Today data storage and cloud infrastructure company Qumulo announced the official launch of its European Software R&D hub in Cork. 

Through this strategic expansion, Qumulo will create 50 highly skilled R&D positions in the coming three years to solve the major challenges for data management at enormous scale and scope for global business.

Information, derived from data, is now the core asset driving the modern global economy. The success of autonomous AI systems integrated into business operations depends on their ability to make real-time decisions with instant, trustworthy access to colossal datasets. 

This new R&D and Customer Success hub in Cork is a recognition of the challenges and opportunities presented by this new global, digital landscape.

This team will research and develop solutions to enable the secure, frictionless, and instantaneous transfer of exabyte-scale workloads across the globe, delivering the trusted, AI-ready data requirement to power next-generation enterprise applications.

For Qumulo's global customers, this new site in Cork will also see an expansion of its Customer Success team in the region. 

This project is supported by the Irish Government through IDA Ireland.

Minister for Enterprise, Tourism & Employment, Peter Burke TD, said:

“Qumulo’s decision to establish a new European software R&D hub in Cork is a strong endorsement of Cork as a location where cutting-edge engineering and global ambition meet.

It highlights the depth of talent emerging from our universities, the strength of the region’s technology ecosystem, and Ireland’s ability to support companies delivering pioneering innovation on a global scale.

“After actively reviewing a wide variety of options for our second R&D centre, we found that the stellar third-level institutions in the South-West were the basis for a deep talent pool in Cork,” said Qumulo Chief Technology Officer Kiran Bhageshpur.

“Additionally, the excellent support infrastructure for companies like Qumulo provided by IDA Ireland made Cork the obvious choice for us to build a team focused on leveraging AI to help businesses manage global-scale data infrastructure.” 

AI is everywhere right now; startups are playing with generative models, governments are debating new rules and the whole industry feels like it’s in a state of constant motion. But not all innovation is loud or flashy.

Behind closed doors, companies across the continent are pouring resources into tools that make everyday work less painful. Legal teams might not be the first place people look for tech upgrades, but they’re right in the thick of it. These teams have always been the compliance gatekeepers, especially important in Europe with its maze of regulations. The problem? Legal workflows can get bogged down fast; think endless email chains, clunky spreadsheets and manual approvals that slow everything to a crawl.

That’s starting to change. More and more tech companies are turning to automation to modernise their legal processes. The aim is simple: Cut out the friction, boost compliance and free legal professionals from tedious admin so they can actually focus on the bigger picture.

Automation is becoming the backbone of Europe’s tech industry

In major tech hubs like London, Berlin and Paris, companies aren’t just adding AI to their products, they’re weaving it right into their operations.

There’s a big reason for this: Regulation. Europe has set itself up as a leader in responsible AI, with regulations like the EU’s AI Act setting the tone. Sure, tighter rules can add some extra hoops to jump through, but a lot of companies see this as a chance to build more trustworthy tech. But stricter rules also mean more headaches for legal teams.

They’re juggling vendor agreements, procurement sign-offs, data governance and compliance paperwork, usually across multiple countries. For any business with a presence in several European markets, things get complicated fast. Trying to manage all this by hand just doesn’t work anymore. That’s why we’re seeing more companies invest in systems that automate these internal legal processes while keeping everything transparent and compliant.

Legal workflow automation platforms are taking off

Legal teams aren’t just sticking with old-school case management or basic document storage. Now, many organisations are adopting platforms built specifically to handle internal requests and processes.

Take Tonkean legal works, for example. It’s part of a bigger platform focused on automating enterprise intake and orchestrating workflows. Instead of drowning in email requests, legal teams can manage everything through structured forms and automated routing. The system takes care of assigning tasks, tracking progress and making sure the right people are involved at every step.

This shift is bigger than any one tool. Across Europe’s tech industry, companies are moving away from isolated AI projects and embedding automation directly into everyday work. In practise, employees don’t have to send messy, unstructured emails to legal anymore. They fill out guided forms and the platform handles the rest; routing requests, assigning tasks and tracking everything along the way.

For businesses dealing with mountains of procurement contracts, vendor reviews or compliance checks, this kind of software isn’t just helpful, it’s a game changer.

How automation is changing legal work

For a lot of people in the legal world, the biggest win from workflow automation is just being able to see what’s going on. Forget endless email threads, lost files and wondering who’s supposed to approve what. Automation platforms bring order to the chaos, laying out each step from start to finish so nothing gets lost in the shuffle.

Modern legal workflow tools now come packed with features that are quickly becoming must-haves.

Structured intake systems

No more chasing down missing info or trying to decode vague requests. With automation, employees fill out forms that ask the right questions up front, so legal teams get all the details they need right away. That alone cuts down on a ton of back-and-forth emails.

Intelligent routing

AI steps in here, figuring out what kind of request it is and sending it straight to the right person or team. Complicated, high-stakes contracts go to senior lawyers, while more routine stuff gets picked up by junior staff or even handled automatically.

