As manipulated media becomes cheaper, faster, and harder to detect, the cost is increasingly borne by victims — not platforms.

Julia Jakimenko is the founder and CEO of Cyberette.ai, a Dutch startup founded in 2024 that builds AI software to detect, analyse, and explain manipulated digital content — including deepfakes, voice cloning, altered images, videos, and text — with a specific focus on fraud and investigation use cases.

I spoke to Jakimenko while the team was preparing for this week's CES to learn more. 

Prior to Cyberette, Jakimenko worked in data security and compliance in banking. Following trends, she saw the emergence of AI-embedded tools, such as face-swapping and image manipulation. But it became personal when a friend’s face and body were used to create images that were put on dating websites to scam men for money. 

She recalls, “She felt horrible and even sent money to one of the victims because she felt responsible. She was not the only one. I saw this happening repeatedly, especially to women.”

More than 80 per cent of deepfake explicit images target women, and most remain unresolved, especially sextortion cases. Jakimenko was inspired to act.  

Her work gave her an understanding of security workflows and access to technical talent. So Jakimenko built an initial prototype with a former colleague from VU Bank. 

“We exhibited it at Web Summit, received strong interest, and afterwards started building based on the leads we received. We later received funding from Rabobank and a grant from Microsoft, which allowed us to continue developing the product.”

From there, the company has built a team of AI researchers, data scientists, and security experts, and forged partnerships with leading technical universities.

Cyberette enables real-time detection of manipulated media, backed by media forensics insights and content authentication using C2PA standards and watermarking, supporting governments, media organisations, and enterprises. 

The startup aims to support investigative teams dealing with deep fakes by providing explainability, provenance, and structured evidence they can actually use.

Why do we need another deepfake detection tool? Beyond ‘real or fake’

According to Jakimenko, most existing tools focus on a real-or-fake score with basic explainability, such as highlighting facial artefacts. Cyberette focuses on fraud detection rather than generic deepfake detection.  She explains:  

"We analyse how content was altered, why it was altered, and the surrounding context.

We provide provenance information — such as manipulation patterns, likely models used, approximate dates, and sometimes IP-level indicators if available.”

Explainability as evidence

Cyberette’s detection approaches combine multiple techniques to spot manipulated or synthetic media with speed and accuracy. Cyberette uses landmark-based detection to identify inconsistencies in facial geometry, pose, and motion, alongside heatmap-based analysis that highlights altered areas through anomaly scoring. 

Sentiment analysis adds another layer by flagging unusual emotional cues such as shifts in tone or hesitation, while real-time detection delivers results in under two seconds for live scenarios.

Additional capabilities include watermarking and metadata analysis, as well as broader media forensics and threat intelligence to support deeper investigations.

Built for real-time, high-stakes workflows

The platform is designed specifically for investigative and monitoring workflows, using in-house AI models built from scratch and optimised for precise, real-time detection tasks.

“For investigation use cases, we also explain intent when relevant, for example by analysing inconsistencies between voice, visual signals, and contextual meaning,” explained Jakimenko.

Accuracy, latency, and architectural edge

Cyberette’s tech advantage lies in its ability to deliver 99.7 per cent accuracy across tested datasets while providing real-time, low-latency results at scale. 

According to Jarimenko:

“This is the result of our strong backend architecture and lightweight models. Our APIs are designed for real-time detection.

Further, Cyberette can run in the cloud or fully on-premise.

Many of our customers have strong local infrastructure and GPUs, which allows the system to run efficiently without relying on our cloud."

Built for real-time investigation workflows

Cyberette’s primary customers are investigation and monitoring teams, including defence threat-monitoring platforms, public sector organisations, and private-sector fraud and investigation units.

In the public sector, it strengthens critical communications through live verification, biometric checks, and behavioural analysis for defence, intelligence, and law enforcement.

For enterprises, the platform helps prevent fraud by analysing behaviour, integrating with existing security systems, and operating at scale for banks and financial institutions. It also protects licensed content through metadata checks, intelligent watermarking, cross-platform monitoring, and C2PA verification for creators, brands, and talent agencies.

Further, Cyberette integrates with video conferencing tools (Teams, Zoom, Google Meet) to ensure secure video conferencing with participant verification and instant manipulation detection, secure identity verification at high volume via biometric analysis and SDKs, and enhanced e-learning platforms with easy-to-use detection tools, practical learning modules, and seamless integration.

The platform is engineered to support millions of users and billions of files without performance trade-offs, running efficiently on both GPU and CPU to keep costs low and accessibility high. Built for global deployment, Cyberette is compliance-ready by design, meeting stringent requirements across GDPR, ISO, and PII standards.

“We integrate C2PA provenance and authentication tooling, which is supported by organisations like Microsoft and Adobe, and increasingly trusted across the industry. Provenance frameworks are becoming essential as misinformation increases,” shared Jarimenko.

In terms of the company roadmap, the company sits between pilot and full commercial rollout: 

“We already have paid customers, but we intentionally selected specific customers and industries where the problem is most acute." 

Some cases involve small financial losses, but others involve lives — such as kidnapping threats, cyberbullying, sextortion, and abuse cases:

“We worked with a forensic team in Colombia and with a government defence organisation in Singapore. We have also had interest from the German and Dutch governments. Last year, the Dutch government said it did not yet see enough cases. I expect that to change.”

