Lithuanian AI startup Supernaut AI has raised a €530,000 pre-seed investment from Helsinki- and Vilnius-based venture capital fund Superhero Capital.  Supernaut AI is building an “AI-native” tool for engineering teams, designed to accelerate software development by automating repetitive, time-consuming tasks and turning them into tested, documented code within minutes.  The solution integrates with commonly used work platforms such as Jira and GitHub, acting as a proactive team member that helps resolve stalled tickets that often lack time or motivation to be addressed. Supernaut AI stands out from competitors (such as individual developer tools like Vibe Coding) by focusing on team-based workflows. The solution helps not only with code generation but also with reducing technical debt. Supernaut AI was founded by Mantas Konstantinavičius and Olga Maslova. Mantas has years of experience leading engineering teams across five startups and applying AI-driven automation solutions in workflows.  Olga Maslova, who holds a PhD in physics, brings deep technical expertise and experience in leading machine learning and data science projects as well as building complex systems. “We’re building Supernaut to eliminate the biggest productivity barriers engineers face gradually,” shared Mantas Konstantinavičius, co-founder of Supernaut AI. “Our first version solves a problem every developer knows – when Sentry floods you with errors, the whole team suddenly ends up fixing bugs instead of building the product.  Supernaut automatically investigates, documents, and fixes these issues with full transparency. Our long-term vision is simple: an AI team member that reliably handles monotonous work so humans can focus on what truly creates value.”  The investment was led by Gytenis Galkis, Partner at Superhero Capital, responsible for expansion in the Baltic region. "Mantas and Olga’s team has a unique market understanding and the technical competence needed to bring this solution to life. We see strong potential for both the product and the team to scale globally — their tool gives engineering teams back the time to innovate instead of dealing with backlogged tickets,” says Gytenis Galkis. The product is currently being tested in a closed environment, and the startup plans soon to launch an open beta program with its first customers. The funds raised will be used to expand the team and develop the product toward its first commercially viable version. Supernaut AI is targeting the global market, and investors see significant potential in proactive AI tools that enhance team productivity.

UK-based cybersecurity startup Theodosian has raised $1.3 million in a pre-seed round led by Fuel Ventures, with participation from D11Z Ventures, 1818 Venture Capital, Heartfelt, Startup Wise Guys, and several angel investors. Theodosian provides enterprise-grade, file-level encryption and access control, delivering a persistent layer of protection that travels with data, supports compliance across multiple regulatory frameworks, and helps mitigate both human error and cyberattacks. Founded by cybersecurity practitioners with over a decade of experience across defence, intelligence, banking, and healthcare, the company focuses on a “second layer” of defence that embeds controls directly at the file level. The platform enables per-file permissions and conducts 20–30 compliance-aligned checks per document. It is designed to help organisations prepare for emerging standards, including the UK’s Defence Cyber Certification (DCC) and the US Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC), strengthening both compliance and overall security posture. According to Andy Johnson, co-founder of Theodosian, the company was founded to close a major gap in enterprise security by ensuring that each file remains protected wherever it is shared or stored. Our platform goes beyond traditional encryption, offering persistent, per-file dynamic access controls, detailed permission management, and continuous verification to ensure only the right people can access sensitive data. With Fuel Ventures’ support, we can bring these capabilities to market quickly, helping companies comply with regulations, including new DCC standards, and significantly reduce the risk of data breaches. The funding will support completion of v1 of the product and the start of commercial scaling.

Stockholm-based Encube has emerged from stealth with $23 million in funding from Inventure, Promus Ventures, and Kinnevik. Encube builds an AI-driven platform that helps hardware teams identify which design choices create manufacturing complexity and how to avoid them. The result is faster development, lower production costs, and the ability to explore far more design options. Founded by former Sandvik executive Hugo Nordell (CEO) and Skype/Klarna veteran Johnny Bigert, Encube is rethinking how engineering teams collaborate on hardware product design. European manufacturing is being reshaped by geopolitics, a tightening talent pipeline, and the shift to sustainable production. Supply-chain fragmentation and economic nationalism are driving efforts to re-shore capabilities and secure industrial autonomy. Meanwhile, an ageing workforce and past offshoring have widened skill gaps. Stricter sustainability rules are pushing for earlier, smarter design and digital workflows. Because most product costs are locked at design, late-stage impacts on manufacturing expense and carbon footprint often force firms to choose between lower margins or redesigns and delays. Encube addresses these challenges through two approaches. First, it offers a browser-based collaborative platform that helps organisations align and make faster, higher-quality product decisions across devices. Second, it embeds AI capabilities that remove common hardware-development bottlenecks. These workflows are essential yet typically manual and time-consuming. Encube aims to make them faster, more accurate, and scalable. The platform has been tested in R&D programs with partners ranging from large industrial firms to specialised space companies. Reported outcomes include reduced time to market (up to 50 per cent), lower production costs (20–30 per cent), and higher engineering productivity (up to 2×). Hardware development is a balancing act between how a product looks, functions and what it costs to produce. In Europe, we excel at the first two, but our manufacturing know-how is disappearing. At Sandvik and Aker, I saw firsthand how quickly production costs ballooned and competitive edge eroded, when early design decisions weren’t made with manufacturing in mind. We built Encube to change that, shared Hugo Nordell. The new funding will support expansion across European markets, growth of existing partnerships, and increased investment in hardware-focused AI, positioning the company to accelerate its participation in the ongoing AI transformation.

