In the first half of 2025, European semiconductor companies raised €1.4 billion across 30 deals, accounting for roughly 4 per cent of total capital and 1.5 per cent of deal activity within European tech, which reached €33.7 billion across 1,941 deals. Investment focused on scaling fabrication and power-semiconductor capacity, alongside emerging technologies in edge AI, photonic computing, and materials engineering. The ten largest rounds reflect this balance, combining substantial infrastructure financing with innovation to strengthen Europe’s semiconductor competitiveness and resilience. Amount raised in H1 2025: €1B NXP Semiconductors is a global technology company that develops embedded semiconductors and systems for automotive, industrial, IoT, and secure connectivity applications. Their offerings include microcontrollers, processors, wireless solutions, and secure hardware, all designed to enable intelligent, connected, and autonomous systems. Their innovations span domains such as software-defined vehicles, factory automation, edge computing, and security. In January, NXP Semiconductors secured a €1 billion EIB loan to support EU chip ecosystem development under the Chips Act and the Netherlands’ technology strategy, boosting Europe’s semiconductor competitiveness. Amount raised in H1 2025: €61.6M Axelera AI develops edge AI acceleration hardware and software. Their Metis AI Processing Units (AIPUs) and Voyager SDK enable efficient, programmable inference across use cases like robotics, industrial automation, smart cities, and healthcare. The company integrates both hardware and software to bring high-performance and energy-efficient AI capabilities closer to the edge. In March, Axelera AI secured €61.6 million to advance the launch of Titania in 2028, a high-efficiency, high-performance solution for data-intensive AI applications and future zetta-scale HPC centres at a competitive price. Amount raised in H1 2025: £25M Cambridge GaN Devices (CGD) is a fabless semiconductor company spun out of the University of Cambridge. The company develops energy-efficient GaN-based power ICs using its proprietary ICeGaN™ technology to drive greener electronics and performance gains. In February, Cambridge GaN Devices raised £25 million in Series C funding to accelerate its growth and advance efforts to reduce energy consumption across multiple industries. Amount raised in H1 2025: €27M Swave Photonics is a fabless semiconductor company that designs holographic chips using proprietary diffractive photonics techniques. It's work powers reality-first spatial computing for AR devices via its Holographic eXtended Reality (HXR) platform, which sculpts lightwaves into 3D holograms. In January, Swave Photonics closed a €27 million Series A round, bringing total funding to over €37 million to advance its 3D holographic display technology. Amount raised in H1 2025: $30M Salience Labs develops photonic switching solutions for AI data centres. Their silicon photonic switches aim to eliminate networking bottlenecks by enabling full optical connectivity between compute nodes, improving bandwidth, latency, and energy efficiency. Salience Labs raised $30 million in February to advance its optical switches for large-scale AI networking. Amount raised in H1 2025: €25M CamGraPhIC is a photonics company developing graphene-integrated optical interconnects and transceivers for telecom, datacom, and AI workloads. Its technology aims to deliver ultra-high bandwidth, low-latency, and energy-efficient data links by integrating graphene with silicon photonics, providing a scalable path for next-generation networks. CamGraPhIC raised €25 million in Series A in March, to expand R&D in Pisa, build its senior team, and begin scaling in Milan, optimising the technology for high-volume semiconductor foundry manufacturing. Amount raised in H1 2025: €20M iPRONICS is a company developing software-defined photonic networking solutions for AI data centres. The company builds lossless optical switches and programmable photonic engines under its iPRONICS ONE product line, aiming for low latency, high bandwidth, and rapid reconfiguration. In January, the company raised €20 million in a Series A round to accelerate the deployment of its iPRONICS ONE optical networking engine in AI data centres, supporting scalable, high-bandwidth, and energy-efficient communication with dynamic topology reconfiguration at the physical layer. Amount raised in H1 2025: €20M Vertical Compute is a deeptech semiconductor startup spun out of imec that is developing a vertically integrated memory-and-compute architecture to overcome AI’s “memory wall.” Its chiplet approach places vertical data columns directly above processing cores and leverages nano-magnetism, aiming to slash data movement, cut energy use, and boost throughput for large AI workloads. The company raised €20 million in January 2025 to develop next-generation AI systems that deliver greater performance and memory density than conventional DRAM. Amount raised in H1 2025: $22M IceMOS Technology is a semiconductor company specialising in thick-film SOI and SiSi wafers, advanced engineering substrates, and high-voltage Superjunction MOSFETs and MEMS solutions. IceMOS delivers custom silicon wafers (100 mm to 200 mm) and dielectric isolation technology using deep trench etching and bonded silicon processes. The company offers foundry services, high-resolution acoustic wafer inspection, and tailored substrate engineering for MEMS and IC applications. In April 2025, it raised $22 million in a Series E round to support the launch of its novel mSJMOS power semiconductor device technology and scale production and engineering capabilities. Amount raised in H1 2025: $15M AccelerComm is a company offering physical layer (PHY) solutions and accelerator IP cores for 5G and 6G, including hybrid satellite (NTN) networks. They provide configurable, standards-compatible IP cores for CPUs, SoCs, ASICs, and space-qualified silicon, along with reference systems and consulting. Their solutions aim for high performance, low power, and flexibility across hardware platforms. In June, AccelerComm secured $15 million in funding to advance its 5G satellite network solutions to accelerate the rollout of universal mobile connectivity through space-based infrastructure.

Munich-based BiMA, a mindful entertainment platform for children, raised €500,000 in a pre-seed funding round. Backers include Antler and angels from Oetinger Publishing Group (Julia Bielenberg, Thilo Schmid, Christian Graef), along with Andreas Peters (ex-Disney), Felix van de Sande (Kickbase/COBE), and Silvia Sommer (ex-Birkenstock/Roland Berger). BiMA is building a platform for mindful entertainment and creativity for children. Its first product is a child-friendly, screen-free projector that turns bedrooms into immersive, story-driven environments. Designed to inspire imagination and foster family connection, BiMA operates in a rapidly growing space that blends edutainment, well-being, and consumer technology. The market is sizable. In Germany, about 3.5 million households with children aged 0–5 represent an opportunity of over €730 million. Across Europe, this expands to 17 million households and a €3.7 billion addressable market. Globally, more than 420 million households imply a market exceeding €88 billion. Founded in 2024 by Larissa Ruf (CEO) and Greta Garkisch (CTO), BiMA’s team combines expertise in education, consumer science, and deeptech. Larissa Ruf explains the idea behind the company: Most toys are designed to keep kids busy, and that’s perfectly fine. But we wanted to create something different: a product that brings families together at the most meaningful time of day. With BiMA, evenings become magical moments of connection and imagination. The funding will support BiMA’s market launch, covering its first production run, marketing efforts, team growth, and content development.

N8n, the Berlin-based hyped AI startup which helps businesses automate tasks, has confirmed that it has raised $180m, valuing it at $2.5bn. Leading the Series C funding round was US VC firm Accel, with VC investors Meritech, Redpoint, Matt Miller's Evantic and Visionaries Club also taking part. T Capital, Deutsche Telekom's corporate venture capital arm, and Nvidia’s VC arm, NVentures, also took part, with previous backers including Sequoia, HV Capital, Highland Europe, and Felicis Ventures making follow-on investments as well. The funding round has been much talked about in the media over the summer, an indicator of the buzz surrounding n8n. N8n has now raised $240m in total since it was founded in 2019, having raised $60m in March this year. N8n calls itself an “AI orchestration platform”. Its tech allows businesses to connect hundreds of different apps and services and automate many business tasks, including integrating large language models, as well as leveraging AI agents to simplify business tasks. Jan Oberhauser, CEO and founder of n8n, said: "Billions have been poured into AI tools by businesses and governments, but many organisations are struggling to see meaningful results. "The fundamental challenge for the largest organisations isn't accessing AI, it's orchestrating it effectively. N8n allows teams to build their own adaptable infrastructure for AI, developing truly flexible, customisable systems that recreate how organisations work." The funds, says n8n, will be used to meet “huge demand” from enterprises for its services. Specifically, it will use the funding to expand its engineering offering, continue development of new features, and grow the team to support international expansion. N8n now has over 3,000 enterprise clients, including Vodafone, Softbank and Seat. The startup says it has grown revenues 10-fold in the past year, but did not disclose a revenue figure. It is supported by more than 700,000 active developers and builders who help to build integrations, develop content, including templates and 'how to' guides. Ben Fletcher, partner at Accel, said: "Jan and the n8n team balance power and simplicity to bring AI automation to all users. n8n’s platform has become the brain behind the orchestration for numerous workflows within enterprises, government organisations, and AI builders. "The explosive customer momentum is coupled with an impressive, vibrant community around n8n. We’re thrilled to be joining the n8n team on their journey, turning the promise of AI into a reality!”

