Breathwork platform Regulate has closed a €1.4M Seed round.  The round is led by impact investor 4impact.vc and backed by an angel syndicate, which includes:   Hanno Renner (Co-Founder & CEO, Personio), Mike Wax (Co-Founder, Forto), Marlena Hien (Co-Founder, Bears with Benefits), and Felix Haas (10x Group, IDnow, Bits & Pretzels).  Founded in 2024 by CEO Peter van Woerkum, a certified breathwork coach and executive coach with over a decade of C-level advisory experience, and Paul Laechelin, former Product Lead for the BMW App, Regulate was founded on the conviction that breathwork is the most direct, science-backed way to improve focus, stress response and resilience. According to van Woerkum, breathwork is a proven way to shift from stress to clarity in real time.  “It’s accessible and it builds resilience that compounds over time. As pressures mount and AI raises the bar for what organisations can produce, expectations on professionals have never been higher. We’re building Regulate to help people meet these demands sustainably by embedding it into the way teams already work, not adding another source of stress.”  Regulate has developed an app with a library of over 60 science-backed sessions, ranging from 90 seconds to 60 minutes, developed in partnership with scientific advisor Prof Dr Hottenrott, a leading European authority on Heart Rate Variability and its role in human performance and recovery from Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg. Rather than offering generic mindfulness sessions that sit unused in corporate benefits portals, the platform surfaces the right intervention at the right moment. This includes a focus protocol before a high-stakes meeting, a breathing exercise after an intense discussion, or a team session before a workshop. “What convinced me was the science. Breathwork has a direct, measurable effect on how people think and perform under pressure and Regulate has built the right product to bring that into the workplace. I introduced it at Personio because I know it works,” says Hanno Renner, Co-Founder & CEO, Personio This contextual intelligence is powered by wearables and workday systems. By reading physiological signals from connected devices and understanding the structure of the user’s workday, Regulate can recommend personalised sessions aligned to the user’s current state and demands of the workday, making it the first breathwork platform that functions as an on-demand performance tool. The platform also provides organisations with aggregated usage and impact dashboards, giving HR and leadership teams visibility into team-level adoption patterns and trends without compromising individual privacy. In under a year, the platform has completed over 50,000 sessions across organisations, and its enterprise pipeline represents over €9 million in ARR potential.   Regulate is already used by teams at leading organisations, including Raiffeisen Bank International, Vattenfall, Personio and others, including global enterprises and management consultancies. Victor Straatman, Partner at 4impact.vc, shared:   "We back companies where business model and positive impact align. Regulate improves how people perform and how they feel, allowing them to thrive in a fast-changing work environment. The data shows that at scale, this is a very compelling combination and solution for overall wellbeing.” The company will use the capital to accelerate growth, deepen product capabilities, expand its live-format offerings, and grow its team.

Cambridge-based biotech startup Tolemy Bio has raised €1.4 million in pre-seed funding to advance its AI-enabled technology for cell biology research and biopharma development. The round was led by Norrsken Evolve, with participation from Big Sur Ventures, JME Ventures, Masia, and a new UK-based stealth fund. Founded by Alex Ward and Caelan Anderson, Tolemy Bio is developing Orbit, a system designed to help researchers better understand, interpret, and optimise living cells used in modern therapies and drug development. The company is focused on a longstanding challenge within biopharma and cell biology: while living cells are central to areas such as cell therapies and therapeutic proteins, experimental workflows remain highly manual and fragmented. Research data is often spread across spreadsheets, lab equipment, notebooks, and disconnected systems, limiting the ability of teams to effectively apply AI tools to drug development and manufacturing processes. Orbit is designed to bring these fragmented workflows into a single AI-native environment. The system connects existing laboratory tools and experimental data sources, while also incorporating virtual cell models and AI research agents intended to help scientists analyse cellular behaviour and guide experimental decision-making. Alex Ward, co-founder and CEO of Tolemy Bio, said the company was founded to address the difficulties researchers face in interpreting and reproducing complex cell biology experiments. Our platform, Orbit, is designed to connect experimental data with AI models,” said Ward. “Our goal is to make complex cell biology easier to interpret, optimise, and apply to real therapeutic development. The newly raised funding will be used to expand Tolemy Bio’s data generation, machine learning, and engineering capabilities, continue development of Orbit, and support early customer and partner deployments. While headquartered in Cambridge, the company says much of its operational activity will continue from Barcelona. Tolemy Bio’s long-term goal is to build a virtual-cell platform that helps biopharma companies move beyond trial-and-error experimentation towards more precise and data-driven approaches to understanding and controlling living cells.

London-based fintech Adfin has raised $18 million in Series A funding to expand its AI-powered money movement and cashflow management platform for businesses. The round was led by Index Ventures, with participation from Visionaries Club and new investors Stéphane Kurgan and Andrey Khusid. The investment brings Adfin’s total funding to more than $30 million, less than two years after the company’s launch. Founded to address inefficiencies in business payments and cashflow operations, Adfin is building what it describes as an “agentic” finance platform designed to automate how companies manage invoices, payments, and cash movement. Late payments remain a major challenge for small and medium-sized businesses in the UK, where nearly two-thirds of invoices are paid late. Adfin combines proprietary payment infrastructure with AI-driven workflows intended to automate payment collection processes and help finance teams improve cashflow visibility and operational efficiency. The company says its platform determines the most appropriate payment and follow-up actions for each client while reducing the amount of repetitive administrative work required from finance teams. Tom Pope, co-founder and CEO of Adfin, said the company is focused on building infrastructure that allows finance teams to automate workflows related to payments and cash management while maintaining transparency, auditability, and human oversight. He added that improving payment speed and cash management can have a significant impact on how businesses operate and grow, particularly for smaller companies managing working capital constraints. The newly raised capital will be used to expand Adfin’s platform beyond payment collection into broader cashflow management capabilities, support hiring across engineering and sales, and prepare the company for international expansion.

