ANYbotics, a provider of autonomous robotic inspection solutions, received a strategic investment from Climate Investment (CI), following a recent round and bringing total funding to over $150 million. With this investment, CI joins existing backers such as Aramco Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, NGP Capital, Qualcomm Ventures, Supernova Invest, Swisscom Ventures, TDK Ventures, and Walden Catalyst Ventures. ANYbotics tackles critical industry challenges in safety, efficiency, and sustainability. Designed for the toughest industrial environments, ANYbotics’ mobile robots are used to improve asset monitoring, safety, and emissions management. The ANYmal robot can autonomously detect indicators of equipment issues, such as overheating, abnormal vibrations, and fugitive gas emissions, including in hazardous or remote areas. Its software enables autonomous navigation, collision avoidance, and stair climbing for deployment at complex industrial sites. More than 200 ANYmal units have been shipped, performing thousands of inspections each week across oil and gas, mining, power, utilities, and metals. ANYbotics is already deployed with several CI Limited Partners, including BP, Equinor, Eni, and Petrobras, and with customers and partners including SLB, Siemens Energy, Siemens AG, GE Vernova, Novelis, Outokumpu, AWS, SAP, Yokogawa, and NVIDIA. At the Northern Lights carbon capture and storage facility in Norway, an ANYmal robot operates autonomously at a normally uncrewed site. It conducts frequent inspections and monitors CO₂ concentration levels, providing automated analysis and anomaly reports to operators to support safety, uptime, and asset integrity. The company is preparing to begin customer deliveries of ANYmal X, an Ex-certified legged robot designed for hazardous and explosive environments. With CI’s investment and deployment support, ANYbotics plans to launch ANYmal X in 2026 to enable continuous inspection in explosive zones and mitigate operational risks. The funding will also support the company’s global expansion, aligning with CI’s focus on decarbonization technologies for complex industrial settings. 

Tide, the UK business management platform, has attained unicorn status, following a $120m funding round. The funding round was led by a "strategic investment" from TPG, the asset management firm, which is a new investor in Tide, and existing investor, Apax Digital Funds, and now values Tide at $1.5bn.Tide, which also has a presence in Germany and India, was previously valued at $650m in 2021, when it secured a $100m investment from Apax Digital Funds.TPG’s investment is a mix of new equity and share sales from Tide employees, ex-employees, early angels and minority investors.Tide, which has also recently launched in France, said: "We always want to provide early investors, employees and ex-employees with the opportunity to realise some of the gains they've made along the way."Tide said the funding will be used to speed up its international expansion, support product development and advance its investment into agentic AI.  Tide, which launched in 2017, calls itself a business management platform and targets SMBs, offering business accounts, accounting and other business administrative services. It has nearly 800,000 SME customers in the UK and more than 800,000 SME customers in India.  It has also launched in Germany in 2024 and in France, last month.Oliver Prill, CEO of Tide, said: “This funding will accelerate our international expansion, building on our highly successful and profitable UK business, where we support nearly 800,000 members with 14 per cent of the SMB market. In India, we’ve seen rapid growth and now support over 800,000 Tide members. "We’ve also launched in Germany, a large market with nearly 6 million SMEs, and very recently launched our affordable credit solutions as our first proposition in France. Over time, we’ll bring the full richness of Tide’s UK platform to each of our international markets. “This investment will also fuel product innovation and means we can broaden and deepen our offering, helping our members everywhere save time and money.”

Last week, we tracked more than 80 tech funding deals worth over €1.3 billion, and over 20 exits, M&A transactions, rumours, and related news stories across Europe.Click to read the rest of the news.

Dublin-based Rekord has raised $2.1 million in pre-seed funding to advance its AI-native platform for credit decisioning. The round was led by Point Nine Capital, with participation from Octopus Ventures, Hello World, Baseline, and angels including Eugene Danilkis, co-founder of Mambu. Founded in 2024 by longtime friends Christopher Lynch (CEO) and Mark Noone (CTO), who met at university and later built large-scale infrastructure at AWS, Rekord emerged from the founders’ own 2023 home-buying experiences, which were marked by manual, opaque, and conflicting requirements. They set out to modernize how lenders balance regulation, risk, and customer expectations. Market signals point the same way. Each year, lenders originate more than $10 trillion in mortgages, SME loans, and consumer credit worldwide, a figure projected to approach $15 trillion by 2028. Europe accounts for over $4 trillion annually, while the US contributes roughly $2.5–$3 trillion. Yet origination remains highly manual and fragmented. At the same time, rapid advances in generative AI have sparked both excitement and scrutiny, with regulators in Europe and the US signalling stricter requirements on explainability, bias, and consumer protection. In this environment, deploying AI safely and compliantly has become a strategic priority. Rekord addresses this by unifying core banking and loan-origination systems with external data sources such as credit bureaus and open-banking providers. Its AI-native, API-first orchestration platform turns fragmented, manual work into explainable, automated decision flows. Lenders can design, test, and launch fully automated processes across mortgages, SME lending, and consumer credit, reducing manual steps, accelerating cycle times, and freeing teams to focus on complex cases. Lenders are under real pressure to reduce costs while meeting growing expectations for efficiency and service, said Christopher Lynch. Rekord can reduce the manual work in credit origination by up to 80 per cent, freeing teams to focus on customers and complex cases while ensuring decisions remain compliant and explainable. Over the next six months, Rekord will onboard new design partners, expand across the EU and UK, and grow its team to meet demand. The company is preparing pilot programs with selected institutions to demonstrate how its platform can cut operating costs and materially improve the customer experience.

This week, we tracked more than 80 tech funding deals worth over €1.3 billion, and over 20 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 ?? Nothing raises $200M to power the next phase of consumer AI ?? Terra One secures €150M to scale grid-scale battery storage across Europe ?? Lingokids has closed $120M financing round ??‍?? Noteworthy acquisitions and mergers ?? Workday to acquire Sana for $1.1B ?? Keyrock buys Turing Capital for $28M ?? Evertrace acquires Whisper AI to build the leading VC sourcing tool ??Check Point to acquire Lakera ??  advizeo is acquiring proptech company Comgy ? Interesting moves from investors ? Aspire11 launches €500M pension-backed fund ? BNVT Capital launches $150M debut fund to tackle humanity’s biggest challenges ? Shapers launches $75M fintech fund I as Finary hits €25M Series B ? Outlast Fund closes €21M debut fund to back Baltic-Nordic founders ?️ In other (important) news ? Announcing the First Round of Speakers for the Tech.eu Summit London 2026! ? Nvidia to invest £2BN in UK AI startups ? Google pledges £5BN UK AI investment ?? UK-based CommonAI launches to power AI startups with shared compute and IP ?? US a "priority" for Revolut Business, says its GM ? From Brussels to Blois: Mastodon turns commercial partnerships into paid services ? Recommended reads and listens ?? Europe is leading the way in decentralised AI ? From ARM to Edge AI disruptor: how Noel Hurley is leading the change with logic-based AI at Literal Labs ? From sake to spaghetti bolognese: Nosh.bio debuts Koji-based hybrid mince in a Berlin cafeteria ?️ From UCL project to startup: how a classroom prototype became a real-world accessibility tool ?? UK at risk of becoming AI “users, not makers”, says Hoberman, as Nvidia and Microsoft pledge billions ? European tech startups to watch ?? Lightbase closes €2.2M pre-seed round, launches AI developer tool ?? Cofrai secures €2M to bring AI-powered solutions to fire protection ?? Time Atlas Labs raises €1.8M to help people track and learn from life’s moments ?? OnTracx raises €1.2M to help runners recover and stay injury-free ?? Eagl raises €825,000 to bring AI-native automation to finance teams ?? Plino secures €650,000 to automate SME financial planning with AI

