This week, we tracked more than 35 tech funding deals worth over €407 million and 5 exits, M&A transactions, rumours, and related news stories

In addition to this week's top financials, we've also indexed the most important/industry-related news items you need to know about.

If email is more your thing, you can always subscribe to our newsletter and receive a more robust version of this round-up delivered to your inbox. Either way, let's get you up to speed.

? Notable and big funding rounds

?? E-commerce operating startup Swap raises $100M

?? FineHeart raises €35M in Series C first closing and receives €48M in grants

?? With €30M+ Series B, Bactolife prepares shift from R&D to commercial scale

??‍?? Noteworthy acquisitions and mergers

??  UK AI firm Faculty to be acquired by consulting giant Accenture

??  Diginex buys Plan A for €55M: What it means for Europe’s carbon accounting scene?

?? BENTELER acquires ioki to expand autonomous mobility in Europe 

?? Taskbase acquires Micromate redefine corporate learning

? Interesting moves from investors

? CaixaBank reaches 30 million euros with the first operations of its venture debt fund

? Poland gets new fund: EIF and BGK launch €350M Future Tech Poland fund to boost tech innovation

? Antler bags $510M in new funds, half for the US founders, as Airalo and Lovable soar to unicorn

?️ In other (important) news

?? Capital flows to scale as 2025 closed

?? European Tech.eu Pulse: key trends and investment in December

?? December 2025's top 10 European tech deals you need to know about

?? UK bets £210M on cybersecurity to unlock digital government — and £45B in productivity savings

?? Bunq reapplies for US banking licence

? Recommended reads and listens

?? CES 2026 showcases Europe’s hardware renaissance

? Europe’s startups go the last mile at CES

? Cyberette is building forensic-grade AI for a post-truth internet

? European tech startups to watch 

?? AI deeptech startup Principled Intelligence closes €1.85M pre-seed round

?? Legaltech Alice raises €1M to bring trustworthy AI workflows to legal casework

?? WholeSum raises £730,000 to advance a qualitative data analysis platform

?? Social and community networking app Cliq raises seven-figure investment

?? Webrazzi GSYF invested $300,000 in Cypien AI

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The post Weekly funding round-up! All of the European startup funding rounds we tracked this week (Jan. 01-09) appeared first on EU-Startups.

Today, CES exhibitors and attendees ready themselves for a final draft of traversing booths, dodging bright lights and choosing the most coveted swag (always say NO to the USB sticks, folks). 

Meanwhile, Europe’s startups are going to the last mile, showcasing innovative tech in the hope of catching the eye of investors, customers, retailers, and ecosystem partners.

If you’re at the show today, here are some more can’t-miss startups: 

Chimera Tech (Italy)

Chimera Tech brings together AI, engineering, design and strategic thinking to build practical technology solutions for real-world problems.

The most interesting is SmartSailor, an AI + IoT platform for smarter boating.  SmartSailor links data from sensors and devices on board — such as batteries, bilge pumps, weather instruments, cameras and navigation instruments — into a unified view. This lets owners see the status of key systems both locally and remotely, even when they’re not on the boat.

The platform can detect anomalies and unexpected events — for example, low battery levels, rising bilge water, anchor drift or critical weather changes — and send alerts to the owner’s phone.

It tracks energy consumption and onboard performance, turning raw sensor data into clear, actionable information.  Owners can analyse how systems are performing over time and make decisions about power use or maintenance.

Further, depending on the hardware installed, users can remotely activate systems — such as lights, pumps or refrigeration — directly from a cloud dashboard. 

Coroflow (Ireland)

Coroflo has developed Coro, a device designed to help breastfeeding parents accurately measure how much breast milk their baby is getting in real time.

It’s intended for use when someone wants more detailed information than traditional signs (like weight gain, wet nappies or feeding cues) can provide. 

Coro looks like a nipple shield — a soft silicone shield some parents already use during breastfeeding — but it has a tiny built-in sensor that measures milk flow and volume as the baby feeds. 

A corresponding app displays real-time feed information such as how much milk flowed, how quickly, and for how long. 

Factorial Robotics (Ukraine)

Factorial Robotics has developed Shapid,  a family of autonomous warehouse robots that move goods independently around warehouses, factories, and distribution centres guided by sensors and software.

Using onboard sensors such as lidar and QR-code guidance, the robots navigate warehouse floors independently and operate as a goods-to-person system, bringing pallets, parts, or items directly to workers instead of requiring staff to walk long distances to retrieve inventory. Each unit can carry loads of up to around 600 kg and operate for extended periods, while 360-degree sensors support obstacle detection and safe navigation. 

