VisioLab, a provider of AI-powered visual self-checkout solutions for food service, has closed an $11 million Series A financing round. The round was co-led by eCAPITAL Entrepreneurial Partners and Simon Capital, with continued participation from existing investors High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF), zwei.7, and Heartfelt (formerly APX). Founded in 2019 and headquartered in Osnabrück, Germany, with a U.S. office in Boston, VisioLab develops iPad-based checkout systems that use computer vision and edge AI to recognise both packaged and unpackaged food items at the point of sale. This enables integrated checkout and payment without barcode scanning or the need for venue infrastructure modifications. The system is deployed across sectors, including corporate dining, higher education, sports and entertainment, and travel and leisure. According to operator-reported data, the solution can reduce average transaction times by up to 70 per cent and can be set up by existing staff in approximately 10 minutes. Alongside the funding, VisioLab is launching an integrated checkout-to-payment platform that combines item recognition, point-of-sale software, and payment processing in one system, eliminating the need for separate payment terminals and reducing complexity and costs. The company is also introducing a B2B e-commerce channel, enabling operators to configure and order systems online, simplifying procurement for multi-site deployments. The new funding will support VisioLab’s next phase of international expansion, building on recent deployments such as stadium-wide rollouts at the Orlando Magic’s Kia Center and Inter Miami CF’s Nu Stadium, as well as an ongoing rollout with Live Nation Entertainment.

Rivan, a company developing synthetic fuel to strengthen Europe’s energy security, has raised $34 million in funding led by IQ Capital.  Previous investor Plural participated, with new investor Fundomo and angels, including: Thomas Wolf (Hugging Face), Matt Clifford (Entrepreneur First), and Markus Villig (Bolt). This brings the company’s total raised to $46 million.   Natural gas remains essential to Europe’s economy, from powering heavy industry to generating electricity and heating millions of homes. Yet the UK and Europe remain heavily dependent on imported fuel: 42 per cent for the UK and 85 per cent for Europe. This leaves the region exposed to supply shocks and increasing global competition for liquefied natural gas.  Energy prices surged following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and remain highly sensitive to disruption. The recent war in Iran and threats to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz have caused oil and gas prices to climb roughly 55–60 per cent on average since February, driving volatility and underscoring the continued risks of relying on foreign fuel supplies.  Rivan was founded to address this challenge by producing synthetic fuels for industries that cannot be electrified. Its technology enables the domestic production of synthetic fuels in Europe at country-scale and at fossil-fuel prices.  Founded in 2024 by serial entrepreneur Harvey Hodd, Rivan has assembled an elite team of 30+ electrical, chemical, and mechanical engineers working from its HQ in London and is now hiring for further roles to accelerate its timelines. This team has enabled the company to vertically integrate the entire synthetic fuel production at scale, demonstrated by a 1MW plant in Wiltshire, currently the largest of its kind in the UK.  Since its Seed round last year, the company has moved from pilot-scale systems to a fully operational plant, having tripled its customer contracts, reflecting the growing demand for domestically produced fuel. The company’s technology vertically integrates every step of producing SNG, from renewable energy, all the way through to gas grid injection. Rivan’s system uses solar energy to produce green hydrogen from electrolysis, captures CO2 from the air via direct air capture (DAC) and converts both into carbon-neutral natural gas via a reactor. The resulting SNG is chemically identical to natural gas and can be injected directly into existing pipelines and storage infrastructure, allowing the system to scale using existing infrastructure, without requiring the major structural changes needed by alternatives, such as hydrogen. Rivan designs and manufactures its systems in-house in the UK, allowing it to optimise performance, reduce costs and scale deployment more quickly. This integrated approach underpins the commercial viability of its systems today, with synthetic fuels expected to reach cost parity with fossil gas as the platform scales.  Scaling domestic fuel production The new funding will support the deployment of Europe’s largest synthetic natural gas (SNG) plant, the opening of a new 50,000 sq ft manufacturing facility in London and more than double the team to 100 people.  In addition, the company has partnered with Wales & West Utilities to deliver the UK’s first grid-connected commercial SNG project. Multiple larger gigawatt (GW) sites are now being developed.  By building a new generation of domestic energy infrastructure, Rivan aims to produce more than one billion cubic metres of synthetic natural gas annually within the next decade, representing almost 20 per cent of the UK’s industrial gas demand today, whilst also removing millions of tons of CO2 from the atmosphere.  According to Harvey Hodd, founder and CEO at Rivan, the company was founded to create a large-scale domestic supply of synthetic fuels, removing the price, supply and emissions risk crippling Europe today.  “Natural Gas will remain an essential part of the energy system, especially for heavy industry, but how it is produced needs to change. By vertically integrating the entire process and manufacturing entirely in-house, we can enable domestic production of synthetic fuels at a scale and price that can make a dent in Europe’s energy security plan.“ Jonno Evans, Partner at IQ Capital, said: “What Harvey and the team have achieved in the past two years is extraordinary. Rivan is proving that it is possible to create cost-competitive synthetic natural gas at scale. It is clear that Europe requires more resilient, secure, and clean energy supplies and Rivan’s technology is a critical component in delivering that. We look forward to supporting Harvey and the Rivan team to become the next energy major in Europe.” Taavet Hinrikus, partner at Plural, said: “Producing synthetic fuel has historically been constrained by cost, complexity and scale. Rivan has made rapid progress in addressing each of these, moving from first principles through to a functioning system with early commercial validation. That combination of scientific progress, engineering execution and early traction is rare, and puts Harvey and the team in a strong position to build a new category of domestic energy production.” Lead image: Rivan founder and CEO Harvey Hodd.

