KBC Group is investing €100 million through Start it @KBC to strengthen the Belgian startup ecosystem. This investment also launches a new fund (the Start it Fund) aimed at early-stage financing for top-tier startups from the accelerator program, addressing a long-standing demand from founders.  Thanks to this fund, these startups can count on capital and guidance to accelerate their growth. The very best will also have the opportunity to receive additional follow-up financing at a later stage. In this way, KBC Securities and Start it @KBC together offer a unique trajectory: from the first ideas to a potential IPO. “Start it @KBC originated eleven years ago within KBC itself - from the same entrepreneurial DNA that lies at the core of our organisation,” says Johan Thijs, CEO of KBC Group. “What began as a small initiative has grown into Belgium’s largest startup ecosystem. Entrepreneurship is in our genes: KBC was co-founded by entrepreneurs and stimulates innovation both outside and within the organisation. Today, we are among the most innovative and digital-driven banks in the world, and our close collaboration with Start it @KBC fuels that ambition every single day. With the new fund, we can now truly support founders from idea to IPO: we support them not only with knowledge and a network but also with capital tailored to their growth ambitions. Together, we are building an ecosystem where innovation, entrepreneurship, and international ambition take centre stage." "Every year, around 1,000 startups apply to join us, a number that continues to rise. This allows us to be increasingly selective, and quality continues to grow. For eleven years, we’ve been building an ecosystem with founders, for founders. We already had coaching, community, and a European ecosystem - only one thing was missing: investing ourselves at the early stage. We are now filling that gap, at the request of founders, and in a way that centres them,” says Lode Uytterschaut, founder and CEO of Start it @KBC. The “no equity” philosophy at the start of the Start it @KBC program remains unchanged, but the opportunity to invest is now added through a new early-stage fund managed by Start it itself: the Start it Fund. While other accelerators offer small amounts at fixed terms at the start, the Start it Fund offers only the top 1 per cent of all applications at the end of their program a larger sum, depending on the needs and stage of the start-up. Start-ups are entirely free to accept the funding. On average, the fund invests €300,000 at early stage, although the amount may be higher in some cases. The very best of the selected startups also have the chance to receive further follow-up financing of up to €5 million through KBC Securities. According to Tim Derycke, Head of Investment Services & KBC Focus Fund at KBC Securities: “With KBC Securities, we offer not only follow-up financing but also access to the venture capital experience and technological expertise of our investment team. In addition, KBC Securities provides added value for the further growth of companies: from M&A advice and financing solutions to guidance during an IPO. With this integrated approach, we offer founders a unique ecosystem of support and financing – an offering unmatched in Belgium.” Of the 1,923 startups Start it @KBC has supported since 2014, 227 have raised more than €1 million, and 122 have raised more than €2 million. Together, they have raised over €1.1 billion and created more than 12,000 jobs, making the ecosystem one of the largest employers in Belgium.  Start it @KBC startups also perform very well in terms of survival rate: after five years, about 73 per cent still exist, compared to an international benchmark of 51 per cent for startups that raise venture capital. Among the biggest success stories are well-known names such as Aikido Security, Bolt, Loop Earplugs, Conveo, Keyrock, Segments.ai, Crazy Games, and Wondr/Planet B.

Assaia, the Zurich-based aviation technology company, has raised $26.6 million in an oversubscribed Series B funding round led by Armira Growth, alongside existing investors. As air traffic volumes surpass pre-pandemic levels and airports face staffing constraints and tighter operational margins, the industry is increasingly prioritising intelligent automation to strengthen resilience and improve efficiency. Assaia’s AI platform supports this shift by reducing turnaround times and enabling more effective planning across airside operations. Assaia uses artificial intelligence and computer vision to give airports and airlines full visibility and control over aircraft turnaround operations. Its solutions help predict issues, automate key processes, and enhance operational performance, contributing to safer, faster and more sustainable airport environments. Christiaan Hen, CEO of Assaia, said the funding marks an important new stage for the company, noting that airports and airlines are turning to AI more than ever to address growing operational pressures. With Armira’s backing, we are accelerating the rollout of new technologies and expanding our footprint to deliver measurable value in some of the world’s most complex airport environments. Assaia’s technology, designed to optimise the aircraft turnaround process through real-time visibility and automation across apron operations, is already deployed at major international hubs including New York JFK, London Heathrow, Dubai International, and Toronto Pearson. At these airports, it supports reduced delays, improved on-time performance and better gate utilisation. The new capital will allow Assaia to scale its AI platform globally and launch additional solutions aimed at improving efficiency for airports, airlines and ground handlers. A portion of the funding will support the rollout of the next-generation StandManager, a planning module that uses AI to optimise gate and stand assignments before aircraft land, enhancing predictability and gate utilisation in congested and high-volume environments.