Nscale, the UK AI infrastructure startup backed by Nvidia, has secured a fresh $790m in debt financing geared towards the development of an AI data centre in Norway, where OpenAI had planned to house its ambitious Stargate Norway project. The debt financing comes from Dutch multinational bank ABN AMRO, Norwegian bank DNB, along with Eksfin, Nordea, and SEB. The funding will go towards the AI infrastructure buildout of Nscale's data centre in Narvik, northern Norway. The data centre was previously earmarked to house OpenAI’s ambitious Stargate Norway AI data centre project. But instead, Nscale has signed a deal with existing customer Microsoft, which will rent Nvidia chips from Nscale at the site, after it was reported that OpenAI and Nscale failed to land a deal. Microsoft has an existing multi-billion contract at the data centre site. Nscale said it had also inked a provision for an extra $790 million of financing by way of a so-called accordion feature, which would allow it extra funding without the need to renegotiate loan terms. Earlier this year, Nscale was valued at $14.6bn following a $2bn Series C funding round. Josh Payne, founder and CEO of Nscale said: “Together, these developments position Nscale at the forefront of global AI infrastructure, delivering scalable, high-performance capacity to meet rapidly growing demand for our services.”

Quantum software company Algorithmiq has established Milan as its global headquarters, signalling its confidence and commitment to Italy and Europe as the future hub for leadership in the industrialisation of quantum algorithms. Algorithmiq has raised €18 million in funding led by United Ventures and Italian institutional investor CDP Venture Capital, with continued participation from Inventure VC. This funding round brings Algorithmiq’s total funding to €36 million and represents Italy’s largest-ever venture capital investment in a quantum startup. Algorithmiq develops quantum software that makes quantum computers useful, enabling breakthroughs in chemistry, materials science, and life sciences through physically meaningful, energy-efficient quantum computation. With operations in Finland, the UK, Ireland and the US, Algorithmiq is led by CEO and and Co-Founder Dr Sabrina Maniscalco, CSO and Co-Founder Dr Guillermo García-Pérez, CTO and Co-Founder Dr Matteo Rossi and Lead Researcher and Co-Founder Dr Boris Sokolov.    To date, the quantum computing narrative has been dominated by the crowded race to develop hardware; Algorithmiq is building and industrialising the algorithmic layer in the technology that can transform quantum computers into tools with real-world applications. Algorithmiq’s decision to situate itself at the heart of the Italian quantum ecosystem reflects a deliberate European bet on quantum's software layer as the primary area of future innovation in the sector.      Milan will serve as the base for Algorithmiq to further its commercial operations as the software partner to the world’s leading quantum hardware companies. From Italy, Algorithmiq will also tap into Europe’s deep scientific talent base to expand its rapidly growing team and leverage the region’s growing strategic focus on quantum.    Algorithmiq’s relocation of its global headquarters to Milan (previously in Finland, where Algorithmiq will maintain significant operations) reflects Italy’s burgeoning quantum technology ecosystem and a broader European effort to close the gap between research and the commercialisation of deeptech.    The decision follows Italy’s National Quantum Strategy, launched in 2025, and a committment to supporting the creation of a robust quantum infrastructure in Italy. Access to national and pan-European capital backing for quantum, paired with the Italian government’s progressive policy commitments, makes Milan a highly attractive strategic base for expansion across European and global markets.   Rather than competing in the capital-intensive race for hardware, Algorithmiq focuses on building the algorithmic layer that helps quantum machines become tools of industrial value.       According to Dr Sabrina Maniscalco, CEO and Co-Founder of Algorithmiq, 2026 is a year in which more meaningful applications of quantum will become a reality. “This strategic move and funding injection give us the template to hit scale and continue to serve and work with the biggest quantum players in the world. Our quantum software makes quantum computers actually useful, and we’re delighted to be taking that message global from our new headquarters in Milan.  As quantum computing matures, the question is shifting from who can build the biggest machine to who can make the machines matter. That challenge sits at the intersection of science, software, and industrial execution, and it is increasingly where the real competitive edge may lie.”   Jacopo Drudi, Partner at United Ventures, sees quantum as an opportunity for Europe to set the pace rather than follow it.  "Italy has always been at the frontier of the mathematical and physical sciences — from Leonardo to Fermi to Marconi — and that foundation gives us a structural advantage in this next technological revolution.  Bringing a world-class international team like Algorithmiq to Milan is a win not just for United Ventures, but for the country. We are building a continental tech titan, and for European quantum talent looking to come home, Italy now has a place where they can do their best work."   Professor Tommaso Calarco said: "It is particularly valuable when a company’s trajectory sends a broader signal about where innovation can be built. Europe needs more of this: decisions that connect scientific excellence, entrepreneurship, and long-term industrial ambition. Italy is well placed to play a role in this context." Professor Calarco authored the Quantum Manifesto that launched the European Commission’s Quantum Flagship, where he currently serves as Chair of the Quantum Community Network (QCN).

The co-founder of Danish digital bank Lunar is stepping down as CEO after more than ten years and is being replaced by a former Danske Bank and Saxo Bank executive. Ken Villum Klausen, Lunar co-founder and CEO, who has led Lunar since its founding in 2015, said the timing “feels right” to stand down. He pointed out that Lunar was now the biggest challenger bank across the Nordics. Posting on LinkedIn, Klausen said: “Lunar has the strongest team in its history. The strategy for the next phase is sharp, and we're all aligned on it. The product is loved, the business is healthy, and the ambition for what comes next is bigger than what came before. The best time for a founder to hand over is when the thing is working, not when it isn't. So that's what I'm doing, with a full heart.” He is being replaced by Søren Kyhl, who spent 10 years at Danish investment bank Saxo Bank, latterly as deputy CEO, and over 13 years at Danske Bank, the Danish multinational bank. Kyhl will take over at the start of June this year. Lunar, which has raised over €500m in funding, has over one million customers. It has expanded from its native Denmark across the Nordics. As well as its retail offering, it has over 40,00 business customers. Chairman Jens Peter Leschly Neergaard said: "With Søren, Lunar gets a CEO with deep understanding of both the financial market and the regulatory requirements that come with running a modern bank. He brings a strong background in execution, commercial development, and leadership, along with a clear ability to continue developing the bank together with Lunar’s talented employees and create even more value for our users.” In 2022, Lunar launched its Lunar Block in-app crypto platform in 2022, allowing users to buy and sell crypto coins directly. In October last year, Lunar secured a crypto licence under the EU’s MiCA regulation.  Last year, Lunar was hit by a string of executive departures, including its co-founder and CTO, as it looked to cut management costs and become profitable in the long term.