Aikido Security today launched Aikido Endpoint, a lightweight security agent designed to protect modern developer workstations. Endpoint directly addresses the surge in software supply chain attacks targeting open-source packages, IDE extensions, and AI development tools.  Developers have long faced security risks from installing unvetted packages, extensions, and plugins. The rapid enterprise adoption of AI coding tools such as Cursor, Windsurf, Claude Code, Codex, and Copilot has widened this gap, introducing new risks around sensitive data exposure, malicious add-ons, and ungoverned AI usage on developer machines.  Aikido Security is a developer-first cybersecurity platform that helps software teams find, prioritise, and fix security issues across their entire software stack — from code to cloud and runtime — in a unified, automated way. I spoke to Madeline Lawrence, CGO at Aikido, to learn more. Extending supply chain security beyond the CLI Aikido Endpoint enables enterprises to securely and at scale fully embrace AI-native software development workflows. Before any package, IDE plugin, or browser extension is installed, Endpoint’s agent inspects it against Aikido Intel, the company's continuously updated threat intelligence feed, and blocks known malware automatically before it touches the filesystem. Any package published less than 48 hours ago is also held automatically, eliminating the highest-risk window for attacks.  Aikido Endpoint delivers three core capabilities:  Ecosystem-wide malware protection. Real-time blocking of known malicious packages, extensions, and plugins across npm, PyPI, Maven, NuGet, VS Code, Chrome, and more.  Granular access controls. Configures which teams can install what, with a built-in request and approval workflow for blocked packages.  AI tool visibility and cost tracking. Full oversight of which AI models and services are running across developer workstations, with usage monitoring and cost tracking.  Endpoint builds on the foundation of Aikido Safe Chain, an open-source CLI wrapper downloaded over 200,000 times weekly to protect npm and pip installs from malicious packages.  As supply chain attacks expand across more ecosystems and become harder to detect, CLI-based protection alone is not enough, particularly as it requires developers to manually install it on their machines. Aikido Endpoint is the next step: deployed through existing MDM controls that monitor every package installed across the system, not just the ones routed through a specific CLI tool.  Endpoint is designed to disappear. A developer runs npm install, adds a browser plug-in, connects an AI tool, Aikido Endpoint checks it in the background and lets clean installs through without interruption, tickets, or delay. If something is malicious, it gets blocked before it touches the machine. Lawrence asserts that the product succeeds when a developer forgets it's there.  “They move at full speed, install what they need, and never think about supply chain attacks, until the day Endpoint blocks something serious, and they realise how close they came. The cliché example here is how relieved you are to be wearing a helmet if you get into an accident.  Endpoint allows devs to ship fearlessly.“ From skilled attackers to $8 malware According to Lawrence, a year ago, writing a supply chain attack required real skill. “You needed to understand package registries, CI/CD pipelines, obfuscation techniques, and how to write payloads that evade detection. Now you need an $8 ChatGPT subscription. You don't even need to understand what npm is to write malware that spreads through it. The skill barrier that once kept most people from engaging in supply chain attacks is largely gone.” AI is also fueling much more sophisticated attacks. In the past year, we’ve gone from single-package compromises to self-replicating worms to full CI/CD pipeline hijacks chaining across registries. A bored teenager with an LLM can now produce attacks that are functionally indistinguishable from APT-grade supply chain compromises. The sophistication gap between nation-state actors and script kiddies has never been smaller. AI-enabled attacks surged 89 per cent year over year. Aikido’s threat intelligence engine, Aikido Intel, now analyses nearly 100,000 malicious packages a day vs 20,000 this time last year. And developers have struggled to keep pace. Lawrence explained that traditional endpoint solutions were built for corporate laptops, like standard employees downloading Word docs and PDFs. “Developer devices were simply lumped in with the same security tools, even though the threat surface is fundamentally different.” Endpoint extends Aikido’s developer-first philosophy by placing a security layer at the point where code enters the developer machine, before it touches repos, CI systems, or infrastructure. It runs as a lightweight agent and covers the three surfaces that matter most for developers: package registries, IDE and browser extensions, and AI tools. The developer role is shifting to orchestration Further, the developer role is changing. It’s less about writing code and more about reviewing and orchestrating AI-generated code. “So the challenge is: how do you give developers tools to safely review and ship that at scale?” And explainability extends to not only humans but also systems. “Bots need to understand your code. If your code isn’t structured, readable, and explainable, you’ll create massive technical debt. Two engineers can now generate as much technical debt as fifty did before.” Making insights translate to action Building endpoint security that actually works for developers requires a careful balance: protecting systems without adding friction, noise, or yet another stream of alerts that engineers will eventually ignore. In reality, most organisations haven’t solved this—they’ve simply settled into trade-offs. Lawrence asserts that today, most companies are stuck in one of three bad positions. At one end are organisations that lock everything down. By restricting access to external tools and dependencies—often through private registries—they create tightly controlled environments. That model can work in highly regulated sectors like banking, but for most teams, it comes at a cost: speed. “They block everything, creating an iron wall between developers and the open internet. It works for banks—but kills speed everywhere else.” The result is predictable. Developers route around restrictions by using second laptops, disabling VPNs, or finding other workarounds, thus introducing more risk in the process. “When security becomes an obstacle, developers don’t stop—they work around it.” At the other extreme are companies that accept the risk by default. Without effective tooling to govern what developers install and run, they fall back on permissiveness. “They allow and pray. With no real governance, they just hope nothing goes wrong.” Some attempt a middle ground, manually reviewing requests as they come in. In theory, it offers control without blanket restrictions. In practice, it doesn’t scale. “Manual vetting sounds sensible, until you try to do it at scale.” All of these approaches are increasingly out of step with how software is built today. As AI accelerates development and compresses release cycles, the cost of slowing engineers down is no longer just inefficiency—it’s existential. According to Lawrence, “None of these approaches work when AI is compressing development cycles. Move too slowly, and you fail.” From Ghent to unicorn: how Aikido scaled in three years A‍ikido was co-founded by CEO, CTO and co-founder Willem Delbare, a Serial SaaS entrepreneur with multiple successful exits (Teamleader, Officient, Valpeo, and Futureproofed). Madeline Lawrence joined Aikido as a late co-founder and Chief Growth Officer. Previously, she was a Partner at Peak, a $150 million venture capital fund, and served on the Advisory Board of TNW. The company raised $60 million Series B at a $1B valuation in January this year and is  one of the fastest cybersecurity companies to reach unicorn status — in just three years — globally, and according to the company, the fastest ever in Europe. Lawrence attributes its scale in part to being based in Ghent: “There’s nothing to do. It removes distractions. We’re mostly in-office, highly focused.” The company hires for end-to-end ownership—there are no traditional junior roles, and everyone is expected to ship a complete product. Many are former founders: high-agency operators who can work independently, which is how the team maintains its speed.   Aikido has expanded its offices to the UK and San Francisco. Opening the black box of supply chain risk Aikido open-sources its supply chain research, publishing every detected malware and vulnerable package in real time via its open threat intelligence feed. In addition, it offers an open Package Health monitor, designed to help developers make more informed decisions about the dependencies they choose to build with. The tool provides transparency into key risk signals, including maintainer stability and reputation, project maturity, dependency risk, and attestations — verifying that a package is what it claims to be, built where it claims to be built, and by whom. As supply chain attacks become more frequent and harder to detect, Aikido is betting that visibility — not just protection — will play a critical role in securing modern software development.