Shapid robots communicate wirelessly with each other and a central fleet management system, which coordinates tasks and routes across multiple units.

The platform is modular, allowing hardware to be reconfigured or upgraded for different warehouse tasks, and it integrates with existing warehouse software for tracking, routing, and scheduling.

Willo (Finland)

Willo is building truly wireless power delivery systems — a wireless power technology that aims to replace traditional power cables with over-the-air energy transmission.

Inspired by Nikola Tesla’s early ideas about wireless electricity, the startup aims to power a wide range of sectors, including consumer electronics, industrial automation and robotics, smart buildings, healthcare devices, logistics and IoT sensor networks. 

Willo’s core tech enables power to be transmitted through the air in all directions — similar to how Wi-Fi transmits data — but with energy instead of signals, allowing devices to receive power without physical cables or strict alignment constraints.

Crucial to real-world applicability, Willo’s system is designed to deliver uninterrupted omnidirectional power — meaning multiple devices can be powered simultaneously without needing to be pointed directly at a transmitter, unlike traditional power cables. 

GYM 3000 (Croatia)

Bringing the quantified self up a notch, GYM 3000 has developed the FitButlr Smart Fitness Towel, a fitness towel embedded with NFC (near-field communication) technology. 

 It aims to combine comfort, hygiene, and a digital identity in one product. 

The towel is cut to fit gym machine seats and has a dual-zone design: one side is for your body and the other is for gym equipment. Each towel has tap-to-connect technology (NFC). You can tap it with your phone to claim it, name it, and link it to your profile, making it personally identifiable. 

While let’s face it, the towel is only a “nice-to-have” for serious gym users, the longer-term plan is for it to function as a digital key or interaction device, replacing traditional gym cards or keys, and to connect with an app that tracks workouts.

The company is also developing biosensor modules designed to analyse sweat and translate that data into practical training insights.

Yneuro (France)

Yneuro is redefining digital identity by leveraging unique brainwave patterns — essentially turning your brain’s electrical activity into a biometric key with Neuro ID. 

It is developing a device that uses EEG (electroencephalography) sensors to identify a person. EEG sensors capture the brain’s electrical activity through wearable headsets or ear-worn devices, producing raw neural signals.

Yneuro’s platform then applies AI and machine-learning models to this data to identify a unique neural signature. That signature is transformed into a cryptographically secure authentication key — effectively replacing traditional passwords with one generated directly from a person’s brain activity.

The neural signal is unique and non-duplicable and harder to spoof than fingerprints or facial recognition.

Potential use cases include:

• Secure login to devices and services,
• Identity verification for financial and government systems,
• Wearables and future AR/VR human-computer interactions.
  

XIVIX (Belgium)

Will robotics make going to the dentist better? 

XIVIX is developing an end-to-end digital and robotic workflow for dental restorative care that uses advanced imaging, AI planning, precision manufacturing, and clinician-supervised robotics to improve how crowns, veneers, and other prosthetics are delivered. 

3D scanning is used to make a digital twin of your teeth and mouth. Ai then designs a precise fitting crown in advance so it's ready before you even fit in the chair. 

During the visit, a six-axis robotic arm, equipped with force sensing and operated under continuous human supervision, helps prepare the tooth and place the pre-made crown with very high accuracy, adjusting in real time to tiny movements, removing the need for jaw clamping or rigid head immobilisation. 

The result is that many crowns or bridges can be completed in a single appointment instead of multiple visits, and are more likely to fit the first time with less drilling, fewer adjustments, and less time in the chair.

Lead image: Factorial Group's Shapid AGV. 

Berlin-based PropTech startup vivanta has successfully completed its Seed financing round, raising €2.5 million to develop a new generation of property management based on its own automation platform.

The round is led by a Hamburg-based family office focused on mezzanine investments and its own real estate developments, which will support vivanta as a strategic partner in scaling and growth.

“Our goal is to make living easy again – for owners, advisory boards, and tenants,” says Katharina John, founder of vivanta. “With the new financing, we can further scale our technology, automate operational processes, and at the same time noticeably improve our personal service.”

In the context of European PropTech funding in 2025, vivanta’s Seed round aligns with a broader pattern of investment into digital property management and adjacent real estate technologies, particularly in Germany.

Other German startups have attracted comparable or significantly larger rounds: SCALARA (Brühl) raised €3 million to expand its digital property management platform and integrate financial services for administrators, while Lumoview (Cologne/Berlin) secured €3 million in venture funding alongside a €2.5 million European Commission grant to scale its building data capture technology aimed at improving energy efficiency.