Conceptive provider Choice today announced a partnership with French deeptech SilMach to provide a new form of contraception for women.  The hormone-free approach is powered by a new microvalve that opens and closes the fallopian tubes to achieve contraception. It aims to provide greater reliability and addresses ongoing concerns about the impact of contraceptive pills & IUD’s on long-term well-being.  I spoke to Peter van de Graaf, CEO of Choice and Pierre-François Louvigné, SilMach’s CEO, to learn more.  Based in Eindhoven, Choice was founded in 2018 to develop a superior contraception alternative to current methods, which have not fundamentally changed in 60 years. This is necessary as worldwide 40 per cent of pregnancies are still unintended. Rethinking fertility: 'What if you could just switch it off?' While thinking about how to address this, something else became clear to van de Graaf; women were increasingly fed up with hormones.  “There was growing pushback against the available options. I started to imagine a different approach — what if you could simply be infertile until you want to be fertile? Essentially, close off your reproductive system when you’re not intending to use it.” Targeting the fallopian tubes — nature’s control point After many conversations with gynaecologists and scientists, Choice determined that the fallopian tubes are the optimal place to intervene.  “You can’t close off the cervix because fluids need to pass, but the fallopian tubes are a natural point of control. The basic idea was to make a removable obstruction in the most suitable place in the reproductive system.  So we set out to develop a wirelessly controlled valve that could be implanted once, like an IUD, and left in place permanently,” he shared. However, the fallopian tubes are extremely small — about 1.6 mm in diameter, roughly the size of an uncooked rice grain. That raised the key question: how do you find or build a motor small enough to fit and operate there?  According to van de Graaf, the answer came from a watchmaker friend: “I asked him if he knew anyone who could make very small motors, and he mentioned he’d read about SilMach. That’s how I reached out to them.” Meet SilMach: the MEMS pioneer powering aerospace, defence… and now contraception SilMach (Silicium Machinery) is a company I’ve had on my radar for some time. It was founded in 2003 in Besançon around a strong conviction: to bring to life the first hybrid MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems) micromachines.  SilMach designs, develops, manufactures, and integrates high-performance MEMS microsystems, including micromotors for mobile and connected systems or energy-free micromechanical sensors. According to Louvigné: “ Innovation is our DNA — all we do is imagine and develop the technologies of the future. We developed a new type of micromotor for the watch industry, which is already being used in commercial watches. There’s nothing else comparable to it.” Having won a number of innovation contests and awards, SilMach's patented PowerMEMS and ChronoMEMS solutions and technologies have endless application fields for high-stakes industrial markets such as aerospace, defence, transportation, medical, and of course, watchmaking.  SilMach has been contracted by France’s Defence Procurement Agency to integrate its ChronoMEMS sensors into ballistic plates used in soldiers’ body armour. The goal is to improve soldier safety by enabling real-time integrity checks of armour, reduce maintenance costs, and ensure traceability of protective gear in the field. The company was awarded a “Best Of Innovation” award, the highest distinction of the CES Innovation Awards in the “Embedded Technologies” category in 2024. “One of the most challenging implant technology projects ever attempted” Louvigné shared that “when Peter approached us, we saw the project as one of the most challenging implant technology projects ever attempted." "Initially, we thought the motor might be too small to move the valve. But after calculations and simulations, we realised it was technically feasible.  We redesigned the micromotor to fit inside a rice-grain-sized implant and proved it could activate the valve wirelessly. We then moved from lab simulations to prototyping, and today we’ve demonstrated the full integration of the micromotor with Peter’s valve. It’s still ongoing, but the technical foundation is there.” Louvigné admits that powering the device was one of the biggest engineering hurdles.  “Getting wireless energy 10 to 20 centimeters deep into the body is really hard. A pacemaker is just under the skin, but our implant sits much deeper, with an extremely small antenna. Long waves travel through the body better, but our short antenna means short waves — the worst scenario. We worked closely with TU Eindhoven, formerly the Philips University, and one of Europe’s best wireless professors. We also collaborated with some incredibly talented female students, who were very inspired by the project. “ Together, they found a way to deliver power deep into the body despite the constraints. Following three years of development, SilMach successfully developed a custom micromotor in line with Choice’s specifications, reliably opening and closing the valve.  Measuring 10 x 1 x 0.1mm, the micromotor is integrated into a chip and works on electrostatic actuation, wherein positive and negative voltages are applied on microscopic, comb-like structures. The resulting attraction or repulsion moves a mechanical gear that operates the valve.  The available energy is converted into movement in very small steps with almost no heat generation (video). The small increments also mean the energy requested can be delivered in small packages, ensuring precise performance and extending the longevity of the implant. The prototype antenna is wrapped around the implant, which is the size of a rice kernel. Power transmission is slow but reliable.  And that’s fine, shared van de Graaf— this isn’t something you use daily.  “If you want, say, two children in your life, you’ll activate it four times total — to switch from infertile to fertile and back again” Comfort, control, and reversibility Choice provides a reliable and reversible form of contraception, which is hormone-free, pain-free and requires minimal ongoing care unlike copper IUDs, which are painful to insert and cause heavier periods, or hormonal implants, which fail to rest in the place they were initially inserted. It reduces the risks associated with exposure to hormones and provides a valuable option for women having suffered from, or in remission from hormone-dependent cancers (such as breast cancers), who can no longer use traditional contraception. Switching fertility on or off becomes a 30-minute clinic visit In terms of utility, van de Graaf predicts that the external transmitter will be located in a medical clinic, not at home.  “The antenna is large and expensive, and since you only use it a handful of times in your life, you’d probably lose it between uses anyway.” The process would be: you visit the clinic, place the external antenna on your abdomen, and wait about 30 minutes while the valves turn.  “Because the SilMach motor is extremely energy-efficient — converting almost all electrical energy into mechanical energy — we can power it slowly, one step at a time. We tested this with women, and they were comfortable with the idea. This is a significant, meaningful moment in their lives — deciding to become fertile or infertile — so waiting half an hour is acceptable.” Why do women have to bear the responsibility for birth control? According to van de Graaf, there are social and biological reasons. Socially, women are the ones who bear the consequences of unwanted pregnancies.  “Even when women say they want men to take responsibility, research shows they don’t trust men with contraception outside of long-term, stable relationships. In many cases, women simply want the power in their own hands.” Further, biologically, male contraception is vastly more complex. An 18-year-old male produces 100 million sperm a day, compared to one egg per month — a three-billion-fold difference.  In addition, studies in men, such as the Chinese Gossypol trials, tried to develop male contraception, found that after five years of sterilisation, around 50 per cent of men become permanently infertile due to immune system changes.   “So from both angles, focusing on women makes the most sense.” Choice is originally targeting developed markets. The implant will cost around $2,500. Over a woman’s lifetime, this system can compete with or even undercut the total cost of other contraceptive methods. Countering conservative backlash with open-source resilience I wondered about the impact of health initiatives such as Choice, given the conservative push back in countries like the US where radical pro-life groups — and the Republicans — are already trying to reduce (or even in the future ban all contraception, calling the pill and IUD “abortive.”  despite broad opposition from the American public.  The US government also confirmed plans to destroy millions of dollars' worth of taxpayer-funded contraceptives meant for women in low-income countries. “We’re very aware of these issues,” stressed van de Graaf. “Especially as in some autocratic societies, a technology like this could theoretically be misused to control fertility. “Our solution is to make the external antenna design open source. Anyone with basic electronics knowledge and a soldering iron could build it. This ensures the technology remains under women’s control, not governments’.” The device is funded primarily through angel investors. A few months ago, Choice launched a crowdfunding campaign,  Supported by an EU Eurostars Innovation Subsidy worth €450 000 over 2022-2025, the first phase of clinical testing will commence Q4 2026, for a projected launch around 2032. van de Graaf shared: “If we don’t get everything perfect in the first generation, that’s okay. I compare it to the Wright brothers — we just need to get this damn kite off the ground. If we succeed, it will be revolutionary for the contraceptive world, and future generations of the product will become cheaper and more widespread.”