The defencetech sector has boomed since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Many companies have now completed product development and beta testing, but they face a critical next hurdle: scaling up production. Large-scale manufacturing of new technologies demands robust, well-planned infrastructure. Currently, individual teams are building their own production infrastructure from scratch, a process that wastes six to twelve months and $ 200,000 to $ 500,000 per tech solution. Dwarf Engineering is the first company in Ukraine to launch ready-made infrastructure for B2B integrations in the defence tech sector,  that allows software from different manufacturers to be deployed and updated across all types of unmanned systems and precision-guided munitions. I recently saw the company in the startup pitch final at IT Arena, where it won first place in the startup competition in defencetech category.  I spoke to Oleksandr Bakhmach, co-founder and CTO at Dwarf Engineering, to learn more.  A new standard for defence collaboration According to Bakhmach, the company’s mission is to “build a bridge for quality assurance and technical support between tech teams and manufacturers.”  He adds, “I haven’t seen anything like this globally. Most companies, such as drone maker DJI, are closed ecosystems. They don’t connect different companies or cover the full chain from software to hardware.” The platform takes the opposite approach. “We’re building an open but secure protocol that allows different companies to collaborate without compromising sensitive data,” Bakhmach explains.  “Standardisation is crucial here. It might sound simple, but it’s actually the hardest and most innovative part of our platform. We give manufacturers and tech teams a native, secure way to cooperate with each other — something that hasn’t existed before.” A pivot to build Ukraine’s defence infrastructure layer Bakhmach comes from a background in software engineering — mostly machine learning, data science, and computer vision. He shared: “I was always passionate about designing software architectures. From an early age, I was interested in robotics and wanted to find the right time to get involved in building robotic systems. I have a pretty broad background: from computer vision to Web3. I’ve worked with a lot of concepts, businesses, and ideas. So starting something new wasn’t too complicated for me.” But he stressed, its not just about him — everyone at Dwarf Engineering wanted to build something new from scratch.  “In modern software development, everything is so automated and standardised that it’s hard to innovate. We wanted a new challenge and a “new breath.” When it comes to defence, the whole domain is new.  According to Bakhmach, “the challenges in defence today are ones we’ve never had to deal with before. People are using tools intended for different purposes, and no existing platform addresses all of the domains. Image: Dwarf Engineering CTO Oleksandr Bakhmach. Photo: uncredited. Dwarf Engineering applies abstraction to defence infrastructure To achieve its goal, Dwarf Engineering took principles from software development — particularly object-oriented programming — and applied them to the engineering domain. At the core of this approach is abstraction, which allows complex systems to be broken down into modular, interoperable components. According to Bakhmach, “every engineer, when facing a new challenge, tries to abstract the domain, find patterns and hidden relationships, and automate them. We did the same: we tackled autonomy systems, found recurring patterns and interfaces, and realised we needed a tool to do this better.” The team realised this was a problem faced by all of the engineers in Ukraine.  “So we built a solution based on experience, data, and analytics. Our platform lets manufacturers and engineering companies focus on what they’re passionate about, while we solve the common problems they’d otherwise face again and again.” Bakhmach outlined two key user groups: tech teams and manufacturers. For engineering teams, the main challenge has been secure collaboration.  “In traditional engineering, people collaborate openly and trust each other. In defence, it’s the opposite — zero trust, a lot of sensitivity, and no existing tools for collaboration,” he says.  “There wasn’t a platform to handle this before. We’re the first to develop a strategy that enables engineers to collaborate while maintaining zero-trust security. It was complicated, but I’m proud to say we’ve achieved it. Now teams can collaborate, share data, and combine software without compromising security, intellectual property, or sensitive information.” For manufacturers, the platform tackles standardisation — a critical but missing element in the defence sector. “In manufacturing, standardisation impacts everything — logistics, production, interoperability,” Bakhmach notes. “Defence lacked this standardisation. So our platform solves two problems at once: engineering security and manufacturing standardisation. That’s why we believe it’s a game-changer and why we received the IT Arena award — our vision aligns with the market.” Turning shared struggles into a scalable platform Bakhmach shared that most engineers they reached out to already knew they were missing something like this. “When we showed them we knew the exact pain points they were facing — sometimes issues they’d never shared publicly — they were amazed. “How do you know that?” they’d ask. It’s because we went through the same challenges ourselves. That credibility made it easy to demonstrate why using our platform made sense.” “Startups need to prove their concepts quickly to investors. We remove friction and side problems that distract them from their core ideas. You can think of our platform as a “hardware Docker”: a standardised, secure environment that lets them focus on building, not on infrastructure.” Getting underneath the hood of the platform   The first major feature is Continuous Integration and Deployment (CI/CD), adapted for defence hardware. This isn’t new in software, but the defence domain needed a new vision for using hardware. “We’ve adopted DevOps ideas so teams can use familiar development patterns. That reduces friction and speeds up delivery,” shared Bakhmach.  The second feature is zero-trust environments. This enables multiple teams to work on the same device, each in isolated, secure environments that never interact.  “It’s like having a mini cloud on the device — SSH access, secure logging, everything — but fully isolated.” For manufacturers, Dwarf Engineering provides strict versioning and standard interfaces for clear communication. These are crucial for collaboration between manufacturers and engineering teams. The platform is subscription-based. Akin to the PlayStation Store: Dwarf Engineering provides the “console” — the platform — and users pick the “games,” i.e., modules and features, to run on it. All within a secure, zero-trust environment. Bakmach contends, “before our launch, it was the "first generation of video game consoles' era for the Ukrainian defence sector, and we started 'the second.” “Manufacturers integrate the system once, then can subscribe to different modules, combine them, or switch them out as needed.”  All of Dwarf Engineering’s software currently runs on Raspberry Pi with a customised Linux distribution.  “We modified drivers and a lot of system elements to make it efficient,” shared Bakhmach. “We also provide a standard SDK and defined interfaces for communicating with UAVs and other unmanned systems — aerial, ground, or underwater. Every device has its own control interface, and that’s a big headache for development teams. We remove that burden.” Dwarf Engineering steps into hardware with Narsil  Now Dwarf Engineering is developing its own custom hardware, optimised for security and performance, to address gaps in off-the-shelf systems. Narsil is a copilot system for combat FPV drones built around an autonomous target-guidance module that the team extends with frontline-driven features. Those enhancements can include maintaining flight under electronic-warfare conditions or navigating to targets in GPS-denied environments. A key advantage for military users is Narsil’s semi-autonomous design: it preserves the control and experience of a professional operator while lowering the skill barrier for less experienced users. Among its distinctive capabilities is an integrated cruise-mode with targeting that simplifies long-distance aiming — a feature the team haven’t encountered elsewhere in this field. It is also, to its knowledge, the first smart guidance module that integrates directly with the payload. Crucially, Narsil works offline in extreme environments, a critical challenge according to Bakhmach:  “Most systems assume access to sensors, GPS, or cloud compute. In reality, you may have none of that on the battlefield. So we rewrote algorithms to lower their requirements, rather than increasing hardware power. We design as if there’s no connection, no data, and no sensors — then build from there. It’s challenging, but it’s the only way to ensure reliability in real conditions." Further, each of the devices can form part of a peer-to-peer swarm. Devices can collaborate securely between each other, out of the box. “It’s a huge benefit for collective autonomy missions,” shared Bakhmach. Dwarf Engineering goes global with strategic partnerships and major milestones Dwarf Engineering has achieved rapid growth and success. Its CEO, Vladyslav Piotrovskyi,was selected for the first batch at the DTSA accelerator at the prestigious Stanford Research Institute and secured first place at Defence Tech Valley, highlighting its innovation in the defence sector. It became the first to deliver payload-agnostic terminal guidance technology and successfully integrated three tech teams to accelerate development.  In terms of customers, Dwarf Engineering has signed agreements with seven factories and welcomed its first international client in Japan. With more than 1,500 hours of testing completed and its first factory application set to launch, the company has already sold 10,000 licences. According to Bakhmach, the focus now is onboarding as many teams and manufacturers as possible to the Dwarf Engineering platform, speeding up delivery, improving security and optimisation, and reducing costs.  Winning at IT Arena validates “that we’re solving the right problems — problems the market truly cares about.”