At the upper end of the spectrum, Berlin-based Buena raised €49 million to further digitise property management operations through software and acquisitions.

Beyond Germany, activity in adjacent areas includes Zurich-based viboo, which raised €3.3 million to expand its AI-driven building management system into Germany, and Madrid-based VIVLA, which secured €8 million to scale its co-ownership model for premium second homes.

Taken together, these rounds represent well over €65 million invested into property management, building operations, and related PropTech models during 2025, with Germany emerging as a particularly active market.

Within this landscape, vivanta’s funding places it among a cohort of early-stage and scale-up companies focused on replacing fragmented, manual processes with more automated and data-driven property management solutions.

“We are investing in vivanta because the team solves a key problem in everyday real estate: management must be reliable, transparent, and operationally strong – not just digitally,” says the lead investor. “vivanta combines technological scalability with a genuine understanding of processes and real estate. That’s exactly what makes the model so compelling for us.”

Founded in 2024, vivanta tackles traditional property management with its own automation and AI platform. The company manages over 1,500 units in five cities and works with  more than 300 service providers.

Property management affects the daily lives of millions of people. Yet, vivanta says many companies still work with fragmented systems, manual processes, and low transparency. This is where they aim to make their mark, combining modern technology with high service standards.

The company has grown entirely organically and is active in Berlin, Munich, Hamburg, Frankfurt, and the Rhine-Ruhr region. vivanta manages both condominium owners’ associations and rental properties.

“Over the past twelve months, we have analysed very closely where property management fails in practice and are consistently addressing the causes,” adds Florentin Braunewell, co-founder of vivanta. “Many solutions optimise individual steps, but leave the underlying problems unresolved. For us, automation is not an end in itself, but rather creates time for support, quality, and reliability.”

The new funding will be invested primarily in the further development of the company’s own technology platform, the expansion of the team, and geographical expansion.

In addition, vivanta is reviewing selective strategic acquisitions, particularly in succession or handover situations, where existing administrations fit in with the company’s quality and service philosophy.

The post vivanta completes €2.5 million round to expand automated property management across Germany appeared first on EU-Startups.

Tucuvi, a Madrid-based HealthTech company innovating certified voice AI, raised €17 million ($20 million) in Series A funding to accelerate the adoption of its AI-based care management platform in healthcare systems.

The round was led by Cathay Innovation and Kfund, through its early-growth fund Leadwind, with participation from existing investors Frontline Ventures, Seaya Ventures, and Shilling.

“Healthcare is under enormous pressure, and partial solutions are no longer enough,” explains María González, CEO of Tucuvi. “To continue providing quality care at scale, healthcare systems need AI they can trust: secure, auditable, and designed for real clinical environments. We are proud to already be working with more than 60 healthcare organisations and continue to grow to meet increasing demand.” (Translated).

Tucuvi’s Series A round can be situated within a wider, still relatively selective flow of European capital into AI-driven healthcare platforms during 2025–2026.

In early 2025, Warsaw-based primary care startup Jutro Medical raised €12 million in a Series A round to expand its network of physical clinics and deploy medical AI agents across telemedicine and operational workflows. This was followed later in the year by a €24 million Series A extension, also reported by EU-Startups, to further scale its AI-first primary care model and automation capabilities across clinical and administrative functions.

Against this backdrop, Tucuvi’s Madrid-based focus on certified voice AI and end-to-end care management workflows reflects a parallel approach to addressing workforce shortages and care complexity, albeit through software deployed directly into existing healthcare systems rather than through direct care delivery.

Taken together, the roughly €53 million raised across these announcements points to a growing, though still concentrated, level of investment in European healthcare AI companies seeking to increase care capacity and operational efficiency through automation.

“The Tucuvi platform transforms protocols and clinical guidelines into real, reliable, and consistent AI workflows, allowing us to interact with all our patients and enabling our nursing team to devote their expertise to cases that require high-value clinical judgment,”  adds an unidentified Medical Director. (Translated).

Healthcare systems are facing increasing pressure from a shortage of professionals, rising demand for care, and greater operational complexity. Tucuvi was founded in 2019 to respond to this context with secure, auditable, and autonomous AI agents that aim to expand care capacity without compromising clinical quality or trust.

The company has developed an AI-powered Care Management platform designed to automate and orchestrate high-volume care workflows from start to finish.

The platform is based on AI agents, including LOLA, a voice-based AI agent that conducts secure phone conversations with patients, executes clinical and care coordination workflows, and escalates to human teams when necessary.