In a region famed for its collaborative spirit and global tech champions, byFounders has emerged as one of the most influential early-stage venture capital funds in the Nordics and Baltics.  Headquartered in Copenhagen, the firm backs globally ambitious startups at the pre-seed and seed stages, with initial tickets typically ranging from €500,000 to €4 million and the capacity to follow on in later rounds. Founded by experienced entrepreneurs, byFounders is built on a “founder-first” ethos, supported by a collective of more than 40 seasoned founders and operators who actively help portfolio companies scale across Europe and beyond.  The firm has invested in notable startups such as Lovable, Monta, Corti, Peergrade (acquired by Multiverse), and Omnio. “We started almost like a grassroots movement by unicorn founders and operators,” recounts Sara Rywe, Managing Partner at byFounders Community is often overlooked when founders are raising capital, but when they’re moving to New York with their families or launching internationally, the community becomes crucial. She contends: “In the Nordics, we’re exceptional at helping each other — even competitors. Investors here are friends and share deal flow.  In the US, top funds rarely talk because they want to protect stealth deals. The Nordic community spirit is a real advantage.” Rywe’s journey shows there’s no one path to VC Rywe, originally from Sweden, fell in love with entrepreneurship very young. It all began when I was 17 and started a dance school for young kids with low self-esteem. “That was the moment I realised you can have a job that’s your passion — where you decide what to do and how to do it." Rye comes from a simple background, with no family entrepreneurship or academic tradition. She previously worked in food services and retail.   “I was the first in my family to get a university degree. That opened up my eyes and set me on some adventures.” She worked for tech startup Fandom in New York and another called MyCube in Singapore. She also started a network for young entrepreneurs in Sweden. Then she won a spot to study at the Stockholm School of Economics through an entrepreneurship award, where the prize was a place at the school.  After three gap years, she went to university, gaining a Bachelor in Business & Economics from Stockholm School of Economics, an MBA from INSEAD and Wharton Business School, and spent two years as a Kauffman Fellow. Following a stint in consulting, she joined byFounders six years ago. At that time, the fund was still a startup — only a year and a half into its first fund. She got the chance to help build the fund almost from scratch. When it raised its second fund four years ago, she became a partner. She recently closed the first round of the third fund, where she serves as one of the GPs. The firm makes approximately 8-15 investments annually The “New Nordics” outperform Europe’s big three — and byFounders knows it Rywe admits that people always ask why the firm isn't broadening its geographic scope now that it's raising its third fund.  “Since day one, we’ve focused on what we call the “New Nordics” — the Nordics and Baltics. We coined the term internally, and now it’s widely used in the industry.” Rywe contends, “there’s still so much alpha to gain in this region. If you look at the stats — most unicorns per capita in Europe, highest graduation rates from Series A to exit, and the lowest capital required to reach unicorn status — the New Nordics outperform the UK, France, and Germany.” There are many reasons for this. One is the early huge successes — not just unicorns, but $40 billion+ outcomes like Spotify and Klarna that created momentum and reinforced talent and ambition. Then there’s culture.  “Lazy Nordic founders”? A new generation is proving otherwise Rywe praised the Nordics' “incredible safety net.” She admits that it can make people too comfortable, but it also allows those who want to build big things to take huge risks because they know they’ll be caught if they fall. "The level of risk-taking possible is extremely high compared to the rest of the world.” Further, the small populations of countries like Sweden and Denmark also mean that founders have to think globally from day one, which benefits the ecosystem. According to Rywe, Nordic founders are known for being intellectually sharp — “our educational institutions are excellent. But there’s still a perception, often true, that we’re not hardworking enough. Americans have the 'work until you drop' culture." "In the Nordics, we have 18 months of parental leave and six weeks of vacation. That’s fantastic for society, but for the 0.1 per cent building the next unicorns, they need to fight against the “lazy Nordic founder” stereotype. We’re seeing a new generation of founders who are passionate and willing to match the intensity of American companies. Anton from Lovable is a great example — they worked from our office, and you could show up any time and they’d be there. This new generation knows the trade-offs but wants to compete at that level.” Europe needs bold bets, not safe plays Rywe asserts that byFounders likes to take “as much risk as possible — which is counterintuitive in most investment areas. But only really risky decisions have the potential for great upside.” She contends that “we don’t “spray and pray,” because in Europe we don’t have trillion-dollar companies and few decacorns.” “To deliver top returns, we need proper ownership. We can’t rely on massive exits to make up for tiny stakes. So we aim to own 10–20 per cent of companies at exit and work closely with founders to deserve that stake.” byFounders invests in about 35 companies per fund.  “Some people think they’re smart enough to do pre-seed with 10 companies, but I don’t. You need enough shots on goal to hit the one that makes all the difference,” shared Rywe.  The new Nordics’ next act: becoming Europe’s AI engine According to Rywe, up until two years ago, the region’s strengths were consistent — Denmark produced strong climate companies, Sweden and Denmark were strong in health tech, Sweden excelled in consumer, and enterprise tech was big thanks to large enterprise customers. But in the last two years, AI has changed everything with the birth of globally competitive players building fundamental layers of the AI stack. “We now have some of the best AI companies globally, both at the application layer and under the hood,” asserts Rywe. “Infrastructure-wise, companies like DataCrunch are building GPU clusters in the Nordics using cold climates and renewable energy." In risk and governance, many companies are working on AI sovereignty in Europe.  And there are even companies building LLMs, like Corti, which has trained on healthcare data for eight years and is outcompeting others in that vertical.” Rywe shared that as a board member at Corti, she sees huge healthcare institutions that want to use AI but are reluctant to rely on American players training on random data sets.  “European institutions are keen to work with local, trusted solutions.” Rywe is optimising for the future, admitting “this is the most exciting vintage of my adult life.” “I’m only 35, but since the internet boom, nothing compares. The technology is exciting, and people are solving real-world problems. There are so many untapped aspects of AI.”

Swedish-Swiss company ABB today announced it has signed an agreement to divest its Robotics division to SoftBank Group for an enterprise value of $5.375 billion and not pursue its earlier intention to spin-off the business as a separately listed company.  ABB is a global technology leader in electrification and automation, enabling a more sustainable and resource-efficient future. By connecting its engineering and digitalisation expertise, ABB helps industries run at high performance, while becoming more efficient, productive and sustainable so they outperform.  The company has over 140 years of history and around 110,000 employees worldwide.  According to Peter Voser, Chairman of ABB, SoftBank’s offer has been carefully evaluated by the Board and Executive Committee and compared with its original intention for a spin-off.  “It reflects the long-term strengths of the division, and the divestment will create immediate value to ABB shareholders.  ABB will use the proceeds from the transaction in line with its well-established capital allocation principles. Our ambitions for ABB are unchanged and we will continue to focus on our long-term strategy, building on our leading positions in electrification and automation.” ABB CEO Morten Wierod added:  “SoftBank will be an excellent new home for the business and its employees. ABB Robotics will benefit from the combination of its leading technology and deep industry expertise with SoftBank’s state-of-the-art capabilities in AI, robotics and next-generation computing. This will allow the business to strengthen and expand its position as a technology leader in its field.” ABB Robotics has long been one of Europe’s strongest players in industrial and collaborative robotics. By divesting the division to SoftBank rather than spinning it off as a separate listed European entity, ABB is effectively ceding one of Europe’s few global-scale robotics assets to a non-European owner. Masayoshi Son, Chairman and CEO of SoftBank Group, said: “SoftBank’s next frontier is Physical AI. Together with ABB Robotics, we will unite world-class technology and talent under our shared vision to fuse Artificial Super Intelligence and robotics —driving a groundbreaking evolution that will propel humanity forward.” As a result of the agreement signing, ABB will adjust its reporting structure to three business areas.  As of the fourth quarter 2025, the Robotics division will be reported as Discontinued operations. At the same time, the Machine Automation division, which together with ABB Robotics currently forms the Robotics & Discrete Automation business area, will become a part of the Process Automation business area.  Upon closing, the divestment will result in a non-operational pre-tax book gain of approximately $2.4 billion with expected cash proceeds, net of transaction costs, of approximately $5.3 billion.  The ABB Robotics division has a workforce of approximately 7,000. With 2024 revenues of $2.3 billion, it represented about 7 per cent of ABB Group revenues and had an Operational EBITA margin of 12.1 per cent. The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals and further customary closing conditions and is expected to close in mid-to-late 2026.

