Multinational asset finance provider PEAC Solutions has announced the acquisition of Berlin-based fintech topi. Founded in 2021, topi offers a fully digital subscription and rental platform that enables retailers and manufacturers to offer IT hardware—such as laptops and smartphones—on flexible terms to business customers. The startup's API-driven tools are designed to integrate at the point of sale in e-commerce, telesales, or physical retail environments. By acquiring topi, PEAC Solutions aims to accelerate its digital transformation strategy while expanding its HaaS footprint, a segment gaining momentum as businesses increasingly opt for subscription models over traditional capital expenditures. "The continued transformation of our industry towards ‘as a service’ based subscription models is undeniable,” said William Stephenson, Global CEO of PEAC Solutions. “We are confident that this strategic acquisition of topi will be a massive differentiator for PEAC Solutions. It will allow us to deliver an innovative solution to our partners and customers, and it will play an integral role in the ambitious growth strategy that we have for the technology sector and other target markets.” While financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, PEAC confirmed that topi will continue to operate from its Berlin headquarters, maintaining service to its existing customer base in Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, and Belgium. The company will now function as a subsidiary of PEAC Solutions. “We are excited to join the PEAC Solutions family,” said Charlotte Pallua, CEO and co-founder of topi. “By combining topi’s innovative and easy to use tools with PEAC Solution’s financial strength, specialized market knowledge and network, I am confident that we will deliver even more value to OEMs, resellers and business customers.” The acquisition comes amid growing interest in HaaS models, which allow companies to lease IT equipment with service and support bundled in—an appealing proposition in a business environment where flexibility, cost control, and technology refresh cycles are paramount. For PEAC Solutions, which operates across North America, Europe, and the UK, this acquisition adds another layer to its portfolio of financial products tailored to equipment manufacturers, resellers, and distributors. The company has been active in expanding its online financing suite and has signaled that tech-focused markets are a priority for future growth. The integration of topi’s technology is expected to enable PEAC to deliver embedded finance solutions at the point of sale, a growing trend as fintech and traditional finance converge. PEAC has indicated it will collaborate closely with OEMs and channel partners to roll out these tools globally. While topi will retain operational independence in the short term, the partnership provides the startup with access to PEAC’s global network and capital, potentially accelerating its growth beyond DACH and Benelux regions. Founded by Charlotte Pallua and Estelle Merle, topi has been part of a broader wave of European fintechs addressing inefficiencies in B2B financing, particularly in the SME and mid-market segments.

Data analysis has a problem. Most data today is presented through static charts and dashboards, but these often fall short when it comes to engaging audiences or guiding them toward clear insights. Complex datasets can overwhelm viewers and users without technical backgrounds, while disconnected visuals make it difficult to follow the story behind the numbers. Founded in Hungary, Vizzu aims to create tools that help people analyse data without needing spreadsheets or pivot tables — instead, they can “fiddle with charts” to understand what’s going on, and then build presentations to share. It’s designed to help teams (e.g., product, finance, strategy) present data clearly and persuasively in live settings, such as board meetings or investor updates. I spoke to co-founder and CEO Péter Vidos to learn more. Vizzu turns your data into a guided, animated story. According to Vidos, the old data paradigm is that you make a chart when you already know what you want to show. “You don’t visualise raw data — you visualise pre-aggregated, pivoted tables. Tools like Canva, Infogram, Flourish, or even Excel and Google Sheets are great for that. But with Vizzu, you drop in raw data, and then pivot, analyse, and explore it directly in the chart. Without animation, you lose track of what changed. That’s why we built our own visualisation engine — no existing library supported this." Vizzu co-founders András Kangyal and László Simon developed a general theory of chart morphing and built the engine that put this theory into practice. "In our world, every chart is essentially the same, just configured differently. That’s why you can smoothly animate between chart types,” explained Vidos. Image: Vizzu on screen. 13,000 signups, but retention challenges push Vizzu to rethink As a company, Vizzu has had an interesting journey, with some valuable lessons for early founders. After its first funding round in 2021, Vizzu built open-source coding interfaces around the engine — a JavaScript charting library and a Python wrapper. Using Vizzu, users could switch chart types, stack or unstack data, and vary the filter. For example, a user can upload a 10,000-row dataset of global sales. They can select “quantity sold” and see it aggregated by year. If they add “quarter,” they get quarterly data. “You’re exploring and combining data visually — and the tool saves every chart you generate. That becomes your presentation. Once you’re done, you just remove the irrelevant bits, and you’re ready to present, ” explained Vidos. Data scientists began using it to present their findings to non-technical audiences, which earned the founders speaking invitations at conferences. The open-source phase also attracted investor attention, leading to a $1.5 million round led by Interactive Venture Partners with participation from Two Sigma. The funding provided the resources to build a browser-based tool for non-technical users. However, the team released a free beta in 2024, and while it had over 13,000 registrations, Vidos admits that retention was lower than expected. “People found the paradigm shift — analysing raw data directly — harder than we thought. Some said, “I wish I had the data to use this,” even though they did. So we realised we needed to lower the barrier even further.” In response, Vizzu added GenAI features to automatically generate insights, highlight key points in charts, and enable users to generate charts from written prompts , as well as introduce templates. Vidos detailed: “For example, you can export your Uber history as a CSV, drop it in, and Vizzu automatically generates a story of your rides and spending. You can then filter by city, year, or month. It’s a UX-first approach: making it super easy for anyone to get immediate value.” Vizzu chooses transparency and trust in tough times Like all startups, Vizzu is not immune to the challenges of fundraising. Vidos admits that the company learned that traction alone isn’t enough — investors want revenue. “We couldn’t raise a new round under current conditions, so we had to shift. Some developers moved to part-time, and a few left, but we actually made more progress in refining UX in the past months than before. We’re now focusing on professional services — building custom data stories and presentations for clients — and pursuing OEM partnerships to integrate Vizzu into other platforms.” In turn, its investors provided support. Angels provided bridge funding, and US-based investors helped the team to secure paid projects. Vidos asserts, “The goal is to prove business value and generate revenue quickly, without being dependent on external funding.” Ultimately, transparency has been paramount during this process, with management displaying a level of integrity not always present in early-stage founders. Vidos explained: “We’ve always told the team openly about our runway, investor reactions, and challenges. That created trust and community — even ex-employees still come to company gatherings. We also refused an investor's demand to do sudden, harsh cuts without warning. We’d rather go down with integrity than compromise on values. It’s about respecting people and building long-term relationships.” Vidos admits that many founders treat themselves differently from their teams, but he sees all team members “in the same boat.” “If someone has to leave for personal reasons, like family, we part on good terms. For me, that’s more important than squeezing a few more months of work from someone without pay.” The challenge of building world-changing innovation from Eastern Europe Ultimately, Vizzu isn’t just incremental innovation. It’s a paradigm shift in how people work with data. Vidos believes this is harder to build from Eastern Europe, where ecosystems tend to favour incremental B2B efficiency tools. “But we believe we have a world-changing innovation at the core. Sometimes we’ve had to “hide” the groundbreaking nature behind simpler narratives — like “this is a storytelling tool for data scientists” — because that’s easier for investors to grasp. However, the potential is much greater, and we firmly believe in this approach, as do our investors and community. With the right support, Vizzu can fundamentally change how people explore, analyse, and communicate with data.”