The co-founder of AI infrastructure startup Nebius says its strategy is to build as many of its own data centres as it can, saying it plans to "build and control as much as possible”.  Nebius, which is sometimes referred to as a neocloud, is backed by Nvidia. It builds and operates data centres, packing them with GPUs, then offers access to these data centres to AI and enterprise companies needing compute power, as well as offering them specialised software to run AI applications. This year, Amsterdam-headquartered Nebius has signed blockbuster deals with Microsoft, worth over $17bn, and Meta, worth $3bn, to supply them with AI infrastructure and compute power. In the podcast, Roman Chernin, co-founder and chief growth officer, Nebius, discusses the two blockbuster deals and some of its other AI and enterprise clients. He also talks about Nebius’s approach to housing data centres, whether it would build more of its own or co-locate. Chernin said: “Our strategy is long-term build and control as much as possible, and I think in a few years from now, the majority of the fleet will be run on physical infrastructure that is ours. But in the meantime, we are obviously partnering with others just to move faster.” Elsewhere in the podcast, Chernin discusses data centre energy demands, Nebius’s green credentials, and its plans for the next few years.

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The latest Monthly Report reveals a sharp drop from October, yet consistent strength in the UK, transportation, software, and high-value deeptech deals.Click to read the rest of the news.

Italy-based Equixly has raised €10 million in Series A funding to scale its proprietary agentic AI hacking platform. The round was led by 33N Ventures and joined by Alpha Intelligence Capital, with additional participation from existing investors JME Ventures, 360 Capital and Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze. Founded in 2022 by brothers and serial entrepreneurs Mattia and Alessio Dalla Piazza, alumni of IBM, UniCredit and Accenture, Equixly is a penetration testing platform built for the scale and complexity of today’s API-driven web. As organisations rely more on APIs, existing security methods are struggling to keep up with fast-evolving, complex threats. Manual penetration testing is thorough but costly and hard to scale, while automated scanners are easier to run but often miss business-logic flaws, where attackers exploit normal workflows to steal data, hijack accounts or move funds. This forces organisations to choose between scalability and depth of security. Equixly identifies up to 80 per cent more vulnerabilities than standard Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) tools at the development stage and, by mapping a company’s entire API landscape, can reveal the 10–20 per cent of “shadow” endpoints that enterprises are often unaware of, while keeping false positives below 1 per cent. This enables teams to focus on resolving real issues rather than investigating false alarms. The platform uses proprietary AI agents to continuously detect vulnerabilities across the software development lifecycle and to automate complex API security testing. It embeds into existing systems, is designed to meet compliance and security requirements, and integrates directly into CI/CD pipelines. Once deployed, Equixly’s agents monitor how each application is used, infer its underlying logic, and run targeted attack simulations to identify weaknesses in a way that mirrors the behaviour of skilled attackers. This allows Equixly to flag issues to teams in real time, helping developers and security teams remediate earlier, reduce costs and improve resilience. It can also identify deep, complex business-logic issues and edge cases, detecting hidden and emerging threats in areas traditional scanners may miss or overlook. Equixly was among the first to draw attention to emerging risks related to Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers, and its approach is expected to become increasingly important as AI-generated code accelerates development and expands the attack surface beyond the capabilities of traditional security tools. Equixly’s CEO and co-founder, Mattia Dalla Piazza, noted that with upcoming regulatory changes and the continued rapid expansion of APIs, the need for autonomous security solutions will only increase: Equixly is making advanced security testing continuous, autonomous and accessible to every development and security team. With agentic AI infrastructure and models fully built in-house, teams get the human-level reasoning they need at the scale modern software demands, while ensuring maximum control over data and preserving privacy. Equixly is trusted by a growing group of European businesses across banking, energy, insurance and retail, helping them strengthen and future-proof their systems in the face of evolving threats. The new funding will be used to expand the team, further develop the company’s proprietary AI models and accelerate international growth, beginning with the establishment of a UK sales and marketing presence early next year.