Poland has long been known as one of Europe’s strongest software development and IT outsourcing hubs, supplying engineering talent and enterprise delivery capabilities to companies across Western Europe and the US. While countries like Germany focused more heavily on fintech or SaaS products, Poland carved out its own service niche. As AI reshapes how software is built, that legacy is turning into a strategic advantage. Miquido is a Polish software development and AI solutions company headquartered in Kraków. Founded in 2011, the company builds mobile apps, web platforms, AI systems, and enterprise software for startups, scaleups, and large organisations across industries such as fintech, healthcare, ecommerce, and entertainment. Originally known for mobile development, Miquido has increasingly focused on AI-native software development, integrating generative AI and agentic AI workflows into enterprise environments. I spoke to Chief AI Officer Jerzy Biernacki to learn more about the direction and opportunities for Poland and the rise of what he calls Software 3.0. For Biernacki, Poland’s biggest strength is its talent pool, which is rapidly embracing AI tools and building processes around them to deliver more, faster, without sacrificing quality. At the same time, while Poland is not yet one of the top ecosystems in Europe, companies like ElevenLabs and DocPlanner are helping lead that charge with massive funding rounds. Specifically in AI, Poland now has two independently developed large language models — BIELIK and PLLuM. This is unusual, especially for Central Europe and even across the EU more broadly. Poland is alos home to multiple top-tier software development agencies — including Miquido, as well as companies like Netguru, 10Clouds, and Spyrosoft. From copilots to Agentic AI The rise of large language models has already pushed software development through several distinct phases, according to Biernacki. In the early days of the AI boom, many believed developers would quickly be replaced altogether as companies rushed to adopt generative AI tools. “The first phase was: ‘LLMs can be used everywhere, and they’ll replace everyone,’ particularly programmers and developers,” he said. That narrative coincided with major layoffs across the tech sector, although Biernacki argues many of those cuts were more closely tied to companies correcting pandemic-era overhiring than AI-driven replacement. Initially, AI coding tools primarily functioned as copilots, helping developers autocomplete code and accelerate workflows within their IDEs. But Biernacki says the market underwent a major shift in 2025 with the arrival of agentic AI coding systems. “I think the major breakthrough was when Claude Code was released in May last year. That was a turning point,” he explained. “Agentic AI code generation really became a thing, and it changed the way we work with software development.” The later release of Codex further accelerated the transition. According to Biernacki, the two platforms now dominate much of the enterprise AI coding market. “Those two tools basically overtook the market. They now have something like 75–80 per cent of the enterprise segment between them,” he said. The shift is reshaping far more than coding itself. Biernacki argues that AI is transforming the entire software development lifecycle, from requirements analysis and design to testing, deployment, governance, and validation. How Software 3.0 Is reshaping software development As these workflows become increasingly autonomous, Biernacki argues the role of the developer itself is fundamentally changing, evolving toward oversight and verification rather than manual coding. “The bulk of the work is no longer writing code — because writing code is now relatively cheap — but verification, architecture, governance, and validation.” He believes automated validation will become one of the most critical layers in AI-assisted software development as enterprises look to safely deploy increasingly autonomous coding systems. This has led to a shift in local hiring practices, with companies like Miquido placing greater emphasis on soft skills than on whether someone knows a language's syntax perfectly. In terms of younger hires, Biernacki characterises the importance of university graduates who used AI throughout their studies and are naturally comfortable working with AI. He admits younger hires still need time to adapt to enterprise environments and operational discipline. “We look for a different skill set now: people who can translate business requirements into prompts and who can work naturally with AI agents. They also inject fresh energy into teams. Sometimes senior engineers get stuck in existing processes, and having fresh blood helps show alternative ways of working. They’re eager to learn, eager to adapt, eager to test new things. So I think they’re a really valuable addition to company structures.” "Software 3.0 "creates a new divide between startups and enterprises The divide between startups and enterprises is becoming increasingly visible in the AI-driven software era as companies adopt to Software 3.0 development workflows. According to Biernacki, startups are moving far faster than larger organisations because they are being forced to adopt AI-native development practices to survive: “Honestly, I think startups are leading the charge right now. Startups need to show investors tangible results extremely quickly across software sectors.  They can’t afford not to rely on AI-driven coding workflows — especially for early products and feature development.” As a result, startups are shipping products and features at an increasingly fast pace. Enterprises, however, operate under very different constraints.  “Startups don’t have to worry as deeply about enterprise-grade security, reputation risk, or massive scalability from day one,” said Biernacki. “Enterprises have to move more carefully because they need stability. Their primary concerns are reputation, compliance, security, and governance.” For software development firms serving enterprise customers, reliability therefore becomes the critical differentiator. “You can’t achieve that with pure ‘vibe coding’ and no safeguards. You need enterprise processes ensuring quality.” Biernacki contends that the whole ecosystem is moving from “we provide developers” toward providing augmented delivery systems. “I think the adoption rate in Poland is probably among the highest in Europe.” He sees Poland’s edge is not about being the biggest AI market, because clearly it isn’t, but rather having an ecosystem of software companies that spent 10–15 years building enterprise software for Western European and global clients — and are now rapidly retooling around AI. “The thing Poland may actually be leading in isn’t frontier AI research itself, but AI-augmented enterprise delivery. That’s where I think the country’s real value lies right now.” Biernacki believes the software industry has now crossed a major inflection point, with agentic AI fundamentally reshaping how software is built and maintained, and leading to a competitive advantage. “Companies like us have a temporary advantage over companies that aren’t aggressively adopting agentic AI workflows yet. Though I think that advantage will eventually narrow as others catch up.” At the same time, enterprises are facing rapidly growing regulatory and compliance complexity around AI systems and software governance. “There’s also the growing complexity around regulation and compliance in enterprise software,” said Biernacki. He argues that helping enterprises navigate this increasingly complicated landscape represents one of the biggest emerging opportunities for software companies. Biernacki also believes the industry is experiencing a form of Jevons Paradox, where making software development cheaper through AI actually increases overall demand for software rather than reducing it. The long-term winners in the AI software era will not necessarily be the companies producing the most code, but those capable of redesigning their organisations around governance, reliability, and operational quality. “The winners will be companies that redesign their processes around this new reality — including governance, compliance, and enterprise reliability — not the companies writing the most code or simply ‘vibe coding,’” he said. Startups to watch:  AIstats  AIstats is a football analytics startup that uses AI, computer vision, and machine learning to analyse football matches from standard video footage. Its technology reconstructs games in 3D, tracks player and ball movement, and generates advanced tactical and performance insights without requiring stadium sensors or wearable devices.   The platform is designed to help clubs, scouts, and agents better understand player behaviour, team dynamics, decision-making, and tactical patterns through automated AI-driven analysis. The company also operates a consumer-facing football app that delivers live scores, predictive analytics, AI-generated match insights, and performance metrics across thousands of leagues worldwide.  Carein  Carein develops nutritional supplements designed to improve skin and hair health from the inside rather than relying only on topical skincare.  Founded in 2021, the company targets issues such as acne, hormonal acne, redness, pigmentation, ageing skin, and hormonal hair loss. Its products combine vitamins, minerals, probiotics, plant extracts, adaptogens, and other active ingredients to support skin regeneration, hormonal balance, and the gut-skin connection. It works with medical experts to formulate its products and markets itself as a science-led premium skincare wellness brand.  DefendEye DefendEye is a defencetech startup developing fully autonomous, AI-powered “search drones” designed for rapid intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) missions.   Founded in 2023 and headquartered in Kraków, the company builds tube-launched drones that can deploy in under 10 seconds without requiring a pilot, joystick, or traditional drone training. Users simply launch the drone from a portable or fixed tube, and the onboard AI autonomously navigates, identifies humans, tracks movement, and streams encrypted live video back to a cloud command centre in real time. The drones are built to operate even in GPS-denied or jammed environments and include low-light and night-vision capabilities for use in difficult battlefield or emergency conditions. The startup is positioning itself within the growing “drone as first responder” and autonomous defence systems market, where rapid situational awareness is becoming increasingly important for both military and civil security operations. FormalFoundry.ai FormalFoundry.ai is an AI governance and verification startup developing mathematically traceable AI systems and compliance tooling. It builds a  verification layer for AI systems using formal methods and proof assistants, so companies can make AI outputs more reliable, auditable, and compliant.  This helps teams turn domain rules, regulations, and expert knowledge into machine-checkable logic to reduce hallucinations and errors. Graphcode Graftcode is a Polish software infrastructure startup tackling the large amount of time developers spend building and maintaining integrations between services, languages, and infrastructure layers.  According to Graftcode, engineering teams often lose 30–40 per cent of development time to API maintenance, DTO mapping, queues, versioning, and related backend complexity.  Its platform aims to remove that overhead by creating a unified communication layer between applications, enabling faster development, cleaner architectures, and easier scaling for distributed systems and AI-native software environments.   Instead of building separate services connected through traditional backend plumbing, developers can call methods across systems as if everything were in a single shared codebase.