German-based HyImpulse Technologies GmbH (HyImpulse), a provider of hybrid propulsion systems for satellite transport, has raised €15 million in equity capital as part of its Series A funding round and secured an additional €30 million in financing. The round is led by Campus Founders Ventures. Other investors include Helantic, GIMIC, the Global Resilience Innovation Fund (GRIF), Mittelständische Beteiligungsgesellschaft (MBG) Baden-Württemberg, Start-up BW Innovation Fonds, Sparkassen-Beteiligungsgesellschaft (SBG) Heilbronn-Franken, Vienna Point and BTRON. HyImpulse is an aerospace company developing and manufacturing commercial rockets for suborbital and orbital launch services. Its small launch vehicles use a proprietary hybrid propulsion system based on liquid oxygen and paraffin, designed to offer cost-effective and reliable access to space. The company is developing the SL1 orbital rocket using hybrid propulsion. In 2024, HyImpulse completed a key milestone with the successful test flight of the SR75 suborbital rocket, demonstrating a commercial paraffin-based hybrid engine and providing a foundation for subsequent development. The first commercial SR75 missions with customers are planned for 2026. The SL1 is expected to deliver up to 600 kg to low Earth orbit starting in 2027. Europe currently lacks fully independent access to space and relies heavily on non-European launch providers. The Space Economy Report 2024 estimates European providers accounted for under 1 per cent of global launches in 2024. The market is expanding, however, with a McKinsey analysis projecting satellite-based technologies to reach roughly €1.25 trillion by 2040. HyImpulse’s hybrid architecture is intended to reduce component count by about 50 per cent, lower costs, and improve reliability, key factors for cost-efficient, flexible launch services in the sub-ton payload class. The company reports early traction with contracted orders in the hundreds of millions and planned launch sites on multiple continents. Dr Christian Schmierer, co-founder and CEO of HyImpulse, commented: Europe does not have its own access to space. With this injection of capital, we will accelerate the commercialisation of our orbital rocket, making Europe more independent and competitive. While some providers offer a scheduled bus service to space, our solutions allow us to develop a flexible taxi service so that our customers can choose individual launch solutions and flexibly plan their schedules. New capital will be used to advance the development and commercialisation of SL1 and to expand production capacity.

Europe’s gaming scene in H1 2025 reveals a market that’s scaling and diversifying simultaneously. Funding was concentrated around three pillars: established publishers expanding new operating units, a fast-moving wave of mobile-first studios building data-driven casual and mid-core titles, and a creative PC/console segment pushing premium strategy, simulation, and genre-blending experiences. The result is an ecosystem that mixes dependable hit-making with high-variance bets on fresh IP. Alongside content studios, notable themes included blockchain-enabled distribution and asset ownership, AI agents for testing and player simulation, and technologies aimed at shortening production cycles through reusable systems, personalisation, and more efficient content delivery. The following are the ten largest funding rounds in the European gaming industry during the first half of 2025. Amount raised in H1 2025: $1.25B Ubisoft is a developer, publisher, and distributor of video games and interactive entertainment. The company is known for overseeing widely recognised franchises such as Assassin’s Creed, Rainbow Six, The Crew, and Just Dance. Ubisoft operates a unified ecosystem called Ubisoft Connect, which brings together players’ games, social features, and rewards into a single platform. Through a diverse portfolio of titles and continuous live updates, Ubisoft emphasises engaging communities, evolving game worlds, and cross-platform experiences. In March, Ubisoft received a $1.25 billion investment from Tencent to support the creation of a new operating division. Amount raised in H1 2025: $30M Grand Games is a Turkish mobile game studio which focuses on creating genre-defining mobile games played by millions around the world. Their philosophy centres on empowering passionate people who take ownership, fostering a collaborative culture where each team member contributes to collective success. Some of the flagship titles include Magic Sort, a magical sorting-based adventure, and Car Match, a relaxing traffic puzzle experience. In January, Grand Games secured a $30 million Series A investment, just nine months after its pre-seed round, to expand its studio network, develop new major game genres, and publish its titles globally. Amount raised in H1 2025: $25M Bigger Games is a mobile gaming studio specialising in creating intuitive, emotionally engaging casual games, most notably their flagship title Kitchen Masters, a match-3 puzzle adventure set in social, culinary contexts. At its core, Bigger Games emphasises principles such as ownership, progress, user obsession, candour, and excellence in its culture, striving to deliver experiences where “fun isn’t just a feature, it’s a feeling.” In June, the company secured $25 million in Series A funding to scale Kitchen Masters globally, grow its team, and accelerate the development of upcoming titles. Amount raised in H1 2025: €12M Amplitude Studios is a Paris-based video game developer specialising in award-winning strategy games. Best known for the Endless™ universe and Humankind™, the studio focuses on crafting deep 4X and strategy experiences “hand-in-hand” with players through its Games2Gether community-driven development approach. Amplitude invites fans into its official Amplifiers hub to vote on features, share ideas, and track progress across titles like Endless™ Legend, Endless™ Space 2, Endless™ Dungeon, and Humankind™. In May, the company raised €12 million to support the development of new and ongoing projects, including Endless Legend 2, and to expand its team and community-driven initiatives further. Amount raised in H1 2025: $12M Ultra is a next-generation gaming platform built “by gamers, for gamers,” blending traditional game distribution with blockchain innovation. The Ultra ecosystem is designed as a unified hub where players, developers, and creators converge: users can discover, play, trade, and compete all within a single client. The company’s proprietary blockchain enables tokenisation of game licenses and digital assets, giving players true ownership and the ability to trade or resell games and in-game items. In April, Ultra raised $12 million in funding to accelerate platform expansion, recruit talent, and execute its roadmap toward mainstream adoption. Amount raised in H1 2025: $10M Opus Major is a Paris-based video game studio whose mission is to “Make the World Jam Together” by merging music and interactive play. Their core vision centres on creating experiences (called “Opuses”) where music functions as magic in multiplayer adventures, fostering connection and emotional resonance among players. Their debut project is MAJJAM (Opus #1), a cross-platform multiplayer game set in a vibrant universe where music is both a tool and a narrative force. Opus Major raised $10 million in March, empowering the studio to realise its bold concept and scale development efforts. Amount raised in H1 2025: $7M Fuse Games is a mobile gaming studio founded in January 2023 in Istanbul, Turkey, with the mission to “Ignite Imagination.” They specialise in blending advanced technology with creative design to deliver interactive, memorable game experiences. With a lean, passionate team focused on harnessing both technological innovation and strong gameplay fundamentals, Fuse Games is building toward a portfolio of mobile titles that strive to be both engaging and lasting. In May, Fuse Games received a $7 million investment to develop original titles, expand its team, and continue investing in new technologies. Amount raised in H1 2025: $7M TaleMonster Games is a mobile game studio behind Match Valley, a hero-driven match-3 puzzle adventure where players build and unleash teams to defend their castle against quirky enemies. Founded by Peak Games veterans, TeleMonster is on a mission to bring depth and creativity back to casual puzzle games. In May, the company raised $7 million to expand its team, speed up development, and invest further in reusable systems that enable smarter game design, personalised player experiences, and efficient content delivery, allowing faster launches, quicker learning, and the creation of a lasting portfolio of games players return to over time. Amount raised in H1 2025: $6M Nunu.ai builds multimodal AI agents that autonomously play, test, and reason about games to automate QA and player-simulation workflows. Studios describe test goals in plain English, nunu’s agents then execute end-to-end scenarios, surface bugs, and deliver dashboards with actionable insights, cutting manual QA effort and accelerating release cycles. The platform integrates via a lightweight SDK or black-box testing, offers enterprise-grade privacy options, and has demonstrated results like faster test cycles and significant QA cost reductions on real titles. In March, Nunu.ai raised $6 million and introduced Unembodied Minds, AI agents designed for game testing that can control any character or entity and perform tasks across diverse environments. Amount raised in H1 2025: $5M Voya Games is a Berlin-based game studio founded in 2023 that develops Web3 gaming experiences focused on player ownership. Their mission is to create fun, accessible, and interconnected games unified by shared token economies. Their debut title, Craft World, is a resource management and building game where players collaborate with dinosaurs to restore civilisation and interact with in-game economies via blockchain-enabled NFTs and token trading. In May, VOYA Games raised $5 million to support the expansion of Craft World and further development of their broader Web3 ecosystem.