Paris-based Phagos has closed a €25 million Series A funding round, four years after its founding. The round was co-led by CapAgro, Hoxton Ventures, CapHorn and Demeter, with participation from Acurio Ventures, Citizen Capital, Entrepreneurs First, Founders Capital, and Station F. Phagos is a biotechnology company founded in 2021 by Alexandros Pantalis and Adèle James that develops AI-enhanced bacteriophage (phage) therapies to combat bacterial diseases. Its initial focus is animal health, where antibiotic resistance is a major constraint, and it designs tailored treatments that can adapt as pathogens evolve. Bacterial infections are a leading cause of human mortality, a major driver of animal deaths, and contribute significantly to food waste. Antimicrobial resistance causes millions of deaths annually and could impose substantial global economic costs by 2050. In livestock, antibiotic effectiveness has declined markedly since 2000. To meet this challenge, Phagos combines microbiology and artificial intelligence in a platform designed to create precise, personalised phage treatments. The initial focus is animal health, with the longer-term goal of extending its approach to human health. Phagos has filed a patent for its AI technology, which analyses complete phage and bacterial genomes to predict their interactions and enable scalable, targeted phage therapies. The company has also received authorisation to market personalised phage-based veterinary medicines, a notable regulatory milestone in treating bacterial infections. The co-founders emphasised that, together, the patent and authorisation, underpinned by a platform combining microbiology and AI, position Phagos to scale phage therapy and establish it as a global standard. With new funding, Phagos plans to scale deployment of its veterinary phage-therapy solutions, advance R&D to develop the next generation of its patented AI technology, and expand its team to support platform growth and market launch.

Milan’s Cyberwave, which builds an operating layer between AI agents and real-world machines, has raised €7 million in a round led by United Ventures with participation from The TechShop, alongside seed funds Vento (Exor), Pi Campus, and several prominent angel investors. Cyberwave’s platform connects AI systems to physical machines through digital twins, simulation, and orchestration tools, enabling developers to control robots, machines, and sensors with minimal friction. Founded by Simone Di Somma and Vittorio Banfi, the company aims to provide core infrastructure for AI-driven automation in Europe. Deploying AI in the physical world remains slow and costly. Robots, sensors, and actuators often use bespoke APIs and specifications, and many projects depend on system integrators. The result is rigid, high-cost implementations that limit factory flexibility amid labour shortages, demographic decline, and pressure to boost productivity and reindustrialisation in Europe. Research estimates that integration complexity leaves roughly 30 per cent of manufacturing tasks manual, and the global manufacturing workforce could face an 8-million shortfall by 2030. Cyberwave addresses this by transforming physical hardware into programmable digital twins, so developers can simulate, control, and orchestrate machines with minimal code. A seamless developer experience is its key differentiator versus infrastructure-focused peers. At the core is a growing catalogue of digital twins that functions as a two-sided marketplace. Hardware makers can integrate their devices once, making them immediately available to developers. In contrast, developers gain plug-and-play access to an expanding range of robotic systems, from industrial arms to drones and sensors. Applications span civilian and defence contexts, including defect rework on assembly lines, logistics packing optimisation, drone inspections, construction site monitoring, and computer-vision upgrades that turn cameras into intelligent sensors. The platform’s rapid reconfiguration also supports defence needs for flexible, scalable production. Simone Di Somma, co-founder and CEO, said: Our goal is to bring the speed of digital software to the physical world. We want developers to treat machines the way they treat code—flexible, composable, and programmable. Just as SAP became the system of record for digital processes, Cyberwave is building the ‘system of actions’ for the physical world. The company is initially focusing on Europe’s manufacturing leaders, with planned US expansion to support European customers’ operations and tap North American reindustrialisation momentum. The funding coincides with the October 2025 launch of Cyberwave’s digital-twins platform. It will support the expansion of the developer ecosystem and validation of early enterprise use cases across manufacturing, logistics, and inspections.

London-based Nexcade, an AI automation company for freight forwarders, has raised $2.5 million in pre-seed funding and is emerging from stealth. The round was led by Connect Ventures with participation from MMC Ventures, Entropy Industrial Capital, Inovia, and angels, including Charlie Songhurst and Keith Wallington. Nexcade develops agentic AI automation for logistics teams, simplifying pricing, quoting, and rate procurement to help forwarders operate faster and secure more business. Its AI agents extract unstructured work from emails and conversations outside the TMS and convert it into structured, automated workflows, enhancing rate management, improving win rates, and providing greater data visibility. Founded by Dan Bailey and Tasho Kjosev, the team brings deep freight and AI experience from companies such as Xeneta, Raft, Gravity Sketch, Improbable, and UnlikelyAI. Freight forwarding is the connective tissue of global trade, yet despite growing digitisation, it still relies on manual work, email, and fragmented data from shippers, carriers, agents, brokers, and warehouses, all with different formats and systems. Most automation fails in this environment due to customer-specific requirements, inconsistent data, and constant exceptions. Nexcade is built for that reality. Its AI unifies scattered inputs, handles edge cases, and keeps critical workflows running when other systems stall. The core issue is unstructured communication with endless emails, attachments, and back-and-forth messages that never reach the TMS, so quote requests go unanswered and pricing often depends on tribal knowledge. Nexcade captures that hidden information, structures it, and drives it through automated workflows so every request gets a response, turnaround drops from days to minutes, and teams shift from reactive firefighting to proactively driving revenue and margin. These gains matter as forwarders face unprecedented pressure. Freight rates continue to compress after record volatility, leaving many with revenues halved over the past year and net margins near 5 per cent, so inefficiency cuts straight into profit. At the same time, AI has reached a tipping point where it can reliably interpret natural language and automate exception-heavy workflows. Economic strain plus technological readiness make this the moment for change. Nexcade’s CEO and co-founder, Dan Bailey, said the TMS may be the system of record for customers, but much of the conversation, decision-making, and data that drive freight never enter it. That gap is where revenue leaks and service quality breaks down. He added: Bridging that gap is the only way to unlock real automation and enable the revenue growth and operational resilience forwarders need in today’s market. Rates and contracts underpin freight forwarding, and are especially pertinent in the current environment. Starting here enables the biggest commercial impact for our customers while building the core grounding for future automation for our customers. Looking forward, Nexcade plans to grow its customer base tenfold over the next 12 months, strengthen partnerships with leading forwarders to reinvent commercial workflows, and expand workflow volumes as adoption accelerates.