Amsterdam-based Brineworks has secured €6.8 million in new funding to accelerate the commercialisation of its ultra-low-cost Direct Air Capture (DAC) technology. The round was led by SeaX Ventures, with participation from Pale Blue Dot, First Momentum, AiiM Partners, Energie360°, and Katapult. Brineworks has also been awarded a €1.8 million grant from the European Innovation Council (EIC) Accelerator to further advance R&D and pilot deployment. Brineworks is a climate tech company developing direct air capture with hydrogen co-production to enable affordable e-fuel production. Founded in 2023 by Gudfinnur Sveinsson and electrochemist Dr Joseph Perryman, the company combines technology and policy expertise to deliver scalable decarbonization solutions for hard-to-abate sectors such as aviation and maritime. Brineworks’ core innovation is a patented electrolyser that enables ultra-low-cost DAC while co-producing substantial hydrogen (H₂). These outputs supply the key inputs for sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and e-methanol for shipping, two sectors that urgently need scalable, carbon-neutral solutions. Aviation alone produces about 2.5 per cent of global CO₂ emissions, and demand continues to grow, while shipping adds more than 3 per cent. Without innovations like Brineworks’, these sectors have no clear path to decarbonization. According to Gudfinnur Sveinsson, CEO of Brineworks, the cost of renewable energy is falling more quickly than most had anticipated. The bottleneck now is technology that can use this power flexibly and affordably. That’s exactly what we’ve built — an electrolyser that runs when the sun shines or the wind blows, and pauses when it doesn’t. We’re unlocking a dream that’s been out of reach for decades, commented Sveinsson.   Brineworks’ electrolyser, unlike conventional systems, is built to operate intermittently, allowing it to adapt to renewable power availability without loss of performance. This addresses a long-standing challenge of running DAC reliably with low-cost materials in grids powered by renewables. The new funding will support scaling the system to pilot level, with the goal of reaching commercial readiness by late 2026.

AI can be a valuable tool for small and midsize businesses (SMBs) looking to grow and improve their operations. But knowing where to start might feel overwhelming. There are lots of tools out there, but which capabilities are actually important and useful for your team? Can you afford AI tools that charge a premium per user? And how can you convince employees to change their old ways of doing things and actually use AI in their workday? Read on for strategies and practical ways your small business can incorporate artificial intelligence to help your team do more while saving time. How can AI be used in small businesses? Businesses are using AI in a variety of ways, but if you’re just starting down this path, you may be wondering what exactly AI can do for your employees. Here are some common uses of AI for a small business: Recapping meetings. AI can generate meeting summaries to help employees review important discussion points or get caught up on meetings they missed. Summarizing information. When you have a lot of reports or data to review, AI can help synthesize that information and provide a succinct summary. It can also summarize long emails or chat threads so you don't get stuck wading through all the unnecessary details. Composing messages. Whether your employees are emailing prospects or providing customer service, AI can compose messages to help them respond more quickly and efficiently. Writing a first draft. If you’re short on time or have limited resources, you can ask an AI assistant to help you write a business plan, a blog post, marketing copy, or a project brief. Strategies for implementing AI for your small business If you want to introduce AI to your employees, there are a few things to keep in mind to make sure it’s used effectively and not seen as just another tool. Below, we’ve outlined a few strategies for choosing and implementing an AI solution. Choose AI tools that work with what you already have App overload is a real thing. According to Global Collaboration in the Workplace survey, more than half of small business leaders (51%) said they often feel overwhelmed by the amount of tools and apps they need to use. If you’re going to introduce another piece of technology into the puzzle, look at how it integrates with what you already have. For example, if you already have an eligible paid Zoom Workplace plan, a built-in tool like AI Companion can create a more seamless experience with its ability to leverage contextual data from Zoom Meetings, Docs, Team Chat, Phone, and more to provide more helpful responses. Identify the most helpful and valuable use cases for AI in your business Don’t just implement AI for AI’s sake — start by identifying root issues or challenges that need to be solved and brainstorm how you can use AI capabilities to address them. Maybe your latest pulse survey revealed that employees are struggling with the number of meetings they need to be in and are frustrated by a lack of follow-through from these meetings. AI-generated meeting summaries can provide details to those who don’t need to be part of the discussion but want to be kept in the loop on decisions. AI-generated docs can take those summaries and create a post-meeting project brief, identifying action items with clear steps to execute. Train and educate employees Once you’ve figured out how your small business could use AI, the next step is to enable your employees to use it. Consider how these AI workflows can be automated or clearly communicated to employees so they can begin to incorporate them as solutions to their common issues. A survey conducted by Morning Consult on behalf of Zoom found that 25% of employees who don’t use AI at work say it’s because they’re not familiar with it, or because they don’t know how it could help them. Don't let this be a barrier to your AI implementation. Invest time and effort into onboarding and training your employees on how to use AI effectively to make it a natural and effective part of their workday. Real-world examples of AI at work As mentioned above, identifying challenges your teams might be facing and mapping them to AI use cases can help with implementing AI successfully. See if your teams could use help with any of the following. Focus on what matters in meetings When you’re meeting with a new client or important prospect, you want to make a good impression. You want to give them your undivided attention. As one small business leader we spoke with put it, “Going back after a meeting with a question when you should have been paying attention is the worst feeling in the world. You feel like you’ve already lost a customer.” Using an AI note-taker like AI Companion can help you stay focused during the meeting while saving you time afterward, too. You won’t need to organize your notes or type up the action items to send to your client — AI Companion generates a summary broken down by topic and identifies next steps. And if you didn’t catch part of the discussion or have a question during the meeting, you can ask AI Companion in the side panel and get a response — your client will never know you missed a step. Pro tip: You can enable AI Companion to start automatically at the beginning of every meeting you host. Automating that step is an easy way to integrate AI into your workday. Get caught up on messages If you often find yourself overloaded with information and struggling to sift through your emails, chats, and voicemails at the beginning of the workday, AI can act as your personal assistant, summarizing your messages and letting you know what to do first. AI Companion for Zoom Workplace can summarize long email chains or chat threads. You can even ask specific questions about an email or chat, like “Was my name mentioned?” or “Provide an overview of key topics or action items” discussed in a chat channel. Plus, AI Companion can extract action items and prioritize your voicemails, letting you attend to the most important messages first. Pro tip: Open the AI Companion side panel and explore how it provides focused responses depending on which email or chat channel is open in your app window. Cut down on response times for better customer service Once you’ve got a handle on your email and voicemail inboxes, you can use AI to help you compose responses. Getting back to customers about their inquiries and following up with prospects within hours contribute toward providing a better experience that can help you win loyal clients. AI Companion works in both Zoom Mail and Zoom Team Chat to compose messages. Provide a prompt and let AI Companion generate the message using context from the entire thread. Then tweak the generated message to home in on the appropriate tone and length. Pro tip: If the first generated response doesn’t hit the mark, provide specific feedback, including details that need to be included, to allow AI Companion to generate a more fitting message. Jumpstart your brainstorming and creation Small businesses need to be able to do more with less. If you don’t have the resources of a larger company, you might find your small team having to do the work of several departments: sales, marketing, business development, and more. Using AI helps give them a leg up on drafting a blog post or product launch brief, especially if it’s outside of their usual expertise. AI capabilities that are built into collaborative docs create a seamless workflow for creating and sharing. That’s the experience you get with Zoom Docs. AI Companion can help you jumpstart a draft by pulling in information from meeting summaries, uploaded documents, and emails. You can tag colleagues, share your doc directly in Team Chat or Meetings, and co-edit docs together. Pro tip: With AI Companion, your meetings become valuable material for AI-generated content in Zoom Docs. Simply enable the appropriate settings to allow Docs access to Zoom Meetings content, and you can create brainstorming docs, post-meeting summaries, a project update doc, and more by going to “My meetings” in the sidebar of your Docs tab. AI Companion: A small business owner’s best friend If you're a small business using Zoom Workplace, you might be surprised to learn that paid plans come with a wealth of AI features for collaboration and productivity. That means Zoom AI Companion, AI assistant, is included at no additional cost with your eligible paid plan. You don’t need to make room in your budget to pay for AI features, and you can provide these benefits more widely across your company, instead of only to a select few. Additionally, because AI Companion is part of the Zoom Workplace platform, you can manage settings and view analytics from the Zoom portal. You don’t have to worry about managing yet another tool on a separate dashboard. AI Companion is one of the many features that make Zoom Workplace an essential work platform. From collaborative docs to cloud calling, scheduling software, and team chat, it provides you with a toolkit for running and growing your business and staying connected with customers.  You can access the report here.