Tubulis, a pioneer in the development of uniquely matched antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs), this week announced the successful closing of a €308 million Series C financing round. This landmark round marks the largest Series C raised by a European biotechnology company and the largest financing for a private ADC developer globally. Tubulis generates uniquely matched antibody-drug conjugates with superior biophysical properties that have demonstrated durable on-tumour delivery and long-lasting anti-tumour activity in preclinical models.  The Series C was led by Venrock Healthcare Capital Partners, with participation from additional new investors Wellington Management and Ascenta Capital. Existing investors, including Nextech Invest, EQT Life Sciences, Frazier Life Sciences, Andera Partners, Deep Track Capital, Bayern Kapital, Fund+, OCCIDENT, Seventure Partners, and HTGF, also joined the round. The proceeds from the Series C will be used to expand the clinical development of TUB-040, Tubulis’ lead ADC candidate targeting NaPi2b, an antigen overexpressed in ovarian cancer and lung adenocarcinomas. TUB-040 is currently being evaluated in a Phase I/IIa study (NAPISTAR1-01, NCT06303505) in patients with platinum-resistant ovarian cancer and relapsed or refractory non-small cell lung cancer. The candidate received Fast Track designation from the US FDA in June 2024. Beyond TUB-040, the funding will advance Tubulis’ broader pipeline, including the clinical-stage ADC TUB-030 and several preclinical programs. Additionally, the company will continue to expand its proprietary ADC platform technologies to unlock novel therapeutic applications. “This landmark financing round reflects the deep conviction these global healthcare investors have in Tubulis and the disruptive potential of our ADC platforms,” said Dr Dominik Schumacher, CEO and co-founder of Tubulis.  “With TUB-040 progressing in the clinic and first data to be shared in a late-breaking oral presentation at ESMO, we are ready to expand into earlier treatment lines, while continuing to innovate across our pipeline and technology platforms.   The new funding empowers us to execute on our vision of creating truly differentiated antibody-drug conjugates that are tailored to the biology of solid tumours and can deliver superior therapeutic value to patients.” “Tubulis has distinguished itself in the ADC field with a forward-looking vision consistently backed by strong scientific data,” said Nimish Shah, Partner at Venrock Healthcare Capital Partners. “The company is now positioned to translate an exceptional preclinical foundation into meaningful clinical results, with several important readouts on the horizon. As Tubulis continues to expand its pipeline and build momentum, I’m excited to partner with the leadership team and Board to advance a new generation of ADC medicines for patients.” Dr Frank Hensel, Principal at HTGF, added:  “Our relationship with Tubulis has always been built on trust and a shared ambition to redefine oncology treatment. This latest round, supported by leading global investors, validates the strength of the platform and the team. We are proud to continue backing Tubulis as it enters a pivotal phase of clinical development.”

London-based startup Jack & Jill has secured 20 million dollars in seed funding to expand its AI-powered recruitment platform to the United States. The round was led by early-stage European VC firm Creandum, with participation from Ada Ventures, Dig Ventures, Entrepreneur First, Firedrop, Repeat.vc, Episode1, Playfair, and over 75 angel investors, including Nico Rosberg and individuals from Lovable, Anthropic and ElevenLabs. The company uses conversational AI agents to streamline recruitment for both candidates and employers. Jack, one of the startup’s AI agents, interacts with job seekers to understand their experience and goals, surfacing only roles that closely match. Jill, its counterpart for employers, learns hiring requirements and identifies candidates by scanning thousands of Jack’s conversations. “Agency recruiters are heavily constrained by their capacity, while job boards force candidates to sift through endless listings and inundate hiring teams with poorly-suited applicants.” said Co-Founder and CTO Saaras Mehan. Since launching six months ago, Jack & Jill reports that 49,000 candidates have interacted with Jack, while Jill is embedded within the hiring teams of hundreds of fast-growing companies in London. The company says its clients are seeing faster hiring times, improved candidate quality, and reduced fees compared to traditional recruiters. The team, currently 12 people strong, is preparing for an imminent launch in San Francisco as part of its broader international expansion. “Jack & Jill is one of the most exciting businesses leveraging agentic AI that we have seen. The significant market traction they have gained at such an early stage is proof of the market demand. "We have no doubt that Matthew, Saaras, and the team are leading a revolution in this industry, and we can’t wait to see the response in the US,” said Peter Specht, General Partner at Creandum.