AI software platform for autonomous inspection with robots and drones Energy Robotics, has raised $13.5 million Series A. It offers a full-stack, hardware-agnostic AI autonomy platform for fleet management in critical infrastructure. Autonomous robots and drones powered by Energy Robotics’ platform perform essential daily and hourly tasks, including visual inspections, thermal scans, and leak detection, eliminating the need for humans to enter dangerous environments while keeping proprietary data secure.  By automating these tasks, worker safety is improved, human error is reduced, and more frequent data can be collected. This proactive approach leads to more efficient maintenance and less plant downtime overall, increasing operational reliability and productivity. Energy Robotics has completed over one million inspections across five continents, saving 32,000+ hours of hazardous human labour for customers across oil and gas, industrial, chemical, and utility sectors, including Shell, BP,Repsol, BASF, Merck and E.ON. Existing infrastructure and industrial facilities are confronting two major challenges: a shrinking skilled workforce and increasingly complex, ageing equipment that requires specialised maintenance.  Energy Robotics addresses this through its AI software platform for autonomous robots and drones that cuts operating costs by up to 40 per cent while significantly enhancing worker safety.   "This funding round will help us scale autonomy to serve the world's most critical infrastructure, giving energy, chemicals, utilities, and security operators greater resilience, safety, and efficiency," said Marc Dassler, CEO and co-founder of Energy Robotics.  "A skilled workforce retires, and many of the world's most vital energy and chemical assets are decades old, requiring more frequent and intricate monitoring, inspection, and maintenance. This combination creates a perfect storm of operational risk. Our platform provides a timely and scalable solution, enabling customers to not only maintain but also improve operational efficiency and safety, while actively mitigating the challenges of this workforce transition."   Energy Robotics AI-powered fleet orchestration software eliminates the need for fragmented tools, with key features that include: Hardware-Agnostic Operating System: Seamlessly integrates with 8 leading robots and drones and OEM hardware manufacturers (e.g., Boston Dynamics, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, DJI), giving customers the flexibility to build mixed fleets without vendor lock-in; AI-Powered Analytics: An advanced AI analytics library interprets multimodal sensor data, from gauge readings to leak detection, continuously learning and improving with every mission. Simple, LLM-Driven Mission Control: Integrated large language model system enables operators to simply prompt the platform to generate and execute inspection tasks across entire fleets of robots and drones; Real-World Data vs. Synthetic Data: Fleet orchestration and autonomous operations are based on millions of data points gathered in complex, dynamic real-world facilities such as refineries and power plants. Evergreen Digital Twin: Each inspection mission automatically updates a live, evolving digital replica of facilities, providing real-time visibility and predictive insights that feed directly into customer ERP, CMMS, and digital twin platforms; and Data Privacy & Cybersecurity: Energy Robotics strengthens cybersecurity and data sovereignty by providing a platform that keeps sensitive inspection data within customer-controlled IT systems, independent of vendor-specific software platforms.  The Series A was co-led by Blue Bear Capital and Climate Investment (CI) , with participation from Futury Capital, Hessen Capital, Kensho VC, and TADTech. The funding will accelerate the commercial deployment of Energy Robotics’ software across energy, chemicals, industrial, and security sectors. "The industrial robotics market has reached an inflection point," said Cindi Bough, Managing Director at Climate Investment: "Energy Robotics has built an AI software platform that orchestrates diverse fleets of robots and drones, integrates seamlessly with existing enterprise workflows, and delivers actionable data services at scale today.  Also, Energy Robotics delivers climate impact by using autonomous robots to spot gas leaks early, so harmful emissions are fixed before they escape into the atmosphere.  This is why we are excited to co-lead their Series A investment."     "The global energy transition relies on a more resilient, efficient, and secure infrastructure,” said Dr Carolin Funk, Partner, Blue Bear Capital. “Energy Robotics' autonomous inspection platform, powered by AI, directly addresses this need. It provides a scalable solution that improves the safety and operational efficiency of key energy and industrial assets, while taking advantage of the global robotics expansion."

Qualcomm Technologies today announced its agreement to acquire Italian open-source hardware and software company Arduino.   Arduino is a leading open-source hardware and software company that provides an accessible platform for creating interactive projects. With an estimated 33 million active users, the Arduino community has expanded to address new demands and challenges, offering products for IoT, wearables, 3D printing, and embedded environments. From student days in Italy to a cornerstone of the maker movement Arduino was created in 2005 at the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea in Italy by Massimo Banzi, David Cuartielles, Tom Igoe, Gianluca Martino, and David Mellis. Named after a local bar, the project aimed to make microcontrollers affordable and easy to use for design students. By releasing both hardware and software as open source, Arduino quickly grew into a global platform for makers, educators, and developers.   Over time, it expanded from a simple educational tool into a cornerstone of the maker movement, powering DIY projects, art, prototypes, and commercial products worldwide. Supercharging developer productivity at the expense of European hacker independence The transaction accelerates Qualcomm Technologies’ strategy to empower developers by facilitating access to its unmatched portfolio of edge technologies and products.  By combining Qualcomm Technologies’ leading‑edge processing, graphics, computer vision, and AI with Arduino’s simplicity, affordability, and community, the Company is poised to supercharge developer productivity across industries.  Arduino will preserve its open approach and community spirit while unlocking a full‑stack platform for modern development. Further, Arduino will retain its independent brand, tools, and mission, while continuing to support a wide range of microcontrollers and microprocessors from multiple semiconductor providers as it enters this next chapter within the Qualcomm family. Following this acquisition, the 33M+ active users in the Arduino community will gain access to Qualcomm Technologies’ powerful tech stack and global reach. Entrepreneurs, businesses, tech professionals, students, educators, and hobbyists will be empowered to rapidly prototype and test new solutions, with a clear path to commercialisation supported by Qualcomm Technologies’ advanced technologies and extensive partner ecosystem. However, this acquisition marks a significant moment—and arguably a blow to Europe’s maker community. Even though Arduino will retain its brand and community, strategic control shifts to a US tech giant—raising questions about Europe’s ability to keep home-grown innovation and infrastructure under European stewardship. Meet UNO Q: Arduino’s most advanced board yet, powered by Qualcomm The new Arduino UNO Q is a next-generation single board computer featuring a “dual brain” architecture—a Linux Debian-capable microprocessor and a real-time microcontroller—to bridge high-performance computing with real-time control. Powered by the Qualcomm Dragonwing™ QRB2210 processor running a full Linux environment, UNO Q is designed to help enable AI-powered vision and sound solutions that react to their environment, ranging from sophisticated smart home solutions to industrial automation systems. UNO Q is designed to become the go‑to tool for every developer—accessible, versatile, and ready for lifelong learning and innovation. UNO Q is the first Arduino board to work with Arduino App Lab, a new, integrated development environment built to unify the Arduino development journey across Real-time OS, Linux, Python and AI flows to make development faster and easier. App Lab offers developers an open-source platform which is designed to rapidly ideate, prototype and scale AI-powered solutions to production. Seamless integration of App Lab with the Edge Impulse platform also helps streamline and accelerate the process of building, fine-tuning, and optimising AI models using real-world data for a wide range of capabilities such as object/human detection, anomaly detection, image classification, ambient sound recognition, and keyword spotting. “With our acquisitions of Foundries.io, Edge Impulse, and now Arduino, we are accelerating our vision to democratize access to our leading‑edge AI and computing products for the global developer community,” said Nakul Duggal, Group General Manager, Automotive, Industrial and Embedded IoT, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.  “Arduino has built a vibrant global community of developers and creators. By combining their open-source ethos with Qualcomm Technologies’ portfolio of leading-edge products and technologies, we’re helping enable millions of developers to create intelligent solutions faster and more efficiently — including a path towards global commercialisation by leveraging the scale of our ecosystem.” “Joining forces with Qualcomm Technologies allows us to supercharge our commitment to accessibility and innovation,” said Fabio Violante, CEO, Arduino. “The launch of UNO Q is just the beginning— we’re excited to empower our global community with powerful tools that make AI development intuitive, scalable, and open to everyone.” “Our passion for simplicity, affordability, and community gave rise to a movement that changed technology,” said Massimo Banzi, Co-founder, Arduino. “By joining Qualcomm Technologies, we’ll bring cutting-edge AI tools to our community while staying true to what has always mattered most to us.” The closing of this transaction is subject to regulatory approval and other customary closing conditions.