betacluster Ventures has launched betacluster Poland.One, a new early-stage fund under the PFR Starter program. With a target capitalisation of €19 million (PLN 81.25 million), the fund will invest in technology startups primarily from Poland that are developing solutions for the Smart Data Economy, where intelligent data systems, AI and automation transform how industries operate, compete and scale. The fund’s investor base includes PFR Ventures as the public anchor LP, alongside private investors from Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Poland, reflecting the growing recognition among Western European investors of Poland’s strength in engineering talent and deep-tech innovation. betacluster Ventures operates on the thesis that competitive advantage will belong to companies able to collect, secure and analyse data, train AI models and turn insights into scalable products. The fund will build a portfolio of early-stage companies with strong international potential, with individual investments of up to €1 million (PLN 5 million) to help validate technology, enter new markets or accelerate growth. Most of the capital will be directed toward startups at the earliest stages (teams with solid technical foundations developing their first product and commercial strategy), while also backing companies that have already achieved initial market traction. betacluster Poland.One will focus on sectors undergoing rapid AI- and data-driven transformation, including manufacturing, logistics and industry, smart health, fintech, smart cities, business productivity, civil security and dual-use technologies. Florian Steger, General Partner at betacluster Ventures, notes that AI is reshaping industries, but its impact depends on the ability to use data effectively. The fund’s goal is to support founders developing technologies that make data more intelligent, secure and scalable: With betacluster Poland.One, we want to help Polish founders turn their engineering excellence into global category-defining companies. While primarily focused on companies registered and operating in Poland, the fund remains open to exceptional teams from across CEE, provided their plans include building significant operations in Poland. The fund is currently in its second fundraising round, aiming to reach its full €19 million (PLN 81.25 million) target. After an initial close of almost €14 million (nearly PLN 60 million), interest remains strong, with new investor commitments already covering 50 per cent of the capital targeted for the second close planned for January 2026.

The UK and Germany are among the countries with the highest number of ChatGPT enterprise customers outside the US, while the Netherlands and France are showing strong growth in business customer numbers, according to a new report from ChatGPT developer OpenAI.OpenAI has published selective usage figures of its AI tools, which are now used by more than one million businesses, as it looks to drive up the number of businesses paying for its tools and help fund the hundreds of billions of dollars it needs to power its growth plans.It also comes amid stiff competition from Anthropic and other AI labs for enterprise customers and concerns that AI investments are yielding poor returns for businesses.The report said that the UK and Germany now rank among the largest ChatGPT enterprise markets outside of the US by customer numbers, but didn’t reveal specific numbers. It also shows that the Netherlands, growing 153 per cent year to November 2025, and France, growing 146 per cent year to November 2025, are among OpenAI's fastest-growing business markets, both above the global average of 143 per cent.Germany was also singled out as one of the most active markets by message volumes.Across all the businesses surveyed, OpenAI said its data showed that businesses' usage of its tools was shifting from chatbot and experimentation phase to core infrastructure work.“Firms are beginning to reorganise work around AI, not just ask it occasional questions,” it said.The data shows that enterprise users report saving 40 to 60 minutes per day and being able to complete technical tasks such as data analytics and coding, while 75 per cent of enterprises said they could do faster or higher quality work.OpenAI also said that API usage by businesses has increased, with more than 9,000 organisations now processing over 10 billion tokens, and nearly 200 exceeding one trillion tokens.The report draws on two data sets: usage data from among the one million business customers of OpenAI and an OpenAI survey of 9,000 workers across almost 100 enterprises documenting patterns of AI adoption.