Automated task coordination

Once a request lands in the system, it gets assigned out automatically. The software tracks deadlines and sends reminders, so there’s no need to chase down colleagues for updates.

Clear compliance oversight

Every step in the workflow gets logged, which means companies have a solid audit trail. That kind of visibility matters, especially now, with regulators in Europe paying closer attention than ever.

In the end, legal teams get to spend less time wrangling processes and more time doing real legal work; analysing, negotiating and managing risk.

Why European companies are adopting these tools

Legal workflow automation isn’t just a trend in Europe, it’s becoming the new normal and there are a few reasons for that:

• Rising regulatory pressure.
• Hybrid work is here to stay.
• Legal talent is hard to find.
• Data-driven operations.

So, the future of AI in Europe’s tech world? It’s not just about smarter products. It’s about building smarter ways to work, helping companies move quickly, stay sharp and always play by the rules.

The boss of the VC firm that hit the headlines when it snapped up Yann LeCun and Nick Clegg says it invested around €50m in a co-leading investment in LeCun’s much-hyped world model startup AMI Labs, as part of the startup’s $1bn plus raise announced earlier this year.

Hiro Capital's investment- co-led with Cathay Innovation, Greycroft, HV Capital and Jeff Bezos’ Bezos Expeditions-marks the first deployment out of Hiro Capital’s Hiro lll fund, a €500m-plus fund investing in spatial AI, robotics, games, space and defence, which Hiro is still out raising for.

New fund

On raising funds for the fund, Luke Alvarez, Hiro Capital co-founder and managing general partner, says: “We are in process. We have really good demand from institutional investors and sovereign wealth funds.” 

However, Alvarez did not share any names of the investors in Hiro lll, citing client confidentiality. 

The fund is investing at a multi-stage level, deploying cheques of between €5m and €50m, targeting the so-called scale-up capital gap in Europe.

Clegg, Meta’s former president of global affairs and former UK deputy prime minister, joined Hiro as a general partner, while LeCun, Meta’s former chief AI scientist, joined its advisory board.

Hiro’s strategy is to lead or co-lead an investment round but it’s “not religious about it”, Alvarez said.

Would Hiro, based in London and Luxembourg, invest in a Large Language Model company, like France's Mistral, or another world model company like AMI Labs?

Alvarez said: “We have done one investment in world models. We probably won’t do more of those. We are really interested in applications of those world models, in things like autonomy and robotics. We certainly don’t think there is much opportunity to invest at this point in competitors to Anthropic and OpenAI for language and code foundation models.”

Appointment of LeCun

Hiro’s appointment of LeCun in December last year to its advisory board appears to be an act of foresight, given Hiro’s investment in AMI Labs just months later.

Alvarez said: “With our relationship with Yann, we did get an early heads up that he was leaving Meta and was going to set up this amazing thing. And we thought that is so perfect within our strategy, we absolutely would like an opportunity to invest in that and maybe lead it. And that is what happened.”

Hiro has a core investing team of around 10 investors, mostly based in London, with a couple in Europe, which is complemented by Hiro’s advisory board, which also includes former Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and British astronaut Tim Peake.

The advisors are partly employed to help unearth the most promising companies of tomorrow in their specialist areas.

“We get amazing AI entrepreneurs who want to work with us because of Yann,” says Alvarez.

Appointment of Clegg

Hiro is Clegg’s main gig, says Alvarez, with the former deputy prime minister also sitting on the boards of UK AI startup Nscale and edtech firm Efekta.

Alvarez says: “It’s his relationship with Yann, who is an old friend of his, who brought Yann into our orbit and our advisory board. He has been great on intros, great on deal flows, lots of people reach out to him because of his time at Silicon Valley. In due course, he will sit on the board of Hiro Capital’s portfolio firms."

Last year, Clegg caused a bit of an uproar when he said a multibillion-dollar tech agreement announced to coincide with Donald Trump’s state visit to the UK represented “sloppy seconds from Silicon Valley”.

Clegg said the deals, heralded with great fanfare by the UK government, were “mutton dressed as lamb” and would make the country ever more reliant on US tech.

Alvarez says: “I think Nick and the rest of our team are strong believers that Europe needs to build its own globally significant companies.”

Investing in founders

So what does Hiro look for in today’s founders?

He says: “Our fund is predicated on the thesis that we are in the early years of a platform shift in tech. These platform shifts come along every 15 or 20 years. The next big shift is where computing moves off the 2D screen in your pocket or on your desktop and into the world around us.

"And where AI moves off of language and into atoms and manufacturing and logistics and movement of people. So we want entrepreneurs who are swimming in the tools of the technology that makes that possible. And want to build really big generational ambitious things that make the world better.”

Why should founders choose Hiro?

Why should Hiro, founded in 2018, win, given the best startups have many suitors?

Alvarez points to the dearth of big funds, like Hiro, in Europe, compared to the US.