Deepfakes are getting better — and platforms aren’t stopping them

Jarimenko sees no sign of deepfakes abating, instead believing that they will increase and improve in quality: 

“We are moving toward a situation where AI-generated outputs are pushed by browsers and platforms as trusted information. This creates confusion and a lack of trust.

There is currently little incentive for platforms to stop this. That’s why we focus on teams already dealing with fraud and crime.”

Cyberette is going to market in the coming months while raising a Seed round. It plans to expand into behavioural and sentiment analysis where relevant for investigative contexts, and later to explore earlier stages of the manipulation lifecycle. But for now, it is focused on high-impact, high-risk cases.

A Spanish AI voice startup, which says its tech makes minor clinical decisions while on the call with patients, has raised $20m in a Series A funding round.

Tucuvi was founded by Maria Gonzalez, its CEO, whose mother passed away after a reported hospital administration error.

The Series A funding round was led by VC firm Cathay Innovation and Madrid-based Kfund, through its early-growth fund Leadwind, with participation from existing investors Frontline Ventures, Seaya Ventures, and Shilling.

Tucuvi has developed what it calls an “AI Care Management platform” designed to automate and orchestrate high-volume care workflows end to end.  The platform is built around AI agents, including LOLA, a Voice AI agent that conducts patient phone conversations, executes clinical and care coordination workflows, and escalates to human teams when needed. 

Tucuvi says it supports more than 50 workflows, ranging from post-surgical follow-ups and transitions of care to chronic care management, pre-operative assessments, screenings, scheduling, or medication management. 

Tucuvi says its voice AI agents handle “complex real-world patient phone interactions”, while the broader platform manages documentation and integration into existing health system operations. 

Gonzalez said: “Healthcare is under immense pressure, and incremental tools are no longer enough.

"The only way to continue delivering high-quality care at scale is with AI that healthcare organisations can truly trust - AI that is safe, auditable, and built for real clinical environments. Weʼre proud to already serve more than 60 healthcare organisations and to be expanding rapidly to meet growing demand.ˮ 

Tucuvi says it is already operating in over 60 health systems in Europe and has completed over 300,000 patient calls. It says it will use the funding to expand across Europe and the US.

The startup is understood to have previously raised between $3m and $3.5m.

IMAGE: PIXABAY

A UK AI financial crime fighting unicorn has reported a near 50 per cent uplift in revenues, helped by customer wins, while losses halved, according to its latest annual financial figures.

The financial figures for Quantexa also reveal new details regarding Quantexa's fundraising last year, which propelled it to a valuation of $2.6bn.

The figures for Quantexa Limited show that within its $175m Series F funding round, $114m was made up of new equity, while the rest was raised through a secondary share sale.

The UK-headquartered startup, founded in 2016, leverages AI to help organisations understand their data, with its platform connecting up different data points, helping organisations identify trends that might help them detect fraud and assess risk.

Quantexa's clients include commercial businesses such as HSBC and Vodafone as well as public sector clients, such as the Cabinet Office’s public sector fraud agency. The filing also shows that Quantexa has ditched offering its “News Intelligence Platform” to new clients. 

The news platform ingested news articles from thousands of publishers in multiple languages and was billed as “the most efficient, effective and accurate news intelligence solution on the market”.

Quantexa said: “Quantexa’s News Intelligence Platform was discontinued to strategically focus on our core platform and adapt to changing market needs, while the platform’s IP and expertise have been fully integrated into our core platform to enhance our unstructured data capabilities. 

"The News Intelligence Platform represented a small percentage of group revenue relative to Quantexa’s primary decision intelligence platform and data analytics solutions.”

Revenues at Quantexa in the year ending March 2025 came in at £126m, up 49 per cent on the previous year, while pre-tax losses were reduced to £25m, from £48m the year before. It said revenues were boosted by new customer wins, along with licence expansion from its existing customers.

Losses were attributed to “strategic investments” including increasing the workforce, which grew from 673 to 772, and developing its infrastructure. The accounts show that the highest paid director at Quantexa, which is headed up by CEO and founder Vishal Marria, was paid £788,000, in the period

Quantexa currently operates offices in the UK, Ireland, Belgium, Netherlands, Spain, Luxembourg, Switzerland, France, UAE, USA, Canada, Singapore, Australia, Japan and Malaysia.

Quantexa added: "Quantexa's business outlook remains strong, with plans to expand further in core sectors such as banking, government, insurance and telecommunications. 

"The group also aims to enhance its presence in key North American, EMEA and Asia Pacific markets, including opening new country offices to extend its regional and global reach.”

The digital data landscape has transformed dramatically over the past two decades, becoming a cornerstone for decision-making in business, journalism, and research.

Companies that collect, analyse, and present data effectively are now at the forefront of innovation, shaping markets and influencing strategies worldwide. In this context, Friedrich Schwandt, Founder of Statista and CEO of ECDB, is a fitting voice to explain the current valuation of data and the focus necessary to make it profitable.

Friedrich has spent nearly two decades shaping how businesses, media, and institutions work with data – and in our 150th episode, he reflects candidly on what that journey really looked like.

When we sat down to record the 150th episode of the EU-Startups podcast, Friedrich described his career as “relatively easy to explain,” but the substance behind it is anything but simple. After early roles at BCG and Deutsche Telekom, he made the leap into entrepreneurship in 2007, launching Statista at a time when paid digital content was still seen as unrealistic.

