A London-based AI startup set up just months ago, which believes it’s pursuing the fastest path to surpassing human intelligence, has today come out of stealth, having raised over $650m at a $4.65bn valuation.

Called Recursive Superintelligence, the funding round was led by GV, Google’s VC arm, and US VC Greycroft, with participation from chip makers Nvidia and AMD. The disclosure of the funding round, follows previous reports about the expected raise.

Recursive Superintelligence’s “bold bet” is that AI systems will improve themselves by analysing their own performance, without human intervention.

The startup's co-founders include Richard Socher, its CEO, who was previously chief scientist at Salesforce, and Tim Rocktäschel, a professor of AI at London’s UCL and a former Google DeepMind scientist. Others who work at the startup, which has a team of less than 30, previously worked at Meta and OpenAI.

The startup, which was incorporated in London and has offices in London and San Francisco, said a clear trend was emerging in AI.

In a blog post on X, it said: "The fastest path to superintelligence will be realised by AI that recursively improves itself, and does so via open-ended algorithms that drive endless innovation.

“We will first focus on the science of AI itself (by creating AI that improves AI), but the playbook we create will soon allow us to revolutionise every scientific discipline. The potential benefits for humanity of safely creating such an advance cannot be overstated.”

Recursive Superintelligence is one of several new AI startups looking at new ways to make improvements in AI intelligence. These include Yann LeCun’s AMI Labs and David Silver’s Ineffable Intelligence.

Thrive Capital and Andreessen Horowitz led the round on the back of $2bn+ in 2025 revenue and a $20bn Pentagon enterprise agreement signed in March. Anduril Industries has raised $5 billion in a round led by Thrive Capital and Andreessen Horowitz, doubling its valuation to $61 billion eleven months after its previous mark. The Costa […]

Glocalzone, the platform connecting travellers with cross-border delivery requests, has been acquired by MovitOn as part of a deal focused on expanding peer-to-peer logistics infrastructure and integrating decentralised delivery technology.

Founded as a marketplace linking travellers with users seeking international deliveries, Glocalzone has built a network of more than 1.3 million registered users. The platform says it has facilitated over 600,000 delivery orders, with users regularly posting travel routes across destinations including Turkey, Brazil, Mexico and the United States.

MovitOn said the acquisition gives it access to an established international user base while expanding the reach of its decentralised logistics network. The company is developing a delivery platform that combines AI-powered courier matching with blockchain-enabled payment and verification systems.

Following the acquisition, Glocalzone’s platform and user community will be integrated into MovitOn’s decentralised physical infrastructure network (DePIN), which uses smart contracts, escrow systems and token-based transactions to coordinate deliveries and payments.

Doğan Turan, co-founder of Glocalzone, said the integration would combine the company’s existing marketplace with MovitOn’s AI-powered delivery infrastructure.

The synergy between our trusted marketplace and MovitOn’s AI-powered courier-matching system is nothing short of transformative. We’ve spent years building trust among travellers and senders alike, and now, we integrate our 1.3 million users into a DePIN framework powered by smart contracts to eliminate all the pain points of today’s logistics systems. This is the moment peer-to-peer logistics truly goes mainstream and provides a secure, transparent alternative to models of the past.

The integration process will begin immediately, with existing Glocalzone users gradually onboarded into MovitOn’s courier-matching platform, where delivery assignments are determined using factors including route, schedule and user reputation.

The platform will continue operating under the name “Glocalzone by MovitOn” as the companies transition users to the updated infrastructure. MovitOn said loyalty programmes and transition tools will be introduced to support the adoption of its MVON token and broader Web3 payment ecosystem.

Mantle8, a Grenoble, France-based natural hydrogen exploration company, has raised €31 million in Series A funding. This round brings the company’s total funding to €37 million (US$44 million).

The round was led by Sandwater and includes Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Ecotechnologies 2 fund managed on behalf of the French government by Bpifrance, IP Group, Wind Capital and Calderion (an Audacia-backed investment platform).