Grand Games, a mobile gaming company focused on hybrid casual titles, has raised $70 million in a Series B funding round, bringing the company’s total funding to $103 million. The round was led by Balderton Capital through its Growth Fund, following the firm’s earlier Series A investment via its Early Stage Fund in January last year. Existing investors Bek Ventures and Laton Ventures also participated in the round, alongside mobile gaming entrepreneur Mert Gür as an angel investor. Founded in Istanbul by Bekir Batuhan Çelebi, Mehmet Çalım, and Mustafa Fırtına, Grand Games develops hybrid casual mobile games designed for short daily play sessions. The company focuses primarily on puzzle titles, combining accessible gameplay mechanics with a data-driven product development approach. With games such as Magic Sort! and Car Match reaching millions of downloads, Grand Games has rapidly emerged as one of Turkey’s fastest-growing startups. The company has recorded fivefold year-over-year revenue growth and raised three funding rounds within two years of its founding. Its valuation has also increased significantly since its previous round completed just over a year ago. We started Grand to build the kind of company we believed could unlock the full potential of great talent. Turkey has produced some of the strongest mobile gaming talent globally, and we wanted to create an environment where teams have real ownership over decisions, product direction, and outcomes, said Bekir Batuhan Çelebi, also known as Batu, CEO and co-founder of Grand Games. Grand attributes part of its growth to its organisational structure and approach to talent. Operating through five autonomous internal studios, the company gives teams significant ownership over decision-making and product direction, while the founding team provides strategic support across the business. The newly raised capital will primarily be used to expand the company’s marketing efforts, scale existing titles, and support upcoming game launches. Grand also plans to continue expanding its Istanbul-based team as it grows its international presence in mobile gaming.