Climate fintech Bees & Bears has raised €5 million in seed funding from Extantia Capital and Contrarian Ventures, following a €2 million pre-seed round in 2024. The raise comes after the company’s January agreement for a €500 million financing framework with a listed European bank, enabling Bees & Bears to finance about 25,000 solar installations, heat pumps, and battery storage systems over the next two years. Founded in Berlin in 2023 by Marius Schondelmaier and Jakob von Egidy, Bees & Bears develops embedded-finance solutions for clean-energy technologies. Its platform allows craft installers to offer customers instalment purchases for solar systems, heat pumps, and battery storage directly during consultations. A 2024 KfW study indicates that 40 per cent of German households cannot afford climate technologies without instalment options. While major digital platforms already provide embedded financing for renewables, many local installers who deliver most deployments lack equivalent tools. Bees & Bears’ platform enables flexible financing at the point of consultation using real-time credit checks, removing bank detours and paperwork. The workflow is straightforward. Installers prepare quotes for solar panels, heat pumps, or battery storage and submit customer information online. After automated verification, instalment purchases can be approved immediately, reducing friction and speeding project delivery. For households, this means access to clean energy without upfront costs or lengthy bank negotiations. For installers, it opens new customer segments and supports faster revenue growth. We’re building the financing infrastructure that democratises access to climate technologies across Europe. Instalment purchases are becoming the new standard for bringing renewable energy to wider society. Our mission is to enable one trillion euros in sustainable financing, said Marius Schondelmaier. The seed funding will support rapid scaling to meet demand, expansion into commercial and industrial segments, and entry into nearby European markets. Bees & Bears also plans to triple its headcount and further strengthen its market position.

Dutch AI-native platform for customer research, Northsea, has raised a €660,000 pre-seed funding round led by early-stage VC firm CapitalT, alongside a group of experienced business angels. Founded by Geart van Dam (CEO) and Nick van Zanten (CTO), both with consulting and data science backgrounds, Northsea was created to address the inefficiencies of customer research. Well before generative AI went mainstream, the founders were building advanced AI applications and writing software from an early age, shaping the company’s technology-first approach. They built the platform themselves and quickly gained traction with leading consultants and investors, who value getting overnight insights, rather than waiting four to five days, while achieving greater depth and quality. Geart van Dam explained: We founded Northsea to solve a problem we experienced daily as consultants: customer research that takes weeks, is costly, and often delivers unreliable results. With our AI-native approach, we make it possible to generate deep insights in days instead of weeks, helping strategy teams and investors move faster and smarter. Northsea’s AI research assistant automates the full research workflow, from survey design and respondent sourcing to data collection and analysis, cutting manual effort by up to 80 per cent. By running dynamic, interview-style conversations, it captures up to four times more detail and yields higher-quality responses in a market increasingly affected by survey fraud. As a result, consultants, investors, and strategy teams can produce richer insights and real-time recommendations at a fraction of the usual cost and time. With the new funding, Northsea plans to double its team size, expand internationally, further improve its product, and become the go-to research partner for consultants, investors, and strategy teams worldwide.

UPCITI, a Paris-based company building an operating system for cities, has raised $20 million in a Series A funding round. The round was led by Notion Capital, with participation from Point Nine and Chalfen Ventures. UPCITI combines proprietary software with purpose-built hardware to help municipalities run critical operations, such as traffic flow, street management, and public safety, more efficiently and securely, with a clear ROI that simplifies adoption. By owning both the software and the hardware, UPCITI delivers seamless integration while meeting strict privacy requirements, a growing priority for city leaders worldwide. Cities face mounting pressure from retirements, hiring gaps, and shrinking national and federal funding, forcing them to do more with fewer resources while keeping downtowns vibrant. At the same time, residents demand protection from invasive technologies. UPCITI is designed to be privacy-first, providing the operational insights cities need without tracking individuals. Jean-Baptiste Poljak, CEO of UPCITI, commented: Cities are under pressure to deliver more with fewer resources, and our solution consistently demonstrates measurable ROI. This Series A funding allows us to accelerate that impact globally. UPCITI’s platform is live in more than 150 cities across 17 countries, underscoring global demand for efficient, privacy-first city operations.  The new financing will fuel international expansion, accelerate product development, and scale deployments in the US.

In this week’s Tech.eu podcast, three founders discuss their "AI roll-up" strategies, a business model gaining traction in the startup and VC world.An "AI roll-up" strategy can be defined as a strategy whereby VC-backed startups buy underperforming companies, with the hope of boosting profits of the acquired companies through AI. It is a new play on the private equity model.The business model has gained traction in the VC world, with General Catalyst, Thrive Capital, Khosla Ventures and Bessemer Venture Partners amongst those funding or exploring "roll-ups".In this episode, we talk to three founders deploying the strategy, discussing the advantages and challenges of the business model.  Din Bisevac, founder of property startup Buena; Constantin Schröder, founder of short-term rental startup Arbio; and Dan Lifshits, founder of property management startup Dwelly, discuss the topic. On why "AI roll-ups" lend themselves well to rental management, Schröder said: "It is a fantastic playing field to inject AI into because we have to communicate with property owners, with guests, a lot that have many questions with service providers. And we see ourselves in the middle, orchestrating the three stakeholders.”On the challenges of integrating acquired businesses, Bisevac said: “The first couple of times when we acquired businesses, we faced a lot of integration challenges."These challenges include employee scepticism about new ownership, customers being sceptical about new ownership, and employees being stubborn about learning new AI skills.Bisevac added: “We have learned that essentially all of that goes away if you do one thing. And that one thing is working on a product that provides a better service to the customers.” Photo: Pixabay