Today Mastodon, the open source social platform that is a key part of the decentralised Fediverse, announced the availability of paid hosting, moderation, and support services for organisations seeking to operate their own Mastodon servers.  This initiative marks a pivotal step toward achieving financial sustainability while maintaining the commitment to decentralisation, openness, and community-driven governance. I spoke to Andy Pipe, Head of Communications at Mastodon, to learn more. Mastodon is a decentralised, open source social network that enables users to self-host their own servers and connect with others across the Fediverse.  Founded in 2016, the project has grown into a global community of 8,500 servers, offering a privacy-first alternative to centralised social platforms. In recent months, Mastodon has expanded its role as a trusted provider of Mastodon services, partnering with public institutions and private entities alike.  In 2024, Mastodon gGmbH took over hosting of the European Commission’s Mastodon service.  According to Piper,  “They’ve been on Mastodon for quite a while and have also helped fund some of our features through their Next Generation Internet grant programs. About 18 months ago, they decided they didn’t want to run their own server anymore, so we took that over.  They still use it to share news, but we now handle the operational side." Mastodon also signed a support contract with the state of Schleswig-Holstein in Germany. More recently, it started working with the city of Blois, in France. "While all these customers are public institutions, we’re also very proud having added AltStore as a customer in the last few weeks," shared Piper. Beyond those formal relationships, Mastodon is in touch with a number of European governments. According to Piper: “At FOSDEM in Brussels earlier this year, for example, four or five national governments came by to talk to us about features and our future plans. So while only a few relationships are formal, many others are active discussions. Over all, these partnerships have provided a reliable, predictable revenue stream, supporting the organisation’s mission and helping to sustain the Fediverse.” Decentralised, but supported: Mastodon launches organisational hosting Building on this momentum, Mastodon is now offering organisations the option to host their own Mastodon servers through two primary models: 1. Fully operated servers under the organisation’s domain, managed by Mastodon’s team with optional moderation services. According to Piper, this is an  “all-in” model — “like what we do with the European Commission. We handle everything: patching, updates, operations. That’s best for large organisations — often governments — that don’t want to deal with infrastructure themselves.” 2. Support contracts for in-house operations teams, enabling collaboration on server management and maintenance. This second model is support-focused. “Some organisations, particularly governments or universities, need to host in their own secure environments because of procurement or compliance requirements. In those cases, we help with installation, updates, and ongoing support, while they retain full control of the infrastructure,” shared Piper, noting that universities, and large brands that don’t want their communications controlled by private third parties are especially interested in organisational hosting. More customisation on the horizon In terms of customisation, currently, organisations can do light branding such as logo, colours, and background. But Mastodon recently secured an EU grant to add what it calls institutional features. According to Piper, this includes things like customising the homepage feed, integrating with single sign-on, and other features public institutions and companies specifically need. "These will start rolling out in the next couple of releases. So customisation is already possible, but we’re making it much more powerful.” Moderation without misalignment I was interested in how moderation factors into support services for companies running their own Mastodon services. Piper explained that the organisation runs two Mastodon servers themselves, “and they each have published moderation rules." "Our own moderation policies are common-sense and in line with German regulations, which are quite strict. That gives us a strong foundation to work from. But when organisations host with us, the expectation is that they’ll run by their own rules and standards. Some will want their own moderation teams. Others may ask us to help — in which case we’d adapt to their requirements.”  That said, Piper stressed that so far there hasn’t been any misalignment between Mastodon and organisational moderation. Lessons from Gab and Truth Social Beyond moderation tasks alone, the question of inclusion in the Fediverse is deeply intertwined with issues of free speech and, therefore, how communities are moderated. After being dropped by hosting providers and payment processors due to its reputation as a hub for hate speech and extremist content, Gab — a ‘free-speech platform notorious for attracting users banned elsewhere — including white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and members of the alt-right — switched to Mastodon’s open-source software to relaunch its platform in 2018. Mastodon’s founder Eugen Rochko and the wider community strongly condemned Gab’s move. While the open-source license allows anyone to use the code, Mastodon made clear it did not endorse Gab. As a result, Gab’s servers were quickly defederated — meaning other Mastodon servers refused to connect with them. This effectively isolated Gab, keeping it from interacting with the broader Mastodon/ActivityPub ecosystem.This means that while Gab continues to use Mastodon code but exists as a closed-off island. It doesn’t interact with the Fediverse because nearly every other server has blocked it.  Likewise, Truth Social, backed by Donald Trump’s media company, was found to have used Mastodon’s code in 2021 without initially complying with the open-source license terms (AGPL). That meant they didn’t provide access to the modified source code as required. Mastodon’s team threatened legal action to enforce the AGPL. Under pressure, Truth Social eventually released its source code and came into compliance. However, like Gab, Truth Social runs on Mastodon code but does not federate with the wider Mastodon/ActivityPub network. It remains siloed, intentionally disconnected from the Fediverse. There was also a case in Turkey where a “homegrown” social network turned out to be Mastodon code with federation turned off.  According to Piper, essentially, it was a local network controlled by the government.  “That’s not unlike what’s happening in the US with TikTok — governments want their own platforms for influence. This is why plurality matters. A diverse ecosystem of interoperable servers reduces the risk of capture and control.” Usability gains: from quote posts to new design Mastodon is also focused on usability, bringing in a new design team. It recently launched 'quote posts,' “a long-requested feature,” according to Piper.  “It’s not yet network-wide, but we’re testing it with feedback channels and iterating based on user input.” He admits that some in the Mastodon community worried quote posts would be abused, “but we’ve seen positive use cases. For example, communities of colour use them to amplify each other, and journalists use them for curation. We want to support those positive patterns while mitigating risks.” Earlier this year, Mastodon announced plans to create a non-profit to own Mastodon’s assets and oversee governance. “Governance is our number one priority — getting the non-profit established properly. That will give people more confidence in Mastodon’s structure for the long term”, shared Piper. However, he admits that — surprising no one — “setting up in Germany is complex, so it’s taken longer than expected.  "But it’s still a top priority, and there will be announcements soon. The hosting and support services were announced first simply because they were ready earlier. The non-profit is still very much on track.” Balancing commercialisation and community values Mastodon is known as community-driven, and it's not always easy to balance community values with organisational decisions. At the start of the year, the organisation identified three priorities — financial sustainability, governance, and usability — and also articulated our team values.  “Communicating those values better is something we’re working on,” shared Piper. “Eugen Rochko remains central, but Mastodon is bigger than any one person. We want to build a better social web — genuinely. That’s easy to say, harder to do. We’ve made mistakes. For example, we drafted new terms of service earlier this year, and the community pushed back. We withdrew them and will reopen the consultation soon. The key is to be responsive, admit when we make mistakes, and continually improve. At the end of the day, we’re humans behind the project, and we try to build responsibly.” Overall, Mastodon’s approach balances commercialisation and its core principles. According to Piper, while paid services will contribute to a diversified revenue model, the organisation remains committed to funding its operations primarily through community contributions and grants. This strategy ensures the Fediverse’s independence and avoids centralisation, a cornerstone of its design. Mastodon will continue to prioritise open source development and community engagement, with its own server serving as an entry point for new users. Piper asserts: “We’re extremely grateful to everyone that runs a Mastodon server as part of the network, including all the companies that manage Mastodon services for groups, communities, organisations, and individuals. We want to work together with everyone in the ecosystem, in order to ensure that a range of Mastodon servers support the community, and that the Fediverse as a whole remains diverse, free and open to all.” In terms of looking ahead, Piper hopes overall for more diverse pockets of social networks outside the control of governments and propagandists — “places where people can connect authentically again.” “Ideally, we’ll return to the kind of authenticity we had on the internet 15–20 years ago, rather than the heavily algorithm-driven feeds we have today. The risk, of course, is homogenisation if people don’t make different choices. That would be dangerous.  But I remain hopeful: if people do embrace alternatives, we’ll end up with a healthier, more diverse social ecosystem.” Mastodon’s expansion reflects its broader goal of empowering users worldwide to self-host and manage their own social networks. The organisation is committed to collaborating with partners, developers, and users to ensure the Fediverse remains a vibrant, inclusive, and sustainable space for all. Image: Battenhall.