While there is a growing number of cancer-focused startups, the reality is that cancer is one of the most common diseases with a high fatality. While immunotherapies have transformed treatment for some blood cancers, they’ve had limited success against solid tumours. One UK biotech thinks the answer lies not in ever more targeted drugs, but in the body’s oldest line of defence: neutrophils. LIfT BioSciences is a UK biotech company working on a new kind of cancer treatment. Instead of using T-cells (like many current immunotherapies), they focus on neutrophils — a type of white blood cell that we are all born with that’s part of the body’s first line of defence.  LIfT engineers these neutrophils so they can better find and kill cancer cells, and also help the rest of the immune system join the fight. The company is still in the early stages of development, but has secured patents, research partnerships, and funding to move the technology forward. Its goal is to create a scalable cell therapy that works against solid tumours — types of cancer that are often hard to treat with existing methods. I spoke to CEO Alex Blyth to learn more.  “Find My Nearest” to finding a cure Blyth is a serial entrepreneur and inventor with a background in biology and economics. He began his career in the dot-com industry. He recalled: “When I was at university, I built and sold a company that created the world’s first 'find my nearest' technology for mobile phones. It took just two years from start to sale.” Since then, he’s worked with major pharma companies to bring novel biopharma assets to market.  However, when his mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, he witnessed firsthand how targeted therapies ultimately fail:  “Watching my mother die on Abraxane, a drug I had worked on, made me realise that this targeted drug approach is fundamentally flawed for a moving target like cancer.” He detailed: “Tumour cells adapt under evolutionary pressure, escape the drug, and patients die from tumour escape — metastases that evade the immune system. In fact, 90 per cent of cancer deaths result from metastases, not primary tumours. And yet, the vast majority of oncology research focuses on identifying new targets. Most meetings start with: “What’s our target?” But that’s the wrong starting point.  Approximately 90 per cent of industry resources are allocated to targeted or fixed-modality therapies. These approaches can debulk tumours and extend life slightly, but they don’t prevent antigen escape, which ultimately kills the patient.” As a result, he began examining individuals who don’t develop cancer, and discovered that their immune systems possess a remarkable ability to distinguish between friend and foe.  He recalled: “I conducted donor studies comparing immune cell types in “super donors” with no history of cancer versus those who had it. The standout cell was the neutrophil. Neutrophils are a type of white blood cell that play a crucial role in your immune system by helping to fight infections and heal injuries. They are the most abundant type of white blood cell, making up approximately 50 to 70 per cent of all white blood cells in the body. How neutrophils slipped through the cracks of cancer research According to Blyth, the neutrophil is “the most corrupted cell in cancer patients compared to super donors, and it’s also the most abundant white blood cell in the body, making up 70 to 80 per cent of cells in a tumour. Yet neutrophils have been almost completely overlooked in cancer research.” He attributes this to four main reasons: First, they’re challenging to handle. Neutrophils are like the “puffer fish” of the immune system. When you take them out of the body, they’re incredibly fragile and survive only 12 to 24 hours, unlike hardy T-cells. Second, they don’t fit the industry’s binary model. T-cells work through inhibitors and agonists, which fits with how pharmaceutical companies — fundamentally chemistry companies — understand science. Neutrophils use advanced, non-binary threat pattern recognition, and many scientists are uncomfortable with mechanisms they can’t fully explain. Third, he contends that people used to think the innate immune system only fought bacteria and external threats: “In fact, it plays a key role in spotting and destroying anything that doesn’t belong — including worn-out cells and cancer cells. It’s also responsible for fine-tuning “friend vs foe” recognition inside the body. This system can weaken over time due to ageing, stress, and changes in gene expression. Some people are born with naturally stronger innate immunity, which may explain why certain families have little or no history of cancer.” Fourth, Blyth contends that pharmaceutical companies make money using low-risk technologies — such as antibodies and small molecules — so there’s little incentive to take career risks on new approaches. “It’s not that companies are 'evil'; it’s human nature. Most people in science are cautious rather than trailblazers. They build safe careers inside big pharma or VC firms, and that passive self-interest kills innovation.” Turning “super donors” into cancer fighters LIfT’s approach involves injecting healthy neutrophils into patients, but with a twist: these neutrophils are grown in the lab from stem cells donated by “super donors.” Super donors are individuals whose immune cells display exceptional cancer-killing abilities. By using their stem cells, LIfT can generate large batches of potent neutrophils in the lab. These cells — a unique type of innate immune cell called Immunomodulatory Alpha Neutrophils (IMANs) — behave entirely differently from the defective neutrophils typically found in cancer patients. Once produced, they are infused into the patient’s bloodstream via IV, providing a powerful, temporary boost to the body’s innate immune system to help combat cancer. “The hardest thing I’ve ever done” Biotech is, by necessity, a slow and cautious field. I wondered how Blyth reconciled this with the speed of the startup world. He admits that it has taken him ten years for the company to get to its current stage: “It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done, even with two previous exits under my belt. Biotech is slow and cautious for good reason — almost everything you put in someone’s body has the potential to do more harm than good. What pains me is knowing that nearly a million patients die every month from untreated tumours. I’ve lost friends along the way. It’s heartbreaking to watch people die knowing that we might be able to help but can’t intervene without jeopardising the entire clinical program — or risking my own position.” Then there’s the incremental nature of fundraising. Blyth asserts that “If someone had given me the total amount we’ve raised so far, up front, I could have done this in half the time.” Another obstacle is a lack of belief that cancer can be cured. Blyth explained that “pharma companies aren’t even allowed to use the word “cure,” which affects how people think.”  “But we’ve already seen immunotherapies cure blood cancers. Checkpoint inhibitors have given some patients with solid tumours a real shot at being cured. It is possible — the mindset just hasn’t caught up yet.” The crucial 1 per cent who push boundaries Blyth admits that he’s learnt that “you only need the 1 per cent — the people who really get it and care enough to do something." "These people tend to find each other. Over time, I’ve met many of the pioneers who worked on checkpoint inhibitors, for example, through different paths. There’s a small, tight-knit community of people who keep pushing, often outside the establishment. The public doesn’t realise how small this group is.  Most funding still goes to universities and trend-driven research, where the incentives are to publish, not to solve real-world problems. Unless you have a personal mission, the system pushes you towards career progression, not breakthroughs. I focus on finding and working with that exceptional few," he shared. LIfT BioSciences has raised over $38.4 million, including an €11.9 million Enterprise Ireland grant for a clinical trial in Galway. This investigator-initiated trial will focus on cervical, head, and neck cancers, with first patient dosing scheduled for next year. Lead image: Wikipedia.

Deep Tech Momentum has raised €1 million in funding for its deeptech capital and customer acquisition marketplace, aiming to establish Europe as a robust deeptech ecosystem. Deep Tech Momentum (DTM) was founded in 2022 by Isabelle Flanagan, and Martin Schilling. Centred around an annual conference in Berlin — in my opinion finally putting Berlin back in the race for great startup conferences — which functions as a growth engine for deeptech startups, investors, and corporate leaders. It’s an invite-only platform where just 6 per cent of applicants are selected, connecting top founders with VCs managing over €25 billion, corporate innovators, and ecosystem leaders.  DTM isn’t just a conference — it’s where deals get done, partnerships are forged, and Europe’s deeptech competitiveness accelerates. In a post announcing the raise, DTM cited remarks by Mario Draghi: “A different path demands new speed, scale and intensity. It means acting together, not fragmenting our efforts. It means focusing resources where impact is greatest. And it means delivering results within months, not years. Start with technology.” They added: “That’s precisely why DTM exists: to accelerate the commercialisation of European Deep Tech by connecting industry leaders with innovations that will redefine Europe’s sovereignty in technology.” “At DTM, leading corporate decision-makers, top investors, and the world’s most innovative deeptech builders forge partnerships that fuel competitiveness, investment, and Europe’s deeptech renaissance.” To achieve this, the company concentrate on six niches where Europe excels, each with its own Innovation Market at DTM: DTM Energy DTM Space DTM Defence DTM Robotics DTM Materials DTM Computing As part of the investment, DTM welcomes a stellar syndicate of angel investors via Events Venture Group, which brings decades of expertise in scaling world-class events. They join a group of visionary VCs and industry leaders committed to closing Europe’s innovation gap and securing technological sovereignty: ???? ? ??? ??? ??????: Isaac Kato (Two Ravens VC), Peter Niederhauser (redalpine), Max Bautin (IQ Capital), Florian Heinemann (Project A), Martin Schleich (Tech10), Dr Patrick Nathen (Lilium), Daniel W. Dippold (EWOR) ????????? ???????:  Hanjo Arms (Kearney), Tim Miksche (Audi Denkwerkstatt), Ken Herrmann (Universitätsmedizin Essen), Univ.-Prof. Dr Frederik Giesel, MD, MBA (Universitätsklinikum Düsseldorf) The funding supports the Deep Tech Momentum 2026 festival, which is expected to attract 3,000 participants.

ChatGPT now has more than 800 million weekly active users, according to Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, which introduced a wave of new products and partnerships at its developer day conference.In his keynote speech, Altman said: “Back in 2023, we had two million developers and 100 million weekly ChatGPT users and we were processing about 300 million tokens per minute on our API. That felt like a lot at the time."Today, four million developers have built with OpenAI and more than 800 million people now use ChatGPT every week. And we process over six billion tokens per minute on the API."AI has gone from something people play with to something people build with every day."The 800 million figure marks an uptick on the 700 million weekly active users OpenAI said ChatGPT was expected to hit in August this year, which was up from 500 million in March this year. At its developer day conference, OpenAI, valued at $500 billion and which is inking gigantic deals to ensure it has sufficient computing power to run its models, revealed a range of new products, as it looks to outflank rival frontier AI model firms. These include a feature so users can connect directly and interact with third-party services inside ChatGPT, with examples of Spotify and Canva given.It also introduced a tool called AgentKit, so developers can design, deploy and better manage AI agents.