Waymo is launching its driverless taxis in London next year, marking its first expansion into Europe.The Alphabet-owned, California-based firm today confirmed that it will test a small fleet of its vehicles with safety drivers behind the wheel in London in the coming months, ahead of a full rollout in 2026. The autonomous taxis, hailed by an app, are currently available in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Austin, Phoenix as well as Tokyo.Waymo is partnering with Uber-backed Moove to oversee and manage the fleet, which will likely be available for hire by the general public and tourists.In a blog post, Waymo said it will “continue to engage with local and national leaders to secure the necessary permissions for our commercial ride-hailing service in London." Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana, said: “We’re thrilled to bring the reliability, safety and magic of Waymo to Londoners.“Waymo is making roads safer and transportation more accessible where we operate. We’ve demonstrated how to responsibly scale fully autonomous ride-hailing, and we can’t wait to expand the benefits of our technology to the United Kingdom."Heidi Alexander, secretary of state for transport, said: “I’m delighted that Waymo intends to bring their services to London next year, under our proposed piloting scheme.“Boosting the AV sector will increase accessible transport options alongside bringing jobs, investment, and opportunities to the UK. Cutting edge investment like this will help us deliver our mission to be world-leaders in new technology and spearhead national renewal that delivers real change in our communities.”Waymo has existing UK hubs in London and Oxford and has a partnership with British vehicle brand Jaguar Land Rover.The introduction of Waymo’s taxis comes as the UK government trials the use of self-driving vehicles next year. These will permit the public to book automated rides using apps. Photo Credit: Waymo

Vienna-based enspired, an optimiser for battery energy storage systems (BESS), has raised over €40 million in Series B funding. The round adds Future Energy Ventures as a new investor alongside renewed commitments from Zouk Capital, EnBW New Ventures, Banpu NEXT, PUSH VC, and 360 Capital. Enspired provides simultaneous commercial optimisation of batteries and other power assets across wholesale, control reserve, and ancillary services. Its fully automated, in-house trading platform, built for Europe’s short-term power markets, aims to reduce time to market and help customers monetise flexibility. As the energy transition accelerates, battery optimisation is becoming critical infrastructure, and the company’s multi-market approach addresses a key bottleneck in integrating renewables. Enspired is expanding faster than expected, adding new countries to its roadmap while continuing to see opportunities in Europe and assessing growth in Asia and the US. Within the last 12 months, we entered six new markets and crossed the 1GW mark of BESS under management. We proved our undisputed leadership in commercial optimisation by publishing our actual, certified revenues. We are at our greatest peak, and we won’t stop here, said CEO and co-founder Jürgen Mayerhofer. The company views AI as a lever to accelerate the energy transition and will use the new investment to expand into additional regions. The first step in its global expansion is a partnership with Banpu NEXT, a Net Zero solutions provider in Asia-Pacific and an emerging BESS player in Japan. With the strategic support of Future  Energy Ventures as our new investor, we're perfectly positioned to accelerate our growth and introduce several innovative use cases very soon. Their expertise in the energy sector and  commitment to our vision make them an ideal partner for our next phase of expansion, Mayerhofer added. The new capital will enable enspired to advance AI-driven flexibility optimisation and set a higher standard for energy management globally.

London-based CybaVerse, an innovator in the cybersecurity sector, has closed its Series A funding round, securing £5 million in investment. The round was co-led by Pembroke VCT and Airbridge Equity Partners, with participation from Haatch. Culbert Ellis provided the legal support. The Series A round follows a £1.1 million raise in 2024 and its acquisition of SecureAck. Founded in 2018, CybaVerse is a UK cybersecurity vendor which focuses on making cybersecurity simpler, more efficient, and more accessible for SMEs and managed service providers. The company’s product, CybaOps, is an all-in-one SaaS platform that unifies detection, compliance, security operations, and testing. Built to be cost-effective, easy to deploy, and partner-friendly, CybaOps offers a white-label model for rapid resale, while automation streamlines complex tasks and strengthens defences against advanced threats, delivering 24/7 protection and clear, actionable insights. The new funding will accelerate sales and marketing, expand the team, advance CybaOps development, and support a shift from founder-led sales to a scalable SaaS growth model.

If you own a small or midsize business (SMB), chances are, you and your team wear a lot of hats. Time and resources are luxuries you don’t always have, making it hard to feel productive some days. Meet Zoom AI Companion, our generative AI assistant that helps you get time back in your work day without adding to your headcount. No matter if you’re a solopreneur, own a small family company, run a thriving agency, or are the IT manager at a large enterprise organization, we believe everyone should experience the benefits of AI. To help with this, AI Companion is available at no extra cost for paid users on eligible plans and can be used by businesses of all sizes, without a minimum number of licenses. Grow your business. Shrink your to-do list Implementing AI tools for your business may sound a little daunting without an IT team to help you out. But the truth is, using AI Companion is as simple as logging in to the tools you already know and love. From summarizing meetings to in-meeting questions to suggesting chat responses and email replies, our AI Companion is natively integrated into the solutions you use for day-to-day business. Still exploring the benefits of generative AI? Want to know how it could work for a team of two or a 300-person firm? Keep reading to learn how an AI assistant can help you maximize productivity no matter the size of your business. Zoom AI Companion for the solopreneur Solopreneurs are no strangers to juggling tasks, but when you’re a party of one, it’s hard to find the time to market your services and still deliver exceptional customer support. If you need another pair of hands but can’t afford to hire extra help, an AI assistant may just be the best friend you never knew you needed. Our AI companion can be your notetaker or help with drafting emails, composing chats, or catching you up on any meetings you may have missed. AI Companion is available with eligible paid Zoom user accounts at no extra cost,* so small and midsize business owners can take advantage of the increased productivity that AI has to offer. We’ve made it easy to minimize the repetitive tasks and focus more on what matters. How AI Companion works for small marketing agencies Small teams do big things, so it’s no wonder we’re constantly impressed by the creativity and impact we see from our customers with as few as 2–10 employees. That’s why we want to help you capture the creative sparks in real-time — without distractions. Imagine a brainstorming session where AI can prompt new ideas on your virtual whiteboard. It’s like a built-in antidote for writer’s block. Need to send an update to a colleague who couldn’t attend that meeting today? Forward a meeting summary generated by AI Companion so they don’t have to watch a meeting recording and you don’t have to summarize. Meeting summaries has saved our team a ton of time. We feel that everyone is in the loop without necessarily having to attend every meeting, which results in better collaboration. Karl Morsgofian, CIO, Gainsight Explore AI Companion for fast-growing start-ups Start-ups move at warp speed and don’t have a minute to waste. When you have distributed employees across multiple locations and time zones, effective communication is paramount. A smart AI assistant can help you generate efficiency when you need it most. Short on time? Write emails faster with the help of suggested content. Late to a meeting? Make a query inside the meeting to catch up without having to interrupt a colleague. As you begin to execute new business strategies like virtual events, AI Companion is your built-in event planner right inside Zoom Events. You can use it to draft your invitation emails, help with attendee registrations, ticketing communications, and more. Why get buried in administrative tasks when you can automate the heavy lifting? What can an AI assistant do for a 100-person law firm? We know SMB leaders need to not only collaborate more effectively but also free up more time to focus on decision-making, creative ideation, and activities that move the needle. With 100 employees or more, keeping teams up to date can be challenging. Lean on AI Companion to summarize large chat threads in seconds, or catch you up if you need to join a meeting late or briefly step away. Zoom’s AI Companion exemplifies our vision for enhanced collaboration and innovation. With automated, detailed meeting summaries, it streamlines information sharing and boosts productivity. This inclusion in our Zoom plan not only improves efficiency but also yields significant cost savings, reflecting our commitment to a smarter, more connected future. John Georgatos, CIO, Mike Morse Law Firm Smart AI assistants help uncover new efficiencies in 200+ person businesses The rise of remote and hybrid work means employees are often distributed across the globe. Communicating with overseas vendors and team members can be challenging in multiple regions, especially as your business grows to 200 employees or more. This makes it more important than ever to have an AI tool that is built for multiple languages and enables communication across geographies. Luckily, AI Companion already supports in-meeting questions for English and an additional 7 foreign languages in preview. It will soon support a total of 33 languages for both meeting summaries and in-meeting questions, so your global team can benefit by getting caught up on that crucial meeting. And with Meeting coach’s speech analytic features coming soon, hosts can get feedback on how well they engaged meeting participants with filters, talk speed, talk-listen ratio, and more. The AI Companion tool that scales as your business grows The evolution from a small- to medium-sized business can bring lots of excitement and revenue but headaches as well. When you’re in a period of rapid growth, you need a solution that scales with your business. AI Companion is built to support growing businesses and large organizations. It can help teams as small as two or large enterprises keep up with revolving chat messages and missed meetings. You’ll love having more freedom to work on what matters most and spend less time catching up. Breeze through your workday Customer loyalty is the backbone of small and medium businesses, as 59% of customers say they’ll switch to a new brand after just one or two bad experiences. We’re here to help your business grow by giving you more time to focus on creating, selling, and marketing your services to better serve your customers. AI Companion isn’t just another tool in your toolbox—it’s a vital part of our all-in-one intelligent collaboration platform. We’re making connecting easier, more immersive, and more dynamic for businesses and individuals. Discover how our smart AI Assistant can help your business grow.