Emmanuel Masini, founder and CEO of Mantle8, said, “This raise reflects the growing conviction among leading clean tech investors that natural hydrogen is a resource worth pursuing at scale. The existence of natural hydrogen is a well-established scientific fact; the challenge has been finding free gas accumulations of high-purity hydrogen that are commercially viable. I’m proud that we’ve built and patented an entire technology stack to answer this critical challenge, meeting the expectations of our existing shareholders. 

“The next steps are to identify the prospects in our pipeline that meet our commercial hurdles and drill them. I’m excited to welcome investors who have a long history of involvement in subsurface resources, sovereign investments and ecosystem building.”

Founded in 2019 by Emmanuel Masini, Mantle8 is on a mission to produce commercially viable natural hydrogen by 2030. According to the company, hydrogen is a crucial part of our future decarbonised industrial system; however, the importance of its role will depend on its price and origin. 

Mantle8 claims that its technology for identifying commercially viable natural hydrogen reserves reduces exploration risk and cost, with economic models projecting production costs as low as €0.80/kg. This significantly contributes to a much lower average cost of clean hydrogen supply.

The company believes that this will fundamentally change the hydrogen sector’s economics and will unlock a low-carbon source of sovereign energy supply for Europe as well as other geographies. By partnering with organisations focused on drilling and exploiting target reservoirs, the technology can be rolled out quickly and at scale, says Mantle8. 

The company develops proprietary subsurface modelling and exploration technologies, including HOREX®, a multiphysics platform that produces 4D images of active underground hydrogen systems.

The company’s exploration framework, the Geological Trifecta, identifies reservoirs where an active hydrogen-generating source, continuous replenishment and a sufficiently sealed reservoir converge.

“Emmanuel and his team have built truly proprietary exploration technology, validated it in the field, and now have a clear plan to move into the commercial phase. Natural hydrogen sits at the intersection of energy transition and resource discovery, two areas where Europe must lead as it seeks energy sovereignty. This is a demanding challenge but with the potential to create a new clean energy source, which is what we need and why we see in Mantle8 the opportunity for outsized impact and return,” said Tom Even Mortensen, founder and Managing Partner of Sandwater.

The company plans to deploy this capital during the next two years to fund the world’s most advanced natural hydrogen exploration and drilling campaign. Its technology platform will be employed across its global development pipeline to identify and rank the most promising opportunities. These sites will then be drilled to confirm natural hydrogen accumulations and to evaluate volume, purity, and reservoir quality in support of commercially viable, large-scale production, states Mantle8.

“With this backing, we will work alongside industrial partners globally to move from exploration through to commercial development. The next two years are about proving that the active hydrogen systems our technology has pinpointed can deliver sustained, commercially viable flow,” said Bart Markus, Mantle8’s chairperson. 

In 2025, the company raised a €3.4 million Seed round led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures. It then went on to complete the world’s first 4D imaging of an active underground natural hydrogen system using HOREX® at its Hydrogeco project in the French Pyrenees. Earlier this year, Mantle8 received a €2.06 million grant from the EU Just Transition Fund to industrialise its core exploration technologies.

The post France’s Mantle8 raises €31 million to fund the world’s most advanced natural hydrogen exploration and drilling campaign appeared first on EU-Startups.

Beijing’s foreign ministry hit the MATCH Act on the eve of the Xi summit, with a 150-day alignment deadline for Japan and the Netherlands at the heart of the legislation Beijing has sharpened its criticism of US legislation that would tighten controls on semiconductor manufacturing equipment, on the morning Donald Trump arrived in the Chinese […]

The Copenhagen company says its Symphony model has outscored OpenAI on HealthBench Professional, and is offering credits and regulatory help to founders building healthcare AI worldwide. Corti, the Copenhagen-based clinical AI company, has launched a no-equity accelerator for healthcare and life sciences startups, opening its Symphony model stack to founders worldwide at a moment when […]

Running out of money is a story as old as startups, and still highly relevant in 2026. According to recent findings of CB Insights, based on an analysis of 431 VC-backed companies that shut down since 2023, “ran out of capital” tops the list at 70%.  Yet, while burn is often treated as the core […]

Dolfin, a Barcelona-based AI-native platform for sales compensation management, has closed a €2.1 million ($2.5 million) Seed round to accelerate product development and expand across Europe and the United States.