Nvidia is to invest £2bn in the UK AI startup ecosystem. Nvidia said: “The new capital will be used to foster economic growth, develop more innovative AI technologies, create new companies and jobs, and empower the UK to compete in the AI market globally.”As part of its investment package, Nvidia plans to invest in prominent UK startups. These are Synthesia, Revolut, Oxa, PolyAI, Latent Labs and Basecamp Research, according to reports.Nvidia is also planning to invest $500m in Wayve, the UK autonomous vehicle startup, in which Nvidia is an existing investor in. Nvidia also announced previously that it was investing £500m in UK data centre startup Nscale. The investment comes amid a flurry of US tech AI investments this week into the UK, coinciding with the visit of President Trump.The US chip giant will work in partnership with VC firms Accel, Air Street Capital, Balderton, Hoxton Ventures and Phoenix Court on the investment package, aimed to creating new startups and jobs.The £2bn investment package is aimed at bringing AI infrastructure to major UK hubs like London, Oxford, Cambridge and Manchester.Nvidia pointed out that scaling AI startups in the UK had been "challenging due to limited access to supercomputing, constrained venture capital outside London, rising energy costs and difficulty for VCs to access leading academic institutions, where many researchers are also entrepreneurs”.Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of Nvidia, said:“This is the age of AI — the big bang of a new industrial revolution. The United Kingdom is in a Goldilocks moment, where world-class universities, bold startups, leading researchers and cutting-edge supercomputing converge."There has never been a better time to invest in the U.K. — AI is unlocking new science and sparking entirely new industries. With new capital and advanced infrastructure, we are doubling down to empower the U.K. to lead the next wave of AI innovation.”

If you’re building, investing in, or simply obsessed with what’s next in tech, Dubai is about to become the centre of your universe. From 12 to 15 October, Expand North Star is back — bigger, bolder, and more ambitious than ever. Hosted by the Dubai Chamber of Commerce at the stunning Dubai Harbour, Expand North Star underscores the UAE’s commitment to innovation. It is the world’s largest startup and investor gathering, uniting 1,800+ startups, 1,000+ investors with over $1 trillion in AUM, and innovators from 65 countries. “Expand North Star is more than an exhibition; it’s a dealmaking epicentre where startups, investors, and innovators collide to shape the future,” says Peter Brady, AVP at Expand North Star. According to Brady, over the last decade, Expand North Star has helped more than 8,000 founders scale their businesses with hands-on support.  “This October will be our most powerful edition yet with 1800+ international startups exhibiting, supported with tailored, matchmade introductions to 1,000+ VCs—and, crucially, to enterprise and government customers drawn from our community of 200,000 decision-makers at GITEX GLOBAL. Expand North Star welcomes more growth-stage startups than any other event – and we judge ourselves by startups making real business and real investments.” The launchpad for Unicorns Expand North Star has built a track record as the place where the next wave of unicorns emerges. From early-stage founders chasing their first round to scaleups eyeing global expansion, the event has already helped countless startups secure funding and break into international markets. Investor powerhouses meet agile disruptors The lineup of investors is nothing short of stellar. Expect the likes of JP Morgan, QNB, Stellantis Ventures, alongside the fast-moving family offices, impact funds, and venture capitalists who are hungry to bet on the next big thing. It’s this unique mix of heavyweight institutions and nimble disruptors that makes Expand North Star the ultimate marketplace for innovation and capital. Spotlight on future talent Running alongside Expand North Star is YouthX — the UAE’s biggest youth innovation conference, now in its 5th year. This initiative shines a spotlight on young coders, creators, and founders, offering a direct bridge between youth-led innovation and global investors. Apply for GITEX ScaleX, Expand North Star’s official growth track Applications are now open for GITEX ScaleX — the official growth programme of Expand North Star 2025. It is designed exclusively for Series A+ startups looking to fast-track their entry into the MENA region. Backed by the Dubai Chamber of Digital Economy and powered by GGH (Global Growth Hub), this specialist programme connects high-growth scaleups directly with investors, enterprise buyers, and government partners — all within the world’s largest startup and tech event, Expand North Star. What’s new this year 2025 marks the 10th anniversary of Expand North Star, and the team is pulling out all the stops. Brazil will take centre stage at Expand North Star this year as Country Partner of the Year, bringing more than 100 startups and venture capital firms to Dubai and “opening bridges to one of the world’s most exciting markets,” said Peter Brady. Serbia joins as Innovation Partner, a first for the event, showcasing the dynamism of its national ecosystem.  “Serbia’s startup scene has been accelerating at an incredible pace, and we’re proud to provide the platform for its entrepreneurs to connect globally,” Brady noted. New delegations will also arrive from Poland, Canada, Chile, Syria, Ecuador, Hong Kong, and the USA, while Holland, Italy, France, and Latvia are expanding their presence with larger national pavilions. European founders remain a key part of the story. This year, 20 per cent more European startups have chosen Expand North Star as their launchpad for international growth—an indicator, Brady said, of the event’s role as “the place where Europe’s innovators come to scale on a global stage.” “As Dubai strengthens its role as a global hub for expansion, we’ll welcome startups and VCs from both established and emerging markets.” Further, the conference also sees:  North Star Green Impact revamped with a stronger focus on sustainability, A brand-new dedicated consumer tech area, The Digital Assets Forum, tackling the future of Web3 and beyond. Dubai: the innovation nexus It’s no accident that Expand North Star takes place in Dubai. As Saeed Al Gergawi, Vice President of the Dubai Chamber of Digital Economy, puts it, Dubai’s ambition is clear: “to host and fuel the technologies shaping tomorrow.” He contends that over the past decade, Expand North Star has emerged as one of the most impactful platforms driving the growth of Dubai’s digital economy: “The event embodies Dubai Chamber of Digital Economy’s ambition to advance Dubai’s role as a global hub for technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship.  By connecting startups, investors, and industry leaders from around the world, Expand North Star accelerates growth, helps companies leverage Dubai as a launchpad to reach global markets, and cements Dubai’s digital ecosystem as the best place to scale bold new ideas.” The UAE is now ranked the #1 global destination for entrepreneurs four years running outpacing many advanced economies in factors like funding access, business-friendly policies, and ease of setup. This is supported by bold reforms such as 60+ amended laws, 100 per cent foreign ownership, 0 per cent personal income tax, and a 9 per cent corporate tax (with exemptions for many startups). Government initiatives have injected $8.7 billion into startups and SMEs, with targets to attract 300 tech companies and $500 million in FDI. Under the Dubai Economic Agenda (D33), the emirate aims to double its economy by 2033, create 30 unicorns, and empower 100,000+ startups. Platforms like Ignyte already connect founders to 5,000+ VCs and angels, 5,000 mentors, and 500+ corporate/government partners, offering access to $100M+ in perks. Dubai also boasts nearly 30 free zones, 50+ incubators and accelerators, and the $272M Future District Fund, which aims to launch 1,000 new startups. With 200 nationalities represented, long-term visas such as the 10-year Golden Visa and 5-year Green Visa are available for founders, firmly establishing Dubai as a global launchpad for scale-ups and innovation. Why you can’t miss it  Expand North Star is where you’ll see ideas leap from concept to commercialisation — across AI, Climate Tech, Web3, HealthTech, Mobility, and even Space. It’s where you’ll meet the people who will define the next decade of innovation. And it’s where you might just forge the connections that turn your startup into the next unicorn. Don’t miss the world’s largest startup and investor gathering. Secure your spot at Expand North Star 2025 and be part of the marketplace where the next unicorns are born.