Bristol-based biotechnology startup EnsiliTech has raised its second oversubscribed funding round, securing £4.5 million in seed funding to improve the way life-saving medicines are stored and transported globally. Today’s biopharmaceuticals depend on a 50-year-old global ‘cold chain’, an expensive, energy-intensive system of refrigeration and freezing for transport and storage. Failures in this system cost the pharmaceutical industry an estimated £26 billion each year. In developing countries, the WHO estimates that up to 50 per cent of vaccines are lost to cold chain breakdowns, leaving millions without access to essential treatments. EnsiliTech’s mission is to make therapeutics and biologics stable at room temperature, ensuring broader access, simplifying logistics, and reducing environmental impact. Its patented Ensilication technology preserves the integrity of vaccines, antibodies, and other biopharmaceuticals without the need for cold-chain storage, allowing medicines to withstand temperatures up to 50°C. This enables life-saving treatments to reach every corner of the globe, particularly underserved regions where reliable refrigeration remains a barrier to healthcare. Dr.Asel Sartbaeva, co-founder and CEO of EnsiliTech, explained:  Our mission is to ensure that life-saving medicines and vaccines reach everyone, everywhere, regardless of infrastructure or geography. By eliminating the need for refrigeration, our technology significantly reduces supply-chain costs and drug waste, while also lowering the environmental impact of pharmaceutical distribution. This investment is a major step forward for the team, and we’re thrilled to have the backing of partners who share our vision for a more equitable and sustainable future in global healthcare. Using Ensilication, tiny layers of an inorganic material are applied to the biological material, rendering it stable outside the fridge or freezer. The technology utilises silica, the material from which sand is made, to create an individual, tailored protective coat around the active ingredient. These cages keep the biological material intact, meaning its properties won’t change regardless of variations in outside temperature or humidity. Silica is biocompatible, inert and cheap. When the vaccine or other biological material is ready to be administered, the silica cage cracks open and falls away, leaving the active ingredient in its pure, fully functional form. The round was led by Eos Advisory and followed on by Calculus Capital with participation from Empirical Ventures, Fink Family Office, QantX, Angel Investors Bristol (AIB), HERmesa, Penn Park Capital, chANGELS, and other individual angel investors. Anne Muir, Director of Portfolio at Eos, said: EnsiliTech has the technology to transform how vaccines and other therapeutics are transported and stored. Reducing wastage, reducing cost and vastly improving health outcomes across the globe, this kind of science and this scale of potential sits at the core of our investment thesis at Eos. Elizabeth Klein-Edmonds, Investment Director at Calculus, expressed excitement about backing EnsiliTech at this key stage of growth, noting that the company’s patented and highly differentiated platform is already showing strong commercial momentum. She added: The potential applications for vaccines and antibody treatments are transformative, with the ability to improve accessibility and enhance patient care across global health systems. We look forward to collaborating with Asel and her talented team, whose deep market understanding, and expertise position them for exceptional success. According to Johnathan Matlock, Co-founder of Empirical Ventures, EnsiliTech reflects their evidence-based approach, having advanced from academic publication to licensing talks in just three years while steadily reducing technical, regulatory, and commercial risks. He shared: We believe EnsiliTech has the potential to become the category leader in biologics thermostabilisation, unlocking new global markets for vaccines, mRNA therapies, and antibodies. Our conviction is grounded in data: demonstrated technical efficacy, early in vivo safety validation, and live commercial negotiations with billion-euro pharma partners. This is an investment where we see the opportunity for both strong financial returns and significant global health impact. The funding will speed up proof-of-concept adoption for both existing and new biopharmaceuticals by expanding capacity through new hires and upgraded infrastructure. It will also fund critical validation studies needed to embed Ensilication into pharmaceutical manufacturing processes. EnsiliTech is led by a predominantly female leadership and R&D team, underscoring its commitment to diversity, inclusivity, and scientific excellence. This strong female-led approach also attracted investment from HERmesa, an investor focused exclusively on backing female-led businesses.

A London-based startup, which claims to have developed AI-powered tech which can forecast world events, has come out of stealth, following a $4m pre-seed funding.Called Mantic, the startup’s pre-seed funding round was led by London-based early stage VC Episode 1, with participation from VC tech investor DRW and several angel investors.Mantic was founded by former Google DeepMind researcher Toby Shevlane and Ben Day, who holds a machine learning PHD from Cambridge University.Mantic claims its tech can undertake what it is calling “judgmental forecasting”. It says its tech can rival elite superforecasters, individuals who are adept at using statistics to predict events.“Mantic are building a cutting-edge AI system that can predict the complex world of human affairs,” the startup says.The press release talks about its tech being helpful to business and political leaders, helping forecast events like supply chain disruptions, geopolitical shocks to predicting competitor moves.Mantic says: "In the past, purely data-driven approaches to prediction in human affairs have not worked because both flexible reasoning and research are required to provide the most accurate prediction of the future.  “Mantic is building a cutting-edge AI system that can predict the complex world of human affairs. Delivering these predictions at industrial scale will transform the quality of decision-making across business and policy.”Mantic appears to be tapping into the popularity of prediction market players like Polymarket and Kalshi, which it mentions in its blog post.