Allied to that, he says: “Part of the difference with Hiro is we are all founders and entrepreneurs. In a European venture, that kind of founder-led background to funds is quite unusual.”

Alvarez, who previously founded and was CEO of Inspired Entertainment, says he has four IPOs under his belt while his co-founder Ian Livingstone, an entrepreneur who helped bring to life Tomb Raider’s Lara Croft and the Warhammer fantasy games, has five unicorn exits to his name.

The third co-founder is LoveCrafts co-founder Cherry Freeman.

Hiro to date

Hiro, founded in 2018, started out backing development studios, esports and other gaming innovations across the UK and Europe.

It also has a focus on the metaverse and takes its name from the character Hiro Protagonist in Neil Stephenson’s 1992 novel Snow Crash, which came up with the name metaverse. Hiro lll is its third main fund to date.

Alvarez says: “Our first two funds are performing in the top quartile to top decile of venture funds of their equivalent vintages.”

Europe is racing to secure the critical raw materials needed for its energy transition, yet remains heavily dependent on imports — particularly from China.

At the same time, a growing volume of end-of-life batteries is creating a domestic source of lithium, graphite, and other materials that has, until now, been difficult to recover at scale. Battery recycling startup tozero has launched its first industrial demonstration plant in Germany, marking a step toward turning end-of-life batteries into a domestic supply of critical raw materials at scale.

The plant will deliver recycled lithium and graphite to companies across sectors, including construction, ceramics, and lubricants, with further materials and industries to follow.

Located in Bavaria at Chemical Park Gendorf, the plant can process more than 1.500t of battery waste every year. From this waste, tozero can produce high-purity lithium carbonate – the equivalent of saving 6,000 electric vehicles' worth of batteries from landfill – and recover graphite and nickel-cobalt mix.

Founded in 2022 by Sarah Fleischer, a serial entrepreneur and mechanical engineer, and Dr Ksenija Milicevic Neumann, a leading metallurgy expert, tozero has scaled at pace.

In April 2024, nine months after opening its pilot facility, it became the first company in Europe to deliver recycled lithium to commercial customers. 

I spoke to Sarah Fleischer, Co-founder and CEO of tozero, to learn more about how the company is not only scaling its own operations, but effectively creating a playbook for an emerging industry. 

Europe’s critical materials paradox: reliant on imports, rich in waste

Global demand for lithium is set to quadruple by 2030, while in the EU alone, graphite demand is expected to rise by up to 25 times by 2040, driven by EVs, grid-scale storage and industrial electrification. 

Yet Europe remains almost entirely reliant on imports – China controls global graphite supplies, and 99% of Europe's lithium comes from abroad.  Ironically, Europe is sitting on a stockpile of the very materials it's scrambling to source from the growing number of end-of-life batteries, largely due to Europe’s growth in EVs 

With demand expected to exceed supply by over 33% from 2035, battery recycling is becoming essential — and tozero is aiming to help bridge the gap.

“Yes, it works”: how tozero validated its recycling tech with OEMs

tozero’s approach to battery recycling is fundamentally different from conventional methods. By deploying a proprietary acid-free, hydrometallurgy process, it focuses on low-temperature, water-based chemical processing rather than burning batteries.

Building on this, the company aims to close the battery materials loop and support Europe’s ambition to achieve greater independence in critical raw materials. This aligns with the EU Critical Raw Materials Act, which calls for 25 per cent of supply to come from recycling sources. 

tozero's recycling takes place in a single cycle, and the recovered materials are pure enough to feed directly back into manufacturing.  tozero has already demonstrated successful qualification of its recycled lithium and graphite for lithium-ion batteries with leading cathode and anode manufacturers. 

Through pilots with OEMs, including BMW, tozero has been able to validate both the flexibility of its recycling process and its ability to meet future regulatory requirements. Fleischer notes that the inbound interest itself was an early signal of market demand:

“First of all, they approached us for the pilots, which I think is already a strong statement about the demand for verifying whether this type of recycling actually works.”

She explains that tozero’s approach differs fundamentally from conventional recycling methods:

“What we’re doing is very novel — it has not been done before. 

Conventional battery recycling is based on burning batteries at very high temperatures, around 1,400 degrees. It’s called pyrometallurgy. You can extract nickel and cobalt that way, but lithium and graphite are essentially lost in the process. That’s where we come in.”

Working with multiple OEMs — including partners that remain undisclosed due to NDAs — the pilots were designed to answer two core questions:

“First: is our process agnostic? Can we handle different battery chemistries? Every OEM has a different battery.

 Second: can we recover critical materials like lithium, and can we meet regulatory requirements — for example, the 2031 European Battery Directive, which requires over 80 per cent recovery of critical raw materials?”

The results, she says, came earlier than expected:

“That’s what we were able to demonstrate. From a very early stage, we could already show recovery rates that meet those future requirements.”