“People talked about paid content the way they talked about going to Mars,” he said. “It sounded nice, but no one really took it seriously.”

Statista started with two simple ideas: data should be easy to find, and easy to use.

“There must be a place where people can go and find statistics on all relevant business topics – and the data should be reliable,” Friedrich explained. “And second, the data should be prepared in a way that’s easy to use.”

That clarity of purpose carried Statista from a bootstrapped Hamburg startup to a global platform covering over 80,000 topics, used by millions worldwide.

But success did not come without strain. One of the most important parts of our conversation was Friedrich’s honesty about the pressures of growth.

“For years, every January was about planning how many people we might have to let go in order to survive,” he said. “It never happened […] somehow we made it through the year and then the next year came.”

Later, managing a post-pandemic organisation of more than 1,000 people brought a different challenge altogether – managing a growing venture turning corporate and international.

In 2023, Friedrich stepped down as CEO of Statista and moved into a chairman role – a decision he described as both relieving and difficult. “I was no longer responsible for the salaries of 1,500 people. And you feel very relieved,” he said. “But it’s also your baby. So that is difficult.”

His solution was deliberate distance: “I asked myself: what kind of chairman would I want as a CEO? [..] You want someone you can go to, you can ask questions. You try that he be as objective as possible but otherwise you want him out.”

That transition allowed him to fully focus on his next venture, ECDB – the eCommerce Database – aimed at bringing transparency to online commerce through transaction-level data.

We also discussed AI, where Friedrich was refreshingly pragmatic. “I believe if you’re a generalist then AI can be a threat. If you’re extremely specialised on something, it is more difficult to attack. I believe if you aggregate data, it could be a threat. If you have your own database, it is easier to defend,” he said.

For ECDB, AI is less a disruptor than a tool – improving access, analysis, and speed.

Beyond data and companies, the conversation was also personal. From his love of handwritten to-do lists to memories of studying in Ireland – and even working as a redcoat at a holiday centre near Dublin – Friedrich reminded me that long-term founders are shaped as much by life as by business.

Taking over the EU-Startups Podcast as host was always going to feel like a milestone, and I could not have asked for a more fitting guest for my first episode than Friedrich.

This episode of the EU-Startups Podcast is brought to you by Vanta. The trust management platform helps more than 12k companies, including Nando’s, Allica Bank and Granola, start and scale their security programmes while building trust with buyers. It saves security teams time and improves programme visibility by automating over 35 compliance frameworks, such as SOC 2 and ISO 27001, as well as GRC workflows like risk management. Click here to learn more!

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Medtech BrightHeart, a developer of solutions for prenatal ultrasound, today announced it has raised €11 million Series A financing round. 

The round was co-led by Odyssée Venture and GO Capital, with participation from the Mussallem CHD Alliance, Lift Value, IDAHO HealthTech Club via Side Angels, and founding investor Sofinnova Partners, as well as prominent clinicians and angel investors, including Professor Laurent Salomon, former President of the International Society of Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynaecology (ISUOG), and Sacha Loiseau and John Gridley, serial medtech entrepreneurs.

The company has developed an AI software platform that delivers support across the entire ultrasound exam, providing guidance at every step for expert-level fetal heart screening, precise tracking of the full anatomy, and efficient evaluations. Its FDA-cleared medical devices integrate directly into routine ultrasound workflows to deliver best-in-class fetal heart screening, improve exam completeness, save time, and support confident clinical decision-making—without disrupting how clinicians work.

BrightHeart’s technology has been clinically validated to dramatically improve CHD detection (>96 per cent) while reducing diagnostic errors and improving efficiency. 

This financing will support US commercialisation, expansion across Europe, and relentless product innovation, scaling the B-Right AI Platform to set a new global standard of care in prenatal ultrasound. 

The company has achieved five FDA clearances, established partnerships with leading academic centres, and earned two major peer-reviewed publications in Obstetrics & Gynaecology, making BrightHeart the only player in the field with published peer-reviewed clinical evidence.  

With a differentiated platform, strong regulatory foundation, a proven ability to transform care delivery, and growing demand for AI-driven solutions, BrightHeart is uniquely positioned to scale globally and redefine the standard of care in prenatal imaging.

“This new round of funding empowers us to accelerate BrightHeart’s mission of making AI the new standard of care in prenatal ultrasound. Our goal is to enhance diagnostic accuracy, improve outcomes for families and babies, and streamline clinical workflows for healthcare professionals. We are thrilled to have the support of our investors, who bring not only deep expertise in healthcare innovation but also proven experience in scaling companies globally,” said Cécile Dupont, CEO of BrightHeart and Partner at Sofinnova Partners. 

"We are excited to work with our new partners as we enter the next stage of our company's evolution.”

BrightHeart’s co-lead investors, Odyssée Venture and GO Capital, both bring extensive experience supporting the international growth of regulated healthcare technologies.

“BrightHeart has built a defensible clinical foundation in one of the most complex areas of prenatal imaging,” said Julien ANDRIEUX, partner at Odyssée Venture.

“By pairing expert-level screening with tangible workflow benefits and seamless integration, the company is well positioned to become a reference platform in prenatal ultrasound,” added Leïla NICOLAS, partner at GO CAPITAL.

The participation of the Mussallem CHD Alliance, a flagship initiative of the Linda and Mike Mussallem Foundation dedicated to helping people born with congenital heart defects survive and thrive, underscores BrightHeart’s role at the forefront of global efforts to transform outcomes for CHD patients and families.