Fueled by a growing startup scene, targeted government support, and increasing international visibility, the country is carving out its role in the European tech landscape. In 2024, the European Innovation Scoreboard ranked Slovakia as an “Emerging Innovator,” placing 28th overall with a score equal to 65 per cent of the EU average. The country shows particular strength in tech exports and innovation-driven sales, although it continues to face challenges in R&D investment and design-driven innovation. According to the Global Innovation Index 2024, Slovakia ranks 46th globally, performing better in innovation outputs (44th) than inputs (52nd). Its globally competitive high-tech manufacturing and export sectors remain key pillars of its innovation performance. Bratislava and Košice are emerging as regional tech hubs, home to a new wave of startups in AI, fintech, gaming, and automation. With increased attention from investors and support from both public and private stakeholders, Slovakia is well-positioned to strengthen its presence on the European tech map. These Slovak tech companies are ones to follow in 2025. Amount raised in 2024: $28M CloudTalk is an AI-powered cloud communication platform designed to help sales and support teams deliver smarter, more efficient customer interactions. Founded in 2016 in Bratislava, the company offers advanced features such as smart dialers, speech recognition, call summarisation, automated note-taking, and sentiment analysis. CloudTalk serves over 4,000 customer-facing teams in more than 100 countries and has powered over 400 million customer conversations. It's flexible, scalable software integrates seamlessly with CRMs and business tools, making it a go-to solution for modern contact centres and remote teams worldwide. In 2024, CloudTalk raised $28 million in Series B funding, bringing its total funding to $36.7 million. Amount raised in 2024: $12M Brightpick is an AI robotics company revolutionising warehouse automation with its Autopicker, the world’s first commercially available autonomous mobile picking robot. Founded in 2021 in Bratislava, Brightpick develops multi-purpose AI robots that automate virtually every aspect of order fulfilment, from picking and buffering to sorting and dispatch, operating 24/7 without fixed infrastructure. At the core of the system is Brightpick Intuition, a sophisticated AI orchestrator that creates a real-time digital twin of warehouse operations. It intelligently plans robot paths, optimises inventory placement, and provides live performance insights, all delivered via intuitive dashboards. In 2024, Brightpick raised $12 million in a mix of equity and debt. Amount raised in 2024: €7.5M Powerful Medical is transforming medical diagnostics through its AI-powered solutions, with a focus on enhancing the detection of cardiovascular diseases. Its certified PMcardio platform delivers fast, accurate diagnostics to support better clinical decision-making. Designed for instant ECG interpretation, PMcardio identifies over 40 cardiac conditions, including hidden heart attacks (STEMI equivalents) and left ventricular ejection fraction declines, via smartphone-scanned or uploaded 12-lead ECG images. Clinicians benefit from explainability heatmaps, rapid assessments, and second opinion support, enhancing diagnostic confidence at the point of care. The company is committed to reducing the global burden of heart disease and raising the standard of patient care worldwide. In 2024, Powerful Medical secured €7.5 million in EIC funding to support its mission of transforming heart attack diagnostics. Amount raised in 2024: $1.2M SuperScale is a game business analytics company that empowers studios to manage their entire operations from a single, integrated platform. Their flagship product, SuperPlatform, consolidates data from over 40 sources, including marketing, product, and finance, into a unified, AI-powered dashboard, providing real-time, trustworthy business insights. Launched in August 2024, SuperPlatform has already gained traction, with 60 studios relying on it to streamline decision-making across their organisations. A standout feature, the Command Center, enables gaming executives and investors to simulate strategy shifts and implement them confidently, from indie studios optimising short-term cash flow to larger publishers aiming to boost first-year profits. SuperScale raised $1.2 million in 2024 to support the launch of SuperPlatform. Amount raised in 2024: €1M CloseRocket is an AI-powered B2B sales platform. It enables companies to build and manage global sales teams by connecting them with top sales talent, streamlining onboarding, and providing AI-enhanced tools for strategy and reporting. The platform currently supports businesses with monthly revenue streams and has expanded sales operations efficiently across markets. CloseRocket closed a €1 million seed round in early 2024 to support its continued growth and platform development. Amount raised in 2024: €500K Elv.ai is a startup specialising in AI-powered content moderation. Born out of a communications agency’s response to hybrid warfare and rising misinformation, Elv.ai employs a blend of artificial intelligence and human oversight to monitor social media, swiftly detect signifiers of hate speech, fake profiles, and disinformation, and ensure cleaner digital discourse. Since its launch in March 2022, the platform has screened millions of comments, effectively flagging and addressing harmful content for media outlets and public institutions in Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Elv.ai raised €500,000 in a seed round, enabling its expansion into other European markets.

ChatGPT developer OpenAI has launched an online centralised hub for startups, as it ramps up its offering for early-stage businesses in Europe and beyond. The hub effectively puts under one roof OpenAI’s offering to startups.Marc Manara, head of startups, OpenAI, said: “OpenAI for startups has a new home. Tons of great resources for startups building with OpenAI APIs and more coming.”The hub includes details of how OpenAI partners with founders, the resources it offers them, as well as being a hub where founders can buy ChatGPT credits, so they can potentially get access to advanced features and tools. Startups can also sign up for a dedicated newsletter and get details of OpenAI events from the hub.Resources include live virtual sessions covering the APIs and models founders use most and "reinforcement fine-tuning"; "cookbooks", which include “open-source how-tos” and prompting guides; and guides on areas such as building agents.European businesses which work with OpenAI, which earlier this month said it was on track to hit 700m weekly active users, include Klarna, Legora and Photoroom. Laura Modiano, head of startups, EMEA, has previously spoken about how OpenAI works with Euroepean startups.

Breaking into new renewable energy markets is notoriously slow and expensive. Developers, investors, and suppliers often spend weeks — and thousands of euros — hiring consultants just to answer basic questions: Who are the active players? What projects are underway? Which regulations or funding schemes apply?  In a sector where opportunities move fast and competition is global, relying on outdated reports and manual research leaves companies at a disadvantage. Launched publicly in May 2025, Greenvi AI is a Ukrainian startup developing an AI-powered SaaS platform that provides renewable energy professionals with instant, tailored market intelligence, research, and project assessments across Europe and the US. It aims to eliminate the need for consultants by helping companies discover relevant projects, partners, or customers on demand.  Designed for developers, investors, EPCs, and suppliers, it delivers insights on solar, wind, hydrogen, biofuels, storage, regulations, and funding opportunities in minutes instead of weeks.  I spoke to CEO Stanislav Masevych to learn more.  How a career in solar and wind led to building Greenvi AI Masevych has worked in the energy and tech industries for about 10 years, collaborating with a range of international companies building solar and wind power plants, as well as working on energy-focused AI technologies. His last role was with a US company that engineered solar, wind, and battery energy storage systems worldwide. While doing that, he felt the pain point of trying to access market insights in new geographies.  “Let’s say a US company wants to understand what’s happening in the Spanish solar energy market in real time. Normally, they’d have to hire a consultant, pay high costs, and wait weeks to get a basic overview—like recent projects, market players, regulations, pricing, and so on. I experienced this first-hand. These manual routines were time-consuming and costly. That’s what led me to the idea behind Greenvi AI.” The value of customer research  But before building anything, the team interviewed around 25 potential customers to validate the idea. This not only validated the business idea but expanded the startup’s potential customer base.  “We wanted to know: is this something people actually need? We consistently heard, ‘Yes — it would be incredibly helpful to have easy access to new renewable energy markets, especially with real-time updates, ’” shared Masevych. "People wanted to be able to say, 'What’s new in Spain, the UK, Portugal? '— and then reach out to those projects, whether for engineering services, equipment sales, investment opportunities, or partnerships. That became our starting point.” Fast gaining traction with a competitive advantage Greenvi AI launched publicly at the beginning of May this year. The company has early-paying clients in the US, EU, and Ukraine, and offers subscription plans starting around $45/month.  In terms of competitors, while BloombergNEF is widely used, its media-based platform produces good analytics and reports, but not personalised or interactive experiences. By comparison, Aurora Energy Research offers PDF-based reports and data tools, but again, not with the AI-powered personalisation Greenevi is building. “We want to offer something more dynamic, contextual, and workflow-integrated — driven by actual user needs,” said Masevych.  Right now, Greenvi AI is targeting small to medium-sized renewable energy companies. But as it builds more advanced features — especially things like AI-driven business model generation — it will expand toward enterprise customers who are willing to pay higher subscription fees. Masevych recounts, “That’s part of our plan: start lean, validate demand, and scale toward higher-value contracts.” Making renewable projects discoverable The platform works with publicly available web data, using customised LLM agents and workflows to parse and structure the data intelligently. However, the next step is enabling customers to upload their own documents — such as PDF portfolios, project plans, or investment decks. Users will be able to choose whether to keep this information private or share it publicly.  For instance, an early-stage developer in Portugal could upload a solar project plan and make it visible to potential investors. A US firm searching the platform for early-stage solar projects in Europe would then discover it. The system would analyse the submission, highlight it to relevant users, and provide context along with contact options. “We’re a small team now, but with funding, we can scale that capability. Thanks to modern AI tools, even small teams can now build products that would’ve taken 50 developers three years ago. It’s a great time to be building.” It's a great opportunity for the European energy ecosystem. According to Masevych, US clients are actively tracking projects in Spain, Portugal, and Italy through our platform. Others are interested in Central and Eastern Europe for battery storage. The company is establishing a presence in the UK and aims to form partnerships with national renewable energy associations in each country, enabling it to reach hundreds of companies quickly. The company has raised €25,000 through a non-dilutive grant from the EU's "Seeds of Bravery" program, which supports Ukrainian founders. The startup has also won another grant program, with results expected to be announced soon.