Ultimately, the pilots confirmed both the technical robustness and regulatory readiness of the process:

“So the key learning is: yes, our process is chemistry-agnostic, and yes, we already comply with future EU recovery regulations — even though they only come into force in 2031.”

Turning material science into real-world supply

Tozero has achieved significant growth by embracing a lean, agile mindset with a team of just over 30. 

“In just under four years, tozero has gone from lab-scale experiments to industrial operations, and we’re consistently proving that recycling isn't just a pilot project – it can be delivered at a level capable of giving Europe a homegrown, circular supply of critical materials its future runs on." 

Fleischer sees the team’s ability to move fast and focus on execution as critical:

“We don’t just talk — we deliver. We shipped our first lithium carbonate to customers in 2024, starting with hundreds of kilos. Now we’re moving to tonnes with the demonstration plant. That early delivery is critical.

This is material science — if you don’t work directly with customers, you can’t improve the product. So our approach is simple: we do it, we learn from customer feedback, and we iterate quickly.”

From chemistry to geopolitics: why lithium and graphite recovery matters now

As a deep tech company, tozero has focused heavily on understanding the behaviour of lithium and graphite at a chemical level — what they respond to, and what they don’t — as the foundation of its process.

“That allows us to extract them efficiently.”

Fleischer points in particular to the growing importance of graphite, driven by shifting supply chain dynamics and increasing geopolitical pressure. She argues that while the European Union is still defining what a comprehensive critical raw materials strategy looks like in practice, other regions have long treated this as a strategic priority:

“If you look at the US, they defined this decades ago — already in the 1930s — to secure materials essential for industrial growth.”

Europe, by contrast, remains heavily dependent on imports for materials tied to energy independence — particularly from China. More than 90 per cent of refined lithium is imported, while graphite supply is even more concentrated, with close to 99 per cent sourced from China. This imbalance is already translating into rising demand across industries:

“That’s why we’re seeing a lot of inbound interest from customers. It’s not just the battery industry — you also have glass, ceramics, lubricants, and cement industries that depend on these materials. They can’t substitute them, and their margins are tight.”

Ultimately, Fleischer argues, graphite is becoming increasingly strategic not just because of its applications, but because of how concentrated its supply is:

“So graphite matters because it’s both critical and highly concentrated in terms of supply.”

Beyond sustainability: winning on price

Fleischer says this required a fundamental rethink of how to position the business: “

We see ourselves as the miner of tomorrow.”

Early on, the company explored charging a premium for its lower-emissions approach, but quickly abandoned the idea:

“At the beginning, we thought about charging a green premium — because recycling reduces emissions. But very quickly we realised that no one is willing to pay extra for that. It’s an ideology, but it doesn’t hold in real markets, especially where margins are tight.”

Instead, tozero reframed its model around cost advantage:

“So we shifted to the idea of a green discount.”

She argues that, at a fundamental level, recycling should outperform mining on efficiency:

“From a physics perspective, recycling should be cheaper. When you mine, you might extract 0.2 per cent usable material from the earth. In batteries, you have around 4 per cent concentration of materials like lithium. So it’s much more efficient.”

This underpins the company’s long-term benchmark: “Our goal is to have a cash cost that is about half that of a Chinese miner. That’s the benchmark.”

Competing on global markets means aligning closely with price dynamics set by dominant producers:

“If Chinese producers go cheap, we need to be cheaper. If they lose money, we need to remain sustainable. That’s how we position ourselves — as a competitive, alternative source of raw materials.”

At the same time, Fleischer emphasises that recycling is not a replacement for mining, but part of a broader supply mix:

“We don’t believe recycling will replace mining entirely — demand is growing too fast — but it will become a key complementary source.”

Tozero’s approach not only enables the industry to re-use both current and future materials from this stockpile, while reducing the reliance on virgin materials, but it also creates a circular, domestic supply chain that strengthens Europe's competitiveness in the global race for next-generation energy technologies.

Building the blueprint for Europe’s battery recycling plants

Following its success, the industrial demo plant will now form the blueprint for a full-scale commercial operation planned for 2030, capable of producing thousands of tonnes of lithium carbonate and graphite. 

It also lays a foundation for Europe’s ability to secure a sustainable and independent supply of the critical raw materials its growing battery industry needs. 

While tozero wants to operate its own plants for now, because it provides more control over optimisation and improvement, tozero is working with partners. In 2025, it signed an MOU with JGC Corporation, one of the largest engineering companies globally. 

According to  Fleischer, they’ve built thousands of industrial plants, including for companies like Aramco, so they bring strong expertise. 

“There are multiple ways for us to scale — both independently and through partnerships.”

"Europe must take more risks.”

Building a truly circular battery ecosystem in Europe will require not just technology, but a shift in how risk and capital are deployed, Fleischer argues. She points to a more conservative approach compared to other regions, particularly when it comes to backing emerging players: 

"Europe needs to take more risks.

In other regions, you see multiple companies being supported at the same time, creating competition and increasing the chances of success. In Europe, we tend to back one company — and if it fails, we stop investing in that area.”