Milan-based fintech Finanz has raised €700,000 in an all-equity pre-seed round, backed by leading business angels and senior executives from the financial industry, including investors from Amazon, Amundi, Rothschild & Co, and Fundsgate. Finanz helps people start investing with a personalised, five-minute-a-day guided journey. Built on the belief that financial education is a right, not a privilege, it began as a mission to make finance understandable, even in high school classrooms, before becoming an app. Research indicates that roughly €10 trillion sits idle in current accounts, and 335 million Europeans aren’t investing due to limited financial knowledge. Finanz aims to turn this gap into an opportunity by combining technology and cultural impact to help people manage savings and invest with confidence. We started by bringing financial education into Italian schools, organising over 100 assemblies for students and teachers. Today, we want to directly address a problem that affects millions of Europeans, not just the younger generations, by helping everyone learn how to save and invest, one step at a time, says Lorenzo Perotta, CEO of Finanz. Launched in November 2024 by founders Lorenzo Perotta (CEO), Andrea Pasini (CTO), Matteo Spreafico (COO), and Matteo Longoni (CMO), Finanz has a young team with an average age of 23 and plans to hire across technology, product, and design as it develops a leading European platform for financial education and management. The new capital will support growth in Italy, expansion beyond 100,000 users, and accelerated product development.

Prague-based energy scaleup Delta Green has secured €2 million in fresh funding from Credo Ventures, Tilia Impact Ventures, and Purple Ventures to accelerate its pan-European expansion.  Delta Green aims to turn ordinary European homes into a powerful force on the energy market. The company's platform connects ordinary homes into a virtual power battery, enabling households to shift consumption, discharge batteries, and export rooftop solar at times of peak demand. Every kilowatt activated at the right moment lowers bills, supports renewables, and reduces fossil fuel reliance. Delta Green is co-owned by four engineers and developers, David Brozik, Prokop Cech, Lukas Benes and Jan Hicl. I spoke to Delta Green co-founder Jan Hicl to learn more. Delta Green was originally called Nano Green and has been around for about 13 years.  Why the energy industry's conservatism is creating opportunity According to Hicl, "We acquired and rebranded it three years ago to focus on what we do now." "Our background is in building software startups, so we've turned Delta Green into a software-first company for the energy sector — which is traditionally quite conservative and slow to change." According to Hicl, a good example of that conservatism is the growing number of negative price hours on the spot market.  "Everyone knows how to fix it — by shifting when electricity is produced and consumed — but very few are acting fast enough.  The fact that those hours are still increasing shows just how rigid the industry remains." Hicl shared that this is why "flexibility' has become such an energy buzzword: everyone recognises it's critical for the transition, but real-world implementation is still limited." We've already seen small blackouts in the Czech Republic, Spain, and Portugal. However, without flexibility to stabilise the network, especially at the low-voltage level — the local networks closest to households.  Hicl contends that most investment goes into high-voltage transmission networks and utility-scale batteries, "but the real fragility is in local distribution systems." "These networks were built decades ago for completely different consumption patterns. If five EVs on one street start charging simultaneously, you can overload the grid.  That's where residential flexibility — our speciality — becomes essential. Our platform can coordinate devices, telling some to wait and others to charge, so the network doesn't collapse." How ending subsidies is actually helping Delta Green grow Greentech is a tough sector for many startups at the whim of European policy priorities, especially in areas like EV-subsidies and ESG. But interestingly, Hicl asserts that the fact that many countries are ending net-metering schemes—where households could feed excess solar power into the grid in summer and draw it back in winter, is helping the company.  He admits, "That was effectively a form of subsidy, and now it's disappearing." However, the end of subsidies is actually prompting both consumers and retailers to consider energy management more seriously.  "As a result, consumers are starting to ask new questions: When should I consume energy? How can I use what I produce more intelligently?  Retailers, too, have lost many of their government incentives, so they're looking for new ways to stay competitive. Our technology gives them that edge. While first movers benefit most from the shift, it's more difficult in markets where there aren't enough EVs, heat pumps, or residential batteries—" assets we can control. But overall, the shift away from subsidies is creating stronger demand for what we do." Further, household flexibility is no longer in a pilot phase — "our business growth proves it works across thousands of households," says Hicl. "We're now accelerating our plans as market demand is clear, with major retailers across Europe approaching us to deploy our solution." From test lab to pan-European platform In the Czech Republic, Delta Green is a small energy supplier, serving about 7,000 customers.  "That's our test lab, where we can develop and refine our technology before scaling it," shared Hicl. "Then we license our platform to large utilities. They use it to manage flexibility across their customer base." Delta Green runs a lean ship, which Hicl admits is partly out of necessity.: "Margins in the energy sector are extremely thin — around 1 per cent. When we entered the industry, we were shocked to find that no one accepted credit card payments. Then we discovered that card processing fees are about 1.5 per cent, which would instantly wipe out profits! We've managed to stay profitable because we utilise our proprietary technology to operate efficiently.  We make money from our customer portfolio and from selling the platform to other suppliers. We're sustainable, even if we're not the fastest-growing company out there — and that's okay. A lot of hyper-growth players in our space have already burned out." Hicl asserts that for decades, we've been accustomed to having electricity available whenever we want it, at a constant price. That era is ending. "In the future, prices will vary hour by hour depending on supply and demand. Sometimes electricity will even be free, or have negative prices. For households, that means comfort will come at a cost. If you insist on consuming energy during peak times, you'll pay more. But if you're flexible — if you shift your consumption, like charging your EV or heating water when solar or wind generation is high — you'll save money and help stabilise the grid." E.ON partnership sparks snowball effect across Europe By the end of this year, Delta Green platform will manage tens of thousands of households, putting it on track to become Europe's largest household-based virtual power plant.  "We just closed first deals in Romania, Italy, Hungary and Slovakia, and we are in advanced discussions with several major international energy suppliers about adopting our technology," shared Hicl.  Since its last funding update in 2024, Delta Green has made significant strides. It has become the first company in CEE to successfully involve households directly in grid balancing.  In the Czech Republic, one of country's top three energy providers E.ON has integrated Delta Green's flexibility service into its operations and plans to scale it to thousands of customers within the next 18 months. Thanks to this collaboration, E.ON customers can earn up to €200 per year by monetising their household energy flexibility.  Hicl admits that the momentum has created a snowball effect — "everyone realised they needed something similar to stay competitive. That's when we knew we were ready to expand internationally." "Now we're active in Austria, Romania, and Hungary, and preparing to launch in other European countries." From here on, Delta Green is expanding the types of assets it can control. "Right now, we mainly manage home batteries, but we're adding heat pumps and EVs to the platform." "We are really happy to see that Delta Green's timing for their flexibility aggregation solution was perfect. Just as the market realised the importance of this kind of solution for energy transformation towards greater sustainability, the company already had a real solution in place that the energy companies can instantly use, because it's been tested on Delta Green's own retail customers," says Tilia Impact Ventures partner, Pavel Petřek.  Delta Green's mission is clear — to place households at the very centre of Europe's energy transition and build the continent's largest network of flexible homes.