Madrid-based Algori, a purchase and behavioural data platform for the FMCG industry, has raised an additional €3.6 million in growth capital, bringing the company’s total funding to €7.5 million. The round brought in new investors, including Red Bull Ventures, Tech Transfer Agrifood (Clave Capital), Co-Invest Capital, AttaPoll, and Firstpick, alongside continued support from existing backers Shilling, Flashpoint, and Change Ventures. The company’s investor base also includes industry veteran Jared Schrieber, co-founder of InfoScout and former Numerator board member. The FMCG industry relies on detailed shopper data to inform decisions on distribution, pricing, promotions, assortment, innovation, and category strategy. However, consumer behaviour is fragmented across channels, and traditional household panels still depend on relatively small samples of 4,000 to 20,000 active panellists that are then extrapolated to represent an entire national population. These constraints, combined with slow data cycles and limited SKU coverage, mean that manufacturers and retailers often lack the reliable, timely purchase data needed to defend or grow shelf space in an increasingly concentrated European retail market. Algori addresses this challenge by collecting purchase data directly from shopper receipts, both physical and digital, submitted via its consumer apps. These receipts are processed by Algori’s proprietary AI-based classification engine, which interprets and structures each item at the individual product-code (SKU) level. This approach provides high-granularity insights by retailer, category, and shopper segment, without requiring retailer integrations and at a speed that exceeds traditional panels. Algori’s dataset offers detailed visibility into full shopping baskets, store-level pricing changes, purchase missions, and retailer format-level patterns. Unlike traditional panels, which often lack the granularity to go beyond leading brands, Algori uses AI to generate insights across a wider range of products and manufacturers. In practice, this fast and detailed view supports manufacturers and retailers in analysing category performance, shopper leakage, basket composition, and the impact of pricing and assortment decisions. Andrius Juozapaitis, co-founder and CEO of Algori, noted that the shopper panel industry is experiencing a fundamental transformation, as manufacturers and retailers increasingly expect faster delivery of more detailed data, something traditional panels are not equipped to provide at the necessary level of depth. He explains: Our approach diverges by combining artificial intelligence technology, scale, and data recency. Outside of VC funds, we’re now backed by FMCG companies intent on solving their own data challenges. It’s an enormous endorsement from within the industry, and proof FMCG stakeholders understand the value of the most granular, high-frequency purchase insights platform for Europe and beyond. The new funding will support Algori’s planned expansion into multiple European markets, including Poland, Germany, and France, followed by Latin America. It will also enhance the company’s shopper panel capabilities through broader purchase and behavioural data collection and accelerate the development of new AI-enabled insight solutions to better meet the evolving needs of FMCG manufacturers and retailers.

French cybersecurity software vendor Evertrust has closed a €10 million Series A round from the fund Elephant, which will support the company’s growth strategy, including team expansion, product development, and international scaling. Founded in 2017 by Kamel Ferchouche (CEO), Jean-Julien Alvado (CTO) and Étienne Laviolette (COO), Evertrust has evolved from a digital trust consulting firm into a provider of an in-house software suite covering both PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) for issuing and managing digital certificates, and CLM (Certificate Lifecycle Management) for automating their lifecycle. By offering an integrated solution, Evertrust has positioned itself as an important player in the management and governance of digital certificates, which are essential cryptographic components used for authentication, encryption, signing, and securing digital communications. Evertrust’s flagship software, Horizon, enables organisations to maintain control over their digital identities by automating certificate management across servers, mobile devices, connected objects, on-premises infrastructures, and SaaS environments. Its Stream solution complements this by providing a complete PKI infrastructure, supporting security and trust across clients’ digital systems. By combining both PKI and CLM in a single platform, while most other vendors focus on just one of these areas, Evertrust is well-positioned to meet the needs of large organisations seeking to secure their digital infrastructures amid the rapid growth of digital certificates and the significant reduction in their validity periods. As part of its development, Evertrust recently obtained CSPN certification from the French National Cybersecurity Agency (ANSSI) for its PKI platform. This certification confirms the robustness of Evertrust’s technology and strengthens its credibility, particularly with public and semi-public organisations for which certification is a mandatory selection criterion. The company is also aligned with digital sovereignty objectives, offering solutions designed and hosted in Europe, outside the reach of extraterritorial jurisdictions, and compliant with international standards such as eIDAS and NIST. Commenting on the funding round, Kamel Ferchouche, CEO of Evertrust, said that the company welcomes Elephant’s vote of confidence, noting that this backing will be key to reinforcing Evertrust’s position as a global player in the fast-changing digital trust market, where demand for independent, sovereign solutions is growing under mounting commercial and regulatory pressure. The new investment will enable Evertrust to strengthen its position as a European player and accelerate its expansion into new markets. The company plans to use these funds to grow its sales and technical teams, with headcount expected to triple within five years. Evertrust also aims to accelerate the development of its network of reseller-integrator partners for managed security services (MSSPs), moving from a primarily direct sales model in France to an indirect distribution model in major European and international markets.