Factor2 Energy, a German geothermal innovator, has raised a $9.1 million seed round led by At One Ventures, with participation from High-Tech Gründerfonds, Gründerfonds Ruhr, Verve Ventures, and Siemens Energy Ventures. Factor2 Energy is a climatetech company developing geothermal power systems that use CO₂ as the working fluid to tap moderate-temperature resources, delivering up to twice the output of conventional designs while avoiding fracking, ultra-deep drilling, and water-intensive processes. Its mission is to unlock scalable, clean, baseload geothermal power while enabling permanent carbon storage. The company is led by Michael Wechsung, Joerg Strohschein, and Felix Boehmer, who previously worked together at Siemens Energy, where they pioneered an economically superior approach that replaces water or brine with CO₂ in the geothermal cycle. Factor2’s CO₂-based system converts natural CO₂ reservoirs and CCS storage sites into reliable baseload power via a closed-loop thermosiphon that circulates CO₂ without subsurface pumps, cutting parasitic energy use and mechanical complexity. At the surface, a direct-drive CO₂ turbine converts heat to electricity, and the fluid is cooled and reinjected, preserving long-term CO₂ storage. Under comparable geology, the approach can deliver up to twice the output of water-based systems while lowering CAPEX. Because CO₂ flows efficiently at lower temperatures and pressures, Factor2 can tap shallower, cooler resources that are uneconomic for conventional geothermal, reducing drilling costs and widening the map of viable sites. The design also avoids secondary fluids and complex binary systems, supporting a competitive levelized cost of electricity and turning CO₂ storage sites into productive energy assets. Factor2 Energy will use its seed funding to advance the technology and develop a pilot power plant to demonstrate scalability.

Today, Finch Capital released the tenth edition of its State of European Fintech Report, offering a detailed snapshot of funding flows, deal activity, and emerging trends shaping the sector in the first half of 2025.  Some of its key findings:  London is king for fintech venture funding While a greater concentration of funding is prevalent across European regions amid an overall drop in total funding, this lack of diversification, however, highlights the UK’s dominance, netting 56 per cent of total funding, 79 per cent of which is concentrated in London. At a national level, the UK maintains greater scale and diversity than its European counterparts, being the only region whose top two deals constitute less than 50 per cent (45 per cent compared to 56 per cent and 84 per cent) of total funding. This is despite its top two deals as a percentage of total funding having increased the most (2.8x compared to the second most, 1.4x).  The UK’s drop in total fintech funding is also the least in the region (47 per cent compared to the second least, 64 per cent). London’s standout success can be attributed to homegrown fintech stars such as Monzo and Revolut, and its rich payments ecosystem. France is a fintech challenger to London Germany, France and other markets are driven largely by one or two significantly sized deals in AI-driven compliance, wealthtech, and capital markets data analytics. While Germany’s median deal value is up 189 per cent YOY, its volume count is 27, lagging behind France’s 38.  The data makes France Europe’s strongest challenger market to London, albeit attracting only half the investment of Germany. And bigger deals loom on the horizon during the remainder of H2 2025.  In the Netherlands, the top two 2025 deals to date represented 90 per cent of its overall funding, with FINOM Payments SME services attracting €115m. A groundswell of opportunity, however, lies in Crypto and Stablecoin infrastructure, and regtech for digital assets, if regulatory clarity improves. NL held 4 per cent of the European fintech funding value in H1 2025, just pipping Ireland and Poland (both 3 per cent) to fourth place. These figures speak to considered and confident investment decisions, funnelling capital into established entities, courting longevity and staking a hefty claim on the continued momentum of the market. Aman Ghei, Partner, Finch Capital, says:  "The fintech vertical is the most important sector in Europe. Having undergone its own transformation 2-3 years ago, the quality of companies and entrepreneurs that are burgeoning from the ecosystem sets itself apart from other verticals. They are the first to implement new technologies, enable AI infrastructure in their products and build profitable businesses at scale.”  Volume trumps value European fintech companies constituted a quarter (25 per cent median) of all VC/Growth deals done by the top global technology investors in Europe in the six months to H1 2025, and looks to be re-setting its status as prime asset class for the longer term, given the steady rise from 18 per cent of total deal value in 2024 to 23 per cent in H1 2025. Fintech investment up 23 per cent. While the overall number of deals is down 32 per cent YOY from H1 2024, overall capital invested in fintech is up 23 per cent to €3.6bn within the same period.  Within this, the hotbed of activity lies in the €100-500m M&A transaction range. The total volume of these is 5.3x that of the €500+ range and constitutes the greatest differential to date, indicating great investor appeal and significant potential for fintech founders. US investment in European fintech now accounts for 28 per cent of all transactions According to the report authors, the consistency and stability in European trading is a key draw after the volatility brought about by President Trump’s election and subsequent decisions. This figure runs above the median figure for US investment since 2018. Furthermore, Europe’s exit market is quietly robust, with a pipeline almost half full of fintech. Question marks remain over the US, still attracting major future listings, but an IPO backlog of 47 per cent is a clear reflection of a sustained, buoyant fintech ecosystem. Engineering teams are shrinking due to software optimisation AI-based start-ups and scale-ups account for 21 per cent of deal volume in European fintech (up from 16 per cent in 2024), but only 7 per cent of deal value in H1 2025.  However, a closer look at R&D teams in the report reveals a stark stemming of growth in engineer teams since 2022 when there was a 20 per cent increase in net new hires in R&D at top fintech firms. This fell to 14 per cent in 2023, 9 per cent in 2024, and it is expected to be a mere 2 per cent by the end of 2025. Firms are optimising activities, focusing on computer engineering- fine-tuning existing models, maintaining and integrating, rather than building. According to Aman Ghei, Partner, Finch Capital, “firms don’t have resources to develop their own models, per se, hence they need to use what’s out there, putting their own wrapper on it.  “That is what’s happening in the market today and what probably will happen for the next year or two. Replacing front-end engineers, the biggest job posting out there is prompt engineer-- someone who interacts with language models to get the best output possible from an engineering perspective. Now, you don’t have to worry about needing as many engineers to grow your business.” AI’s fortifying force AI strongly features in software focused on modification and cost-saving, as seen in Wealth Management and Underwriting.  For example, genAI in wealth management is improving margins rather than generating return. Forty-eight per cent of wealth managers are already investing in AI, with client experience and enhancements (69 per cent), task automation (62 per cent) and cost reduction (56 per cent) the top three incentives. Underwriting is where the greatest revenue gains and cost reductions across functions are to be had for insurance firms embracing AI. Using AI increases the value in underwriting to 36 per cent, from a mere 10 per cent. Interesting to note, at this time, there is zero value (0 per cent) to be gained from AI implementation in insurance Procurement, Legal or product management. The report projects that in the space of two years from 2024 to 2026, the number of lenders piloting or scaling AI for loans will have almost doubled, from just over 35 per cent to just under 70 per cent.  Even more stark, in the same timeframe, the report predicts the use of AI could replace manual loan underwriting completely for those that use it, shortening the average cycle from 12 days in 2024 (entirely manual) to 2.5 days (entirely AI). Sebastien Marchon is the CEO of Belgium HQ’ed Rydoo, which recently acquired Nordic fintech Semine. He agrees that fintech has matured in Europe and investor confidence is growing, including from US investors; however, more private capital is needed to keep pace with the UK. “Investors are showing confidence in European fintech as a resilient asset class and betting on a strong pipeline of IPOs, underscoring the region’s position as a fintech powerhouse.   However, the UK is dominating Europe with more funding deals and greater diversification. The EU needs to do more to stimulate private capital investment in promising early-stage fintechs.”      

