research to a market-ready product, AILOS is now moving from lab to factory. The company is engaging with robot manufacturers for initial pilot projects, industrial partners to scale manufacturing and supply chains, and investors interested in supporting European leadership in strategic automation technologies. The new funding will allow AILOS Robotics to industrialise a new class of robotic gearboxes that combine the agility of quasi-direct drives with substantially higher torque density, supporting the development of robots that are lighter, safer, more affordable and more energy-efficient.

Marble Imaging has raised €5.3 million in an oversubscribed Seed funding round led by HTGF, powering its mission to become Europe’s leading source of very high-resolution Earth Observation data and insights.  Marble Imaging is a big-data Earth observation company founded in August 2023 in Bremen, Germany,  building its constellation of VHR satellites to provide up to hourly EO data and analytics for time-critical insights of our planet.  The demand for strong and innovative sovereign solutions from Europe now runs through nearly all major institutions. Nowhere is this more evident than in the fields of security and climate tech, where the need for timely, very high-resolution Earth Observation data and advanced AI-powered analytics has become immense.  The data and derived EO-based analytics will be vital in supporting rapid decision-making across defence, climate security, crisis and disaster management, green and sustainable energy transitions, infrastructure and mobility, and much more. Marble already offers advanced data analysis services, including object detection for situational intelligence, terrain analytics and trafficability assessment, coastal asset monitoring, and land cover classification.   This marks another major milestone for the company, following more than €10 million in non-dilutive funding and the signing of Marble’s first anchor contract with ESA  valued at €3 million.  In addition to HTGF as lead investor, the round included BAB Beteiligungs- und Managementgesellschaft Bremen mbH (BBM), Lightfield Equity, Oslo Venture Company, nwk | nwu Beteiligungsgesellschaften der Sparkasse Bremen, Sentris  Capital, Auxxo Female Catalyst Fund and SpaceFounders.  "Marble Imaging is addressing a critical European capability gap in the very high resolution domain, and I do not see any other company tackling it faster than Marble does. The need for independent, timely and VHR optical data will only increase in the coming years, and I’m happy to support the founders building a European star for a global market", says Koen Geurts, Senior  Investment Manager at HTGF.  "We’re very happy to welcome a strong European investor consortium that will help drive the growth of our dual-use Earth Observation solutions", says  Robert Hook, CEO and co-founder of Marble. "With this round, we can speed up the enhancement of our capabilities to  keep pace with rapidly rising demand."  The investment will enable Marble to significantly scale its development team and accelerate the completion of its intelligence, maritime, and trafficability tools – solutions that already serve early customers and are now being prepared for broad commercial rollout. It will also support the build-out of Marble’s end-to-end data-processing chain and customer data portal, ensuring a seamless experience for initial users.   Additionally, it will allow Marble to expand its operational expertise and establish a dedicated operations centre for its planned satellite constellation.  The first Marble satellite, which will deliver very high-resolution multispectral data, is scheduled to be launched in Q4 2026. Marble Imaging plans to gradually expand its own constellation to up to 20 satellites by the end of 2028.  Lead image: The Marble Imaging management team, Robert Hook, Dr Gopika Suresh, and Alexander Epp. Photo: uncredited. 

Cross-border payment fintech Sokin has received $50m in a funding round, valuing the UK fintech at $300m.UK-headquartered Sokin says it will use the funding to speed up overseas expansion and on product development.The Series B funding round was led by US investment firm Prysm Capital, with Watershed Ventures participating. Existing investors, including investment funds managed by Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital and Aurum Partners, also participated.Founded in 2019 and headquartered in London, Sokin’s B2B platform streamlines cross-border accounts payable, receivable, and treasury operations for businesses.  The fintech provides access to more than 70 currencies for transfers and exchanges.Over the next year, Sokin says it will build on its infrastructure and look to bag regional licenses and banking partnerships, as it looks to extend its reach around the world.Vroon Modgill, CEO and founder of Sokin, said: "We've spent the past six years building a comprehensive financial infrastructure that makes global business faster and more efficient. "For too long, payments, treasury management, and international accounts have been fragmented and outdated. We've built the platform that brings it all together, and this funding lets us accelerate that vision globally.” IMAGE: SOKIN

Copenhagen-based Complir has secured €1.7 million in pre-seed funding to develop the AI infrastructure retailers will rely on as compliance increasingly becomes a global competitive factor. The round was led by Vendep Capital, with participation from Likeminded, Plug and Play, Xpress, JHJ Seed Capital, and business angels including Kraen Østergaard Nielsen, Per Thau and Neil S. W. Murray. Retailers are operating in a new environment where cross-border selling is no longer just a commercial decision but also a compliance challenge. Each product launch involves dealing with differing regulations, overlapping documentation, and extensive manual checks. At the same time, regulators in Europe and other regions are increasing requirements for safety and transparency. Companies that are able to adapt to these developments are more likely to maintain a competitive position. To address this growing complexity, Complir’s platform consolidates product data across systems and uses AI to automate key compliance workflows, including labelling, testing requirements, risk scoring, documentation, and regulatory monitoring. Instead of relying on spreadsheets and scattered PDFs, teams gain a clearer, connected view of each product and can identify potential risks earlier in the process. Complir’s AI agents surface market-access requirements in seconds, enabling retailers to expand product lines and enter new markets without extended compliance delays. Our mission is to make it easy for European retailers to launch products anywhere in the world – safely, confidently, and without drowning in paperwork, says Gustav Bang, CEO of Complir. Complir currently supports several major Scandinavian retailers across categories such as textiles, toys, cosmetics, electronics, and home goods. The new funding will be used to accelerate product development, broaden coverage across product categories, strengthen integrations with ERP, PIM, and PLM systems, and support expansion into additional EU markets, with the long-term aim of helping European retailers strengthen their position in exporting safe, transparent, and compliant products globally.