European tech activity in April 2026 remained broadly stable compared to March, although overall funding volumes declined more noticeably. The ecosystem recorded 290 funding deals and €5.1 billion raised, compared to 292 deals and €7.5 billion in March, reflecting a marginal 0.7 per cent decrease in deal activity and a 32 per cent decline in total capital raised. At the country level, the UK maintained its position as the leading funding hub despite lower investment volumes. UK funding reached €1.9 billion in April, down from €2.6 billion in March, representing a 27 per cent decrease month-on-month. Sector trends also shifted during the month. Cleantech led in April with €1.3 billion raised, while AI dominated in March at €1.8 billion, indicating a rotation of investor focus between key technology sectors rather than a continuation of a single dominant theme. Exit activity softened further in April, declining from 52 exits in March to 35, a 33 per cent decrease, pointing to weaker liquidity conditions across the market. Alexander Kölpin, Managing Director & Partner at seed+speed Ventures, commented on the April numbers within the European tech investment landscape in our April Tech.eu Pulse, a compact version of the monthly report: The landscape of European tech in April 2026 paints a clear, if bifurcated, picture. The headline figures (a slight drop in total investment volume to €5.1 billion and fewer M&A exits) suggest a market tightening its belt. From my vantage point as an investor focused on B2B and enterprise solutions, this contraction is a necessary maturation. The era of unchecked growth at any cost is long over. What matters now most is: execution, market-fit, and a clear path to revenue. However, funding remains robust and even spectacular in critical, capital-intensive themes, most notably with big deals in Cleantech (Σ €1.3 billion in Sweden) and Artificial Intelligence (Σ €1.2 billion in the UK).If we abstract from those single, dominating deals, we see clear winners in the spaces we VCs talk about amongst our peers: semiconductors, robotics, HW, deep tech and obviously AI, AI, AI. For his more detailed review and more in-depth analyses of the European tech ecosystem, including industry and country performance, exit activities, and more, check out our April report. Here are the 10 largest tech deals in Europe from April, accounting for 62.7 per cent of the month’s total funding. Amount raised: €1.4B Stegra (formerly H2 Green Steel) is a Swedish industrial company focused on decarbonising hard-to-abate industries through the production of green hydrogen, green iron, and near-zero-emission steel. Founded in 2020, the company is developing one of the world’s first large-scale green steel plants in Boden, Sweden, using renewable electricity and hydrogen to significantly reduce CO₂ emissions compared to traditional steelmaking processes. Stegra secured €1.4 billion in additional funding from a consortium led by Sweden’s Wallenberg family to support the completion of its green steel plant project. Amount raised: $1.1B Ineffable Intelligence is a London-based artificial intelligence research company focused on developing “superlearner” AI systems that can acquire knowledge and skills through experience rather than relying solely on human-generated data. Founded by former DeepMind researcher David Silver, the company specialises in reinforcement learning and aims to advance AI capabilities across science, engineering, and other complex domains. Ineffable Intelligence has emerged from stealth mode and announced $1.1 billion in seed funding at a reported valuation of $5.1 billion. Amount raised: €340M AURA AERO is a French aerospace company developing low-carbon and hybrid-electric aircraft for regional transport and pilot training. Founded in 2018 and headquartered in Toulouse, the company focuses on accelerating aviation decarbonization through innovative aircraft design, digital technologies, and sustainable manufacturing solutions. AURA AERO secured €340 million in funding to support its operations and expansion plans in Toulouse and Florida. Amount raised: €211M CamGraPhIC is a deeptech company developing graphene-integrated photonic circuits for telecommunications, data centres, and AI infrastructure. Founded as a spinout from the University of Cambridge, the company focuses on energy-efficient optical interconnect technologies designed to deliver higher bandwidth, lower latency, and reduced power consumption compared to conventional silicon photonics solutions. CamGraPhIC secured €211 million from the EU to build graphene tech for faster AI data transfer. Amount raised: $130M Xoople is an intelligence and data infrastructure company developing AI-ready geospatial data systems to monitor physical changes on Earth in real time. Founded in 2019, the company combines satellite technology, artificial intelligence, and cloud infrastructure to help enterprises and governments improve decision-making across areas such as supply chains, infrastructure monitoring, agriculture, and risk management. Xoople raised $130 million in a Series B funding round as it expands commercialisation efforts for its real-time geospatial data platform designed to support AI applications across industries. Amount raised: $117M Verda (formerly DataCrunch) is an AI cloud infrastructure company providing GPU-powered cloud computing services for artificial intelligence training and inference workloads. The company focuses on delivering scalable, energy-efficient, and sovereign AI infrastructure for enterprises, startups, and research organisations across Europe. Verda raised $117 million to scale AI cloud infrastructure built on clean Nordic power. Amount raised: $110M Sereact is an AI robotics company developing vision-language-action models that enable robots to autonomously perform complex physical tasks in logistics, warehousing, and manufacturing environments. Founded in 2021, the company focuses on hardware-agnostic embodied AI software that allows robots to perceive, reason, and adapt to real-world conditions with minimal programming or human intervention. Sereact closed a $110 million Series B funding round, with the proceeds intended to support development of its latest AI model and the company’s expansion into the US market. Amount raised: $72M Cloudsmith is a software infrastructure company that provides a cloud-native platform for managing, securing, and distributing software packages and containers across the software supply chain. Founded in 2016, the company helps enterprises centralise artefact management, improve software governance, and support secure software development workflows at a global scale. Cloudsmith raised $72 million in Series C to secure the AI-era software supply chain. Amount raised: £50M Raspberry Pi is a technology company that designs and manufactures low-cost, high-performance single-board computers, microcontrollers, and embedded computing products for education, industry, and consumer applications. Originally created to promote computer science education, Raspberry Pi’s platforms are now widely used in areas including industrial automation, IoT, robotics, and software development. Raspberry Pi raised £50 million in investment from a subsidiary of semiconductor company Arm Holdings. Amount raised: $60M MillTech is a fintech company providing FX and cash management solutions for investment managers, corporates, and institutional clients. Founded in 2019, the company offers a cloud-based platform that helps clients automate foreign exchange workflows, manage liquidity, reduce operational risk, and access institutional-grade treasury services. MillTech received a $60 million to support expansion in North America and further development of its treasury management platform.