Today Romanian-founded SaaS marketplace Tekpon has acquired 100 per cent of the TNW media and events brands from the FT. The financials of the deal have not been disclosed, but the transaction is Tekpon’s largest investment in media and events so far. Alexandru Stan is CEO of Tekpon, a SaaS marketplace he founded in 2020 after building 21 companies and exiting five.  In late 2025, he quietly acquired TNW from the FT — without seeing any financials before signing the deal.  I spoke to him about why he bought TNW, his view on the role of journalism, what the new editorial strategy will look like, and how he plans to position TNW in Europe’s evolving tech ecosystem. From SaaS entrepreneur to media owner Founded in 2020, Tekpon is a marketplace and buying/ procurement service for software (especially SaaS & AI tools). It helps businesses discover, compare, and purchase software through a combination of a software tool directory and a human-led procurement service.  Stan describes himself as a serial entrepreneur:  “I built 21 companies, did five exits, the rest failed — which is normal for an entrepreneur.  In 2020, I launched Tekpon with former co-founders from previous businesses. We built a SaaS marketplace with the idea of becoming the first honest software review platform.” When I queried Stan to understand the state of the financials at TNW, he admitted,  “The deal happened without me seeing any data. TNW is so well-known—especially across Europe and the US—that the brand’s strength alone meant they didn’t show me anything.” The acquisition is part of Tekpon’s long-term plan to build an international ecosystem connecting software, media, events, advisory, and innovation. “TNW was too small for FT” I wanted to understand why Stan thinks TNW was closed down. I mean, I’ve heard everything from the post-COVID financials to the lack of profitability of its much-esteemed annual conference.  Stan asserts: “The Financial Times is extremely powerful. TNW was a strong brand and community—but too small for the FT. TNW wasn’t a business that could generate a billion dollars in annual revenue It’s like someone very rich buying a bicycle: it doesn’t matter to them.” According to the deal with FT, TNW’s brand and editorial standards will be maintained, while its events and digital platforms will be integrated into Tekpon’s wider strategy. The FT will continue to own and operate TNW Spaces, offering private offices and coworking spaces that support a thriving community of startups, scale-ups, and innovators. TNW will support all major European ecosystems—Germany, France, Spain, the Netherlands, the Nordics, and more, as well as Romania, even though it’s still a small market.  When asked about verticals or niches, Stan says TNW will stay away from politics and by default defencetech, but focus on: AI, especially startups with a positive societal impact. The software industry. What’s next in tech, staying true to the brand’s name. M&A and investment insights: “We have multiple M&A partners in Tekpon’s community who give us information months before it becomes public as well as a community of 136,000 people at Tekpon who can provide insights from across the ecosystem. Journalists can turn those insights into real news. It will become very powerful for Europe.” TNW staff to have independence — and better conditions Tekpon already hosts annual awards, an AI summit, a podcast and a magazine. With this in mind, I asked Stan about editorial independence. He asserts that “independence is essential. Tekpon makes money selling software. We take commissions on HubSpot, Monday.com, etc." "This means TNW can stay 100 per cent independent. We don’t need to mix software sales with journalism.” However, Stan also admitted that he loves writing, saying, “I’ll be involved daily in finding what’s interesting in the market, supporting the community, and avoiding conflicts of interest. I’ll help the newsroom understand what deserves coverage, but journalists will stay independent.” And, he shared that he has no intention of making journalists work for peanuts. “I care about people first. I want them to have a good life and the means to perform well.”   