In the first half of 2025, software companies in Europe raised €3.6 billion across 335 deals, representing around 11 per cent of total European tech funding (€33.7 billion) and around 17 per cent of all tech deals (1,940+). While software captured a smaller share of capital, it remains a vital driver of deal activity, accounting for a higher proportion of transactions than funding volume. The average deal size in software was about €10.7 million, compared to €17.4 million across European tech overall. This highlights a more fragmented funding landscape in software, with a larger number of smaller- to mid-sized rounds fueling innovation. The period featured several outsized software rounds across Europe, highlighting the sector’s diversity, from productivity AI and workforce platforms to enterprise SaaS, risk decisioning, cryptography/FHE, FinOps, and healthtech. These raises indicate continued investor interest in AI-enabled, mission-critical tools that address both broad and industry-specific needs. Overall, the data suggests that while mega-rounds in other sectors drove headline numbers, software continues to demonstrate resilience and breadth, with strong deal activity and a steady flow of capital into companies scaling AI, automation, and digital infrastructure. Here are the biggest software deals in H1 2025. Amount raised in H1 2025: $1B Grammarly is an AI writing assistant used by over 40 million people and 50,000 organisations to improve clarity and effectiveness in English. Founded in Ukraine in 2009, it provides real-time support across 500,000+ apps and sites, from email and word processors to web browsers. Its product lineup, Grammarly Free, Pro, Business, and Education, serves users ranging from students to Fortune 500 companies. Features such as grammar and spelling checks, tone and style guidance, and plagiarism detection are designed to enhance writing while maintaining each user’s voice and context. In May 2025, the company secured $1 billion in non-dilutive financing from General Catalyst to further its transformation into a comprehensive AI productivity platform. Amount raised in H1 2025: €800M Your.World is a European platform providing online services that help more than one million customers establish and grow their digital presence. Since entering the market in 2016, the company has expanded through a mix of organic growth and acquisitions, offering recurring services across online productivity (workspaces), domains and hosting (web presence), digital trust (security), and digital transformation. The company has secured €800 million in long-term capital to expand in the European SME market, with planned investments and acquisitions in managed IT services, cloud infrastructure, and online productivity solutions. Amount raised in H1 2025: $110M Ascendx is a salesforce-focused solutions company that helps enterprises “10x the value of their CRM.” Its connected portfolio of salesforce-native apps powers sales, service, operations, and data, delivering real-time insight and faster workflows. Offerings span sales enablement, service automation, workflow orchestration, secure data management and backup, data integration to warehouses like Snowflake, and point-of-sale experiences, enterprise-grade, compliant, and built to scale. Ascendx Cloud raised $110 million to accelerate US expansion and fund acquisitions to strengthen its AI-driven CRM suite. Amount raised in H1 2025: $62M Incident.io is an all-in-one AI platform for on-call, incident response, and status pages. It gives fast-moving teams a unified command centre from alert to resolution to cut downtime and keep customers informed. The AI platform, including AI SRE, analyses alerts, triages issues, summarises context, and accelerates root-cause diagnosis so engineers resolve incidents faster with less effort. With workflows, a service catalogue, insights, and integrations, it’s trusted by teams at Netflix, Airbnb, Etsy and more. In April, Incident.io raised $62 million at a $400 million valuation and will use the funds for hiring, sales and marketing, and product development. Amount raised in H1 2025: $60M Shop Circle is an AI-driven technology group powering the infrastructure of modern enterprises. It focuses on digital commerce with a portfolio of Shopify-native business apps and developer tools that help brands drive sales, streamline operations, and scale. Examples include Product Options, Digital Downloads, Easy Redirects, Back-in-Stock alerts, Referrals, and AI Order Tags & Flows. Customers get setup assistance, customisation, and 24/7 support. Shop Circle has raised $60 million (half equity, half debt) to expand into new sectors and accelerate development of its AI capabilities for B2B customers. Recently, Shop Circle extended Series B to $100 million. Amount raised in H1 2025: $57M Zama is a privacy-focused cryptography company whose solution is Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE), which enables data to be processed while still encrypted, so cloud services and applications can perform operations without ever exposing sensitive information. The technology supports true end-to-end confidentiality, quantum-resistance, and verifiable computations, making it suitable for privacy-sensitive use cases in finance, healthcare, blockchain, and other regulated environments. In June, Zama raised $57 million to launch its mainnet, broaden adoption within its developer ecosystem, and support further research and development of its Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) technology. Amount raised in H1 2025: $54M Taktile is an AI-powered decisioning platform aimed at financial institutions, enabling teams in banking, fintech, and insurance to automate and optimise risk decisions, from onboarding and credit evaluation to fraud, compliance, and collections. Its offerings (Decision Workbench, Data Marketplace, Optimisation Studio, plus tools like AI Copilot) allow organisations to design, test, monitor, and deploy decision workflows with greater speed, safety, and transparency. The company raised $54 million in February to enhance risk management for fintechs and financial institutions while expanding its reach into the insurance sector. Amount raised in H1 2025: $50M Tandem Health is a company which builds an AI medical scribe and clinician co-pilot that captures consultations and drafts structured notes so clinicians can focus on patients. It supports multiple specialities and languages, works for in-person and virtual visits, and is used daily by 1,000+ care organisations across Sweden, the UK, France, Spain, and Germany. In June, the company closed $50 million to build an AI-native operating system for clinical workflows across Europe. Amount raised in H1 2025: $50M Vertice is a spend-optimisation platform focused on SaaS and cloud costs. It helps procurement, finance, IT/security, cloud engineering, and legal teams improve visibility, negotiate better vendor contracts, manage renewals, and automate procurement workflows. Vertice offers contract benchmarking and analytics, cloud cost optimisation tools, and intelligent approval processes. It integrates with ERPs and finance tools to help organisations control spending, improve efficiency, and deliver faster ROI. In January, Vertice raised $50 million in new funding to expand its vision. Amount raised in H1 2025: $43M Granola is an AI-powered notepad app for meetings that listens to your calls, transcribes them in the background, and enhances your own notes with summaries, action items, and contextual insights, all without joining as a bot. It lets you use your own writing first, then fills in key details afterwards, supports customizable templates, and syncs with tools like Zapier, Slack, and Notion. Granola raised $43 million in a Series B round in May to expand its London-based team and accelerate product development.