The Tech.eu Summit London 2026 opens tomorrow, 21 April 2026, at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre in London. Two days of discussions, networking and insight with some of the most influential figures in European technology and investment are almost here. If you have not yet secured your place, there is still time to join us for what promises to be one of the most substantive gatherings in the European tech calendar this year. What to expect Across two days, the summit will bring together founders, investors and technology professionals for sessions spanning artificial intelligence, fintech, deeptech, climate tech and more. Speakers joining from OpenAI, Notion Capital, PolyAI, Oxa, Wise, NATO Innovation Fund, Upvest, 2150, Morgan Stanley, and many other leading organisations will share their perspectives on the trends and decisions shaping European technology in 2026.  For a closer look at what each day has in store, including an overview of the key themes and sessions that will shape the two days, you can read our full guide here. The complete agenda, including the full speaker lineup and session details, is also available here. Make the most of your summit experience with the Tech.eu Events App Attendees can download the Tech.eu Events App via the App Store and Google Play to connect with fellow participants ahead of the event, browse attendee profiles, schedule meetings and manage their personal timetable. The app will also be used for on-site access via QR code check-in. Get your ticket This is your last opportunity to be part of the Tech.eu Summit London 2026. With the summit opening its doors tomorrow at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre, tickets are still available for those looking to join two days of insight, networking and discussion with some of the most influential figures in European technology and investment. Secure your place here before the summit begins tomorrow. We look forward to welcoming you in London. Partners Pavilion Partner Gold Partner   Silver Partners   Supporting Partner Community Partners           

The ICT startup nureo has secured €163,000 (CHF 150,000) in funding from Venture Kick to advance the development of intelligent 3D design tools that reduce manual work and accelerate product development. Engineering design tools have seen limited transformation over recent decades. The creation of 3D models for parts and machines remains largely manual and repetitive, often requiring days or even weeks to complete. This inefficiency contributes to higher costs, slower iteration cycles, and extended time-to-market. To address these challenges, the company is developing automated 3D design software that converts user-defined specifications and constraints into production-ready geometries. The platform enables engineers to generate designs tailored to different applications and manufacturing methods, reducing manual effort by up to 90 per cent. This approach enhances productivity, shortens iteration cycles, and supports consistent design quality across teams. By focusing on generative design and automation, nureo targets a rapidly expanding segment driven by increasing software integration in engineering workflows. Its customers include industrial OEMs and SMEs such as machine builders, component manufacturers, and engineering service providers seeking more efficient and scalable product development solutions. The funding will support team expansion in both engineering and business development, enabling faster product advancement and commercial scaling. A key priority is converting initial pilot projects into recurring revenue streams, building on early market validation. In parallel, the company plans to strengthen its presence at international trade fairs and conferences to expand its sales pipeline, deepen customer engagement, and further develop its offering.

Last week, we tracked more than 75 tech funding deals worth over €1.9 billion, and over 5 exits, M&A transactions, rumours, and related news stories across Europe.Click to read the rest of the news.

The Regensburg-based digital health startup brainjo has closed a €2 million seed funding round, led by High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF), with additional participation from strategic partners and business angels, including Andreas Weinhut (Regensburg) and better ventures. Limited therapy availability, long waiting lists, and insufficient access to mental health services continue to challenge healthcare systems. brainjo aims to address these gaps by leveraging Virtual Reality (VR) as a prescribable extension to psychotherapy, designed to enhance patient adherence and accessibility. The company develops Digital Health Applications (DiGA) that can be prescribed by therapists or physicians and reimbursed by health insurance. Rather than replacing traditional psychotherapy, these immersive VR-based solutions complement existing treatments by offering individualised and accessible therapy that patients can use from home. This approach helps bridge critical gaps in care where conventional therapy alone may fall short. Markus Wensauer, co-founder and CEO of brainjo, commented: With a strong network of business angels, MEDICE – The Health Family as a strategic partner, and HTGF as a leading European seed investor, we are ideally positioned to bring our solutions into healthcare and establish multimodal therapy offerings for patients. The company’s mission is to create evidence-based, immersive therapy solutions that complement and scale existing treatment approaches. The newly secured capital will finance the next major milestone: a clinical study and the regulatory approval of brainjo’s first VR-based DiGA. This initial application, focused on children with ADHD, is being developed in collaboration with MEDICE – The Health Family. Market approval is currently planned for 2028.