Access to capital — especially for industrial-scale projects — remains another key bottleneck:

“We also need to improve access to capital, especially for industrial projects. That includes debt financing for CapEx at earlier stages.”

There’s also still a tendency for institutions to prioritise large, established companies over smaller, innovative ones. Ultimately, she argues, the issue is not a lack of capital, but how it is deployed:

“It’s not that Europe lacks money — it’s that the money is not always deployed in a way that supports breakthrough innovation.”

And from here on in, she asserts,  “We’re just getting started — oh, and we’re hiring.”

The Munich startup’s demo plant at Chemical Park Gendorf in Bavaria processes 1,500 tonnes of battery waste a year and produces 100 tonnes of high-purity lithium carbonate, at costs the company says are twice as competitive as conventional miners. A full-scale facility capable of 45,000 tonnes per year is planned for 2030. Europe has a […]

OpenAI has shelved its plans to add an erotic “adult mode” to ChatGPT indefinitely, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday, capping a five-month saga in which the feature was announced with confidence, delayed twice, and ultimately abandoned after pushback from staff, advisors, and investors. The retreat is the third major product reversal for OpenAI in […]

Blossom Health, a New York-based telepsychiatry startup founded in 2024, has raised $20 million in combined seed and Series A funding to scale an AI-powered platform that pairs psychiatrists with clinical copilots and automated administrative support. The round was led by Headline, whose co-founder and managing partner Mathias Schilling is joining the company’s board. Village […]

Most organizations are not failing at AI because of technology. They are failing because they do not know which data actually matters, and they are scaling that confusion faster than ever. At a time when investment continues to surge, the expectation is that more intelligence will naturally follow. Instead, many teams are finding themselves overwhelmed. […]

Xero, the New Zealand-founded accounting platform used by 4.6 million subscribers worldwide, announced on Wednesday a multi-year partnership with Anthropic that will embed Claude directly into its product and, more unusually, bring Xero’s financial data into Claude.ai itself. The deal means small business owners will be able to ask Claude questions about their cash flow, […]

Shield AI, the San Diego defence technology company behind the autonomous pilot system Hivemind, announced on Wednesday that it has raised $2 billion in combined funding at a $12.7 billion valuation. The company will use part of the proceeds to acquire Aechelon Technology, a simulation platform that supports the Pentagon’s Joint Simulation Environment. The raise […]

If you have ever spent weeks preparing for a compliance audit, manually collecting evidence across spreadsheets, chasing colleagues for policy sign-offs, and wondering whether your controls actually hold up under scrutiny, you already know the problem. Compliance is necessary. The way most companies do it is not. This article contains affiliate links. If you make […]

Deep Science Ventures (DSV), a UK-based deeptech venture creator, and Renaissance Philanthropy, a nonprofit fueling a 21st-century renaissance by increasing the ambition of philanthropists, scientists, and innovators, today announce a venture-creation project designed for systemic intervention in crop resilience.

The project is part of DSV and Renaissance Philanthropy’s existing partnership to form the Climate Emergencies Resilience Lab (CERL).

Moving beyond traditional genetic modification, the initiative establishes a high-ambition roadmap to address the economic threat of climate-induced crop failures by creating commercially viable, deep-tech spin-outs.

By 2050, climate-driven agricultural collapse and malnutrition could cost the world $1.8 trillion and 887 million years of healthy human life.

This is not a distant projection; recent droughts and heatwaves have already destroyed up to 50 per cent of harvests across California, Southeast Brazil, and the Horn of Africa, while pre-harvest sprouting alone costs more than $1 billion annually.

However, the dominant approach- of engineering crops for permanent genetic resilience is reaching its limits.  Hardwiring heat tolerance into a plant's DNA often results in a "yield penalty" in normal years, while novel traits can take 10+ years to reach the market.

As climate extremes grow less predictable, these static, time-consuming solutions are becoming increasingly unviable for global food security.

However, a convergence of technology breakthroughs means that it is becoming possible to tune resilience in alignment with climate risks.

The DSV and Renaissance Philanthropy partnership has identified three high-growth technical pillars ready for venture creation and institutional backing:

• Forecasted priming to enhance stress pathways and orchestrate developmental processes, combining short-term weather accuracy with biologicals such as RNA or peptides to tune crops in real time. 
• Environment-responsive protectants and field-robust symbiotic microbes, enabling stress tolerance to be outsourced and reliably activated under specific conditions.
• Foundational breeding tools to rapidly expand the available palette of resilience traits, for example, by engineering wild relatives or donor plants to circumvent barriers including crossing, linkage drag and epistasis.

The partners seek to identify and embed specialised talent to lead technical and commercial scoping. These individuals will define a specific market or environmental need and work backwards to build the necessary field-ready data packages.

Unlike traditional models, this approach does not rely on an initial laboratory breakthrough or a chance discovery. 