Paris-based mental health startup Moodwork has raised €3.1 million in fresh funding. The round was led by French VC firm Newfund, with participation from new investor and Co-CEO Grégory Salinger, along with business angels Guy Lacroix and Alain Dublin. Salinger, who has held senior roles at Microsoft and Apax Partners, joins company co-founder Benjamin Brion as Co-CEO. The funding comes as the French government has designated 2025 as the “Great National Cause” for mental health, highlighting issues such as workplace stress and burnout. In this context, Moodwork is developing its platform that combines scientific research, psychological support, and AI-based personalization to help companies address employee well-being. The company reports that six months of using its platform correlates with a 13% drop in burnout risk and a 9% decrease in stress levels. Moodwork is already profitable and plans to expand its product suite, grow its workforce, and adapt its tools for executives, healthcare staff, industrial workers, and logistics professionals. Its offerings include individual support, HR and leadership tools, and company-wide assessments to identify risks before they escalate. Moodwork also provides consulting, training, and evaluation services. Across Europe, demand for workplace mental health solutions is growing. UK-based Spill and Unmind and Dutch startup OpenUp are gaining traction, while Moodwork is building its presence with a focus on scientific validation and tailored solutions.

We are thrilled to unveil the first round of speakers for the Tech.eu Summit London 2026. The two-day event will take place 21–22 April 2026 at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre in London, bringing together leading voices in Europe’s tech ecosystem, from venture capital and startup founders to regulators and innovation leaders. Key Themes at the Summit This year’s summit will explore the latest technological advancements shaping industries worldwide. Key topics will include artificial intelligence, deeptech, climate tech, fintech and other transformative fields. Attendees can look forward to insights into the future of innovation, the challenges of the climate crisis, and the financial sector’s evolution. Meet the First Round of Speakers We are pleased to announce the following industry leaders who will be speaking at the summit: Agata Nowicka - Visionaries Female Foundry Ali Morrow - Clay Capital Cecilia Ma - Norrsken VC Dimitri Sedashev - Cherry Ventures Hussein Kanji - Hoxton Ventures Iwona Biernat - EU-Inc Petition Jessica Lennard - Competition and Markets Authority Joel Udden - Ventech Laura Waldenstrom - Earlybird Malin Posern - Project A Ventures Patrick Newton - Form Ventures Sam Nasrolahi - InMotion Ventures Sean Duffy - CIBC Innovation Banking Simone Lavizzari - Join Capital Stefan Heilmann - IEG Investment Banking Group Tommy Stadlen - Giant Ventures This diverse lineup reflects the breadth and depth of Europe’s technology scene, bringing together perspectives from investors, founders, regulators and innovation experts. More speakers and detailed program information will be announced soon. Get Your Ticket Now Stay tuned for more updates as we count down to what promises to be an unmissable event for the global tech community. Don’t miss out on Early Adopter tickets, which will expire soon. Secure your spot today and join us in London on 21–22 April 2026. Start Networking Before the Summit with the Tech.eu Events App To help attendees make the most of their summit experience, we have developed the Tech.eu Events App. The app allows participants to connect with each other ahead of the event, arrange meetings in advance, browse the full agenda and speaker lineup, and receive real-time notifications and updates during the summit. It is designed to make networking easier and to ensure you get the maximum value from your time in London. Speaker applications are still open, and interested participants can submit their proposals through the form available here. We look forward to welcoming you to London in April for two days of insight, inspiration and innovation.

London-based enterprise AI start-up Conduct has closed a $12 million seed round and emerged from stealth with a mission to lead the largest transformation in enterprise IT by modernising legacy ERP systems. The round was led by Creandum, one of Europe’s leading early-stage VC firms, with participation from Lucid Capital, Booom, angel investors from Palantir, Google DeepMind, and Workday, as well as a senior leader from SAP. Conduct uses cutting-edge agentic AI to help organisations truly understand their own systems, restoring agility, accelerating innovation, and powering digital transformation. By transforming opaque legacy ERP estates into intuitive, actionable insights, the company aims to achieve GDP-scale impact and unlock billions in economic value through faster innovation, higher efficiency, and increased operational speed. Founded in 2024 by former Palantir leaders Jan Philipp Haas, Philipp Hoefer, and Henry Thompson, Conduct’s mission is shaped by firsthand experience with the growing burden of legacy ERP on large organisations. Its breakthrough platform lets organisations converse directly with their ERP systems, giving IT leaders and business stakeholders real ownership of their estates. It instantly reveals how even the most complex codebases operate and the business logic they contain, a level of clarity that has long been out of reach for most large enterprises. We believe that IT should be the core growth engine of every enterprise but today CEOs repeatedly tell us that IT is becoming a blocker to business outcomes: 3-4 per cent of enterprise revenue is spent on system maintenance. Counterintuitively, this is not driven by new code generation, but by having to manually decipher how complex systems spanning millions of lines of code actually work. Conduct’s AI agents drastically reduce the resource burden of software maintenance, allowing IT teams to focus on system innovation that drives revenue and productivity gains, explains Jan Philipp Haas, Co-founder and CEO. With SAP’s initial 2027 deadline for S/4HANA migration, CIOs face high-stakes decisions about the future of their systems. Instead of spending tens of millions on multi-year consulting projects that often fail or cause costly downtime, enterprises are looking for more reliable and accurate ways to modernise and extend their ERP estates, and Conduct aims to meet that need. The company’s broader vision is to remove the structural barriers in enterprise IT that have long constrained innovation and revenue growth.

AI startup Eagl has raised €825,000 in funding to accelerate the development of its AI-native financial agentic platform, expand its AI and engineering teams, and scale across Europe.  Eagl is an AI-native financial operations platform that automates accounting and controlling workflows, monitors data quality, and shortens audit cycles, freeing finance teams from manual month-end work so they can focus on strategy.  The platform plugs into ERP and accounting systems, automating accounting and controlling workflows, continuously monitoring data quality, and resolving anomalies with business context. By ensuring accurate, structured financial data, Eagl helps finance teams reduce errors, speed up month-end closes, and shorten audit cycles; transforming one of the biggest pains for in-house finance teams into a streamlined, proactive process. “Most finance teams are stretched thin, fixing problems instead of adding real value,” said Samuel Van Innis, co-founder and CEO of Eagl. “With Eagl, we turn days of manual checking into instant insights, empowering finance leaders to focus on strategic topics while auditors get cleaner books, faster.” “Beyond automating workflows, we continuously monitor data quality and resolve anomalies in real time,” added Frederik Bakx, co-founder and CFO. “This means finance teams can close faster, scale efficiently, and cut down the time and stress of audits.”  Finance leaders currently spend up to 70 per cent of their time gathering, cleaning, and reconciling data instead of analysing it. Eagl’s platform plugs directly into a CFO’s stack, connecting to ERP and accounting systems to ensure accuracy of the books and generate reports enriched with business context. While legacy tools have improved task tracking, they still leave finance teams buried in manual work. Unlike these systems, Eagl is AI-native from the ground up, designed to bring context and intelligence into every accounting and controlling workflow. Syndicate One and CNBB Equity Partners (Founder ExactOnline & Yuki) led the round, which is backed by leading SaaS founders, including: Matthias Geeroms (Lighthouse), Joris Van Der Gucht (Silverfin, Ravical), Jeroen De Wit (Teamleader), Lorenz Bogaert (Rydoo, StarApps), Louis Jonckheere (Showpad), Roeland Delrue (Aikido Security), and Jorn Vanysacker, Gilles Mattelin, and Wouter Van Respaille (Henchman). “Eagl is tackling one of the most frustrating bottlenecks in finance with technology that actually understands business context,” said Matthias Geeroms, founder and CFO of Belgian unicorn Lighthouse. “That’s why many of us in the SaaS ecosystem believe this platform will fundamentally change how finance teams operate.”