The founder of one of Europe’s most lauded startups of 2025 has pondered replacing himself as CEO. “I am honestly aware that probably at some point post IPO, maybe at some point it would make sense for somebody else,” says Jan Oberhauser, CEO and the sole founder of Berlin-based AI workflow automation startup n8n (pronounced “n eight n”). A statement which prompts the question where and when n8n would IPO? Ideally, Germany, but no immediate plans, says the 42-year-old father of two. A future IPO, his own future, n8n’s future, Delaware flip, turning down Y Combinator, typical working week, San Francisco’s talent density, and getting his kicks through indoor skydiving are some of the topics Oberhauser bounces through in a 30-minute video interview recorded a day before Slush. N8n bidding war N8n garnered the gaze of the mainstream tech press this summer, after it became the centre of an investor bidding war, with VCs offering rocketing valuations. The long-running Series C saga was finally confirmed in October, when n8n announced it had raised $180m, valuing it at $2.5bn, led by Accel, with Matt Miller’s Evantic, Nvidia’s VC arm, Visionaries Club and Sequoia also investing. N8n has raised $240m in total since it was founded in 2019, having raised $60m in March this year. What is n8n? N8n calls itself an “orchestration platform for AI-powered applications”. N8n allows developers and enterprises to connect hundreds of different apps and services and automate business tasks. Think of n8n as the glue between all these apps and services. Oberhauser, whose background is in visual effects, steadily built n8n for several years, then as AI started to get frothy, spawned by ChatGPT, the CEO realised the burgeoning tech could be the death knell of his startup. Or as Oberhauser told Sequoia: “We knew it was probably going to mean one of two things, either it was going to be a huge opportunity or the demise of our company.” A harbinger was Oberhauser clocking US startup Pinecone landing a chunky £100m Series B round, after pivoting from being a vector database startup to a database for AI. In 2022, n8n followed suit and made its AI play, linking workflows to LLMs and allowing users to “intuitively” build AI-powered applications (as opposed to hiring expensive developers). Revenues have been ripping over the past 12 months, says Oberhauser. Competitors to n8n include startups and scaleups, including the likes of UiPath and OpenAI with its AgentKit offering. N8n’s customers Like other developer-centred platforms, n8n has a flourishing developer and builder community (around 700,000, some of whom now work at n8n) supporting it, helping build integrations, develop content and ‘how to’ guides, which n8n has heavily invested in. Complementing these free users are hundreds of paying enterprise customers, including the likes of Vodafone, Microsoft and Mistral, as well as two ministries of defence using it for cybersecurity purposes. Given that n8n is a horizontal platform, enterprises are using it for varied reasons, be it sales, marketing and IT operations. Juggling its free and paying customers is a tightrope act, says Oberhauser, as leaning too far into paying customers at the expense of free customers reduces n8n’s chances of owning the space. N8n is an open source platform with restrictions, which means its code is accessible, but there are restrictions on its commercial use, differentiating it from traditional open-source licences that allow free use. Sovereignty Digital sovereignty has become an increasingly hot-button issue, as European governments try and define their place in the AI ecosystem. Within n8n, Oberhauser, who launched his first startup at 17, says European enterprises are open to using LLMs from around the world but have concerns about data sovereignty. He says: “We see people caring a lot about where the data is, and where it is hosted. “For example, people are very excited about something like an LLM with Deutsche Telekom, because they are looking for these European solutions and Mistral fits in there very well. “But