This week, we tracked more than 75 tech funding deals worth over €1.9 billion and over 5 exits, M&A transactions, rumours, and related news stories across Europe. Alongside the week’s top funding rounds, we’ve highlighted key industry developments, as well as notable trends in European venture activity, investor moves and emerging sectors shaping the current funding landscape. We also launched our Q1 report, which looks at tech fundraising, deals, and trends in Europe over the first three months of 2026. 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 ??  Stegra bags €1.4B rescue funding package for giant European green-steel plant ??  CamGraPhic secures €211M from EU to build graphene tech for faster AI data transfer ??  Wayve raises new £44B investment from chip giants ??‍?? Noteworthy acquisitions and mergers ?? Standard Life announces £2B acquisition of Aegon UK ?? Codery acquires Elfshock to launch AI automation division ?? Fracttal acquires TCMAN to strengthen its strategic position in Europe ? Interesting moves from investors ? The new Seed filter: what investors look for beyond the demo ?  Eka closes $107M Fund II to becomes the UK’s largest early-stage impact VC ?  Elaia closes €134M fund DTS3 to back Europe’s next generation of breakthrough startups ?  Fund II second close strengthens Unconventional Ventures’ bet on overlooked founders ? ET Capital launches Cambridge Venture Index Fund 2 to broaden access to deeptech investing ? £100M boost for UK healthtech as British Business Bank backs Apposite growth fund ?️ In other (important) news ?️  Guide: What’s Coming Up at the Tech.eu Summit London 2026? ☁️. Accenture and Google Cloud unveil Brussels centre to accelerate sovereign AI adoption ? OpenAI to move to first permanent London office, with capacity to more than double headcount ?  Crowdcube achieves “hard-fought” profit, driven by boost in secondary shares ?? Europe builds its first “kill-switch proof” cloud recovery stack ??  Locai Labs and Civo launch Project Mercury to end UK reliance on foreign AI ??  Graftcode secures €2.1M to simplify AI-era software integration ??  Audrey AI secures $1.8M to develop AI platform for financial auditors ??  StirLight raises £1.25M to bring real-time quality assurance to friction stir welding at scale ?? Zell raises €500,000 to scale AI-powered sales management ?? Obriy AI raises $500,000 to take multi-agent enterprise automation global

Taking place on April 21–22 at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre in London, the Tech.eu Summit London 2026 will once again bring together founders, investors, and operators from across Europe for two days of focused conversations, insights, and networking. Following the recent agenda announcement, here’s a closer look at what to expect from each day of the event and how to make the most of your time at the summit. The agenda is further shaped by a speaker lineup that includes executives and investors from organisations such as OpenAI, Wise, NATO Innovation Fund, Notion Capital, Oxa, and 2150, reflecting a mix of global tech leaders, venture capital, and fast-scaling startups. April 21 - First day of the Tech.eu Summit London 2026 The first day of the Tech.eu Summit London 2026 will focus heavily on the forces currently shaping the European tech ecosystem, with artificial intelligence taking centre stage across multiple sessions. Discussions will explore how AI is being integrated into products and operations, as well as how companies are positioning themselves in an increasingly competitive global landscape. Alongside this, investors and founders will share perspectives on funding conditions, scaling challenges, and what it takes to build resilient companies in today’s market. Climate tech, fintech, and deep tech will also feature prominently throughout the day, reflecting continued investor interest in these sectors. Sessions are expected to move beyond surface-level trends, offering practical insights from those actively building and backing companies across Europe. April 22 - Second day of the Tech.eu Summit London 2026 On the second day, the programme shifts towards more focused, sector-specific conversations and operational learnings. Mobility, energy, and emerging technologies will be explored through panels and discussions that highlight both opportunities and ongoing challenges. Founders and operators will share first-hand experiences on scaling teams, entering new markets, and navigating regulatory environments across different European regions. The second day will also continue to build on themes introduced earlier in the summit, offering a more granular look at how strategies discussed on day one translate into execution. The venue: Queen Elizabeth II Centre Following last year’s edition, the Queen Elizabeth II Centre in Westminster will once again host the event. Its central location and multi-floor layout make it well-suited for a conference of this scale, allowing attendees to move easily between sessions while also creating space for informal meetings and conversations. Networking & Tech.eu Events App Networking remains a core part of the Tech.eu Summit London 2026 experience. We believe that conferences are just as much about the people as they are about the content. With the Tech.eu Events App, you’ll have access to the full agenda, speaker details, and networking tools that allow you to connect with other attendees, arrange meetings, and stay updated on everything happening during the event. The Tech.eu Events App is available for download on the App Store and Google Play Store. See you at the Tech.eu Summit London 2026! Get ready for an unforgettable experience at the Tech.eu Summit London 2026. If you haven’t secured your ticket yet, now is the time. Don’t miss this opportunity to be part of the conversation shaping the future of European tech. See you in London! Partners Pavilion Partner Gold Partner   Silver Partners   Supporting Partner Community Partners           