“At the Mussallem CHD Alliance, we envision a future where babies born with congenital heart defects have access to early and accurate diagnosis, and BrightHeart’s platform gives us confidence that this future is within reach,” said Orin Herskowitz, President of the Mussallem CHD Alliance. 

"By embedding advanced AI directly into ultrasound workflows, BrightHeart is paving the way for expert-level fetal heart screening to become part of routine prenatal care.

Expanding access to innovations like this has the power to dramatically improve the diagnostic landscape for CHD patients and their families, addressing a critical, urgent need.”

Lead image: top to bottom, left to right: Back row: Olivier Tranzer (Head of Software), Eric Askinazi (Data Scientist), Christophe Gardella (CTO), Malo de Boisredon (Data Scientist) Front row: Rebecca Marocco (Senior Product Manager), Diane Kalogeropoulos (QARA Specialist), Saramony Lebasnier (Director of QARA), Cécile Dupont (CEO).

Engitix, a British BioTech company targeting the extracellular matrix (ECM) to develop transformative therapies for cancer and fibrosis, today announced the closing of a €21 million ($25 million) Series A extension financing.

The financing was provided by Netherton Investments, a fund investing on behalf of Mike Platt, the co-founder and Managing Director of BlueCrest Capital Management.

“Closing this financing strengthens our ability to translate Engitix’s unique ECM understanding into a growing pipeline of targeted therapeutics,” said Giuseppe Mazza, CEO and co-founder of Engitix. “Our platform and dataset position us to accelerate preclinical development across oncology and fibrosis programs and build differentiated, ECM-targeted therapeutics with the potential to meaningfully improve patient outcomes.”

In the European BioTech and drug-development sector, 2025 saw continued capital deployment across oncology, fibrosis and adjacent therapeutic areas, placing Engitix’s €21 million Series A extension within a broader pattern of mid- to late-stage funding activity.

Comparable rounds include TargED Biopharmaceuticals in the Netherlands, which secured €21.5 million to advance targeted thrombotic disease therapies, closely mirroring Engitix in both stage and funding size. Larger oncology-focused raises were reported for FoRx Therapeutics in Switzerland (€42 million for DNA-repair cancer therapies), Adcytherix in France (€105 million for novel antibody-drug conjugates), and Tubulis in Germany (€308 million to expand its ADC pipeline).

The UK has also remained active, with Trogenix raising €80 million to accelerate cancer treatments and Scripta Therapeutics securing over €10 million for its drug-discovery platform, making Engitix part of a cluster of British BioTech financings this year.

Additional activity includes Italy-based NanoPhoria (€83.5 million for a heart-failure therapy) and Ireland’s Aerska (€17 million for RNAi medicines targeting brain diseases).

Taken together, these rounds account for well over €600 million in disclosed BioTech funding in 2025, indicating sustained investor interest in therapeutics platforms.

Founded in 2016, Engitix is a BioTech company developing therapies that target the extracellular matrix (ECM) to treat cancer and fibrosis. By integrating large-scale ECM datasets with translational biology and drug development, Engitix aims to build a pipeline of differentiated therapeutics designed to act within disease tissue microenvironments.

The company has a strategic drug discovery partnership with Dompé farmaceutici and development collaborations with Takeda in advanced fibrotic liver diseases.

Mike Platt, Investor Director, added: “Engitix has developed a compelling strategy at the intersection of data, biology, and drug development. I’m pleased to continue supporting Engitix as it advances its programmes in fibrosis and solid tumours.”

The new proceeds will be used to continue preclinical development across Engitix’s proprietary ECM-targeted pipeline in solid tumours and fibrosis, and to further expand and apply Engitix’s platform built on one of the largest proprietary ECM datasets in these diseases.

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Lookiero Outfittery Group, a European online personal shopping company, has closed a €17 million funding round with participation from new investors including Ekarpen Private Equity and the Spanish Society for Technological Transformation (SETT), alongside existing investors Acurio Ventures, Perwyn, Bonsai Partners, and 10x Group. Of the total investment, €7.25 million was contributed by SETT, an entity under Spain’s Ministry for Digital Transformation and the Civil Service.

Operating across 12 markets, the group combines proprietary technology, including advanced personalisation and recommendation models, with the expertise of an international team of personal shoppers to deliver tailored fashion services.

In 2025, the company made progress across several strategic areas, including achieving a positive EBITDA at Lookiero and completing the integration of Lookiero and Outfittery into a unified technological and logistical platform, improving operational efficiency and enabling the development of new AI-driven capabilities.

Lookiero Outfittery Group CEO Oier Urrutia said the milestone marks a new phase for the company, with the completed technological and logistical integration enabling more efficient operations and an improved customer experience across Europe.

With the new funding, the group will focus on improving profitability through merger-related synergies while introducing AI-driven features to enhance personalisation, demand forecasting, and supply planning, and continuing to emphasise the role of its personal shoppers and stylists.

Once again, it is that time of the year when we begin our annual series highlighting some of the most promising startups from across Europe. Each edition takes a country-by-country look at the teams and technologies shaping the continent’s entrepreneurial landscape. For 2026, we are starting with Austria, opening the series with a closer look at some of the most interesting young companies emerging from its capital city.