Today, VC data provider Dealroom released its inaugural Thoroughbreds 100 report, a list of the 100 most promising tech scaleups in EMEA, with revenues of $100 million+.  This ranking shows the tech companies with the most momentum, growth and team strength. The ranking now includes Thoroughbreds ($100 million+ revenues) and Colts ($25–100 million revenues) alongside Unicorns.  The Thoroughbreds 100 EMEA represent the companies with the most momentum in 2025, out of over 700 Thoroughbreds across EMEA, with 38 created in the last two years alone. Thoroughbreds now account for 27 per cent of EMEA’s $5.6 trillion tech ecosystem. Europe underrepresented: only Phoenix Court and Index Ventures among the global Top 20 Investors are ranked by the number of high-growth companies in their portfolios, with additional weight for those backing them earliest at Seed and Series A, when data is scarce and risk is highest. Significantly, Phoenix Court, Index Ventures, and Point Nine are the only European funds in the global top 20, led by Y Combinator and Sequoia.  Phoenix Court is recognised as the region’s #1 investor in Thoroughbreds, Colts, and Unicorns for consistently backing high-revenue tech companies from Seed stage and in the top 0.01 per cent of funds globally.  Index Ventures secured second overall, while Point Nine, the Germany-based Seed investor, achieved third position.  As investor focus shifts from speculative valuations to proven performance, this new measure of success reflects a wider shift across fast-growth tech companies towards sustainable growth and financial discipline.  Driving economic prosperity As more companies stay private for longer, the focus is on driving economic prosperity through improved productivity, job creation, and tax contributions. Thoroughbreds 100 EMEAs collectively generated $168 billion in combined revenue over the past year and provided 367,000 jobs across the region.The UK is the lead country for Thoroughbreds 100 (22), followed by Germany (17) The top three sectors are: Fintech (30 companies) – including Revolut (UK), Wise (UK), and Trade Republic (Germany) Enterprise Software (25 companies) – including Mistral AI (France) and Bending Spoons (Italy) Health & Biotech (14 companies) – including Alan (France) and Flo Health (UK) Europe’s $57 billion scaleup funding gap Within EMEA, the report cites the importance of "New Palo Alto" region – an interconnected network of innovation ecosystems within a five-hour train ride of London (including London, Paris, Amsterdam and Brussels). It's the most productive region for Thoroughbreds in EMEA, home to over 250 Thoroughbreds and nearly 800 Colts, underlining its position as the world's second most productive innovation cluster, surpassed only by the Bay Area.  Seven of Europe's 10 most valuable tech companies founded after 1990 originated from this ecosystem, including Booking.com, ASML, Adyen, Arm, Revolut, Tide, Wise, and Monzo. However, the EMEA region faces an estimated $57 billion scaleup funding gap according to Dealroom, compared to the Bay Area. Unsurprisingly the report asserts that while Europe consistently nurtures innovative companies, long-term value creation could be significantly accelerated with a more plentiful supply of local capital at later growth stages. This represents a substantial, largely unaddressed investment opportunity for asset allocators and institutional investors, with nearly 2,000 venture-backed companies in EMEA now generating revenues of $25 million or more.Yoram Wijngaarde, Founder and CEO of Dealroom, said: “Venture has long been measured by promise, but performance comes from proof. That’s why our 2025 ranking includes a focus on Thoroughbreds: companies generating $100 million+ in ARR, rooted in strong customer demand and lasting value. These aren’t speculative bets; they’re regional assets.  By prioritising tangible impact and sustainable growth, we offer unprecedented clarity for founders, LPs, and policymakers on where resilience lies and the investors that are truly bending the curve. Europe is no longer merely emerging; it is a demonstrable engine room for national, regional, and global champions." According to Saul Klein, Co-founder and Executive Chair at Phoenix Court, venture capital has been gripped by unicorns for over a decade.  “But the real test of a company is not valuation, but fundamentals. The definition of success has changed. Europe has the raw ingredients to create the companies that matter, and it's encouraging to see 38 new Thoroughbreds created in the past two years. The challenge is not building them, but scaling them. What’s needed now in Europe is the long-term conviction at growth - so that the value created here stays here and compounds for the next generation.”

Europe boasts a “swarm” of global-scale AI companies, according to a leading VC, who said Europe was well-placed to take a key role in the AI investment boom. Ziv Reichert, partner at LocalGlobe, the London-based investor which has backed Mistral and Wise, was speaking on the Tech.eu podcast, alongside Bobby Jackle, partner, Visionaries Club, the early-stage European VC.While the US and China appear to be dominating when it comes to frontier AI labs, observers think that Europe can make hay in the application layer of AI, which has seen billions of pounds invested in it across the world.Reichert pointed to the likes of Synthesia, Lovable and N8n as examples of application-layer European startups with a “global-scale”.Jackle said: “If I look at the application layer, I think there is a huge possibility and room for growth in Europe. “I think many of these companies will be European-specific but I think then there is also the chance for some of them to really become global companies.”The pair discussed a range of issues, including their consumption of AI tools; how their respective VC firms were leveraging AI; AI’s impact on company profits; why AI is a big driver of SaaS adoption; and sifting through the AI hype when making investments.Reichert said: “This is something that as an investment team we are increasingly speaking to founders about. “It is something we assess when we meet a company for the first time, it’s like ‘how do they think about scaling the origination alongside AI?’ The reality is you probably need a leaner team going forward than you would have two or three years ago.” Image: Pixabay