Stan is undecided on how many journalists the publication will fund throughout Europe, but shared that the company is calculating how many new quality pieces it needs monthly.  He asserts: “If I need 10 people, 20, or even 30, I’ll hire them. And if I need capital, it’s easy to raise it.” According to Stan, the first order of business is to transfer the 100,000-plus TNW articles currently in FT's possession.  Plans for 2026 include an expanded TNW Conference, new SaaS and AI program tracks curated by Tekpon, and cross-regional executive programmes. The brand also plans to launch a 1,000-member exclusive TNW community called TNW Inner Circle — an exclusive community for founders and executives. It aims to help members succeed and to make Europe more competitive globally. “Europe doesn’t fully know what’s coming, so we need strong networks” shared Stan. “I’m a big fan of real journalism. I analyse articles deeply—why something was written, what’s behind it. There are not many tough tech journalists — you are one of them —, and Europe needs them. With TNW, I want people — executives, founders — to share things they don’t usually share in public. That’s how we’ll build something meaningful.” The state of tech media in Europe It's not been an easy year for Europe’s tech media. Private equity firm Regent LP bought Techcrunch from Yahoo Inc. in March 2025 and shed the vast majority of its European office.  June saw European layoffs at Business Insider by 21 per cent, and  TNW’s media and event management closed in September.  That said, it's not all doom and gloom. Defender Media was launched in April. etn began its YouTube channel in September, and Pathfounders started publishing articles in October.  In June, The Recursive tripled revenue, and announced the launch of a global advisory board. Resiliience Media bagged funding in August. Tech.eu recently celebrated our 12th birthday. There are other acquisitions, too. Silicon Canals was sold to Brown Brothers Media in September, while EU-Startups was sold to MeOut Group in November. These moves reflect a broader consolidation across European tech media—but also raise questions about editorial integrity and long-term strategy. However, the most controversial example is Silicon Canals, which has rapidly shifted away from its original newsroom model and now resembles an AI-driven content mill producing low-quality, click-optimised articles at scale. Having seen this pattern before, I’m wary. As I noted on LinkedIn, I previously worked at ReadWriteWeb — once one of the world’s top ten tech blogs, syndicated by The New York Times and ranked in Technorati’s top 100. After multiple ownership changes, it too devolved into AI-generated clickbait. It devalues the ecosystem for us all. That said, competition is always a good thing. There are enough stories in Europe for all of us. Disclosure: I’m a former Senior Writer at TNW, where I focused primarily on mobility. TNW always felt like FT’s errant little brother compared to the more stoic Sifted — but being under the FT banner had its perks.  People recognised the FT name, even if they’d never heard of your publication. And it’s the only newsroom I’ve ever worked for that paid out a Christmas bonus — much less to freelancers — so for that alone it has a place in my heart.