The chairman of the new £500m UK government-backed VC fund backing domestic AI startups last night channelled his inner Craig David to indicate the speed of its investing, rebuffing criticism that it might be slow and bureaucratic. Referencing words from a David hit song, James Wise said: “Just last week we met a company that told us they were doing a fundraising round. On Monday, we met the founders.  “On Tuesday, we did due diligence. On Wednesday, we made a decision. On Thursday, we took them out to celebrate, moving at a speed that Craig David would blush at.” Wise was speaking at the launch event of Sovereign AI, which took place at the London headquarters of self-driving AI scaleup Wayve. The event was packed with Wise, a partner at London VC Balderton, AI minister Kanishka Narayan, technology secretary Liz Kendall, Wayve CEO and co-founder Alex Kendall, and Meryem Arik, the CEO and co-founder of AI startup Doubleword, addressing the audience. The launch event came as the first deals from the £500m fund, which is aimed at keeping the UK's best AI startups in the UK as they scale across the world, were announced. Wise said: “We are venture investors with a mandate to back the AI companies in Britain we believe are national priorities and on commercial terms.” Generally speaking, the fund is investing cheques of between £5m and £10m, leading and following on investing rounds, usually investing in Seed and Series A. It is investing in areas ranging from AI model development to AI drug discovery to agentic AI. The fund is also offering portfolio firms access to UK government-funded supercomputers, procurement opportunities, and free visas for international hires. Wise is heading up Sovereign AI with Joséphine Kant, a VC who previously worked at Y Combinator. Defending criticism about the size of its investments, when US AI firms were raising billions, Wise said the size of its investments could change the course of a company. He added: “When the time comes for founders we work with to raise those larger rounds, we will be able to introduce them to the best investors in the world. And they will have a hotline to the British Business Bank, who we are already working with, hand in glove.” Wise said one of the key criteria for investments was that “they must have the potential to be a huge commercial success”. The fund has also faced criticism from some VCs that it might be bureaucratic and slow to invest. Liz Kendall said: “I believe sovereign AI is going to be one of the most important things this government does to build a better future for our country.”  She added that AI was “beyond negotiable for our national security”. The first equity investment from the fund is in AI infrastructure startup Callosum, for an undisclosed amount. The fund has also awarded compute power from its supercomputers to Prima Mente, Cosine, Cursive, Doubleword, Twig Bio and Odyssey, to train their AI models. In return, the fund will get a first refusal on future investment in some of these startups. IMAGE: Callosum founders

Doctolib,  @Hôtel-Dieu (AP-HP) and Roche are launching Care Forward, a support program for European health startups at STATION F.  Designed to help young companies develop, test and deploy their solutions as close as possible to care delivery needs, it brings together technological expertise, access to clinical environments, and medical and regulatory support. Based in the heart of STATION F, this program targets European startups that can demonstrate a rapid, measurable impact on the healthcare system, regardless of their maturity stage. It aims to accelerate the rollout of practical solutions, ready to be proven in real-world settings and to meet the daily requirements of healthcare professionals and patients’ needs.  The program is open to both early- and late-stage, developing technologies dedicated to the healthcare sector, whether digital solutions, AI, connected devices, or services. Projects may focus on a specific step of the care pathway — identification, diagnosis, treatment or follow-up — as well as innovations that improve the overall efficiency of the healthcare system. Any technological contribution demonstrating a concrete impact on the healthcare system is welcome to join this new initiative.    Doctolib will support program participants with technology integration, the use of AI in healthcare, an in-depth understanding of practitioners’ expectations, and deployment strategies at the European scale.  @Hôtel-Dieu (AP-HP) will provide privileged access to AP-HP innovation platforms designed to support the emergence of innovation in the service of healthcare, and through them, to hospital environments. Startups will be able to engage directly with clinical realities, align their solutions with real-world needs, and leverage the expertise of professionals across the 38 hospitals of Europe’s largest university hospital system.  Roche will provide essential strategic support to navigate the sector’s complexity. Its teams will help entrepreneurs master regulatory constraints, demonstrate the health economic value of their projects, and gain access to a global network of scientific experts. In addition to this hands-on support, the program includes regular meetings with specialised investors and key industry stakeholders, as well as exclusive invitations to events across Europe’s health ecosystem.  According to Jean-Urbain Hubau, Managing Director, France, Doctolib: “Our healthtech ecosystem is full of talent, but the real challenge remains scaling and adoption by healthcare professionals. With this program, we want to give startups the codes and tools so their innovations truly—and quickly—make it into the daily lives of care teams and patients.”  According to Nicolas Castoldi, Deputy Director to the CEO of AP-HP and Executive Director of the @Hôtel-Dieu: “This program is a further demonstration of our commitment to accelerating the emergence of innovation as close as possible to care delivery, in order to better meet the needs of healthcare professionals and patients. It builds on our innovation platforms and supports the development of the new Hôtel-Dieu, a major innovation hub at the heart of a hospital with 14 centuries of history.”  According to Jean-François Brochard, President, Roche Pharma France: “This program will combine our longstanding expertise with the innovation capacity of healthtech startups. Our shared ambition is to optimise care pathways to ensure lasting benefits for patients, simplify the daily work of care teams, and strengthen the efficiency of our healthcare system.”  Applications for the program are open until May 15th. 