Conversational AI startup Vox AI has raised $8.7 million in Seed funding to accelerate the rollout of its autonomous, multilingual voice platform built specifically for the quick service restaurant or "drive thru" industry. The round was led by global venture capital firm Headline, with participation from True, Simon Capital, and returning investor Souschef Ventures. This brings the company’s total funding to $10 million. Vox AI is taking aim at the $1 trillion global QSR market, which continues to struggle with persistent labor shortages, high employee turnover, and rising wage costs. The startup’s solution offers AI-driven voice interaction for drive-thru, mobile ordering, and in-restaurant operations, positioning voice technology not as a feature, but a full-stack platform shift. “Vox AI is pushing voice technology far beyond generic Natural Language Processing. We’re not just improving voice technology. We’re building a new industry standard for how guests interact with fast-food chains and QSR brands they love and how restaurant staff run them,” said Maurice Kroon, co-founder and CEO of Vox AI. “Our goal is to make voice the de facto interface for every QSR location without the need to upgrade their current hardware.” Unlike general-purpose voice assistants, Vox AI’s platform is tailored to the fast-paced, acoustically complex environments of QSRs. Its system operates 24/7 in over 90 languages and dialects. “Vox AI delivers something the QSR space has never had before: autonomous, intelligent, real-time voice interaction at a global scale. It’s not a feature, it’s a platform shift,” said Dominic Wilhelm, Partner at Headline. “We are thrilled to partner with the Vox AI team to power the future of drive-thru and QSR ordering to not only improve companies’ bottom lines, but also reduce employee turnover and improve customer satisfaction.”

Stockholm-based Farang, an AI research lab developing next-generation foundational Large Language Models, has raised €1.5 million in seed funding. Farang has created a novel architecture for Large Language Models, competing with the existing transformer architecture used by current market leaders ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. Instead of predicting text word-by-word, Farang's architecture comprehends the complete response first, like imagining a picture before painting it, and then translates that concept into words. While many recent AI models add reasoning steps to simulate “thinking time,” they still depend on word prediction. Farang’s approach carries out this reasoning internally through non-textual mechanisms, producing more coherent answers while sharply reducing computational demands. Emil Romanus, Farang’s Founder, comments: We're not building another application layer on top of existing models. We've developed a completely new foundational architecture that enables us to create specialised AI assistants that outperform current solutions in specific domains like programming and medicine, while using twenty-five times less computational resources. Based on current testing, we believe the percentage of resources used will decrease even further in the future. Farang is targeting the weak spots of today’s AI assistants, starting with specialised applications where they often fall short. These include support for specific programming languages and frameworks, niche medical fields, and internal company tools. Its first focus is React programming, aiming to deliver more optimized and iterative code than current large language models. The beauty of our architecture is that it enables us to create highly specialized models for niche use cases like untapped medical domain models that would be prohibitively expensive with traditional approaches, Romanus explains. We can analyse unstructured medical data or create programming assistants that truly understand specific frameworks, not just general coding patterns. Farang’s technology also enables organizations to deploy specialized AI models on-premises with full privacy controls. This is crucial for healthcare, legal, and financial firms handling sensitive data. Instead of sending proprietary information to external AI services, companies can train and run Farang’s models entirely in-house, ensuring data sovereignty. Romanus added: Our vision is that companies will have these specialized assistants running on their own infrastructure, integrated with their existing systems. A law firm could have an AI that understands its specific practice areas and case history, or a research hospital could have an assistant trained on their unique patient data—all while keeping that sensitive information completely private. An ambitious long-term vision While starting with niche applications to prove the technology, Farang has set its sights on becoming a market leader in artificial intelligence, ultimately aiming to compete with and surpass OpenAI in the general AI space. Romanus noted that the company is taking a different approach from big tech companies, adding: By proving our architecture works in specialized domains first, we're building the foundation to eventually challenge the current leaders across all AI applications. The round was led by Voima Ventures and the Amadeus APEX Technology Fund, with participation from prominent angel investors such as Tero Ojanpera (Co-founder of Silo AI), Nilay Oza, and Niraj Aswani (former founders of Klevu). Inka Mero, Managing Partner & Founder of Voima Ventures, commented: We look for exceptional founders and technologies that reset the curve—not just optimize around the edges. Farang showcases how Europe can step up in the global AI race, as its foundational architecture provides a true paradigm shift—specialized, efficient, and enterprise-grade from day one. Ion Hauer, Principal at APEX Ventures, said the firm is always looking at breakthrough technologies with the potential to reshape industries, and Farang stood out right away: For years, the industry has been making incremental improvements to the same Transformer foundation. What Emil and his team have developed represents a fundamental architectural leap—the kind of foundational change we believe will separate the next generation of AI leaders from today's incumbents. The funding will primarily be used to scale up its proof-of-concept models and invest in computing power required to train and fine-tune models for specialised areas such as programming and medicine.

London-based CRM startup Attio has raised $52 million in Series B funding to expand its CRM platform. The round was led by GV (Google Ventures), with participation from existing investors Redpoint Ventures, 01A, Point Nine, and Balderton Capital, bringing Attio’s total funding to $116 million. With the new funding, Attio plans to scale its engineering team, accelerate product development, and double down on go-to-market outreach. Investment will focus particularly on features that enhance agent collaboration, security and permissioning, and real-time intelligence. “CRM is one of the most important categories in B2B, but it’s been stuck in the past,” said Nicolas Sharp, CEO and co-founder of Attio. “AI-native CRM needs a completely different foundation — one that allows you to truly understand every customer, take action fast and gives you the freedom to build the exact go-to-market systems you need at scale. That’s what we’re building with Attio, and this funding will allow us to accelerate our vision.” Attio aims to upend that status quo by offering a fully AI-native alternative. Rather than layering AI onto an old architecture, the company has reimagined CRM from the ground up, building a platform where AI agents, human operators, and real-time data ingestion are core design elements. “Today’s go-to-market builders expect platforms they can shape to fit their vision, not rigid systems they’re forced to work around,” said Alexander Christie, CTO and co-founder of Attio. Attio is targeting users who want to design and iterate on their GTM stack quickly, without relying on third-party consultants or 12-month implementation cycles. A new generation of SaaS companies, particularly in AI, developer tools, and productivity software, are prioritising programmability and composability, giving users more flexibility to build software that matches their exact workflows. The company, which launched just two years ago has customers including Lovable, Granola, Modal, and Replicate. “This investment will accelerate the company’s mission to build the first AI CRM that understands every customer and gives teams the power to shape it exactly to their business,” said Attio in a statement. “With this funding, Attio will fuel a new generation of go-to-market builders.” As part of the round, Michael McBride, partner at GV and former Chief Revenue Officer at GitLab, will join Attio’s board of directors.