Germany’s Resourcly, an AI platform that harmonises parts data, removes redundancies, and recommends qualified alternatives for manufacturers, has raised a €2.7 million seed round. The round was led by Project A, with participation from Knut Alicke, Philip Harting, Gregor Stühler, FIEGE Ventures, D11Z Ventures, Prequel VC, and former leaders from SAP, VW, Siemens, and Danaher. Federico Travella joins as an advisor. Resourcly is an AI platform for manufacturers that harmonises complex inventories by standardizing parts data, removing duplicates, and recommending qualified alternatives. It boosts part availability and unlocks up to 15 per cent improvement in working capital. Trusted by leading global enterprises, it’s proven, real-world AI for manufacturing. Manufacturers have $2.5 trillion locked in idle inventory and discard $200 billion in usable parts annually, not because they’re defective, but because fragmented systems, countless variants, and inconsistent data make them hard to find. As a result, up to 20 per cent face production delays despite overflowing warehouses. Resourcly standardises messy inventory data without replacing existing systems. Manufacturers upload CSVs, the platform detects duplicates, flags interchangeable parts, and builds a unified dataset. Beyond cleanup, it creates liquidity by enabling resale and sharing through trusted networks, turning excess stock into working capital. Our AI-based similarity analysis uncovers patterns that humans and traditional systems can no longer detect, saving our customers time, unlocking millions, and improving revenue potential by up to 20%, said Helena Most, CEO and co-founder of Resourcly. The funding will support hires across engineering, product, and sales, and accelerate platform expansion for large enterprise customers across Europe’s manufacturing hubs.

The UK and India-based medical travel startup, The Medical Travel Company (TMTC), has raised €3.8 million to bring a new full-stack medical solution, offering UK patients world-class and affordable treatments in India. The round was led by Nexus Venture Partners, with participation from 4CAST, an athlete-led investment collective group co-founded by England cricket stars Ben Stokes and Jofra Archer, along with Indian cricketer KL Rahul. The Medical Travel Company offers a full-stack platform for medical travel, enabling UK patients awaiting elective care to access high-quality, lower-cost treatment in India. The service includes UK doctor involvement throughout the care pathway, post-surgery insurance, and end-to-end logistics across travel, in-house aftercare, and recovery. The company reports steady user growth and industry recognition for its role in cross-border care. Demand is rising, with about 7.7 million people in the UK facing long waits for elective procedures as of June 2025, including orthopaedics, dental, IVF, gynaecology, ophthalmology and urology. With private care often unaffordable, more than 500,000 UK residents travel abroad each year for faster, lower-cost treatment. Yet the broader medical tourism market remains fragmented, with opaque pricing, variable quality standards, and limited aftercare that can increase uncertainty and risk. Founded by Sahil Jain and Ankit Mehrotra, the Medical Travel Company addresses these gaps with a structured, clinician-led model. UK doctors remain involved before, during, and after treatment. Patients are connected to internationally trained clinicians in globally accredited hospitals, and a 12-month post-surgery insurance policy is valid back in the UK through a network of private hospitals. The experience is fully managed, with personalised aftercare and concierge logistics to provide a seamless journey. The company plans to use new funding to expand and deepen clinical partnerships in the UK to strengthen patient trust, establish certified treatment pathways for safer medical travel, and build technology to maintain complete medical records, supporting continuity of care when patients return home.

Paris-based Ewake, which develops an AI system to improve software reliability, has raised €2 million in a pre-seed round led by Connect Ventures. The round also included participation from 2100 Ventures, Notion Capital, Insiders, 50partners, and several angel investors, including Amirhossein Malekzadeh. Ewake develops an AI “teammate” for software reliability that integrates with production systems and works alongside engineering teams. The platform proactively surfaces issues, recommends actions, and helps developers maintain service reliability with greater autonomy. The product consists of a suite of AI agents that monitor production, investigate incidents, and assist with prevention in real time. Operating on top of existing tools, the agents interpret and correlate signals to address downtime, learning continuously to adapt to each company’s technical and business context. Manual tasks can be increasingly automated as the agents improve over time. Ewake was co-founded by former Criteo engineers Pooné Mokari (CEO) and Omid Gosha (CTO) to address the shared challenge of preserving reliability while shipping quickly. Their goal is to redefine software reliability through agentic AI. Coming out of stealth, Ewake will use the funding to develop additional AI agents and expand its Paris-based team to support its growing customer base. Looking ahead, the company aims to broaden its agentic approach so every developer can more easily own and maintain their code, deepening the agents’ ability to learn from each environment, automating more manual tasks, and supporting rapid software delivery without compromising reliability.

Dutch agentic AI-powered platform Datamonk has secured a total of €1.6 million in pre-seed to date to address one of healthcare IT’s biggest challenges: moving and cleaning decades of medical imaging data. The round was led by Healthy.Capital and Nina Capital, with participation from notable angel investors including Jeroen Tas, former Chief Innovation & Strategy Officer at Philips, and Harm-Jan Wessels, founder of Applicare (acquired by GE), Forcare (acquired by Philips) and Healthsage AI. The total also includes earlier support from Antler and Rabobank. Hospitals and imaging providers store decades of X-rays, CT scans, and MRIs in PACS. Many are migrating to newer systems to modernise, consolidate, and enable AI, but consultant-led projects moving millions of studies are slow and costly, often taking a year or more. Datamonk is tackling this challenge by replacing manual, consultant-heavy migrations with agentic AI. Founded in 2024 in the Netherlands, Datamonk is building the data layer for modern healthcare. The company uses agentic AI to automate PACS migrations while improving data quality: its agents detect and correct metadata issues, standardise study naming, and validate data integrity during transfer, reducing manual effort and cost and enabling go-lives five to ten times faster. Datamonk was founded by Jaap Gielink, Jai Bhatia, and Matthew Condron, whose backgrounds span healthcare data, cloud technologies, and AI. Jaap Gielink, CEO and co-founder of Datamonk, emphasised that modern healthcare relies on clean, connected data to support both routine clinical decisions and the adoption of emerging AI technologies. He commented: We don’t just move imaging data, we clean it and make it usable so hospitals can trust it is ready for clinical workflows, research, and innovation. The funding will support platform development, the advancement of AI capabilities, and team growth.

UK medtech Owlstone Medical has won an award of up to $49.1 million from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) for the Platform Optimising SynBio for Early Intervention and Detection in Oncology (POSEIDON https://arpa-h.gov/explore-funding/programs/poseidon program.  Owlstone Medical is developing a breathalyser for disease, with the goal of improving non-invasive diagnostics for conditions such as respiratory and liver diseases, cancer, and digestive health disorders.  The company aims to save 100,000 lives and reduce healthcare costs by $1.5 billion through earlier detection and more precise treatment.  Its Breath Biopsy®platform represents a new diagnostic modality designed to identify novel, non-invasive biomarkers in breath, with the potential to be deployed at the point of care. At the heart of this approach is the award-winning ReCIVA®Breath Sampler, which enables the reliable collection of breath samples. Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) captured in these samples are then analysed using advanced chemical analysis technologies.  Owlstone Medical aims to further develop tools, potentially leveraging its proven FAIMS microchip chemical sensor technology, to detect validated biomarkers of disease and enable earlier, more accurate diagnosis. The POSEIDON program aims to develop first-in-class synthetic-sensor-based Multi-Cancer-Early Detection (MCED) tests for Stage I detection of 30+ solid tumours using only breath and urine samples that can be performed in the home and are available over the counter. Owlstone’s project, in partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston University, Georgia Tech Research Corporation, Qurin B.V., and Planned Systems International Inc, aims to overcome this challenge by delivering accurate, low-cost cancer screening for 30+ solid tumours to Americans aged 18 and older. The project involves the inhalation of a mix of pan-cancer and tumour-specific synthetic sensors from a single-use inhaler, which then circulate throughout the body and accumulate on the surface of cancer cells. The reporters produced by the sensors are either DNA-based, which act as a readable barcode, or a set of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), supporting the detection of 36 cancers in total. These will be collected at home or in the clinic in urine samples and from breath, respectively, using portable collection and analysis devices.   Results will be uploadable in real-time to electronic health records (EHR) for rapid review by healthcare professionals, integrating seamlessly into clinical practice and digitally enabled care. This unique approach offers significant advantages over competing technologies. These include boosting the signal to enhance test performance such that cancer is reliably detectable from early stage, enabling simple and non-invasive sample collection at home, rapid result generation and EHR integration, and a low-cost manufacturing model such that economics are not a barrier to adoption of the technology as the new standard of care for early cancer detection. According to Billy Boyle, co-founder and CEO at Owlstone Medical, access to an accurate and low-cost MCED test that does not require a doctor’s visit or laboratory testing is key to preventing late-stage diagnoses.  “This award validates both breath as a diagnostic approach and Owlstone’s EVOC® probes as a reporter technology to overcome the shortcomings and challenges that have held back early cancer detection previously.  We are grateful to ARPA-H for the opportunity to bring transformative MCED testing to every American within the next decade.” 