AlixLabs, a developer of Atomic Layer Etching (ALE) solutions for next-generation semiconductor manufacturing, has closed a €15 million Series A funding round in the first quarter of 2026. The round includes a strategic investment from Stephen Industries, building on earlier participation from Global Brain and other institutional investors. The funding marks a key milestone for AlixLabs as it continues to advance its proprietary ALE solutions, including its APS™ (Atomic Pitch Splitting) platform. The approach is designed to enable more precise, efficient, and cost-effective semiconductor fabrication, addressing the growing complexity of advanced device architectures. Atomic Layer Etching is widely regarded as a critical enabler for future semiconductor nodes, complementing Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) processes by allowing atomic-scale precision in material removal. As semiconductor manufacturing evolves, ALE is expected to play an increasingly important role in production. The new funding will be used to accelerate product development, expand technical capabilities, and strengthen partnerships with semiconductor manufacturers. With this investment, AlixLabs aims to further establish its position within the European semiconductor ecosystem and advance its ambition to become a global provider of Atomic Layer Etching solutions.

Akbank AG, the German subsidiary of Turkey’s leading bank Akbank TAS, has successfully completed Phase 1 of its core banking transformation, to the leading SaaS cloud banking platform Mambu. The transformation was delivered in close partnership with Innovance, Mambu’s strategic technology partner. The milestone marks a full transition away from Akbank AG’s legacy core system for its Retail and Private segments, with all customers and accounts in these business lines now operating on Mambu’s composable, API-first cloud-native core banking platform. Operating under the supervision of Germany’s financial regulatory authority, BaFin, Akbank AG’s transformation represents a significant example of a regulated European bank modernising its core banking infrastructure through a structured, phased migration strategy. The new architecture, hosted on Microsoft Azure, combines: Mambu as the core banking foundation. Its API-first architecture enabled the bank to integrateeasily with partners and reduce operational complexity, lowering maintenance effort and improvingresilience. Core+ layer: This custom implementation layer communicates with Mambu and other integration services, acting as the central orchestration and business logic layer. Implementation partner: Innovance playing a key role in integrating the Core+ architecture with Mambu to enable scalable product modelling, transaction validation and limit management and standardised integration patterns aligned with Akbank AG’s target architecture. A standout milestone was the delivery of the Limit Proposal Application in 2022, which enabled Akbank AG to launch a digital corporate credit approval process in just four months. The fully integrated ecosystem now includes core banking, accounting, payments, digital channels (web and mobile), wealth management back office, document management, and enterprise financial crime detection components. The modular approach allowed Akbank AG to adjust parameters—such as pricing, fees, and interest settings—directly through configuration rather than code, significantly reducing implementation time. With Retail and Private Banking now live, the next phase of the transformation covering Corporate Banking and Lending is underway. This next stage will focus on complex lending requirements and the integration of several new systems using Mambu’s modular service structure. “The industry is undergoing rapid transformation, and customers increasingly expect agility and seamless digital experiences,” said Osman Kara, Core Banking Technologies Vice President at Akbank AG. “With the successful completion of Phase 1 on Mambu, and in close collaboration with Innovance, we have modernised our core banking foundation and established a scalable architecture to support our next phase of growth.” “Mambu is proud to have powered the transformation of Akbank AG. A show of our strength in the region, as well as our continued partnership with Innovance, this project will transform the banking capabilities of the region, as well as the offerings from Akbank AG. We look forward to the next phase of transformation.” says Mark Geneste, Chief Revenue Officer - Mambu Yusuf Ürey - Innovance Founder & CEO: “At Innovance, we approach core banking transformation as a long-term capability shift rather than a system replacement. Together with Mambu, we have established a modern technology backbone for Akbank AG that enables continuous evolution, allowing the bank to respond faster to changing customer expectations and market dynamics.” Mehmet Ali Özcan - Innovance Germany - Managing Director: “In this transformation, we developed the Core+ layer end-to-end to manage business logic, integrations and validations independently, while ensuring seamless interaction with Mambu’s platform. This approach allowed us to simplify system interactions and create a more adaptable and scalable foundation for future banking services.” The successful migration strengthens Mambu’s footprint in the DACH region and, together with Innovance’s engineering and delivery capabilities, demonstrates the viability of replacing legacy core systems within regulated European banking environments.

The UK government has selected Cosine, the British AI company whose models have outperformed OpenAI, Anthropic, Mistral, and DeepSeek on independent coding benchmarks for two consecutive years, as one of the first partners in its newly launched £500 million Sovereign AI programme.  Cosine was founded in 2022 by Alistair Pullen — who has been building AI products since 2018 and shipped his first iOS app at age nine — and Yang Li, who previously scaled Mobike to 220 million users across four continents before its $55 billion acquisition. A Y Combinator graduate, the company has raised $8 million from investors including Lakestar, SOMA Capital, and Gaingels. As both an AI lab and a product company, Cosine builds and owns its models, trains its agents, and deploys the full stack. Its platform supports more than 38 programming languages, including Fortran, COBOL, Ada, and Verilog — purpose-built for the legacy codebases that underpin Britain's defence systems, nuclear infrastructure, and financial services backbone.  It is the only end-to-end sovereign AI coding platform built, owned, and operated entirely in Britain. Cosine is already engaged across UK defence primes and critical national infrastructure operators, including organisations involved in the UK's nuclear deterrent programmes and next-generation defence platforms. For organisations operating at the classified edge of British industry, sending code to a foreign-managed server is often legally and operationally prohibited. Cosine was built for that constraint: its platform deploys entirely within a customer's own infrastructure, without an internet connection, without data leaving the building, and without reliance on foreign-managed models. Through the UK’s AI Research Resource (AIRR), the Sovereign AI Fund has awarded Cosine 500,000 GPU hours on Isambard-AI — one of the most powerful supercomputers in Europe — worth millions of pounds in infrastructure value.  For the first time, this makes it possible to build and deploy a fully sovereign AI model entirely on British soil, with no foreign dependency at any stage. In addition, the Sovereign AI Fund’s venture arm has secured the option to participate in Cosine's next funding round. "Cursor and Claude Code are outstanding products. They are also legally off the table for a lot of our customers," said Alistair Pullen, CEO and co-founder of Cosine. "The moment your work touches classified infrastructure, you need an AI that lives entirely inside your walls. We built Cosine that way from the start, because retrofitting security onto a cloud product is not the same thing, and the people we work with know the difference. What we are building now goes further: a truly British AI lab, producing sovereign models for Britain's most critical use cases, owned and controlled by the UK, for the benefit of the UK." "For two years we've been telling defence primes and critical infrastructure operators that we can do what no one else can: air-gapped, on-premise, trained on the legacy code that runs Britain's most sensitive systems," said Yang Li, COO and co-founder. "The one thing we couldn't say was that the model itself was trained on sovereign infrastructure. The AIRR grant completes that picture. The UK should be an AI maker, not an AI taker - and this is what that looks like in practice."  