Vienna has steadily evolved into an active hub for innovation, supported by strong academic institutions, a well-connected talent base, and a growing community of founders building across sectors such as deep tech, climate technology, AI, and digital infrastructure. The city’s combination of research expertise and accessible support structures continues to attract companies developing both early-stage concepts and scalable commercial solutions.

In this article, we highlight 10 exceptionally promising startups based in Vienna that are worth keeping an eye on in 2026. They represent a mix of industries and technologies, reflecting the diversity and ambition driving Austria’s startup ecosystem forward.

Vienna-based Chatlyn is a company that develops an AI communication hub designed for the hospitality sector. Their platform centralises guest communication by bringing channels such as email, WhatsApp, Booking.com messages, Instagram DMs, and voice interactions into a single inbox. Chatlyn’s tools support translation in more than 35 languages, automated responses, and AI-driven assistance designed to streamline customer interactions.

Founded in 2022, the company has raised €8 million. It is used by more than 1,000 hospitality properties and integrates easily with property management systems such as Opera Cloud, Apaleo, Protel, and Mews. The aim is to help accommodation providers reduce manual communication tasks, improve response times, and enhance guest engagement through a more connected and efficient communication infrastructure.

Linz-based Emmi AI is a company that uses artificial intelligence to make engineering simulations much faster and easier. Instead of waiting hours or days for results, their technology can run complex tests in seconds, helping industries such as automotive, aerospace, and energy explore ideas and designs more quickly. Their models can handle very large simulations on a single graphics card, which reduces costs and removes many of the usual technical barriers engineers face.

Founded in 2024, the startup has raised €15 million in funding. Emmi AI works with research labs and global engineering teams, integrating their tools into existing software so companies do not need to change how they work. The aim is to help organisations speed up development, test more ideas, and make better decisions by giving them instant engineering insights.

Vienna-based Flinn is a company that helps medical device manufacturers automate complex regulatory and quality tasks. Their platform uses AI to support activities such as literature evaluation, safety database monitoring, regulatory tracking, and complaint handling. Companies can review information from multiple global databases at once, receive AI-assisted evaluations, and generate audit-ready reports with a single click.

Founded in 2022, the company has raised €9.8 million. Flinn is designed to help teams stay compliant with MDR and IVDR requirements while reducing the amount of manual work involved in maintaining documentation. It integrates with established regulatory workflows and offers validated documentation aligned with standards such as IEC 62304, ISO 13485, ISO 14971, and FDA 21 CFR Part 11.

Vienna-based fynk is a startup that provides contract management software designed to make it easier for teams to create, edit, review, and manage contracts in one place. The platform replaces scattered files and manual processes with a single system where users can draft documents, track versions, collect signatures, and set reminders for important deadlines.

Founded in 2022, the young company has raised €4.35 million. fynk uses AI to extract information from contracts, identify key details, and highlight potential issues automatically. The software is built for European businesses and includes GDPR-compliant data protection and audit-proof storage to keep contracts secure throughout their lifecycle.

Vienna-based Graph Therapeutics is a company developing precision medicine tools to better understand and treat immune-mediated diseases. Their approach combines data from patient cell samples with multi-omics information, allowing them to study how cells react to different conditions and identify the biological drivers behind complex illnesses. By using AI to analyse these reactions, Graph Therapeutics aims to find new targeted therapies and biomarkers that can support more accurate diagnosis and treatment.

Founded in 2024, the startup has raised €3.8 million, aiming to help clinicians personalise care by providing clearer insights into how a patient’s immune system behaves, ultimately improving outcomes for people living with chronic inflammatory and autoimmune conditions.

Vienna-based sequestra is a startup developing technology that turns industrial residues, such as steel slag, incineration ash, and construction waste, into usable construction materials that permanently store carbon dioxide. Their approach is based on accelerated carbonation technology, a process that binds captured CO₂ into mineral waste in a stable and long-lasting form.

Founded in 2024, the company has raised €1.1 million, aiming to support hard-to-abate industries in lowering emissions as carbon credit prices rise across Europe. Their work addresses both the climate challenge and the growing demand for low-carbon construction materials.

Vienna-based silana is a company developing technology to automate garment production, a process that is still almost entirely manual in the fashion industry. Their system uses robotics, artificial intelligence, and machine vision to sew clothing automatically, replacing the last major hand-crafted step in apparel manufacturing. By automating this process, silana aims to help brands produce garments closer to home, shorten production cycles, and reduce the need for large early orders that often lead to waste.

Founded in 2022, the startup has raised €2.82 million. silana’s technology is designed to address challenges such as labour shortages, long offshore supply chains, and the environmental impact associated with overproduction. Their system allows manufacturing to be relocated to regions with higher labour costs while remaining cost-efficient, helping fashion brands reduce emissions, improve responsiveness to demand, and minimise unsold inventory.

Vienna-based Syntropic Medical is a startup developing a non-invasive light-based treatment for depression. Their technology uses precise flickering light stimulation delivered through the eyes to activate immune cells in the brain, which may support neural repair and recovery. This approach aims to offer an alternative for people who do not respond well to traditional antidepressant medication or who experience side effects. The company is building a treatment that can be used safely at home, supported by clinical studies in collaboration with international research centres.

Founded in 2023, the young company has raised €2.4 million. They have completed first-in-human tests and are running feasibility studies in Brazil and the United States to evaluate the safety and usability of the device for patients with major depressive disorder. Their goal is to create a new option for mental health care that is practical, non-pharmaceutical, and accessible for people seeking alternative forms of treatment.