The round was led by Swanlaab, with participation from Archipelago Next, Inveready, and Dozen.

“Many teams don’t believe their compensation system is broken. But they spend weeks every quarter, fixing it, explaining it, and finding ways to work around it. We built Dolfin because we knew there was a better way to align people’s ambition with business goals,” said Daniel Seror, CEO and co-founder of Dolfin.

Founded in 2023, Dolfin helps RevOps, finance, and compensation teams design, manage, and adapt compensation plans without spreadsheets, complex implementations, or external consultants. 

It also brings compensation closer to the people who sell. Sales teams gain real-time visibility into their earnings, understand how their actions impact performance, and know where to focus to achieve their goals. 

“In essence, Dolfin turns static compensation plans into dynamic systems that teams can actually use, aligning incentives, behaviour, and performance in real time,” the company mentioned in the press release. 

According to Dolfin, most companies with sales teams rely heavily on their compensation models. These incentive plans influence sales priorities, shape operational structures, and affect how well the company’s strategy is communicated to frontline teams. 

However, in many organisations, commission management continues to depend on spreadsheets, outdated tools, and manual procedures. Plans often change midway, data gets corrected, and assignments are modified, but many existing systems are built as if these changes do not occur. 

The outcome is a process that might eventually generate accurate numbers, but only after weeks of manual effort, cross-team reconciliation, and ongoing uncertainty. Revenue teams devote a lot of time to fixing and clarifying a process that should be more agile and automated, states the company. 

Dolfin claims to be grounded in the clear idea that compensation doesn’t just measure performance—it drives it. Incentives influence what sales teams focus on each day, how opportunities are structured, and whether the company strategy is actually executed. However, most organisations lack real visibility into whether their plans are working or how they shape day-to-day behaviour.

The platform integrates with CRM, ERP, and HRIS. It notes that onboarding, which once took six months, now takes weeks. Commission cycles that required days of manual validation can now be closed in hours, even as business strategy and plans evolve.

Dolfin also allows sales teams to view in real time how each deal affects their earnings, whether they are on track to meet their targets, and which actions can help them advance to the next level. 

The Spanish startup emphasised that AI has been central to its development since day one. It believes this provides a structural advantage over traditional platforms, which often need costly consultants to adjust a single rule. Dolfin highlights that this capability allows a new incentive plan to go live within hours. Even a 48-hour flash incentive can be deployed without the need for an implementation team.

“Incentive compensation has always been complex. What has changed is that we can finally make it simple for the people who use it. Our goal is to help companies design incentives that truly drive performance and give all teams clarity on how revenue is generated and how they can maximise their earnings,” explained Antoni Bardina, CPO and co-founder of Dolfin.

With this funding, Dolfin plans to accelerate product development and expand its go-to-market team in Europe and the United States. The company is already SOC 2 certified and works with organisations generating more than €851 million ($1 billion) in annual revenue. 

The post Barcelona’s Dolfin raises €2.1 million Seed round to scale its AI-native platform for sales compensation appeared first on EU-Startups.

MUFG, Mizuho, and SMFG would be the first Japanese institutions added to Anthropic’s restricted Project Glasswing rollout, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters Japan’s three megabanks are set to gain access to Claude Mythos, Anthropic’s vulnerability-hunting AI model, within roughly two weeks, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Tuesday. It […]

Digital transformation minister Óscar López says ‘the profit of four tech companies cannot come at the expense of the rights of millions’ as Madrid’s regulatory package moves through parliament. Spain’s digital transformation minister, Óscar López, said on Wednesday that Madrid would press ahead with a slate of rules targeting social media platforms and high-risk artificial […]