Finnish Open source enterprise database company MariaDB plc today announced it has acquired SkySQL, the company behind an AI-powered, serverless database-as-a-service (DBaaS) platform.  MariaDB originally developed SkySQL and, since being spun off as an independent entity in 2023, has significantly advanced its product offering. The acquisition of SkySQL enables MariaDB to meet customer and market expectations for greater flexibility and deployment choice, including a range of self-managed and fully managed cloud offerings. “Our customers have made it clear that they want flexibility, and they need powerful, reliable database solutions wherever their business takes them - on premises, in the cloud or in hybrid environments,” said Rohit de Souza, CEO, MariaDB plc.  “Acquiring SkySQL helps accelerate plans and adds further innovation to MariaDB Cloud. It’s a strategic investment in our customers and a decisive step to enhance our ability to provide the comprehensive, modern, world-class database platform our customers need to thrive and maintain a competitive edge.” Enterprises are increasingly shifting workloads to cloud-based database solutions to achieve greater scalability, cost efficiency and accessibility.  MariaDB Cloud provides a provisioned database, as a service, on all three major public clouds (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud), along with a serverless mode for developers to instantly start building cloud-native and AI-driven applications without overspending. Further, integrated agentic AI capabilities help transform how developers interact with complex operational data. MariaDB Cloud will enable customers to consume MariaDB Enterprise Platform, the company’s flagship product, as a fully managed cloud option.  “SkySQL’s level of sophistication, from its built-in elasticity, advanced serverless technology, to its agentic AI capabilities, is extremely impressive,” said Vikas Mathur, chief product officer, MariaDB plc.  “By bringing SkySQL’s DBaaS into the MariaDB portfolio, we are immediately addressing our customers’ needs while also gaining a robust foundation to make MariaDB the default option for building GenAI applications.”  According to Jags Ramnarayan, chief technology officer, SkySQL:  “This acquisition is a major win for our customers who will now benefit from our joint efforts and faster innovation cycles. As a part of MariaDB again, we are now able to bring this capability to customers across the globe faster and more effectively.” The acquisition of SkySQL comes on the heels of MariaDB’s acquisition of Galeria Cluster in June 2025.

Bitpanda, the crypto exchange backed by Peter Thiel, is snubbing London as a potential IPO destination, preferring New York or Frankfurt instead. Bitpanda co-founder and CEO Eric Demuth cited the lack of liquidity in share trading as the reason for not wanting to IPO in London, despite the crypto exchange’s recent UK expansion. The Austrian crypto outfit is currently considering a listing. Speaking to the Financial Times, Demuth said: “Currently, everybody’s moving away from the London Stock Exchange. Currently, liquidity-wise, the LSE is not doing too well. I hope that it gets better but over the next few years, I think the LSE is struggling a bit." He said that Bitpanda would instead IPO in New York or Frankfurt, but that a final decision on timing or location had not been made. His comments come amid a dearth of London IPOs, with fundraising from London IPOs in the first six months of the year slumping to a 30-year low. Bitpanda, which is backed by Thiel's Valar Ventures and London-based VC Hedosophia, is the latest tech company to snub a possible London listing. In June this year, Wise, the money transfer app, said it planned to move its primary listing to the US, while Revolut has also rejected a London listing, with its CEO, Nik Storonsky, saying it was “not rational” to float in Britain, given the advantages of the US public markets. Meanwhile, crypto firms Figure Technology Solutions and Gemini have recently filed to list in the US. In February this year, Bitpanda announced a major UK rollout.

Czech retail tech startup Buylo has raised €640,000 in funding from Purple Ventures, aiming to bring its RFID-powered checkout and inventory automation technology to a broader international market. The new funding will be used to support international expansion, product development, and hiring across technical and sales teams. Buylo also plans to launch specialised modules for fashion retail and budget-friendly versions of its platform for smaller businesses. The startup, headquartered in Brno, says it’s building a smarter, faster alternative to traditional checkout and inventory systems, promising a 10-second self-checkout experience and automated store operations. Founded within the Industrial IT Group, Buylo is targeting medium-sized retailers that lack the resources to develop such solutions in-house. The company’s platform leverages RFID (radio-frequency identification) tags, sensors, AI and self-checkout technology to speed up transactions, minimize theft, automate stock tracking, and even deliver personalized shopping experiences in physical stores. “We want to help retailers streamline operations and make shopping easier and faster for customers. Buylo is not just about cost savings; it’s about making retail data-driven, personalized, and transparent for both retailers and customers. I believe RFID is the future of retail and will soon be implemented by all major market players,” said Josef Voda, co-founder and CEO of Buylo. “Moreover, Buylo is not only effective for sales floors but also a strong tool for managing back-of-house operations. Thanks to this, we are expanding our client portfolio both in the Czech Republic, where we are currently implementing our solution for clients like Angry Beards, and abroad, where we’re also growing rapidly.” Buylo is entering a market that is growing at a rapid pace. The global retail automation sector was valued at $24 billion in 2023, and is forecasted to grow to nearly $72 billion by 2034, according to Precedence Research. The European market alone is projected to reach $6 billion by 2030, with factors such as labor shortages, cost-reduction pressures, and increased customer preference for self-service driving adoption. With the Czech non-food retail market estimated at €28 billion and the European market at around €86 billion, Buylo is positioning itself as a cost-effective solution for mid-sized retailers aiming to keep pace with the digitisation of commerce. Buylo’s advantage lies in offering enterprise-level technology to smaller players: businesses that often cannot afford to build in-house systems like those used by retail giants such as Zara or Decathlon. The startup has already established a presence beyond the Czech Republic, working with clothing chain Numero Uno in Romania, Hungary, and Bulgaria, and with YOYOSO in Slovakia. It has also expanded to the U.S. through a Czech innovation incubator. “I never liked traditional self-checkouts where the customer essentially becomes the cashier. I thought, there’s a simpler way. It soon became clear it wouldn’t be that easy, and many people tried to dissuade me. But that only made me more determined,” said Voda. “Thanks to RFID, we’re not only eliminating unfriendly user experiences at self-checkouts but also dramatically increasing the efficiency of entire store operations.”