Today, Unconventional Ventures (UV) announced the second close of Unconventional Ventures Fund II. In a challenging global climate — marked by economic uncertainty and tightening capital markets — this close represents more than a fundraising milestone. It signals strong conviction that backing underinvested founders building scalable, category-defining companies remains a resilient and forward-looking investment thesis. The firm welcomed new investors joining Fund II, including Wire Group, Investinor, FÆRCH OG DØTRE, and Merete Lundbye Møller. Investinor, a Norwegian government-backed venture capital investor, is committed to identifying and supporting companies with the potential to grow into world-leading businesses. The firm continues its partnership with Unconventional Ventures, having been a valued investor since Fund I. Wire Group, a Netherlands-based impact investing firm, is known for its focus on diversity and inclusion, as well as measurable social and environmental impact. Ronald Janse, Chief Conscious Capital at Wire Group, commented: “We’re thrilled to join the UV team in their second fund. The fund’s thesis is a perfect match for our Wire Thrive Fund II: investing in underrepresented founders who are building meaningful, future-shaping companies. UV’s rare combination of inclusion and impact—paired with an exceptional team—makes us genuinely excited to participate in this closing.” The firm also expressed gratitude to its existing Fund II LPs and its broader community of family offices, whose continued support underpins its mission. Unconventional Ventures maintains that the next generation of scalable, sustainable companies will emerge from ambitious founders who have too often been overlooked, and remains committed to identifying and backing them while contributing to a more equitable and sustainable future.

Solidroad, an AI platform that helps companies evaluate and improve every human and AI customer conversation, today announced a $25 million Series A round led by Hedosophia.. Solidroad strengthens customer experience through AI-powered training and quality insights. It reviews 100 per cent of a company’s customer interactions and generates insights that help support teams reduce manual quality assurance work, resulting in higher customer satisfaction. The platform also uses these insights to create personalised training simulations to address areas of improvement for agents. This helps teams improve quality while keeping QA costs from rising when ticket volume grows. “We turn every customer interaction into measurable insight,” said Solidroad co-founder and CEO Mark Hughes.  “While most company support interactions go unreviewed, our platform evaluates them at scale, holding every interaction to a high quality standard to ensure customers feel supported. This funding enables us to expand our team and capabilities so more companies can make exceptional service the standard, not the exception.” Since its 2023 launch, Solidroad has grown its customer base to include brands such as Ryanair, ŌURA, and Crypto.com. Customers use the platform to automate QA coverage, reduce manual review hours, accelerate agent onboarding, and drive higher CSAT through continuous, data-driven coaching.  Additionally, Solidroad’s AI analyses hundreds of conversations in seconds, making it ideal for companies managing high interaction volumes and scaling support teams.   To date, Solidroad’s platform has scored millions of interactions and increased analyst productivity by up to 10x. Building off the momentum of their seed round in June, Solidroad will use this recent round of funding to expand its teams across San Francisco and Dublin, furthering the platform’s role as a leader in quality assurance for customer support. Lead image: Grant Puckett.

ET Capital, a long-standing investor in high-growth technology businesses, has launched the Cambridge Venture Index SEIS/EIS Fund 2 (CVIF2).   It aims to back up to 20 early-stage, science-based companies emerging from the Cambridge and Oxford start-up ecosystems.  The fund marks an expansion of ET Capital’s ambitions to improve access to early-stage venture investing opportunities for sophisticated angel investors. Its first fund CVIF1, was raised in 2025 and is being invested in up to ten companies coming out of some of Cambridge’s leading accelerator and deal originator programmes.  Companies that have received investment to date include:  Reo Tx, which uses advanced technology for a disease with a significant unmet medical need.        Cellestial Health, a preclinical biopharmaceutical company transforming the future of brain disease therapies by targeting previously overlooked causes of neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s. The Cambridge Venture Index funds focus on delivering diversified, risk-limited returns through structured venture investment, a technique based on extensive proprietary research by ET Capital. The research analysed the financing history of nearly 200 start-ups in the Cambridge cluster to model the performance of a series of synthetic venture funds from 1992 to 2024. Using the same criteria across all cohorts, five of the six synthetic funds outperformed the FTSE 100 Index. ET Capital is using this approach as an alternative to a more traditional VC methodology, based on 'picking winners'.  According to Martin Rigby, managing director of ET Capital, businesses coming out of Cambridge and Oxford science clusters represent some of the UK’s most ground-breaking deep science and technology start-ups. “At the same time, there are sophisticated or high-net-worth investors that want to back these new companies, but who find it hard to access the breadth of deals. With the second of our venture index funds, we aim to give those investors access to a broad range of investments that balance significant potential with a reduction of risk through diversification.” Struan McDougall, an investor in CVIF1 and managing director of local angel syndicate Cambridge Capital Group, said:   “The start-ups coming out of the Cambridge and Oxford ecosystems represent an exciting new wave of scientific innovation, but the opportunities for early-stage investors are often limited to a small part of the market. I am delighted to be investing in CVIF2 as ET Capital expands its innovative approach, offering a way for a wide range of investors to support ventures with significant potential.” Lead image: David, James and Martin from ET Capital.