By intentionally engineering the R&D, regulatory, and IP strategies toward a predetermined outcome, the initiative ensures that innovation is targeted where it can achieve the greatest global economic and nutritional impact.

"We are mapping the white space where science meets commercial markets," said Dom Falcao, co-founding Director at Deep Science Ventures. 

"This is about creating a de-risked pathway that transforms plant science into investment-ready companies. We are providing the systematic architecture to turn primed resilience into a dominant market category."

"Renaissance Philanthropy was built to advance entire fields," said Joshua Elliott, Chief Scientist at Renaissance Philanthropy.

"By furthering our partnership with DSV, we are enabling visionary philanthropic capital to act as a bridge for innovations that are too complex for traditional early-stage funding but too critical to ignore.

The next generation of agricultural tech must exist in the field, protecting livelihoods and preventing the social unrest caused by food insecurity. We look forward to partnering with collaborators, including scientists, funders and other experts, to realise our goals and encourage them to reach out to us." 

The London-based personalised supplement startup, which uses blood biomarker data to formulate individual supplement regimens, will be integrated into Herbalife’s 95-market network. The $55M guaranteed price is paid over five years; up to $95M in additional contingent payments takes the total to $150M. Herbalife has been searching for a credible data-driven answer to the personalisation […]

Bioniq, creator of personalised supplements based on blood biomarker analysis, has entered into an agreement for the sale of its assets to global nutrition company Herbalife.

Founded in 2019, Bioniq develops personalised supplement formulas using its patented product personalisation engine, an individual’s health background, and a proprietary database of biomarkers.

Bioniq’s personalised supplement formulations are designed for a broad range of individuals, from everyday wellness consumers to elite athletes.

Bioniq has built one of the largest proprietary datasets in the category, comprising over 6 million data points collected across five continents. Its patented algorithm identifies micronutrient imbalances and delivers precision daily nutrient support, complemented by one-on-one consultations and ongoing health insights.

Headquartered in London, Bioniq serves customers in more than 70 markets worldwide, including the United States, Europe, and the Middle East.

The Company is backed by prominent investors, including HV Capital and Unbound, as well as elite athletes Cristiano Ronaldo and Diogo Dalot.

Since entering the UAE in 2021, Bioniq has expanded rapidly across the Gulf region through partnerships with the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi and Al Borg Diagnostics in Saudi Arabia.

The $55 million purchase price will be paid over five years, including an initial payment of $10 million at closing. In addition, the transaction value includes up to $95 million of contingent payments based on future performance.

Vadim Fedotov, Founder of Bioniq, will join Herbalife’s leadership team following the completion of the transaction. Key members of the Bioniq team will also transition to Herbalife.

The acquisition will enable Bioniq’s science-driven, personalised supplementation platform to scale globally through Herbalife’s extensive infrastructure, which spans 95 markets, with over 2 million distributors and millions of customers worldwide.

Bioniq’s proprietary algorithm, formulation capabilities, and international team will be integrated into Herbalife’s ecosystem, accelerating product innovation, expanding access, and enhancing the customer experience globally.

“With a professional athletic career behind me, I created Bioniq to make health measurable, actionable, and accessible,” said Vadim Fedotov, Co-Founder and President of Bioniq.  

"Our science-driven approach, proven efficacy, and sustainable business model have positioned us as a leader in personalised nutrition. Joining Herbalife allows us to accelerate our mission and bring personalised health solutions to a global audience at scale.”

“The future of health and wellness is increasingly personalised and data-driven,” said Stephan Gratziani, CEO of Herbalife.

“By combining Bioniq’s technology with our global infrastructure and Pro2col platform, we are uniquely positioned to deliver personalised nutrition to millions of consumers worldwide.“

“Throughout my career, biometrics and personalised nutrition have been central to helping me perform and compete at the highest level. As a longtime Herbalife and Bioniq user, I’ve experienced firsthand how a tailored approach to nutrition can help optimise performance,” said Cristiano Ronaldo. 

“I’m delighted to see Bioniq’s personalised supplements become part of Herbalife’s expanding access to nutritional supplements, helping people take a more informed approach to their health, wellness and performance."

The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2026, subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals. As part of the transaction,

Herbalife also obtained a call option to acquire Bioniq LAB,  a separate platform focused on small molecules and peptides. 

The call option provides Herbalife with strategic flexibility to evaluate potential longer-term opportunities in this area in a disciplined and capital-efficient manner. 

Bioniq’s personalised nutritional supplements are expected to be offered later this year through Herbalife independent distributors for customers in select countries in Europe and the United States, with additional markets to follow.  

The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2026, subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals. 

We don’t get many press pitches about consumer brands these days, so when I heard about a kitchen knife company that had raised VC funding, my interest was piqued. 

Allday Goods is an East London-based kitchenware brand crafting colourful, chef-quality knives. Ex-chef Hugo Worsley started making knives using recycled plastic and a toastie maker in his parents’ shed.