AI is rapidly permeating every corner of technology and society. Yet AI visions, tools, and applications are overwhelmingly shaped and created by a small, privileged section of the population.   Despite representing slightly more than half of the global population, women are severely underrepresented in the AI field, constituting just 29 per cent of the AI-skilled workforce, 22 per cent of product, engineering, and science roles, and only 10 per cent of AI executive leadership. Dr Julia Stamm, founder of She Shapes AI, wants to change this. She's created a global initiative dedicated to identifying, celebrating, and amplifying the work of female leaders who are using artificial intelligence for social good.  I spoke to her to learn more.  A career at the crossroads of science, policy, and tech Dr Julia Stamm has held senior positions in organisations such as the European Cooperation in Science and Technology, the European Commission and the G20.  Before founding She Shapes AI, Stamm was the inaugural CEO of The Data Tank, a non-profit data-for-good startup in Brussels that harnesses data for societal benefit. She was also the founding director of the Global Solutions Initiative in Berlin, supporting the think tank work of the G20 to address global challenges through policy recommendations and is a Fellow of the RSA (Royal Society for the Arts), London, and a Fellow at the Centre for Digital Governance of the Hertie School, Berlin.  Flipping the script: from problems to futures In 2019, Stamm founded The Futures Project, a global initiative to ensure that future-focused innovation and technology meet real societal needs.  She recounts that its mission was to create shared visions of the future and then use innovation and tech to achieve them—intentionally and ethically.  "We flipped the typical 'solution in search of a problem' mindset. Instead, we asked: What's the future we want? And how do we use innovation to get there responsibly?" Stamm received the Digital Female Leader Award in the Global Hero category for her pioneering work in innovation and technology for impact. She Shapes AI is a young, bootstrapped organisation which focuses almost exclusively on women — female founders, entrepreneurs, and leaders. When women build tech, responsibility and care come first In Stamm's experience, when women build technology, they often prioritise responsibility, care, and sustainability.  However, when AI is designed from a predominantly male perspective, the consequences scale dramatically. Women are already more likely to experience recruitment bias from recruitment tech, suffer the effects of diagnostic and pain prediction models trained on male data, experience sexism in financial credit, and be disproportionately targeted by deepfake technology.  Stamm contends, "if AI is truly going to benefit society, we need broader input. We must diversify who's developing the tools and how they're being developed." And, while there's plenty of attention given to data bias when it comes to training LLMs, Stamm sees a broader issue:   "Who's building the tools? Who's asking the questions? Who's deciding what gets measured?" We need women at every level: in development, leadership, and funding." Diverse perspectives change the entire trajectory of a project. "That's the kind of thinking we need. There's this huge promise that AI will benefit all of humanity. But who gets to define what that means? Who decides what the future looks like? It shouldn't be just a handful of people in Silicon Valley.  Women tend to ask better questions. They start with the problem and try to understand it deeply—rather than building a flashy solution and hoping to find a use for it." Beyond the same six names When Stamm first entered the field, she kept seeing the same six women on every "Women in AI" list.  She asserts, "That's simply not true. There are so many brilliant women doing extraordinary things — we just don't hear about them. So part of our mission is to identify them, put them in the spotlight, and support them — not just with applause, but with tools, funding, and visibility." SheShapes AI is global, but some of the standout European women in AI for me include: Anita Schjøll Abildgaard, CEO iris.ai, Alicia Combaz (Germany), founder and CEO of Make.org, Dr Luise Frohberg, founder of Taara Quest, Goda Go, founder of AI Productivity Hub, Tabitha Goldstaub, co-founder of CognitionX and CogX, Dr Sasha Luccioni, AI & Climate Lead at Hugging Face, Stacy Pavlyshyna,  Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation & Tech Entrepreneur and Co‑founder of Awesomic. Shaping the narrative of AI leadership She Shapes AI addresses inequality in three interconnected ways:  1. Visibility and Voice:  Through its flagship She Shapes AI Awards, She Shapes AI spotlights women leaders across diverse fields such as democracy, peace, and nature. These awards not only celebrate individual achievement but also broaden the public's understanding of who is building the future of AI and for whom. Visibility helps to challenge outdated narratives about innovation and leadership.  2. Ecosystem Building: She Shapes AI creates international, cross-sector networks that connect women working across AI's many domains from academia to civil society, from startups to government.  Through community-building, mentorship, and thought leadership, She Shapes AI fosters spaces where women can collaborate, exchange knowledge, and drive systemic change together. Stronger networks lead to stronger opportunities.  3. Funding Opportunities and Pathways: Access to funding remains one of the greatest barriers to scaling women-led innovation. Importantly, Stamm wants to shift mindsets beyond the notion of women as NGO founders. She contends: "We're not a non-profit. I want to dismantle the idea that women-led or impact-driven work must be unpaid or charitable. You can do good and make a profit. It's not either/or. We also want to push harder on AI for real-world problems—climate, democracy, education, and healthcare. And we need to change how money flows. If capital keeps going to the same types of founders building speculative tools with no business model, we're missing the real potential of AI." Real ROI exists beyond equity   Stamm wants a shift in the funding landscape so that women-led, impact-driven AI becomes a viable investment category. She also wants to shift the language: "It's not just about equity — it's about ROI. These women are solving real problems in viable markets. Ignoring them is a missed business opportunity." She Shapes AI works with women everywhere — not just in the big cities or traditional innovation hubs.  Stamm detailed: "We've seen incredible work from the Philippines, Latin America, and across Africa. Innovation is everywhere, but access isn't. That's why we're building a global council and connecting with local ecosystems to find and support these women." There's also this assumption that women are "lagging" in AI, which feels overly simplistic. Stamm suggests that such research misses the point, contending that instead of asking why women aren't using these tools as much, maybe we should consider that they're being more thoughtful.  "Women often ask: Do I really need this? What are the risks? That kind of reflection should be valued—not framed as a deficit."

Swiss-based AI startup Zenline AI has secured $1.6 million in pre-seed funding to bring intelligent assortment decision-making to European retail. Zenline AI develops artificial intelligence that combines margin data with market trends to deliver automated, product-level recommendations, from pricing actions to assortment consolidation. Retail teams use Zenline to support new product launches, rationalisation efforts, and the ongoing optimization of existing listings. Arber Sejdiji, CEO of Zenline AI, shared: We build AI agents that think like assortment decision-makers, but operate in seconds. Our mission is to empower European retailers to compete profitably again. Given how critical and shopper-centric assortment is, a retailer can win by increasing its top line and building a competitive edge against Amazon and Temu, because customers will easily find what they are looking for, consciously or not. The co-founder combines retail expertise with AI acumen, shaped at BCG, P&G, ETH Zurich, and the University of Cambridge. Since early 2025, European retailers have been using Zenline AI, which now analyses more than one million SKUs. Its focus is on speed, delivering rapid insights and execution. Zenline’s AI agents generate actionable recommendations for each product or category, drawing on margin data, competitive signals, social trends, and shopper behaviour. The system pinpoints assortment gaps, flags cannibalisation risks, and suggests concrete optimization steps. Built in collaboration with retail teams, Zenline’s AI works even without internal retailer data, ensuring a strong operational fit. The round was led by Seedcamp, with participation from Yellow, First Momentum, and Arc Investors. Zenline’s mission is to help European retail compete again by enabling smarter, AI-driven assortment decisions. Sia Houchangnia, Partner at Seedcamp, said: Zenline hits a nerve in retail tech. The future of category management is AI-powered. Until now, retailers lacked the foundation to make the most important decisions: what a strong assortment actually looks like. The team combines deep expertise in agentic systems and retail, and we’ve been genuinely impressed by their speed of execution. They have rethought assortment logic from the ground up to deliver immediate value to their first customers. This is exactly the kind of talent and solution coming out of Europe that we’re excited to back. With the new funding, Zenline plans to accelerate product development, refine its AI model, and expand into additional verticals.