There are a whopping 64,142 people currently living with dementia in Ireland. With age being the leading risk factor for dementia, this number is expected to rise alongside population ageing to 150,131 by 2045. Dementia describes a group of symptoms that affect memory, thinking, and social abilities severely enough to interfere with daily life. Among its many forms, Alzheimer’s disease is the most common, accounting for 60–70 per cent of dementia cases worldwide. With millions of people and families impacted globally, early and accurate diagnosis has never been more critical. MemoryTell is a digital health tool that uses speech-based biomarkers to support the early detection of dementia. Instead of relying on lengthy memory tests or medical imaging, it analyses short recordings of a person speaking — looking at patterns in language, rhythm, pauses, and acoustics that research shows can signal cognitive decline.  I spoke to Corrina Grimes to learn all about it.  Turning a research breakthrough into a clinical tool Grimes started in health and social care 25 years ago as a clinician, and then moved into policy and commissioning.  Parallel to that, in 2017, she became an Atlantic Fellow at the Global Brain Health Institute, affiliated with Trinity College Dublin and UCSF in San Francisco. That’s when she became interested in brain health and how to reduce the scale and impact of dementia through a life-course approach, and where she met Adolfo García, a neuroscientist who spent 15 years researching how speech can be used as a biomarker. Garcia is an internationally recognised neuroscientist with 200+ publications and a global authority in speech biomarkers and brain health, and he has already developed a tool called TELL — “Toolkit to Examine Life-Like Language”. The duo joined forces with Fernando Johann, an engineer and serial entrepreneur with two successful exits, venture capital experience, and experience scaling tech to international markets to co-found MemoryTell, to take the technology from the lab to frontline services in Europe.  MemoryTell’s real-time speech analysis supports dementia diagnosis While in relatively early stages, MemoryTell is a web-based AI platform that records, transcribes, and analyses a person’s speech and provides a real-time report to support clinicians in diagnosing and monitoring dementia. MemoryTell’s approach makes analysis objective. The AI compares a person’s speech against a dataset of 13,000 clinically coded records — labelled with disease status and validated in clinical practice, plus healthy volunteers. A 10-minute, non-invasive assessment designed for primary care A person engages in a short conversation or performs structured speech tasks (e.g. picture description, story-retelling, spontaneous speech) that are recorded.  Advanced algorithms analyse the recording. They extract a large number of acoustic features (pauses, speed, tone, prosody, silence duration, jitter, etc.) and linguistic features (lexical diversity, syntactic complexity, fluency/disfluency, phrase structure, word usage, etc.). The speech is compared against a validated database of prior speech samples from people with known clinical status (healthy, MCI, dementia).  Using machine-learning or statistical classifiers (or, in some newer approaches, deep learning), the system estimates the likelihood that the speech sample corresponds to cognitive impairment, or flags patterns indicative of early signs of neurodegenerative disease. The output is packaged into a real-time result/report that clinicians can view. Over time, repeated assessments allow tracking of changes in speech biomarkers — useful to monitor disease progression, cognitive decline, or possibly responses to interventions/therapies. MemoryTell slots into primary care with fast, consistent dementia assessment “It doesn’t diagnose, but it provides a proposed classification that helps clinicians,” explained Grimes. According to Grimes: “Our first use case focuses on people who present to their GP with symptoms and are then referred for assessment.  Providing an alternative to invasive assessments Across Europe, the diagnostic pathway varies — in some countries, initial assessments happen in primary care, while in others they’re carried out in specialist memory clinics — but MemoryTell is designed to slot naturally into the primary-care stage because it offers a quick, non-invasive 10-minute assessment with real-time, objective scoring.” It's an approach that contrasts with today’s common methods, which typically rely on pen-and-paper psychometric tests such as the ACE-III, alongside clinical conversations, multidisciplinary meetings, functional assessments, and, when needed, further diagnostics like MRI, lumbar puncture, or other scans. “Further, it provides longitudinal tracking — something our systems lack today. Speech biomarkers can objectively track disease progression or the efficacy of new treatments over time.” It can also be used to plan other interventions — including social care — as conditions progress. It’s an objective, consistent way to document change.” And, unlike other tests, results are instant. The healthcare provider receives a real-time PDF or API-delivered report. There’s no waiting period. MemoryTell is currently developing validation studies, which will assist in determining whether (and how) the tool assists with: Screening, Prioritising waiting lists. Shortening diagnostic timelines. “It won’t replace other tests, but it can be used earlier in the pathway, and it’s faster than standard care,” detailed Grimes. Momentum builds after winning Catalyst Invent 2025 MemoryTell has been received positively from healthcare providers and clinicians, policymakers, and government — “you don’t usually get that 3D level of support,” admits Grimes.  “Investors have also been extremely positive. Being part of the Global Brain Health Institute also brings credibility, and we have strong institutional letters of support." In October 2025, MemoryTell won big in the Catalyst Invent startup competition, winning the bio breakthrough category and the overall category, which has generated a lot of momentum. Further, Grimes asserts that “a lot of people have been personally impacted by dementia, so they understand the mission: shifting from invasive, subjective tests to something faster, more dignified, and more objective.” Once it obtains CE marking, MemoryTell will be a software-as-a-service medical device. The first customers will be public sector primary care and memory clinics, then the private sector. “Many startups go private first, but for us, the mission is rooted in public services,” shared Grimes.  “I have 25 years’ experience working across health systems — policy, commissioning, service redesign — so I understand the implementation challenges from inside the system.” From here, MemoryTell’s priorities focus on completing clinical validation studies, advancing its regulatory strategy, building a robust quality-management system, securing CE marking, forming partnerships across Europe, and applying for targeted European grants to support further development and deployment.