Allday Goods transforms plastic destined for landfill into knife handles, collecting, cleaning, shredding, and remoulding it into durable new forms. The brand quickly built a loyal following, with queues forming around the block for London pop-ups and online drops selling out in minutes. 

Now, Allday Goods has its sights set on becoming a kitchen staple, a vision that is edging closer to reality with a £765,000 cash injection led by FIGR Ventures. FIGR joins founder Hugo Worsley and existing backer Tom Gozney (Gozney Pizza Ovens) on the board as Allday Goods enters its next phase of growth.  

The round also includes Anotherway Ventures, Machroes Holdings (the family office of Lord Mervyn Davies) and a group of angel investors, including reinvestment from Gozney.

Allday Goods is already profitable with minimal external investment to date, challenging the status quo in the venture capital space. 

With new investment and strategic support secured, Allday Goods now enters its next stage of growth without losing the creative edge that defined it from the beginning.

Hugo Worsley, Founder, Allday Goods, commented:

“This is a huge moment for us. We’ve built Allday slowly and intentionally over the past few years, so having people we genuinely admire backing the next chapter feels incredibly special.”

Allday Goods has collaborated with Ottolenghi, Soho House, Maldon Salt, Kerrygold and Paul Smith, and appeared in The World of Interiors and Esquire. In fact, it was in the pages of Esquire that FIGR’s Portfolio Director Ellie Craig first discovered Allday Goods.

Ellie Craig, Portfolio Director, FIGR Ventures, added:

“I’ve followed Allday for years. Drops selling out in seconds and a community that can’t stop talking about the brand – this is what a cult following looks like. Hugo and the team have built something with exceptional foundations of sustainability, craft and a unique design language.

Now is the moment to take Allday from cult status to a kitchen staple.”

In the UK, 53 per cent of high-growth businesses are based outside London, but they receive only 39 per cent of the funding. 

Jenson Brook is a serial entrepreneur and the founder of Britain's Got Startups, and is on a mission to change this.   

Britain’s Got Startups (BGS) helps early-stage and scaling companies outside London access investment, networks, and visibility by operating as a curated platform and event series that identifies high-potential startups across regions, including the North of England, Scotland, Wales, and the South West. Through structured showcases, BGS surfaces overlooked deal flow and creates more direct pathways to funding.

I spoke to Jenson Brook to learn all about it

Turning regional fragmentation into opportunity

Brook admits that he’s never been particularly academic. After high school, he started an apprenticeship at an accounting firm, which exposed him to private businesses and entrepreneurs early on. He then spent seven years in London, where he built and exited businesses focused on R&D tax relief, grants, and startup funding.  But he recalls that when he moved back to Yorkshire, the contrast was stark. 

“The network was far more fragmented. Investors were harder to find, often institutional rather than angel-led, and resources were very different.”

The idea for Britain’s Got Startups came from that gap. London has an incredible density of events, investors, and opportunities — so why couldn’t he create something equally strong outside London? It started with a pilot, the Northern Investment Event. Sixteen startups pitched.

Off the back of that, people from across the UK — the South West, Wales — started reaching out asking for something similar.

He recalled:

“We brought in around 20 London investors, and it became clear there’s real demand. What emerged was clear: there are great businesses across the UK that deserve to scale where they’re based — and investors need to see that.”

Why businesses outside London aren’t getting the funds

Brook attributes the funding disparity to a number of factors. First, over 80 per cent of early-stage investors are based in London. Naturally, they invest close to home: 

“They’ve got plenty of deal flow on their doorstep. Second, there’s an expectation that founders should come to London to raise. It’s seen as the hub, and people assume you need to be there.”

Third, there’s a lack of education around fundraising pathways outside London. According to Brook, founders outside London often bootstrap more. They build strong businesses, but grow more slowly because they don’t have the same access to capital.

“There’s also a broader mindset — many founders believe they need to move to London or the US to succeed. It becomes a self-fulfilling cycle.”

UK angel investing thrives — but remains regionally imbalanced

The UK has one of the most active angel investing ecosystems globally, but it is heavily driven by government tax incentives through schemes such as the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS) and Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS),  with around 90 per cent of angel investors using them and most deals structured through these programmes. 

However, investment remains geographically concentrated, with a large share still flowing into London and the South East, reinforcing regional funding disparities. Brook attributes this in part to London’s dense network of angels, which doesn’t exist regionally, but also to cultural differences. 

“Regionally, people might build and exit a business — and then step back. In London or the US, founders often reinvest and stay active in the ecosystem.

We’re starting to see more early-stage VC activity outside London, which is encouraging. But angel investment still lags.”

While traditional networks still dominate access to capital, it's starting to change. 

“We’re seeing more diverse funds emerge — for example, all-female GP funds — and a broader shift in mindset. But there’s still progress to be made,” shared Brook. 

What kinds of startups are being built outside London? 

When it comes to the kinds of startups emerging from regional areas, software companies dominate, but what’s interesting is how they’re applied.