Flyers framing the Model Capability Initiative as an ‘Employee Data Extraction Factory’ appeared in US offices on Tuesday, with a petition and a UK unionisation drive in train By Tuesday afternoon, the flyers were everywhere. Meta employees at several US offices walked into meeting rooms, broke for coffee at vending machines, and used the restrooms […]

A round at the proposed terms would push the Claude maker past OpenAI on paper, less than three months after its last record-setting raise. Anthropic is in early talks to raise at least $30bn in a new financing round at a pre-money valuation above $900bn, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter. […]

Gyver, a Brescia, Italy-based startup building the workforce infrastructure for Europe’s new industrial era, has today announced a €1.4 million pre-Seed funding round to strengthen its technology, unlock growth and provide a better experience for both electricians and employers.

The round was led by Brighteye, with participation from āltitude, Vento Ventures, Zanichelli Venture and existing investor Antler, alongside several business angels. 

Francesco Defendi, co-founder of Gyver, commented, “We want the job of an electrician to be as cool as being a VC or famous entrepreneur. Electricians are the most important yet neglected workers category in the modern economy. They embody the combination of brain and manual craft that cannot be replaced by AI, yet they have been left behind by modern technology. The future of work in the AI age is the future of manual craft. 

“This funding allows us to build the infrastructure that will elevate this profession and ensure that the people who are the backbone of electrification have the tools they need to thrive.”

Gyver was founded during an Antler founder residency in Fall 2024 by Defendi, Leo Acciarri, and Mattia Zarrelli. The trio had previously worked together building a general contractor for solar installations on industrial SMEs, where they witnessed firsthand the critical importance of skilled labour.

The company’s mission is to become the primary source of the electrician workforce for its customers, helping electrical employers hire, manage and empower the workers who are the essence of their business. It claims to be building the “Workforce Infrastructure for Europe’s new Industrial Era” and aims to empower the workers who will never be replaced by AI.

According to the company, while projects such as renewable energy, data centres, and grid updates are essential for the EU’s reindustrialisation, electrical contractors are facing a massive talent crisis. There are currently 28 million skilled blue-collar workers across the EU, yet an estimated 5.8 million additional workers will be required by 2030.

The startup claims to be tackling the skilled blue-collar workforce shortage. It has developed an AI-powered conversational job platform that replicates how electricians find jobs (referrals/word of mouth) and allows employers access to top talent. Over the next few years, the product will expand towards upskilling, learning and workforce productivity tools for electricians. 

Gyver aims to make the manual craft 10x more productive, similar to how software transformed white-collar desk work, and plans to do so by providing modern tools for technical skills like electrical design and PLC. 

David Guérin, Partner at Brighteye, commented, “Europe has 2.7 million electrical workers and a €3 billion hiring market that has been chronically underserved. The electrification of the world, industrial maintenance and ageing demographics are widening the gap between supply and demand faster than traditional tools can handle. 

“Gyver uses AI not to replace skilled electricians but to make each one more productive and more valuable, which is a distinction that matters. We are convinced this is the right answer to a structural problem with powerful tailwinds. We’re excited to back Francesco, Leo and Mattia: founders who know this industry from the inside and are moving with real conviction to build the category leader.”

With the new funding, the company aims to enhance Gyver’s technology, focusing on AI agents and workflows to drive growth.

The post AI for the workers it can’t replace: Italy’s Gyver raises €1.4 million to empower electricians appeared first on EU-Startups.

The Court of Justice has ruled that Italy’s AGCOM can require Meta to pay publishers for news snippets, the first time the bloc’s top court has weighed in directly. Meta lost its bid to overturn an Italian regulatory order requiring it to compensate publishers for the use of their news snippets, after the Court of […]

Europe’s external dependency exposes more than its AI sovereignty. It also affects its data sovereignty and creates political exposure. In a previous article, we discussed how Europe is heavily dependent on external providers for AI development, particularly through GPUaaS and the semiconductor industry. US companies such as Nvidia and AMD provide the GPU chips powering […]

Are you a healthtech or techbio startup looking to collaborate with pharmaceutical companies, sharpen your value proposition, and grow inside one of Europe’s strongest life sciences ecosystems? If that sounds like your company, the DayOne Accelerator could be worth a closer look.