News service Freepress has raised €1M in seed funding to advance its platform and prepare for international expansion. The AI-powered service plans to enter global markets in collaboration with local publishers, sharing up to half of its revenue to help sustain quality journalism. Freepress curates verified news from multiple global sources and presents it as concise, bite-sized stories in users’ own languages, making international news easier to follow. Founded in 2023 by Joel Uussaari and Aleksi Kaistinen and launched in Finland in autumn 2025, its AI acts as a virtual news editor, analysing hundreds of thousands of publicly available and licensed articles from multiple countries and generating key information on each topic in the user’s language. Users can follow news events from different countries in real time or have Freepress track them automatically. When the international media covers a chosen topic, the service sends a notification. According to Joel Uussaari, CEO of Freepress, AI enables a level of information organisation that allows the service to deliver exactly the news readers want, without requiring them to search for it: "Through Freepress, publishers can reach readers outside their own language and market area. For publishers, this means reaching audiences far beyond their home market." Freepress provides its AI-generated news content free of charge and complements it with quality journalism from publishers in various countries. The company shares up to half of its revenue from both consumer and business users with publishers and is in discussions with several international media partners. Freepress also plans to expand to additional languages and markets and, alongside its consumer service, is developing business tools for content use, media monitoring, and market behaviour forecasting.

Paris-based Corma, a SaaS management solution that helps IT teams better control software usage and sprawl, has raised €3.5 million in seed funding. The round was led by XTX Ventures, with follow-on investments from Tuesday Capital, Kima Ventures, 50 Partners, and Olympe Capital. It also includes participation from business angels such as Thomas Wolf (co-founder of Hugging Face), Jean-Louis Quéguiner (co-founder of Gladia), and Doreen Pernel (CSO of Scaleway). Internal software stacks have grown more than tenfold, turning software into a drag on productivity and financial performance. At the same time, tracking and understanding software costs has become increasingly complex due to company growth, evolving workforces, new subscriptions, and changing business models. As the number of tools grows, many IT departments lack clear visibility into how many applications are in use, how much is being spent, and whether those tools are actually delivering value. Founded in 2023, Corma focuses on helping small and mid-size companies understand, manage, and optimise their software spend. Developed in response to the rapid expansion of software tools and rising AI-related complexity, the platform aims to bring greater clarity and efficiency to software management while providing a stronger foundation for productivity. Its specialised agents collect key information such as licence renewal terms, authorised users, and usage metrics, giving organisations an accurate view of their software landscape. This enables more informed investment decisions, helping reduce overall spend by up to 20 per cent and saving hundreds of hours on provisioning and access reviews. We see teams everywhere that are overwhelmed by the number of apps they need to manage every day. They lose money left and right and spend their day on operational tasks instead of strategic initiatives. At the same time, the risks of data leaks and access abuse increase with the rise of Shadow AI and overall permission sprawl, says co-founder and CEO Héloïse Rozès. The funding will be used primarily for product development, AI buildout, and commercial expansion.

Last week, we tracked more than 65 tech funding deals worth over €1.3 billion, and over 15 exits, M&A transactions, rumours, and related news stories across Europe.Click to read the rest of the news.