One of Europe’s top AI researchers, who is heading up a 3D AI foundation model startup, says that 3D AI models are “kind of where ChatGPT for language was five years ago”.  Matthias Niessner, the CEO and co-founder of SpAItial, took a leave of absence from leading the visual computing and AI lab at the Technical University of Munich to launch the Munich and London-based startup SpAItial, which last year landed a $13m seed round.  The funding round is high by European standards for a seed round, but small in comparison to the billions of dollars being raised by US large language model firms.  Speaking on the Tech.eu podcast, Niessner, whose research helped launch UK AI startup Synthesia, discusses SpAItial, getting hold of compute power, the potential of 3D AI models and use cases, the future of AI more broadly, and European sovereignty.  On raising funds, Niessner said: "Raising money is still surprisingly easy, actually. There is a lot of money right now. And the reason, I think, is that the opportunity of these models is so massive. You train them once, and they just train so incredibly well."  He said investors were also enticed by the fact that AI model builders can build with relatively small teams, taking advantage of using AI coding agents.  He said: “We also expect to raise a new round this year. We feel there has to be a healthy balance. We need a little bit more for scaling up the models. But we are probably not going to raise billions right away, because we think this is yet not justified, but it’s going to come step by step.”  Niessner believes that AI models, which create 3D worlds from text and image inputs, have a big market potential. He says use cases span everything from video games to robotics to use in the construction and housing industries. SpAItial has already developed its first 3D AI model and will look for licencing partners who will decide how they will leverage the models.  He says: “We are kind of like where ChatGPT was for language five years ago."

The British Business Bank has agreed to make a £100 million commitment to Apposite Healthcare Growth I, a fund investing to support the growth of health technology companies, primarily in the UK.  This will be the British Business Bank’s largest fund commitment to date and is the Bank’s first commitment to Apposite Capital, a specialist healthcare and life sciences investor. Apposite Healthcare Growth I will invest in innovative companies across medical products, diagnostics, life sciences tools, digital health, and pharmaceutical outsourcing services. The fund aims to address the shortage of scale-up capital for UK life sciences companies approaching a growth inflection, which aligns with the Bank’s strategy to create deeper pools of scale up funding. The fund will invest in UK companies developing market-leading technologies and services to improve patient outcomes and access to healthcare, while enabling them to compete globally and create highly skilled jobs. The British Business Bank is the largest investor in UK venture and venture growth capital funds and regularly makes cornerstone commitments to funds that are aligned with its strategy. By acting as a cornerstone investor, the Bank enables a fund to achieve a first, supporting their launch and enabling them to execute their strategy at greater scale. The British Business Bank is targeting over 60 per cent of its venture and growth investment flow towards scale-ups and aims to support the launch of 10 new-to-market growth-stage funds over the next five years, and will write larger cheques to leading fund managers.  Christine Hockley, Managing Director and Head of Commercial Equity Funds, British Business Bank, said, “The UK needs growth stage funding, and the Bank is stepping up to deliver this. To help  funds launch and ensure they have the size and firepower needed, we are writing larger cheques and signalling these commitments to institutional investors, with the intention it mobilises the private sector.” According to Sam Gray, Managing Partner at Apposite Capital: “Apposite Healthcare Growth I will back the next generation of UK healthcare technology leaders. The UK is home to an extraordinary depth of scientific research, entrepreneurial talent, and innovative companies, yet many businesses face a persistent gap in scale-up funding.  This fund will bridge that gap, enabling high-potential companies to accelerate their growth, commercialise transformative technologies, improve health outcomes and support economic growth.”    Lead image: Freepik.

Copenhagen-based spektr, a company building AI infrastructure for compliance in financial services, has raised $20 million in Series A funding. The round was led by NEA, with participation from existing investors Northzone, Seedcamp, and PSV Tech. Compliance teams continue to spend significant time manually reviewing corporate documents, mapping ownership structures, verifying websites, and preparing risk rationales. Despite substantial investment in compliance technology, much of the Know Your Customer (KYC) and Know Your Business (KYB) processes still rely on analysts assembling information from numerous sources. spektr addresses these challenges with an AI-powered compliance infrastructure platform designed for banks and fintechs. The platform deploys networks of specialised AI agents to automate the manual work associated with KYC and KYB processes, from onboarding to ongoing monitoring, allowing teams to focus on decision-making rather than data gathering. The company has developed specialised AI agents that replicate the tasks typically performed during compliance reviews, including researching companies, interpreting information, verifying business activity, and generating structured risk assessments. By automating these processes, tasks that once required hours of manual effort can be completed in minutes, while compliance professionals retain oversight by reviewing and approving the results. Mikkel Skarnager, CEO and co-founder of spektr, commented: Compliance technology has largely concentrated on workflows and the gathering of data. But the real bottleneck has always been the work itself - analysts researching companies, interpreting information, and documenting decisions. spektr automates those tasks with AI agents designed specifically for KYC and KYB compliance. spektr’s platform also enables financial institutions to design customised onboarding and monitoring processes and deploy networks of AI agents within these workflows. This approach transforms traditionally manual, analyst-driven operations into scalable and automated compliance processes. The new funding will support spektr’s continued platform development and international expansion, further strengthening its role in modernising compliance infrastructure for the financial services industry.