The Basel-based programme has officially opened its new call for applications, inviting early-stage Swiss and international startups to apply for its next cohort. Launched in 2018, DayOne focuses on ventures building solutions that can accelerate pharma R&D, offering a three-month hybrid accelerator, direct access to industry experts, and tailored support without taking equity or charging fees.

What’s it about?

DayOne describes itself as a leading launchpad for startups transforming pharma R&D. Based in Basel, Switzerland, the accelerator is designed to help founders move faster by connecting them with leading life science companies, research institutions, mentors, and investors.

The programme runs over three months in a hybrid format and is built specifically for startups developing solutions for areas such as drug discovery, clinical development and clinical trials optimisation.

This can include solutions such as biomarkers or companion diagnostics, data layers that improve data flows across R&D, organ-on-chip systems, organoids, non-animal methods, lab automation, and AI tools that improve clinical trials through patient engagement, remote monitoring, patient-reported outcomes, or real-world evidence. It also includes discovery tools that provide a technology platform, rather than startups building and licensing their own asset pipeline.

The aim is not just to offer short-term momentum, but to help founders build validated partnerships, improve investor readiness, and create a clearer growth path.

Who’s it for?

The programme is aimed at early-stage healthtech and techbio startups, from pre-incorporation to Series A, that have raised less than $10 million in dilutive funding.

More specifically, DayOne is looking for ventures developing high-potential products that can transform pharma R&D and that are interested in collaborating or partnering with pharmaceutical companies.

Selected startups receive one-to-one mentorship to refine their pharma-specific value proposition, along with access to pharma experts and Basel’s wider life sciences network. The programme is equity-free and fee-free, which means founders can take part without giving up ownership or paying programme costs.

For the most promising startups in the cohort, there is also the possibility of continuing with DayOne NEXT, a longer-term support programme designed to help selected companies build, scale, and anchor their R&D in the Basel Area.

Key information

Applications for the 2026 DayOne Accelerator are open until 31 May 2026.

Here are the main dates for the upcoming cohort:

• 31 March to 31 May 2026: call for applications open
• 25 to 26 June 2026: selection days, during which 15 startups will be chosen
• 7 to 8 September 2026 in Basel: kickoff bootcamp with presentations, workshops, and networking
• Early December 2026 in Basel: innovation showcase

Beyond the accelerator itself, DayOne also offers post-programme support through DayOne NEXT. This can include up to CHF 50K in cash grant funding, up to CHF 50K in tailored services, and 12 months of office space at Switzerland Innovation Park Basel Area. The programme may also include relocation support, access to the Basel Incentive Programme, and long-term support from mentors, industry experts, and investors.

Success stories

Since its launch in 2018, DayOne says it has supported more than 128 ventures, including over 60 healthtech startups, through its pharma R&D-focused programmes.

Among the startups that have already been part of the DayOne Accelerator are InSilicoTrials, Risklick and TrialHub (cohort 2023/24); Oncoustics and Theremia (cohort 2024/25); and Lemna Bio (cohort 2025).

In 2025 alone, DayOne hosted 17 events with more than 3,500 participants across networking and thought-leadership formats, helping strengthen its position in Basel’s life sciences landscape.

For early-stage ventures developing solutions for pharma R&D, the programme offers more than mentorship and visibility. It opens the door to one of Europe’s most established life sciences hubs, with focused support designed to help startups turn promising technology into scalable business opportunities.

If you wish to take your healthtech startup to the next level, click here to apply. Remember, you have until 31 May 2026.

The post The 2026 DayOne Accelerator applications are now open: Calling Healthtech & TechBio founders! (Sponsored) appeared first on EU-Startups.