Dutch nanophotonic imaging company eyeo has raised €40 million in a Series A funding round led by Innovation Industries, with participation from existing investors imec.xpand, Invest-NL, Qbic, High-Tech Gründerfonds and Brabant Development Agency. The funding brings the company’s total capital raised to €55 million. Founded to commercialise technology developed at imec, eyeo develops nanophotonic colour-splitting technology for image sensors used in smartphones, industrial systems, XR devices, smart cities, and autonomous applications. The company’s NCOS® platform replaces conventional colour filters, which block a large portion of incoming light, by splitting and directing light to individual pixels, improving light sensitivity, colour accuracy, and image resolution. Compatible with existing CMOS sensor platforms, the technology also enables ultra-compact sub-micron pixels for high-performance imaging applications. According to co-founder and CEO Jeroen Hoet, the funding will support eyeo’s transition from technology development to scaled commercial delivery: Every modern device that sees the world, from smartphones to autonomous systems, is held back by the same 50-year-old constraint. eyeo removes it at the source. Our technology is proven, patented and validated at a commercial foundry, with tier one customers already engaged. The operation also benefits from support from the European Union under the InvestEU Fund. eyeo plans to use the funding to expand its in-house engineering capabilities, strengthen partnerships with OEM customers, and accelerate the commercial deployment of its imaging technology. The company will also invest in next-generation 3D-stacked CMOS image sensors and grow its IC and system architecture teams.

Last week, we tracked more than 65 tech funding deals worth over €1.4 billion, and over 5 exits, M&A transactions, rumours, and related news stories across Europe.Click to read the rest of the news.

Manchester-based Keel has emerged from stealth after reaching profitability and establishing a growing client base for its Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) platform across multiple fintech markets. Originally founded in 2019 as consumer neobank Frost, the company combined digital banking services with energy-switching tools and grew its user base to more than 18,000 customers. Following changes in market conditions, the business later shifted its focus toward fintech infrastructure, building on the technology developed through Frost. Over the past two years, Keel has focused on developing its BaaS platform, securing regulatory approval for its new operating model and redesigning its APIs for external use. Its clients include venture-backed fintech companies, regulated financial businesses, and international platforms. Keel’s platform provides multi-currency accounts, virtual accounts, Visa card issuing capabilities across debit, prepaid, and credit products, open banking services, and access to domestic and international payment rails, including Faster Payments, BACS, CHAPS, SEPA, SWIFT, ACH, and Fedwire. Delivered through a single API, the platform also includes integrated compliance tools such as KYC, AML, fraud detection, and transaction monitoring. The company is positioning itself around a more integrated infrastructure model aimed at reducing operational complexity for fintechs seeking to launch and scale financial products. According to co-founder and CEO Paweł Ołtuszyk, Keel prioritised achieving product-market fit and sustainable revenue growth before publicly launching the business. Having previously operated its own fintech product before transitioning into infrastructure services, Keel is positioning itself as a long-term infrastructure partner for fintech companies building financial products at scale.

German-based deeptech startup NanoStruct has raised   €2.6 million Seed funding.  Founded by Dr Henriette Maaß, Enno Schatz, and Kai Leibfried, the company develops nanostructured sensor chips for the rapid identification of dangerous pathogens in food.  Detecting dangerous bacteria in food currently takes several days, far too long to ensure that harmful pathogens don't reach consumers. At the same time, regulatory requirements are increasing to enhance consumer protection.  As a result, demand for faster, automated analysis among food manufacturers and testing laboratories is high.  NanoStruct has developed a process that reduces detection to just a few hours by combining optical measurement technology with nanotechnology, biotechnology, and machine learning. For the food market, this represents a complete rethinking of microbial analysis.  Results can be obtained on the same day, recalls are avoided, food waste is reduced, and food safety is significantly improved. NanoStruct's technology also has the potential to accelerate and simplify processes in additional fields such as veterinary and human diagnostics, as well as bacterial monitoring in sensitive production environments. The round is led by High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF), Bayern Kapital, and the AUXXO Female Catalyst Fund. The funding builds on previous grants from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWE) and the European Union. Dr Henriette Maaß, CEO of NanoStruct, shared: "With HTGF, Bayern Kapital, and AUXXO, we have found exactly the partners we need for this next step: experienced, well-networked, and convinced of our vision. Now we are bringing rapid bacterial analytics to the food industry."  According to Dr Stephan Ruck, Investment Analyst at HTGF:   "The technological breakthrough NanoStruct has achieved in sensor development is remarkable. In addition to the platform technology, we were convinced by the company's strong network in the target market and, above all, by the team." 

This week, we tracked more than 65 tech funding deals worth over €1.4 billion and over 5 exits, M&A transactions, rumours, and related news stories across Europe. This week, we tracked more than 65 tech funding deals worth over €1.4 billion and over 5 exits, M&A transactions, rumours, and related news stories across Europe. We also released our monthly report for April (paid subscriber and free versions)  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 ??  ElevenLabs adds BlackRock, Nvidia and Jamie Foxx to $550M+ Series D ??  QuantWare secures €152M for large-scale quantum systems ??  Quantum outfit Quantum Motion run on silicon chips raises $160M ??‍?? Noteworthy acquisitions and mergers ?? Quantum Machines acquires QHarbor and opens Delft office to deepen European quantum footprint ?? Getaround Europe and GoMore merge to create Europe’s largest peer-to-peer carsharing network ??  Netradyne acquires Moove Connected Mobility to scale AI-powered fleet intelligence across Europe ? Interesting moves from investors ⚛️  Renaissance Philanthropy reshapes science funding with a new model for innovation ?  British Business Bank commits £1m to tackling gender funding gap ?️ In other (important) news ?? Europe’s first drone procurement hub targets faster defence deployment ?? European Tech.eu Pulse: key trends and investment in April (free report) ?? German AI translation startup DeepL to axe 250 staff ??  Elastics secures $2M pre-seed to build AI agents for prediction markets ??  Mobility Signage secures €1.8M to unify public transport IT ??  Maurice & Nora raises €1M to address rising care demand ??  ENVIOTECH raises €1M pre-seed for smart street lighting ?? Detecht lands €395,000 to grow global motorcycle platform