Pelvic organ prolapse is a common but often stigmatised condition in which one or more of the organs in the female pelvis descend into, or out of, the vagina. It can cause pain, discomfort, and significant emotional distress, disrupting women's ability to fully engage in work, social life, and family activities.  An estimated 1 in 12 women experience symptomatic prolapse, amounting to more than 200 million women worldwide. Due to underreporting and stigma, the true number is likely even higher, and incidence is expected to grow by a staggering 46 per cent in the US alone by 2050. Danish healthtech startup Sylvia Health is pioneering a revolutionary medical device to empower women suffering from pelvic organ prolapse. I spoke to CEO Andrew Stretton to learn more.  Stretton has lived in Denmark for five years. Before that, he completed a PhD in biotechnology at a UK university, finishing in January 2020 — just before the pandemic. He started working for a couple of startups here that were connected to his PhD: "Initially, it was in sensing technology, and then I moved more into green tech—working with companies that used sensors to measure air quality. They were spun out of a chemistry department and were very good at removing particles from the air, but they didn't quite manage to sell during the pandemic. These were good technologies with good people, but ultimately they were solutions looking for problems. I became keen to flip that approach around." Sylvia Health came out of the Novo Nordisk Foundation BioMedical Design Fellowship Programme, a needs-based innovation programme at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. During four months of clinical observations at the obstetrics and gynaecology departments of Slagelse Hospital, the team encountered many problems within women's health and witnessed the profound impact of pelvic organ prolapse on women's lives.  "The first part of the program involved four months of clinical observation. I spent that time with a notebook in a gynaecology and obstetrics department," shared Stratton. He admits, "I'm not a doctor, and as a man, it was an unusual but incredible opportunity to observe and learn in that environment." A hidden epidemic of shocking need Throughout the program, participants observed numerous unmet needs in women's health. Prolapse emerged very quickly as a major one.  According to Stretton, the scale and impact of prolapse shocked the team, sparking a deepening interest that persisted throughout the programme. "We met with and interviewed patients and clinicians from six countries, delving into disease fundamentals, prevalence, risk factors, stigma, and treatment options.  If you start with the patient population, the numbers are striking: one in twelve women has symptomatic pelvic organ prolapse." The two biggest risk factors for vaginal prolapse are vaginal delivery and age. It can also be caused by menopause, heavy lifting and genetic or hereditary factors.  He realised there was not only a lack of societal knowledge of the issue but a lack of meaningful solutions, describing the options as "innovation light."  "When you look at existing solutions, you have surgery — often invasive and not always viable for women who are family planning. Then there are pessary devices, but over half of women discontinue using them within 3–12 months."  A medical scandal is hidden explained away by gender stigma Another solution for vaginal prolapse is transvaginal mesh, a surgical implant used to support weakened pelvic tissues, primarily for treating conditions like pelvic organ prolapse and stress urinary incontinence in women. It is a net-like device inserted through the vagina to help hold pelvic organs in place.  However, since the 2000s, tens of thousands of women with mesh insertions have complained of severe side effects, including chronic pain, infection, organ perforation and other debilitating conditions. As a post by the Lawsuit ínformation Centre asserts, in US depositions, lawyers have uncovered internal documents showing mesh manufacturers were hearing complaints about mesh tension and material degradation as far back as 2009. Doctors flagged these issues, but they were not shared with regulators. And patients received no warning prior to surgery. The post asserts: "A lot of these women were told their symptoms were unrelated. That their pain was normal. That they were just getting older. Some were told it was in their head. It went on for years, in many cases, with most everyone paying lip service to the pain and suffering." According to Stretton, the mesh debacle set back innovation in this area for a long time. And, the themes experienced by women suffering as a result of the vaginal mesh represent the broader issues around stigmatisation and vaginal prolapse.  Medical misogyny lives in everyday consultations There's also a lot of normalisation of women's suffering in these contexts. According to Stretton: "We spoke with women in their 40s who, after finally working up the courage to see a doctor, were told, "Well, you've had kids, you're in your forties now—this is normal."  That kind of normalisation can be incredibly confusing and disheartening. "Even in Denmark, with free healthcare and strong equality measures, women reported these experiences. If this is happening here, you can imagine what it's like elsewhere. It reflects a broader pattern of medical misogyny and stigmatisation." Further, the underlying clinical need remains unchanged — especially for certain subtypes of prolapse. For example, in the rectocele, where the rectum descends into the vagina, the standard pessaries sit too high and don't really match the anatomy. "It's surprising that something so fundamental hasn't been addressed, but it's a stigmatised area," shared Stratton. "Many of the basic needs simply haven't been studied in detail." Anatomy-first innovation with global market potential  I was interested in how Sylvia Health approached R&D for something so sensitive and anatomical. Andrew explained that the team started by looking at the anatomy of rectocele.  "Because existing devices like pessaries sit high, but the prolapse bulges lower down, we asked: what kinds of devices are already used in that part of the body? Menstrual cups and tampons. So we thought: what if we take something like a menstrual cup and modify its function—not to collect fluid, but to provide support? That was the core idea." The team sketched out concepts, shared them with gynaecologists and physiotherapists, and got encouraging feedback. Then it created simple silicone prototypes, refined them, and developed medical-grade versions suitable for clinical testing. Sylvia Health developed its first medical-grade prototypes in Autumn 2023, following the end of the BioMedical Design Programme. Since then, it's been focused on testing and improving its products. Together with expert pelvic health physiotherapists, its done over 40 functional tests with women with prolapse.   It was surprisingly easy to recruit participants — because so many women are affected and current options are limited. "Early on, we interviewed and surveyed women affected by prolapse to understand their daily experiences," explained Stretton.  "If you speak their language and show that you understand the impact on their lives, they're often eager to participate. And crucially, we listened. Many medical consultations are only ten minutes long; there's no time to unpack everything. Having someone sit down and truly listen was validating for them. A lot of women with prolapse experience a loss of dignity in their interactions with healthcare systems. Restoring that dignity is core to our approach."  This user-centred design approach has enabled Sylvia Health to iteratively improve its designs, so much so that towards the end of its functional testing phase, many women asked to take the prototype home with them.  Sylvia Health has since begun clinical trials at Hvidovre Hospital in the Copenhagen region, where it will recruit around 40 participants and measure quality of life changes from baseline to the end of the study. Stretton explained that it's a simple, non-comparative study because pessaries are already well-established and silicone is highly biocompatible. If adverse effects occur, they typically resolve upon removal of the device. "If we can show a meaningful quality-of-life improvement and acceptable safety, that data will go into our regulatory submission." The device is patent-pending, but Sylvia Health aims for the device to become a prescribed medical device—essentially the go-to option for rectocele prolapse. Stretton explained:  "First, we need to prove clinical efficacy. Then we'll focus on commercialisation—starting in Denmark and likely one large European market. Once we have proof of business, we can bring in a strategic partner, raise a Series A, or consider an exit. We're realistic that our founding team may not be the ones to scale it globally. If the product works—and we believe it does — it needs to reach as many women as possible." Currently, Sylvia Health is actively engaging with partners in the UK and EU to enable us to provide devices in those regions as soon as possible, followed by the rest of the world.