The Grand Chamber of the CJEU heard ByteDance’s appeal in Case C-627/24 P on Tuesday, the first DMA gatekeeper challenge to reach the bloc’s highest court. ByteDance’s TikTok went before the Grand Chamber of the Court of Justice of the European Union on Tuesday in a last attempt to escape its designation as a “gatekeeper” […]

DesignVerse, a Bucharest-based enterprise software startup helping modernise aviation infrastructure across Europe, has raised more than €4.6 million ($5.5 million) in Seed funding. 

Investors in this round include Begin Capital, Gapminder VC, Underline Ventures, and strategic individual angel investments from companies like Adobe, LSEG, UiPath, and more.

Andrei Manolache, CEO of DesignVerse, said, “Large organisations still lose enormous amounts of time translating design work into production software. Designers create intent, but engineers must manually reinterpret and rebuild it, which leads to inconsistency and delays.

“DesignVerse removes that friction entirely, allowing teams to generate functional enterprise applications directly from their design systems, validating the behaviour instantly with business stakeholders and bridging the gap between.”

Founded in 2024 by Andrei Manolache and Robert Dragutoiu, DesignVerse is an AI-based platform that builds and delivers complex enterprise software using an organisation’s own documentation and internal rules. It ensures that every system is built consistently across teams.

The company claims that its software integrates directly with the design systems, architecture patterns, and business logic enterprise which the client’s teams rely on, eliminating drift, fragmentation, and repeated implementation effort. “The DesignVerse platform bridges the gap between design and development by creating a context layer, unique for each large-scale organisation, enabling teams to build and modernise complex software far faster than traditional workflows,” says the company. 

Using AI, DesignVerse states that its technology allows teams to modernise operational software far faster than traditional development processes. The platform grounds its AI models in each customer’s design systems, component libraries and technical documentation. This enables software to be generated in line with the company’s existing or target architecture, as well as existing or target front-end or back-end technologies.

It is designed for organisations running complex legacy systems, including banks, cybersecurity platforms, and government infrastructure. 

It has already been adopted by a range of mission-critical organisations, including EUROCONTROL, which is responsible for coordinating air traffic across Europe. DesignVerse upgraded and modernised EUROCONTROL’S legacy software, overhauling a 15-year-old application in just over a month, compared with the estimated six months it would have taken using conventional methods, it states. 

In a statement, EUROCONTROL pointed out, “Aviation is an industry where the innovation cycle is generally slower compared to others. At EUROCONTROL, we have embarked on our largest digital transformation programme to date – the Integrated Network Management (iNM) programme – aimed at reshaping this paradigm by transforming not only our technologies but also aligning our culture with new ways of working, in collaboration with our partners.

“DesignVerse, through its AI platform, has supported us in modernising our software systems at an accelerated pace, without compromising the reliability, safety and security that remain the highest priority for our sector. We value such partnerships that contribute to our efforts to drive innovation and leverage AI at scale across the European aviation ecosystem, and ultimately improve the quality of air travel for the entire community.”

It reported that in less than five months, the company has exceeded nearly €930k ($1.1 million) in annual recurring revenue, driven entirely by enterprise customers from highly sensitive sectors.

Robert Dragutoiu, CTO and architect of the AI model pipeline behind DesignVerse, said, “Many AI coding tools available today are designed primarily for experimentation or rapid prototyping.

“Enterprises operate complex infrastructure and legacy systems, often in mission-critical environments. Software generated by AI must integrate with existing architectures and run safely in production. Our models are designed specifically for those constraints.

“Our technology builds a system-level context layer from each customer’s design systems, component libraries, and technical documentation, enabling software to be produced seamlessly in alignment with existing architecture and engineering standards, without months of custom integrations.”

With the fresh funding,  DesignVerse plans to expand its engineering team and accelerate growth across the enterprise sector, both in Europe and the US. Prior to this round, DesignVerse raised €725.3k ($850k) in pre-Seed funding, which enabled the team to build its core platform and begin working with early enterprise design partners.

The post Bucharest’s DesignVerse raises over €4.6 million Seed funding after supporting EUROCONTROL software upgrade appeared first on EU-Startups.