Stockholm-based defence-focused investment company Front Ventures has raised €5 million through an oversubscribed rights issue of B-shares, with the raise subscribed to 278 per cent. The company backs early-stage defence technology companies developing operationally relevant systems in Ukraine and Sweden. The round included participation from all major shareholders, including CEO Jonas Malmgren and board member and former CEO Johan Lund, alongside new investor Roglar Holding, which brings production and industrial expertise. APREA Partners AB acted as financial advisor, Advokatfirman Lindahl KB as legal advisor, and Aqurat Fondkommission AB served as lead manager for the rights issue. Front Ventures invests across software, drone systems, communications, and critical defence supply chains, with a particular focus on companies that have already developed working prototypes and are ready to scale. The company aims to bridge the gap between battlefield-tested Ukrainian innovation and access to European and NATO industrial partnerships. Its portfolio includes: SkyHunter - which develops target allocation solutions for drone interceptors, Aeromotors - a Ukrainian manufacturer of drone propulsion systems supplying NATO-aligned markets, and Kyiv-based Black Forest Systems - developer of the SHADOX infantry drone system. Front Ventures is also an approved investor in Brave1, the Ukrainian government’s defence tech platform connecting innovators with investors and the military. Jonas Malmgren, CEO of Front Ventures, said: We’re seeing a generation of defence companies that have effectively skipped the lab phase because their products have already been tested in operational environments. The challenge is no longer innovation itself, but scaling and industrialising these technologies quickly enough. This raise is intended to help accelerate that process. Founded in 2012, Front Ventures previously invested in fintech, enterprise software, and blockchain companies before shifting its strategic focus toward defence technology. Investment sizes from the current raise are expected to range between €200,000 and €2.5 million per company. With the new funding in place, Front Ventures plans to expand its defence technology portfolio across Ukraine and Sweden, focusing on companies developing technologies in areas such as drones, communications, software, and critical supply chains.

Dutch B2B automotive remarketing software platform CarCollect has received funding from Main Capital Partners. Founded in 2012, CarCollect offers an integrated remarketing SaaS platform that combines its Trade, Transport, and Stock management offerings into a mission-critical solution covering vehicle intake, pricing, sales execution, transport coordination, settlement, and stock management.  CarCollect’s platform digitises the  end-to-end used-vehicle remarketing workflow for branded dealers, leasing companies,  universal dealers, and fleet and rent companies. Built on a modern, cloud-native multi-tenant  SaaS architecture, the platform supports 15 languages, 10 currencies, and is used by 14,000+  automotive companies.  The company serves approximately 750 companies, including branded dealers, leasing companies, universal  dealers, and fleet and rent companies across 10 countries in Europe.   According to Lev van der Eng, CCO of CarCollect: “With this step, we further strengthen  CarCollect’s position as a connecting force within the European automotive market and accelerate our mission to help businesses operate smarter, faster, and more efficiently.  For our  customers, this means access to deeper insights and more powerful tools, enabling faster  decision making, demonstrably higher returns and accelerated growth.”  Jeffrey Sanya, Investment Director at Main, stated:   “We are very excited to support  CarCollect in the execution of its growth strategy and help the business grow into the  European market leader in remarketing solutions for the automotive market. We know the  automotive software market well through several other active partnerships and are confident  in the CarCollect team’s ability to be a differentiator in this space through continued  investments in product innovation and accelerated international go-to-market development.” The company plans to launch a series of new products and features, including CarCollect’s stock management solution, alongside further international expansion through both existing and new cross-border customer relationships, complemented by a selective acquisition strategy.

European startups raised €5.1B across 290 deals in April 2026, with cleantech leading investment activity and the UK remaining the top fundraiser, despite a drop in overall capital.Click to read the rest of the news.