London-based Orbiri has raised £320,000 in an oversubscribed angel round with 14 individual investors, following an initial £45,000 in seed funding. The company is preparing to launch a community-wide solution that aligns children, parents, and schools around shared digital limits (shifting peer pressure from a barrier to a support) instead of relying on parents to police screen time individually or enforce blanket smartphone bans. Orbiri provides a community-powered platform with preset, considered screen-time boundaries for children. Its collective-action approach aligns children, parents, and schools around shared boundaries to eliminate daily device battles and protect the conditions necessary for healthy childhood development. Rather than leaving schools and families to act alone, it enables coordinated limits within a single framework, aiming to make healthy digital habits the norm. Amid growing concern about children’s unrestricted smartphone use, with schools in England adopting phone bans and ministers considering Australia-style limits on under-16s’ social media, Orbiri contends that durable progress depends on bottom-up community coordination rather than top-down restrictions. Set to roll out next year, Orbiri will complete product development, secure compliance certifications, and run trials with early-adopter schools while expanding its core and product teams. The goal is to demonstrate that shared community boundaries can replace daily device conflicts with a more natural shift toward healthier technology use, addressing shortcomings of school bans and individual parental controls. The funding will support upcoming trial phases ahead of a broader launch, aligning with a growing view that approaches such as school phone bans and individual parental controls are insufficient and difficult to implement at scale.

SLNG.ai, the speech infrastructure startup building the first radically global platform for voice AI, today announced it has raised €3.3 million in Pre-Seed funding to challenge the US-centric voice technology ecosystem that has left billions of users worldwide in digital silence. The round, led by Earlybird VC, will accelerate SLNG's mission to restore the universal power of voice by providing developers, startups, and enterprises with a unified platform that integrates multiple speech models, supports true global deployment with regional compliance, and eliminates the barriers that have kept voice technology concentrated in a handful of languages and markets. Spain-based SLNG was founded by Ismael Ordaz and Luke Miller after spotting the same pattern globally: companies struggling with 1) lack of regional compute, 2) missing industry-specific models, 3) compliance barriers, and 4) latency issues. SLNG solves all four.  According to Luke Miller, CEO and co-founder of SLNG: “We're not just building another voice AI platform, we are rethinking the entire ecosystem to be developer first, truly global and compliant." SLNG aims to solve fundamental limitations of the current voice AI infrastructure. Most platforms optimise primarily for premium languages like English, Spanish, and French, leaving other languages/dialects as afterthoughts. High latency and data residency issues entangle deployment in many non-US-centric regions. Developers are forced into single-provider ecosystems with limited flexibility in terms of cost and model testing. Lastly, regulated industries can't deploy voice AI products due to data sovereignty requirements that existing platforms simply can't meet. Unlike traditional speech AI providers, SLNG offers a model-agnostic platform where developers integrate any speech-to-text, text-to-speech, or voice cloning model through a single API. This fuels a truly global deployment through regional infrastructure and ensures low latency and compliance worldwide. The company's open ecosystem approach lets developers combine open-source and proprietary models without vendor lock-in, while developer-first design delivers SDKs and APIs built for rapid integration. This avoids months-long implementations, giving developers unprecedented flexibility in building voice-enabled applications. The platform already supports deployment across over 20 regions, enabling companies in regulated industries, like healthcare, finance, and government, to finally deploy voice AI while meeting strict data residency requirements. “What excites us about SLNG is the audacity of their mission: to make voice AI universal, compliant, and developer-first from day one. Luke and the team are not just building a product - they’re building the missing infrastructure for a truly global voice ecosystem. We believe SLNG can define the next era of speech technology, “ added Akash Bajwa, Principal at Earlybird VC.