many organisations are open to still use other models as long as they can self-host them, run them on their own infrastructure or host it on a provider within Europe.” Evolving CEO role Oberhauser, whose hobbies include indoor skydiving, is not a microphone-ready CEO, à la Anton Osika or Sebastian Siemiatkowski. He says: “I am a developer, I am an introvert, so it’s like any kind of public appearance is definitely not a thing I would love by default doing. I sometimes envy those extrovert founders who get energy from these events.” That said, his Slush-speaking week is a jam-packed few days involving a roundtable with a German politician, interviewing candidates for n8n roles, a team huddle, and a Friday “study block” with n8n’s VP of product where they chew over AI developments. His workload has changed “100 per cent” since the early n8n days, but he doesn’t pine for a co-founder, saying it hired well early on. He has, however, thought about bringing in a new CEO, replacing himself.. “At the moment, I feel I am the right person,” he says. “But I am honestly aware that, probably at some point post IPO, maybe at some point it would make sense for somebody else. It would not be driven by investors, because they couldn’t even push me out even if they wanted to.” Fan of Europe N8n is a Berlin-headquartered, Germany-incorporated startup, which is important to Oberhauser. He is a Europhile and reflects ruefully talking to an unnamed German founder, whose startup favours a US IPO. He says: “This is quite sad, even though the company grew large in Europe and has most of the team in Europe. It is definitely something that has to change. “I definitely want to have a European listing, if possible a German listing. “We are not in a rush to IPO anytime soon.” This marks a contrast with another high-profile German startup, DeepL, which is considering a US IPO, it has been reported. Around a year ago, one of n8n's US investors wanted it to “flip” to being US incorporated, a suggestion Oberhauser politely declined. And in n8n’s early days, its investors were “not the biggest fans of having a German entity but I pushed back very hard", he says. Amid much chatter about where another hot European startup, Lovable, is incorporated, Oberhauser rubbishes talk that a startup’s country of incorporation doesn’t matter, saying it impacts the perception of a startup and potentially its IPO destination. Oberhauser even turned down Y Combinator, as the US accelerator wanted him to be Delaware-registered. He says: “I could have got into YC but I didn’t take it because one of the things they needed is that I become Delaware reigstered and I didn't want to do that.  And it is much more important for me to start as a German GmbH and stay as GmbH in the long term.” US investors and US expansion N8n has European investors including Deutsche Telekom’s T Capital and Visionaries Club and US investors, like Sequoia, on its cap table. European investors were “very slow” and “not that aggressive” in wanting to invest in n8n in its early days, he says, adding that its German investors only came on board via word-of-mouth through its US investors. The US, he says, is now n8n’s fastest growing market, helped by US enterprises more willing to work with startups compared to European enterprises. This year, headcount has grown from 60 to 185, with n8n now having offices in Berlin, London and New York. The future Oberhauser did not disclose n8n’s revenues, but he stressed they were now above the $40m ARR (annual recurring revenue) reported earlier this year. Next year, n8n will look to grow in Europe and the US, where Oberhauser is visiting in January, on a trip to Silicon Valley, which, he says, is still home to the world's top AI talent. Given n8n is a horizontal, not a vertical, play, with a broad platform offering, it should be well placed in the AI race, experts say. One thing is clear: N8n is not short of ambition and wants to become the Excel of AI. He says: “What we want to become is the default tool out there for how people make these AI-powered applications.”