Barespace, a software company focused on the beauty industry, has raised €2.9 million in seed funding, bringing its total external investment to €4.68 million.  The round was led by Elkstone Ventures, with participation from Dogpatch Labs, Enterprise Ireland, and notable angel investors including Barry Napier (CEO of Cubic Telecom), Rick Kelley (former MD of Meta Ireland), Patrick Walsh (CEO of Dogpatch Labs), and Tom Kennedy (co-founder of Hostelworld). Founded in 2022, Barespace provides a unified software platform that replaces fragmented apps and manual processes for salons and barbershops. Since launch, it has been adopted by over 260 businesses across hair, barbering, spa, and medical aesthetics, helping teams streamline operations and support growth. Building on that foundation, Barespace brings scheduling, payments, resource planning, marketing, and analytics together in a single, easy-to-use platform. AI-powered automations save salon owners roughly 10 hours of manual work each week, while integrated card payments and POS streamline cash flow and reduce third-party fees. Unlike marketplace models, Barespace ensures salons retain full ownership of their data, with direct access to client, transaction, and inventory information, providing transparency with no hidden fees. Conor Moules, Co-founder and CEO of Barespace, noted that salons today are burdened by fragmented tools, hidden costs, and technology that takes focus away from creativity and client relationships. He added: At Barespace, we have reimagined the salon experience with one seamless, AI-driven system for bookings, payments, marketing and more. No clutter. No surprises. Just a platform that works in harmony with the passion and skill behind every salon chair. Salons deserve better and that’s exactly what we’re here to deliver. Barespace announced the appointment of Brian Caulfield, formerly of Molten Ventures, as Chair of the Board, bringing experience in fintech and scaling technology companies. The investment will support UK expansion and entry into two additional European markets by 2026. The company also plans to expand its team across key functions and continue advancing its AI-driven operating system, designed to integrate core business tools and streamline operations for the hair and beauty sector.

Outlast Fund, a Baltic-Nordic VC fund, has closed its first fund at €21M to invest in Pre-Seed and Seed-stage startups from the region.  The fund is based in Riga and Stockholm, and aims to be the first cheque in backing founders building solutions that are built to last, with initial pre-seed tickets of up to €250,000 and €1.5M Seed rounds. The fund looks to scour the edges to uncover the most promising founders in the Baltics and Nordics, and is prepared to invest in them at the earliest stages to help them build enduring companies. The fund is particularly keen to keep an eye out for serial entrepreneurs with a proven track record, ready to back them as early as the idea stage.  Outlast Fund also invests in first-time founders who possess unique and specific insights within their chosen verticals. However, a trait that they look for in all cases is an obsessive drive to solve their customers’ most pressing problems. Regardless of whether the founders are better suited for building lean teams with the help of angels, microfunds, and syndicates, or if they are eyeing large rounds from the get-go, Outlast Fund is ready to support from the first cheque, rather than jumping in at the middle. “At Outlast Fund, we believe that the real breakthroughs happen at the edges. This fund is built for the outliers. Rather than competing in the crowded middle, the focus is on being the very first cheque – either assembling a syndicate around an overlooked gem or partnering early with founders chasing global scale,” said Marija Rucevska, Outlast Fund co-founding GP With Stockholm as home of some of Europe’s most exciting startups at the moment, the decision to bridge the Baltic countries, one of the world’s fastest-growing startup hubs and a veritable treasure trove for future success stories, makes sense to infuse the up-and-coming region with the experience and ambition of Sweden. "Having spent a decade as an investor collaborating with founders and startups in Stockholm's venture ecosystem, I recognise a remarkable resemblance between Riga's current landscape and the early days of the Stockholm scene,” shared Kristaps Prūsis, Outlast Fund co-founding GP. Outlast Fund is founded by four GPs with extensive founder, operator, and investor experience. The team is made up of Egita Polanska, operator leveraging investor experience at leading accelerators TechStars (Seattle, USA), and Startup Wise Guys, Marija Rucevska, founder at Helve and TechChill, Mikaela Pedersen, an experienced operator and a founder with an exit under her belt, and Kristaps Prusis, founder with exits and investor who previously founded VNTRS (50 investments, 5 exits).  While the fund is generalist and industry agnostic, the GPs’ networks and expertise can act as multipliers in some sectors in particular, which they are keen to place a focus on. Those include B2B SaaS, digital health, and fintech, supporting founders who are obsessed with solving real-life problems for their customers, often by leveraging the latest technologies. The fund has kickstarted its activity by investing in 5 startups even before the fund was closed. Those include: Handwave (Latvia), a biometric authentication platform, Convershake (Latvia), an AI-powered SaaS for contact centres, MIA Health (Norway), a data-driven digital health companion turning heart-rate data into lifelong cardiovascular fitness, Aggregate Markets (Estonia), a next-generation marketplace for construction aggregates, and Vitala (Sweden), reimbursable exercise prescriptions for chronic care management. Outlast Fund is backed by anchor LP ALTUM, the Latvian Development Finance Institution, the European Union’s European Regional Development Fund (ERAF), and various high-net-worth individuals and family funds, including the likes of such operators as Davis Siksnans (CEO of the first Latvian unicorn, Printful), Andrius Biceika (who scaled and built Revolut, member of the Supervisory Council at Revolut Europe Holdings), and Gravity Team (one of the top algorithmic market makers and liquidity providers in the crypto space globally).

Seapoint, a financial platform for European startups, has raised $3 million in pre-seed funding. The round was led by Frontline Ventures with participation from Tapestry VC and former COOs of Stripe, Revolut, Tide, and Tines. Seapoint is building a unified financial platform for growing European companies, combining business accounts, corporate cards, payments, and treasury management in one place. Its AI automates time-consuming finance tasks, processing invoices from email, managing payroll, categorising expenses, and generating reports, so work that once took hours happens in the background. This approach addresses a gap in the market, as mid-market firms with 10 to 250 employees are often too large for consumer-focused neobanks yet not large enough for traditional corporate banking. In interviews with more than 50 VC-backed founders, Seapoint found that financial stacks are fragmented, manual, and costly, with companies typically using four to six tools, managing multiple bank accounts, relying heavily on accountants, and earning little or no interest on deposits. By bringing these tools together and automating workflows, Seapoint seeks to lower costs, provide greater clarity, and turn savings and interest into additional months of runway. Seapoint Founder and CEO Sean Mullaney was previously European CIO at Stripe, CTO at AI unicorn Algolia, and has advised the ECB and the Bank of England. He’s joined by former colleagues from Stripe's European payments team and executives from Tide. Many on the team, including Mullaney, are ex-founders who’ve experienced the problem first-hand. AI can transform finances for scaling companies. Within minutes, Seapoint connects to a company's bank accounts, its accounting software and email. At which point we can give them a real-time view of their business, automate bookkeeping, pay invoices and manage payroll.  Seapoint is broader and more powerful than traditional banking. And it puts founders back in control of their finances, commented Mulllaney. After nine months in development, the company has rolled out a private beta already in use by dozens of VC-backed startups. The startups across the UK and Europe can sign up for the beta program at seapoint.co.