Previse Systems, a leading provider of next-generation Energy Trading & Risk Management (ETRM) software, has secured growth capital from Lightrock to accelerate its expansion and support the rising demand from energy companies facing increasingly complex market exposures. Previse Systems provides a modern, cloud-native ETRM solution designed for the demands of today’s energy markets. Rapid load growth, renewable intermittency, and bi-directional generation have driven greater price volatility and sharply higher intraday trading volumes. To stay competitive, energy companies now need to process and respond to massive data sets in real time, both to capture opportunities and to manage risks. Previse Coral addresses this challenge with a scalable, high-performance architecture that adapts to different portfolios and operating models. It enables market participants to process extreme intraday trading volumes, launch new products quickly, and manage the heavy data demands of volatile markets, while keeping infrastructure costs and operational complexity low. Asbjørn Hansen, Chief Executive Officer of Previse Systems, commented: The partnership with Lightrock marks a significant milestone for Previse Systems. Their investment underscores the confidence in our innovative technology and our ability to address the complexities of modern energy markets. With this support, we are well-positioned to enhance our capabilities, scale our solutions, and provide unparalleled value to our clients as they navigate the challenges of the energy transition. Lightrock has provided equity financing in return for a minority stake in Previse Systems. This strategic investment will strengthen the company’s ability to deliver innovative solutions, mature its operations, and expand its market presence. Lightrock will utilise its networks and value creation capabilities to support Previse Systems' growth in close collaboration with the company’s founders, who retain control of the business. Nigel McCleave, Partner at Lightrock, commented: We were drawn to Previse because of the market opportunity, differentiated technology platform, and success working with a diverse set of impressive customers. However, what excites us most is the quality of the team, their collaborative and transparent approach, and their core commitment to put customers first. We look forward to supporting them as they continue building Previse’s next chapter. Founded in 2019 by ETRM industry veterans, today Previse Systems already serves more than 20 customers, among them top-tier energy companies. With the funding from Lightrock, Previse aims to double down on its product development and partnership with existing clients, expand its reach across new product lines, and strengthen its operational and geographic footprint. 

London-based AI-powered travel agency Holiwise has raised a €1.45 million pre-seed in an oversubscribed round backed by senior executives from global firms including Bank of America, Barclays, Google, and Goldman Sachs. The raise was led by Bobby Previti (Head of SSA & Covered Bond Trading at Bank of America), and joined by Ulf Nilsson (Nordics & Eastern Europe CEO at DHL), who is also joining Holiwise’s board, Sabri El Jailani and Filippo Zorzoli (Barclays Investment Bank), and Houman Ashrafzadeh (Founder of Padium and Co-founder of Urban Greens). Unlike traditional travel agencies that rely on human agents, or online travel agencies that force travellers to piece together fragmented bookings, Holiwise uses proprietary deep learning and dynamic packaging models to create personalised trips in seconds. Users can personalise trips by mood, budget, location or timeframe, and book entire packages, including flights, accommodation and activities, with a single click. Holiwise was created to solve the frustrations of fragmented and time-consuming travel planning. The founding team, with backgrounds in finance, software engineering, and product development at global companies, set out to combine the scale of technology with the personalisation of a human travel agent. Drawing on extensive travel experience and strong technical expertise, they built Holiwise to reinvent how premium trips are discovered, planned, and booked. Albin Eriksson Lippe, CEO and Co-Founder of Holiwise, shared: We’ve identified a clear gap in the market between mainstream online travel agencies and high-end travel concierges. Premium travellers are underserved, often forced to choose between impersonal, self-serve booking platforms or expensive concierge services that are slow to access. Holiwise is building an AI travel agent that combines the convenience of technology with the quality of a tailored luxury experience. It can instantly plan and book complete personalised itineraries, including synchronised flights, premium stays, and curated experiences for individuals or groups. For discerning travellers, startups, and SMEs, Holiwise also offers a complimentary invite-only premium membership. Premium members gain access to a private platform with insider rates on more than one million global stays, often at prices far below mainstream sites. They also benefit from priority concierge support for flights, accommodation, restaurants, and more, plus tailored travel recommendations powered by Holiwise’s models. The platform is already live with tens of thousands of monthly users, with over 80 per cent of customers returning to book again. Bobby Previti, lead investor, comments: I agree with the founders’ vision that there is a gap in the market for premium travellers. Holiwise is taking an innovative approach to solve the problem, with an exceptional team that understands the problem well. I strongly believe that the team is in the right place at the right time, working towards a vision that I’m keen to support. The pre-seed round comes as Holiwise integrates with major travel industry platforms, including HBX Group, a leading B2B traveltech ecosystem, and Amadeus, the world’s largest global distribution system. These partnerships give users real-time access to flights, stays, and experiences across more than 10,000 destinations. The new capital, combined with these partnerships, will accelerate the development of Holiwise’s AI travel agent and dynamic packaging models, expand platform features, and scale its premium concierge service.

OrganOx, the Oxford-based medtech company behind pioneering liver perfusion technology that has transformed transplant outcomes worldwide, has been acquired in a deal valued at approximately $1.5 billion. The transaction also delivered BGF’s biggest return to date, generating £175 million in proceeds, a 10x money multiple on its original investment, and an IRR of around 69 per cent. Founded out of the University of Oxford, OrganOx developed the world’s first fully automated device for liver preservation, metra, which enables donor livers to be maintained in a functioning state outside the human body for up to 24 hours. The technology, used in more than 6,000 liver transplants to date, has significantly increased the number of viable organs available for transplant and improved patient outcomes. With BGF’s support, OrganOx has scaled into a world-leading medtech company. Following its acquisition, it will continue to operate from Oxford as a standalone division of global healthcare group Terumo Corporation. Tim Rea, co-head of early stage investing at BGF and a member of the OrganOx board since 2019, said: OrganOx has transformed liver transplantation and built a world-class position in medtech. In a sector where institutional capital is constrained, this exit highlights the importance and potential of patient growth capital, and a willingness to back innovation before it is de-risked — something many investors find difficult to do in this still nascent market. BGF was built to deploy capital into underserved parts of the investment market. In early stage medtech, we have gone further by deliberately backing companies with significant hardware and manufacturing complexity. Our capital and commercial expertise made us ideally placed to take on this challenge and OrganOx is a powerful example of why that strategy matters. BGF first invested in OrganOx in 2019 and has provided seven rounds of investment, including a £20 million commitment earlier this year. BGF participated in each of the funding rounds following its initial investment and is the company’s largest shareholder. Other early backers of the company included Longwall Ventures and Oxford Investment Consultants. In its later growth stages, the company secured backing from Lauxera Capital Partners (US/FR), HealthQuest (US), and additional supporters. Oern R. Stuge, MD, MBA, and Executive Chairman of OrganOx, said: Today’s announced transaction is expected to expand the adoption of our transplantation technology platform by leveraging Terumo’s global infrastructure to benefit more patients around the globe. Thank you to BGF who have shown conviction and support as an investor and board member since their first investment. Their capital and leadership have enabled the value creation inherent in today’s announced $1.5bn transaction. Andy Gregory, CEO of BGF, said that achieving a ten-figure valuation marks one of the UK’s largest medtech exits. He highlighted the OrganOx team’s remarkable achievement and stressed that the success is all the more significant because it directly benefits patient outcomes: By combining early and growth-stage investing across multiple sectors, BGF has created the right blend to deliver strong, sustainable and repeatable returns. Our ambition now is for more capital to flow into the UK’s most promising companies — whether through co-investments with international, specialist investors, or domestic sources.