Graz-based TACEO is a fast-growing company developing technology that allows people and organisations to work together on encrypted data without revealing the underlying information. Their platform uses privacy-focused cryptographic techniques, such as secure multi-party computation and zero-knowledge proofs, to let users collaborate and verify results while keeping sensitive data confidential. This helps developers build applications where actions can be checked and trusted publicly, even though the data used to perform them remains private.

Founded in 2022, the startup has raised €5.2 million to create a network and set of tools designed for use cases such as private financial transactions, secure identity systems, and confidential data sharing in Web3 environments. The goal is to make privacy-preserving computation more practical and accessible for decentralised applications.

Vienna-based Teneo Protocol is a startup building a decentralised network that collects and organises real-time public data through community-run AI agents. Anyone can install the Teneo Community Node, which operates in the browser and gathers openly available information from the web. The aim is to create a shared data layer that users can contribute to and benefit from, without relying on expensive or restricted third-party platforms.

Founded in 2024, the young company has raised €2.6 million to provide a dashboard that allows users to track rewards, manage tasks, and interact with the network, while maintaining privacy by processing data locally on the user’s device. The platform is supported by partners in the decentralised technology ecosystem and is designed to make it easier for individuals and developers to access structured public data and contribute to a more open and distributed web infrastructure.

By the way: If you’re a corporate or investor looking for exciting startups in a specific market for a potential investment or acquisition, check out our Startup Sourcing Service!

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In December, total funding reached €4.5 billion, only slightly below November’s €4.6 billion. This came despite a decrease in deal activity, with 250 transactions completed (a 7.8 per cent drop compared to the month before).

December also saw shifts in both geography and sector focus. Sweden led the month with €893.1 million raised, while software emerged as the top sector with €1.2 billion in funding, underscoring a renewed investor emphasis on technology and software-driven growth heading into the new year.

Tech.eu’s Cate Lawrence commented on the December numbers within the European tech investment landscape in our December Tech.eu Pulse, a compact version of the monthly report:

December’s data reflects a European tech ecosystem that is selective, more industrial in focus, and looking toward long-term resilience rather than short-term momentum.

As 2026 begins, there’s plenty to anticipate — and good reasons for optimism about the year ahead.

For her more detailed review and more in-depth analyses of the European tech ecosystem, including industry and country performance, exit activities, and more, check out our December report.

Here are the 10 largest tech deals in Europe from December, accounting for 48.9 per cent of the month’s total funding.

Amount raised: €500M Brevo is an all-in-one customer engagement and CRM platform that helps businesses build lasting customer relationships through email, SMS, automation, chat, and sales tools. Designed for businesses of all sizes, from startups and small-to-medium enterprises to growing e-commerce brands, Brevo offers a comprehensive set of tools, including email and SMS marketing, marketing automation, live chat, transactional messaging, and a built-in CRM that centralises customer data and interactions in a single platform. Its intuitive interface and drag-and-drop editors make campaign creation, customer segmentation, and automated workflows easy, even for non-technical users. Brevo closed a €500 million funding round and reached unicorn status.

Amount raised: €500M Elvy is an energy technology company offering subscription-based home energy solutions that simplify access to clean power and lower electricity costs. Through a fixed monthly plan, Elvy installs and manages solar panels, heat pumps, and battery systems, with installation, service, and maintenance included, helping homeowners reduce grid dependence and energy expenses. Elvy secured €500 million in funding from fintech partner Scayl and a banking partner to scale its subscription model and expand installations across Sweden.

Amount raised: $330M Lovable is an AI-powered software platform that lets users build full-stack apps and websites simply by describing their ideas in natural language. Founded in Stockholm in 2023, Lovable’s conversational interface and AI engine automate code generation, development, and deployment, making app creation faster and more accessible for developers and non-developers alike. Lovable raised $330 million at a $6.6 billion valuation, led by CapitalG and Menlo Ventures' Anthology fund.

Amount raised: $300M Black Forest Labs is a generative AI research and technology company focused on cutting-edge visual intelligence and image generation models. Founded in 2024, the company develops the FLUX family of AI models that produce high-quality, photorealistic visuals from natural language prompts and reference images. Its team aims to create models that prioritise understanding user intent rather than simply executing prompts, providing tools that enable a broad range of users, from large organisations to independent creators, to turn ideas into tangible outcomes. Black Forest Labs has secured $300 million in Series B funding at a $3.25 billion valuation, supporting continued research and development as it works toward building models that integrate visual perception, generation, memory, and reasoning to advance visual intelligence.

Amount raised: €200M ICEYE is an aerospace and satellite technology company that designs, builds, and operates the world’s largest synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite constellation, delivering high-resolution Earth observation data in all weather and lighting conditions. ICEYE’s microsatellites support decision-making for governments, businesses, and disaster response with near-real-time radar imagery. Its services are used across sectors, including insurance, security, maritime monitoring, and natural catastrophe insights. ICEYE secured a total of €200 million in funding, valuing the company at €2.4 billion. The capital will be used to expand its SAR satellite constellation, enhance software and data intelligence capabilities, and accelerate the deployment of advanced sensing systems to deliver near real-time Earth observation and intelligence services.