Minitap, an AI-powered mobile development platform, has raised $4.1 million in seed funding. The round was co-led by Moxxie Ventures and Mercuri, with participation from EWOR, Tekton Ventures, Amigos Venture Capital, and several unicorn founders. It also attracted a strong group of AI infrastructure experts, including Thomas Wolf, Stefan Glanzer, Michael Breidenbrucker, Paul Muller, Petter Made, Daniel Krauss, Jochen Engert, André Schwämmlein, and Saturnin Pugnet, as well as operators from OpenAI, DeepMind, LangChain, and LlamaIndex. Mobile development remains significantly slower than web development, even with the rise of AI tools. While some solutions help web developers deliver features in days instead of weeks, they are less effective for mobile, as they cannot test on devices, handle iterations when issues occur, or verify functionality across different configurations. Minitap addresses this gap by enabling engineering teams to develop mobile features in a much shorter timeframe than the typical six weeks. Founded in 2025, Minitap enables engineering teams at consumer mobile companies to ship features significantly faster. The company’s vision is to make mobile development so seamless that non-technical teams at consumer app companies can build complete mobile features without relying on engineering resources. Minitap combines open-source AI agent frameworks with cloud infrastructure to automate mobile testing and iteration. According to Nicolas Dehandschoewercker, co-founder and CEO, mobile accounts for about 60 per cent of internet usage, but advances at only a fraction of the pace of web development. He notes that consumer app companies like Duolingo, Calm, and Hinge run far more experiments on the web than on mobile, and says Minitap was created to help close this gap. Minitap’s technology is built around two main components: Mobile-Use, an open-source framework that enables AI agents to operate phones in a human-like way, and Minitap Cloud, an infrastructure that can quickly provision any phone configuration (iOS or Android) across thousands of devices in parallel. Connected to AI coding environments, these tools allow AI systems to write mobile code, test it on real devices, detect issues, apply fixes, and deploy working features with minimal human intervention. Every consumer mobile company needs to experiment faster. The companies that run 10x more experiments will win their markets. We’re building the infrastructure that makes that speed possible, said Minitap's co-founder Luc Mahoux-Nakamura. Today, engineering teams at consumer mobile companies use Minitap to accelerate feature development. The company’s goal is to enable growth teams to release features without relying on engineering: a product manager describes a feature, supplies a Figma design, and AI generates the code, tests it, and deploys an A/B test within the same afternoon. Over the longer term, Minitap plans to support mobile apps that optimise themselves autonomously by running experiments, analyzing user behaviour, generating hypotheses, building variations, measuring outcomes, and iterating without human involvement. 

Growathon Ventures is launching as Europe's first women of colour (WOC) led VC fund, targeting €100 million to finance pattern-breaking founders who deliver excess returns, but receive only 0.02 per cent of European venture capital.  I spoke to Founder and General Partner, Esma Choho to learn all about it and discovered a legacy of female founders that offer a way forward. “VCs aren’t risk-driven—they’re pattern-copying machines” Choho doesn’t mince words. For her, the industry’s consistent underfunding of women isn’t a pipeline problem — it’s a fundamental mispricing of value.  Choho contends that “VCs aren't risk-driven, they're pattern-copying machines. “ She asserts that Europe has been copying American VC playbooks for 20 years, including their biases. That has left enormous alpha on the table. "We're not founded to fix diversity. We're founded to capture returns that everyone else misses. And in doing so, we make Europe grow." The data behind the arbitrage: outperformance vs underfunding The data is unambiguous: 63 per cent valuation outperformance, 2.5x capital efficiency, yet all-female teams got 1 per cent of US VC in 2024. Further,  top-quartile US funds had female decision-makers 69 per cent of the time She contends that this isn't a risk, but rather it’s systematically mispriced alpha with superior fundamentals. "European VCs are even worse: smaller market, more consensus-driven, more concentrated. They call pattern-breakers "risky" when they're actually the lowest-risk bet with the highest returns.” Take Lisa Su, now celebrated for transforming AMD from a struggling $2 billion company into a $200 billion semiconductor powerhouse. As a woman, an immigrant, and a PhD electrical engineer stepping into a failing hardware business, she embodies the kind of founder traditional VC pattern-matching would have dismissed at the seed stage—“wrong profile, wrong sector, wrong timing.”  The same is true for Mira Murati, who followed a non-linear path from mechanical engineering to AI leadership. An Albanian immigrant with an unconventional trajectory, she became the Chief Technology Officer of OpenAI, one of the most influential technology organisations in the world.  These are the kinds of overlooked, pattern-breaking profiles that generate outsized returns — yet are routinely underestimated by traditional venture capital. First-mover advantage in venture’s most overlooked segment Growathon Ventures is the first European fund specifically designed to capture this arbitrage:  financing founders who are systematically rejected by traditional VC pattern-matching, despite demonstrably superior performance.  Women of colour founders get only 0.02 per cent of US venture capital, despite outperforming market returns. In Europe, the data is sparse — and the disparities are likely even worse. The result is a completely untapped opportunity.  