According to Brook, “Outside London, we often see tech solving problems in traditional legacy industries — engineering, construction, manufacturing — rather than purely digital or AI-first businesses."

“It’s a broader mix, often closer to real-world industrial needs, including  consumer businesses solving practical, everyday problems.”

Strong regional clusters dominate. Bristol and Leeds have high concentrations of tech talent. Manchester and Liverpool are growing hubs.  And then you’ve got the ‘Golden Triangle’ — Oxford, Cambridge, London — which drives a lot of biotech and life sciences spinouts. 

Brook asserts that universities such as Leeds, Manchester, and Liverpool have strong pathways for spinouts. 

But there are challenges. One of the biggest is equity — universities sometimes take very large stakes, which can make future fundraising difficult.

"There’s progress being made — organisations like Startup Coalition are pushing for better structures — but there’s still work to do.”

Why regional collaboration is the missing link

Another challenge is the lack of coordination across regional startup initiatives. Brook believes that if regions collaborated more and connected better with London and even Europe, it would open up far more opportunities for founders. 

"Organisations tend to operate in silos. More collaboration — between regions and with London — would create more opportunities. And the founders are experiencing fatigue. They’re being asked to pitch constantly.

One of the key pieces of feedback we’ve had is that they want more meaningful engagement — not just more events. There’s a real opportunity to think beyond ‘this region versus that region’ and instead build a more unified national ecosystem.”

The defining trait of regional founders

Brook characterises regional startups with one clear pattern — grit. 

“Regional founders often work incredibly hard — sometimes harder — because they’re further away from capital and networks. They don’t have the same access, so they push harder.

They’re persistent, they follow up relentlessly, and they don’t give up easily. I’ve seen founders fundraise for months without success, only to finally make a breakthrough through a chance connection. That level of persistence really stands out.”

£10 million raised — and a growing case for backing regional founders

Britain’s Got Startups has helped raise over £10 million for regional businesses in the past couple of years. What surprises many London-based investors is just how strong these companies are. They’re not just university spinouts — they’re also founders building practical, scalable businesses from places like Hull or the North East.

“There’s a real opportunity if investors are willing to look beyond London.”

Brook wants startups to know that BSG is not just a pitch competition. Rather, it's a program that is constantly iterating based on feedback — improving the experience, refining the format, and focusing on real outcomes.

“We’re also introducing founder ambassadors, including people who’ve given us critical feedback, to make sure we keep improving. At its core, this is a passion project. We’re trying to build something that genuinely helps founders — not just another event.”

If the UK is to unlock the full potential of its startup ecosystem, the opportunity lies not just in London — but in connecting and backing the talent already building across the country.

The Cambridge-based AI company, founded by a former Amazon Alexa research scientist, builds a self-learning economic map that models companies as multidimensional entities rather than forcing them into a single bucket. MiddleGame Ventures led; Unusual Ventures returned. Amazon is not a retailer. It is also a cloud computing provider, a logistics operator, an advertising network, […]

Cambridge-based deeptech company Theia Insights has raised $8 million in Series A funding, led by MiddleGame Ventures, with participation from Further Ventures and Unusual Ventures. The round brings the company’s total funding to $14.5 million to date.

Theia is addressing a structural limitation in financial markets: the lack of a real-time, accurate representation of the global economy. Most financial institutions rely on static classification systems that assign companies a single industry label, despite businesses increasingly operating across multiple sectors that evolve over time. This fragmentation limits the effectiveness of both human analysis and AI systems, which depend on accurate and consistent data structures to generate meaningful insights.

Founded by Dr Ye Tian, Isami Ito, and Dr James Thorne, Theia brings together expertise in AI, financial markets, and enterprise software to build what it describes as a dynamic, AI-driven map of the global economy.

Its proprietary technology processes a wide range of corporate data (including regulatory filings, earnings transcripts, and financial disclosures), to create a continuously updated, multidimensional view of company activity. Instead of a single industry label, companies are represented through evolving exposure across multiple sectors and themes.

This approach underpins Theia’s suite of products, which includes tools for dynamic industry classification, thematic analysis, and translating investment ideas into data-driven company universes. Together, these systems enable financial institutions to better understand structural trends, support portfolio construction, and improve decision-making across research, analytics, and trading workflows.

We must first see the economy clearly, not in fragments but as an interconnected whole. Theia exists to map the unmapped, to make visible the structure of the global economy,

said Dr. Ye Tian, Founder and CEO of Theia Insights.

The company’s technology is already used by global index providers, asset managers, hedge funds, and banks, supporting a range of applications from research to portfolio construction. As financial markets increasingly adopt AI-driven workflows, Theia positions its platform as a foundational data layer that enables both humans and machines to reason consistently about economic activity.

The funding will be used to expand Theia’s platform into new asset classes, beginning with private markets, as well as to further develop its research and engineering capabilities and scale its global commercial presence.