Amount raised: $140M Fal.ai is a generative AI platform that makes advanced image, video, audio, and 3D model generation accessible to developers and businesses. It provides a unified API and serverless infrastructure that enables fast, scalable inference of hundreds of generative media models without complex setup. Fal.ai’s platform accelerates real-time creative workflows and lowers barriers to building AI-powered media applications, empowering developers to integrate state-of-the-art generative capabilities into their products and services. Fal.ai raised $140 million in Series D to power the next era of real-time generative media.

Amount raised: €100M Exein is a global leader in embedded cybersecurity for the Internet of Things (IoT), developing AI-powered security solutions that protect connected devices at the firmware level. The company’s platform embeds real-time threat detection and response directly into device software, helping manufacturers secure products and stay compliant throughout the device lifecycle. Exein’s technology protects billions of devices across industries such as industrial, automotive, healthcare, and critical infrastructure. Exein secured €100 million following its €70 million Series C in July 2025 to advance its next generation of embedded runtime security technology, including AI protections for on-device AI and large language models, with an initial release planned for RSAC 2026.

Amount raised: €100M Mondu is a fintech transforming B2B payments with flexible, modern Buy Now, Pay Later and deferred payment solutions for merchants, marketplaces, and business buyers. Its platform handles credit and fraud risk, payment collection, and reconciliation, enabling sellers to offer net terms and instalment options while getting paid upfront, and helping buyers optimise cash flow and working capital. Mondu secured a €100 million debt facility from J.P. Morgan Payments to scale its offering and support its expansion across Europe.

Amount raised: $100M Neural Concept is a Swiss AI technology company transforming engineering and product design with its AI-first Engineering Intelligence platform. Founded in 2018 as a spin-out from EPFL in Lausanne, the company uses deep learning to accelerate simulation, design evaluation, and optimisation, enabling engineers to compress development cycles and explore complex 3D designs faster and more efficiently. Its software integrates with existing CAD and simulation workflows to support real-time predictive insights and scalable AI assistants for industrial product development. Neural Concept raised $100 million in Series C to accelerate product development and expand global go-to-market efforts and strategic partnerships.

Amount raised: $100M Shop Circle is a London-based technology company and operator of e-commerce tools that help merchants and brands scale online by acquiring, developing, and growing best-in-class commerce software. It empowers businesses with a suite of AI-enabled applications that streamline operations, enhance customer experiences, automate workflows, and support growth across digital storefronts. Shop Circle has secured a $100 million credit facility and positions itself as Europe’s alternative to traditional venture capital funding.

Belgium-based Alice, an AI platform developed for lawyers and legal teams, has raised €1 million in pre-seed funding to support the development of its end-to-end legal casework solution. The round was led by NewSchool and Seeder Fund, with participation from a group of Belgian angel investors.

The adoption of AI in legal practice is increasing, alongside concerns related to accuracy and reliability. Courts in several jurisdictions have encountered legal submissions containing incorrect or fabricated references, often linked to the use of unverified outputs from general-purpose AI tools. In Belgium, judges have intervened in multiple recent cases, including reopening proceedings and applying procedural measures, while similar decisions have emerged internationally.

Alice is designed to address these challenges by integrating AI into professional legal workflows, with a focus on verification, traceability, and maintaining human oversight.

Launched in June 2025 by practising lawyers Jeroen Villé and Armin Wintein, together with CTO Joren Coulier, Alice develops an AI platform built around legal workflows, emphasising usability, verification, and professional accountability. The platform is already in active use by multiple law firms in Belgium, reflecting early demand for AI tools aligned with legal standards and regulatory requirements.

Jeroen Villé, co-founder and CEO of Alice, said:

We believe AI can have a lasting role in legal practice only if lawyers can fully trust it and maintain control over their cases. Alice is designed to help legal teams work more efficiently and consistently, without the risks associated with unverified outputs.

Alice is structured as a continuous workflow in which each stage informs the next, reflecting the typical progression of legal casework. It supports the full process, from document analysis and legal research to argument development and the preparation of client communications and court-ready materials, within a single, unified environment.

With the pre-seed funding, the company plans to accelerate development of its core legal workflow, expand its team and customer support operations, and pursue geographic growth, beginning in Belgium and extending to the Netherlands and France.

Paris-based Spore.Bio, a BioTech startup developing AI-based microbiology testing technology, today announced that it has secured multi-million-dollar funding from the Google.Org Fund for AI in Science. Additionally, it has also launched Spore.Labs, an AI-native research division focused on tackling the critical challenges in public health. 

The Google.org AI for Science Fund is a multi-million-dollar initiative supporting organisations working towards AI-driven scientific discovery. It awards grants to academic institutions, nonprofit and for-profit organisations worldwide that apply AI to solve complex challenges across scientific disciplines. 

Google.org announced this fund after Sir Demis Hassabis, co-founder and CEO of Google DeepMind and Isomorphic Labs, and Dr John Jumper were co-awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing AlphaFold, an AI system that predicts the 3D structure of proteins from their amino acid sequences.  

According to Spore.Bio, it is the only startup in the world selected by the Google.org AI for Science Fund to tackle this challenge. 

“Spore.Labs embodies our vision of what microbiology research should look like in the AI era. With support from Google.org, we’re creating a research environment where the boundaries between biology, physics, and computer science dissolve, allowing us to see and understand microbes in ways that were previously impossible,” said Amine Raji, CEO and co-founder of Spore.Bio. 