According to Choho, being first is important for the ecosystem, but what matters for our LPs is being first to capture a documented arbitrage:  “The data has been screaming about this opportunity for years. We're launching because the market inefficiency won't last forever. Smart capital will follow. Our Founding LPs get a first-mover advantage. This is a growth engine that has been in plain sight. And Europe left it on the table. First movers get exposure to documented arbitrage before market correction.” Why pattern-breaking founders outperform on fundamentals According to Choho, pattern-breaking founders possess three operational advantages: Capital efficiency as a survival mechanism.  Raising 1/10th the capital means owning 3x more equity.  Research indicates that women-led startups are more capital-efficient, generating 78 cents in revenue for every dollar invested, compared to 31 cents for male-founded startups.  According to Choho, “this isn't luck, it’s necessity converted to discipline.” Product obsession over capital gains  Rana el Kaliouby (Affectiva) pioneered emotion AI. Aileen Lee, co-founder of Cowboy Ventures, coined the team "unicorn." Both are founders who exemplify a founder archetype driven by product obsession rather than capital games.  As a result, deep domain expertise beats pattern-matching.  Choho asserts that “WOC founders prove worth through output, creating defensible moats.” Resourcefulness from exclusion Further,  according to Choho, the 73 per cent survival rate for Black and Latina founders is operational reality, not inspiration.  “When excluded from networks, you build different problem-solving capabilities. This translates to resilience during downturns - exactly when most startups fail.” Not an impact Fund — a returns engine LPs have overlooked To be clear, Growathon Ventures is a WOC-led fund. It’s not an impact fund, a category where women in tech are often pigeon-holed. With this in mind I asked Choho how to reorient LPs from "impact investing" to returns-first thesis? Her advice: Show them their own portfolio construction logic.  “If European LPs saw data that founders with specific technical backgrounds delivered 35-78 per cent outperformance, they'd immediately source more of those profiles. The alpha is real. The demographic correlation is incidental.” Reshaping Europe’s innovation ecosystem Choho contends that every pattern-breaking founder who gets funded and succeeds strengthens Europe’s global competitiveness.  “This isn't about representation,” she says. “It's about optimising for the best founders, regardless of whether they fit Silicon Valley’s pattern-matching. Europe wins when we stop leaving talent on the table.” If Europe captured even 25 per cent of the alpha generated by overlooked founders, it would translate into tens of billions in additional value creation — resulting in more category-defining companies built and scaled in Europe rather than migrating to the US, and bolstering the continent’s position in AI, climate-tech, and B2B infrastructure. For the broader ecosystem, this shift would validate pattern-breaking founders, create new proof points, attract more diverse entrepreneurial talent, and force traditional VCs to confront entrenched biases — ultimately generating exits and success stories with a powerful flywheel effect. From a policy perspective, it would show that inclusive capital allocation isn’t charity but a superior investment strategy, provide a compelling blueprint for public-sector co-investment, and offer a path for Europe to build its own innovation advantage without simply mirroring the American model. Growathon Ventures’ €100 million raise and the 100 Founding LP model Growathon Ventures is raising €100 million, offering 100 European Founding LPs access at €7,920 each, closing this Christmas. According to Choho: "Growathon Ventures' returns will not only validate our thesis. It will prove that Europe can lead by being more inclusive, not despite it. That is the story of the next decade of European innovation.” The data has been screaming this for a decade. The 100 who move now own the correction.” The architect behind the Fund  Esma Choho is a system architect, entrepreneur, and investor with decades of experience in strategy,  technology, and organisational innovation. Her career began in 1991 with the founding of her own  strategy and research firm, the first in Europe led by a female founder-strategist of colour who developed and applied her own models to guide public institutions, governments, and corporations  through fundamental organisational and system transformations.  With the founding of this European VC fund, Choho expands her role as system architect to capital allocation and strategic investments. She positions herself not as a traditional VC player, but as an architect of systems: data-driven, directional, future-focused, driven by structural impact - not by superficial trends.  Why 100 founding LPs?  Aiming to secure 100 founding LPs at a time when many firms are struggling to raise capital is highly ambitious. But there's a strategy here. According to Choho, the model is built around three strategic mechanisms. First, network-driven deal flow: one hundred LPs who are founders, operators, and angels create a hundred entry points into pattern-breaking founder networks that traditional VCs rarely reach. The result is a systematic information advantage. Second, downstream validation: when portfolio companies raise Series A or B rounds, larger VCs routinely call these LPs for references. Having one hundred credible European operators in the cap table materially de-risks follow-on capital and drives higher valuations.  Third, the structure enables a multi-fund platform: once the thesis proves itself through exits, the 100 early believers gain reputational capital as the first to spot the opportunity. They anchor Fund II, attract co-investors, and receive priority access to co-investment opportunities.  As Choho frames it, €7,920 buys allocation rights in a platform designed to capture documented market mispricing before institutional capital corrects it. "Europe has been copying American VC playbooks for 20 years, including their biases. That has left enormous alpha on the table. We're not founded to fix diversity. We're founded to capture returns that everyone else misses. And in doing so, we make Europe grow."