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Europe’s battery ambitions took a major hit with the collapse of Northvolt, once seen as the continent’s best chance to rival Chinese competitors and build a homegrown supply chain.  But since then, we’ve seen a more modular, ecosystem-driven approach with scaleups rebuilding momentum across the battery value chain, by tackling a specific bottleneck rather than trying to do everything at once. These are some of the key themes defining the space, along with companies to keep on your radar:  Battery recycling and circular economy The need to recycle batteries is quickly becoming one of the most urgent challenges in the energy transition. As electric vehicles, grid storage, and consumer electronics scale, so does the volume of lithium-ion batteries reaching end of life. Without robust recycling, this creates a growing waste stream and an escalating demand for raw materials that are already difficult to mine, expensive, carbon-intensive, and geopolitically sensitive. Cylib (Germany)   Cylib deeptech scale-up on a mission to revolutionise battery recycling and secure a circular future for Europe.  Born out of years of research at RWTH Aachen University, cylib has developed a holistic, water-based technology to recover all elements within lithium-ion batteries. The core challenge of Europe’s energy transition is its heavy dependence on imported critical materials. cylib’s technology addresses this by transforming end-of-life batteries – from electric vehicles, power tools, and energy storage systems – back into high-quality production materials. What makes their technology a game-changer is its holistic, water-based process, which achieves over 90 per cent recovery efficiency with 80 per cent lower emissions than traditional mining. Unlike many existing solutions, cylib can handle both NMC (Nickel Manganese Cobalt) and LFP (Lithium Iron Phosphate) battery chemistries at an industrial scale. The company has raised over €156 million. tozero (Germany) tozero focuses on recycling lithium-ion batteries by processing used or waste batteries to extract valuable raw materials, including lithium, graphite, nickel, cobalt, and manganese. In March, the company launched an industrial-scale battery recycling plant at the Chemical Park Gendorf in Bavaria, capable of processing more than 1,500 tonnes of battery waste annually and recovering critical materials such as lithium, graphite, and nickel-cobalt mixtures.  Check out our earlier interview with Sarah Fleischer, co-founder and CEO of tozero. What sets the company apart is its chemical (hydrometallurgical) recycling process, which allows it to recover a large share of these materials — often around 80 per cent or more — in a form pure enough to go straight back into industrial production.  The company has raised over €17 million R3 Robotics (Luxembourg) R3 Robotics  (formerly CircuLi-ion) is focused on automating the safe, scalable dismantling of end-of-life electric vehicles and their high-voltage components. When electric cars reach their end of life, taking them apart is still mostly manual, slow, expensive, and dangerous (especially due to high-voltage battery systems).  R3 Robotics' tech combines computer vision, AI, and specialised robotic tooling to automate the disassembly of lithium-ion battery packs, e-motors, power electronics, and other high-value electrified components. The system minimises human exposure to high-voltage hazards and delivers the cost structure and reliability required for industrial-scale operations.  The company has raised €28.5 million. For a batterytech deep dive, check out the EIC Scaling Club’s Market Roadmap: Batteries and Energy Storage. Battery R&D and manufacturing Europe’s battery maker scaleups are not only building batteries with more sustainable materials, but also focus on manufacturing locally, thus reducing Europe’s reliance on imported batteries and strengthening the region’s energy and EV supply chain. ElevenEs (Serbia) ElevenEs is the first company in Europe to develop a lithium-ion giga factory based on LFP blade-type cells.  LFP (Lithium iron phosphate) is a type of chemistry within lithium-ion batteries. While it’s a mature technology in China, Europe has been focused on more traditional options such as Nickel Manganese Cobalt (NMC) batteries.  By producing LFP (lithium iron phosphate) cells locally, ElevenEs offers a safer, lower-cost alternative that avoids scarce materials like cobalt and nickel while still meeting the needs of EVs and grid storage. Skeleton Technologies (Estonia) Skeleton Technologies develops high-power energy storage systems, primarily supercapacitors and hybrid SuperBattery technology, designed to deliver and absorb energy almost instantly.  Unlike traditional battery companies that focus on storing large amounts of energy, Skeleton is focused on power — how quickly energy can be released, captured, or stabilised. Its technology acts as a buffer within electrical systems, handling rapid spikes and drops in power that batteries alone cannot efficiently manage. The company’s systems are used across electric transport, energy grids, industrial machinery, and increasingly AI data centres.  In November 2025, Skeleton opened a €220M Leipzig SuperFactory to power Europe’s AI and grid stability Check out our interview with Skeleton Technologies  CEO Taavi Madiberk.  The company has raised €313.3 million. Battery energy storage  Battery energy storage (BESS) is a way to store electricity in batteries so it can be used later, rather than immediately when it’s generated. Batteries are uniquely valuable because they can both store and release electricity instantly, and they are becoming a key part of grid stability.  Sympower (The Netherlands) Sympower is an energy tech company that helps businesses use their electricity in a smarter way. It connects to assets like factories, batteries, or heating and cooling, and uses AI-embedded software to automatically decide when to charge or discharge them based on grid conditions.   By aggregating many batteries and flexible energy systems into a “virtual power plant,” Sympower can sell this flexibility into energy markets, helping stabilise the grid while generating revenue for its customers. When you look at Sympower through a battery lens, the company’s role becomes even clearer: it turns batteries into active, revenue-generating assets for the grid, rather than passive storage. Sympower connects to industrial batteries (and increasingly grid-scale storage systems) and uses its software to control when they charge or discharge based on grid needs. The company has raised $76.8 million. Check out our earlier interview with  Nikolas Samios, Managing Director, PT1, to understand how battery storage has become a rapidly evolving asset class. Battery intelligence Battery intelligence is emerging as a critical software layer in the energy stack, turning raw battery data into predictive insights that improve performance, safety, and asset value.  By analysing patterns in battery charging, discharging, and degradation, these systems enable operators to anticipate failures, optimise usage, and reduce downtime—an increasingly important capability as electric vehicles, grid storage, and industrial electrification scale. ACCURE battery intelligence (Germany)  ACCURE Battery Intelligence builds AI-powered software to monitor, analyse, and optimise battery systems. Its platform operates as a data and intelligence layer. It collects the huge volumes of data generated by battery management systems (BMS)— such as  voltage, temperature, and charge levels—and uses AI and physics-based models to turn that into actionable insights.  This allows operators to detect faults early, improve performance, and extend battery lifetime. This also helps prevent thermal runaway (battery fires), degradation, and inefficiencies by identifying problems before they become critical and recommending corrective actions.  With ACCURE, utilities, energy storage operators, and EV fleet managers can reduce risk, maximise uptime, and increase the economic value of battery assets. The company has raised $34.5 million. Companies mentioned in this article are members of the EIC Scaling Club, a curated community where 120+ European deep tech scale-ups with the potential to build world-class businesses and solve major global challenges come together with investors, corporate innovators and other industry stakeholders to spur growth. The EIC Scaling Club is an EIC-funded initiative run in partnership by Tech Tour, Bpifrance (EuroQuity), Hello Tomorrow, Tech.eu (Webrazzi), EurA and IESE Business School.

DeepL, the German AI translation startup, is cutting around 250 jobs, about a quarter of its headcount, saying it was moving to smaller teams so it is able to compete amid rapid AI advancements, its CEO said today. Posting on LinkedIn, Jarek Kutylowksi, CEO and founder, said the cuts at DeepL, which employs over 1,000 people globally, were a “deliberate structural choice about how DeepL needs to operate to remain a global AI leader”. He added: "The pace of AI has accelerated far beyond what was possible even just a year ago, changing what it means to operate effectively - including for a company like ours. "We are currently living through a massive structural shift in what work exists, who does it, and how many people it takes to do it well, and that shift is because of AI.” The Cologne-based AI translation startup, founded in 2017 and last valued at $2bn in 2024, is known for its AI text translation and writing tools. Kutylowksi said he and his management team had been reviewing how DeepL could best operate as a global AI firm amid fast improvements in AI. He added: "In practice, this means transforming how DeepL works from the inside out, with AI embedded into every layer of how we operate. "We are moving to smaller high-agency teams where AI handles the routine, so people can focus on what only humans can bring, like using our intuition, coming up with new creative ideas and seeing projects through from start to finish.  "AI systems will allow us to put more energy into the work that actually matters and move at a speed we haven’t seen before, leaving behind recurring roadblocks and day-to-day inefficiencies." The CEO did not say which specific areas of the business would be impacted by the cuts.