Founded in 2023 by Amine Raji, Maxime Mistretta (CTO), and Mohamed Tazi (COO), Spore.Labs uses photonics and AI to disrupt microbiology testing technology. It develops full-stack platforms that enable industries and healthcare systems to monitor and analyse microbial activity with improved speed and accuracy.

According to the company, the current microbiological tests typically take between five and 20 days and require samples to be sent off-site to external labs, Spore.Bio reportedly offers an immediate and on-site solution. Its proprietary technology is a mix of biophotonics and machine learning. 

It claims to have built a proprietary hardware that collects signals from the samples in visible, UV, and near-infrared wavelengths. It gathers the unique spectral fingerprint of the microorganism at the single-cell level and feeds this data into its model. Spore.Labs notes that its foundational model has been trained on millions of images, from lab samples to field strain. 

The company’s tech is integrated with its internally developed dashboard, enabling manufacturers to gain near real-time insights with enhanced traceability and transparency.

“With consequent funding and Google Cloud Platform credits from Google.org, Spore.Labs will develop open datasets, publish research findings, and collaborate with academic and clinical partners to validate its approaches,” the company mentioned in the press release. 

Spore.Bio has raised €29.9 million ($35 million) in funding to date. Last year, in February, the startup secured €22 million in a Series A funding round led by VC firm Singular. 

It has opened 15 positions for scientists in microbiology, photonics and deep learning, and will hire 30 scientists by the end of 2026.

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Dutch-based medical device company ViCentra, which commercialises the Kaleido insulin patch pump system, has raised an additional $13 million as part of its Series D financing, bringing the total round to $98 million. The funding includes new capital from ROM Utrecht Region and a consortium of Dutch investors, including Venturing Tech, alongside increased support from existing investor Innovation Industries.

ViCentra develops and manufactures Kaleido, a compact and discreet alternative to traditional insulin pumps designed to support diabetes management. Kaleido is positioned as the smallest, lightest, and most precise insulin patch pump in its class, delivering automated insulin therapy through integration with Diabeloop’s clinically validated hybrid closed-loop algorithms, DBLG1 and DBLG2.

Designed to resemble personal technology rather than a conventional medical device, Kaleido combines functionality with thoughtful industrial design. It is made from premium materials and features customizable aluminium shells in ten color options, giving users flexibility in how and where the pump is worn while supporting everyday therapy management.

The new round follows the $85 million raised in September 2025. Commenting on the investment, CEO Tom Arnold said the past year marked a period of significant progress for the company, adding that the funding will support expanded manufacturing and stronger commercial operations and customer support.

Our goal for 2026 is clear: convert strong demand into satisfied users through uncompromising quality and performance, and nearly triple our European user base by the end of 2026.

With this funding, ViCentra plans to scale manufacturing, strengthen commercial execution in Germany, the Netherlands, and France, and accelerate preparations for bringing its next-generation Kaleido system to the U.S. market, positioning the company for continued growth in the insulin delivery sector.

Cologne-based United Manufacturing Hub (UMH), an open-source industrial data management platform for modern factories, today announced a €5 million funding round to accelerate its mission to build the foundational data layer for global manufacturing.

The round was led by KOMPAS VC, with participation from seed + speed Ventures, Sustainable Future Ventures, and Archimedes New Ventures. Prominent industry angels also participated in this round, including Jan Oberhauser (Founder & CEO of n8n) and Jeff Hammerbacher (Founder of Cloudera). 

Alexander Krüger, CEO and co-founder of UMH, said, “Every factory runs on decades-old software – Data is trapped in proprietary protocols, siloed by vendors, missing the context that real use cases and AI depend on. We’re building the open-source data infrastructure layer that finally makes industrial data available in the quantity and quality it needs to be – ready for what comes next. 

“This round lets us double down: wider connectivity, greater scale, pool and a product that works for data engineers and shop floor engineers alike.”

According to UMH, the key challenge limiting digitalisation and the deployment of AI in manufacturing lies at the data layer. Data is often locked within proprietary systems and dispersed across machines, processes, and applications, which makes the modernisation of manufacturing nearly impossible. 

Founded in 2021 by Alexander Krüger (CEO) and Jeremy Theocharis (CTO), claims to unify industrial data into a real-time data hub, called Unified Namespace, replacing point-to-point integrations with a scalable, interoperable structure.

“The platform connects machines, sensors, and IT systems through standardised interfaces, then cleans and contextualises their data – creating a single source of truth that any application can use without custom integration work. On top of this foundation, UMH delivers ready-to-use capabilities: operational KPIs, energy and resource tracking, condition monitoring, alerting, and industrial AI applications,” UMH explained in the press release. 

The fresh capital will be used to bolster the company’s open-source platform, grow the engineering team, accelerate product development, including broader connectivity, advanced data modelling and AI agents. UMH also plans to extend collaborations with consulting and technology partners to accelerate adoption across Europe’s industrial base, as well as strengthen the organisation in both engineering and go-to-market positions.

“In areas like ERP, CRM, or HR management, billion-dollar companies have emerged. In digital manufacturing, such a player is still missing. That’s exactly our mission: We want to build the world’s leading Industrial Data Company,” said Niklas Hebborn, Chief Commercial Officer at UMH and former Partner at Freigeist Capital, where he was an early pre-Seed investor in UMH.

Some of the companies using UMH to digitise their factories include HiPP, Edeka, and Böllhoff.

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