Tucuvi currently supports more than 50 workflows, ranging from post-surgical follow-up and discharge to chronic disease management, preoperative assessments, test preparation, screening programs, appointment scheduling, and demand management.

Tucuvi’s voice AI agents handle phone interactions, while the platform as a whole takes care of workflow logic, referrals, documentation, and integration with existing healthcare system operations.

“What convinced us at Cathay Innovation is Tucuvi’s ability to combine clinical rigor, regulatory credibility, and real-world scalability in a single platform,” said Jacky Abitbol, Managing Partner at Cathay Innovation. “Its approach allows healthcare organisations to deploy autonomous AI with confidence, freeing up significant capacity for care teams while maintaining the highest levels of safety and quality. We believe Tucuvi is blazing a new trail in how AI can be responsibly integrated into healthcare operations.”

Tucuvi is reportedly the first AI platform to obtain European regulatory approval as a Class IIb Software as a Medical Device (SaMD) for both its voice agent and patient management platform.

The company outlines that their platform has generated consistent and measurable results in collaborating healthcare systems, including:

• Up to 80% automation of nursing follow-up flows
• Patient reach and adherence greater than 90%, even in highly complex populations
• Improved outcomes in chronic diseases, such as a 5.5% reduction in readmissions for COPD

With this funding, Tucuvi will accelerate its growth strategy in Europe and the United States, expand its AI capabilities, and continue to evolve its platform as a comprehensive action and intelligence system for care teams.

The post Spain’s HealthTech startup Tucuvi raises €17 million to scale LOLA voice AI, reporting up to 80% automation in nursing follow-up appeared first on EU-Startups.

This week, we took a closer look at the Bulgarian startup ecosystem. Over the past few years, Bulgaria has slightly strengthened its position as a rising tech hub in Southeast Europe, supported by strong technical universities, an active community of accelerators and venture funds, and a growing pool of international talent choosing Sofia as their base. Competitive operating costs, a strategic location and a fast-evolving digital economy have helped Bulgaria attract founders building across fintech, health, AI, robotics and more.

Today, we’re introducing you to 10 promising Bulgarian startups to watch in 2026. We focused on innovation-driven startups founded in recent years that have secured early traction through funding, product development or real-world deployments. All of them are headquartered in Sofia, reflecting the city’s role as the country’s central engine of entrepreneurship.

Founded in 2024, Agent Harbor is a platform designed to help developers coordinate and manage long-horizon tasks across multiple AI agents. It provides a local sandbox environment with fast startup, consistent replication, and easy rollbacks or session forks. The system supports models such as Claude, Gemini, and Codex, allowing teams to structure and automate their development workflows more efficiently. Founded in 2024, the company has raised €3.44 million to date.

The platform includes mechanisms to detect stalled tasks, resolve deadlocks, and handle failed processes. Developers can run tests across different operating systems, keep full activity logs, and customise file system and network permissions to maintain control over each agent’s environment. Agent Harbor is open source, privacy-focused, and integrates with common developer tools, including terminals, IDEs, and remote management interfaces.

Blue Longevity provides personalised, evidence-based longevity programmes designed to help individuals improve their long-term health. The company combines digital coaching with advanced diagnostics, lifestyle medicine and regenerative therapies to create tailored plans covering areas such as fitness, nutrition and stress reduction. Its model focuses on continuous monitoring and adjustment, ensuring each user’s plan evolves as new data and lifestyle changes are recorded.

Founded in 2024, the startup has raised €2 million to support the development of its platform and the rollout of its longevity hubs. Blue Longevity aims to make modern, science-driven preventive care more accessible by uniting medical and well-being expertise in one structured framework.

Bronia is building a smart technology that can listen to sounds, understand what they are, and pinpoint where they come from. It works by analysing noise in real time and identifying important sounds such as machinery issues, loud urban disturbances or gunshots. The system can then react automatically or send alerts. Bronia’s technology is used in areas like public safety, industrial monitoring and defence, and can also be installed on vehicles or drones.

Founded in 2024, the Sofia-based startup has raised about €500k to develop its platform further. Bronia aims to make sound detection accurate, reliable and easy to deploy so that organisations can monitor their surroundings more effectively and respond quickly when something important happens.

Flataway.ai provides tools that help property managers create and manage direct booking websites for vacation rentals. The platform uses AI to build customised sites quickly, integrate them with existing property management systems and ensure automatic updates to avoid double bookings. Users can also add verified listings from around the world and earn referral fees when guests book through their site.

The young company focuses on helping short-term rental operators reduce their reliance on large online travel agencies by offering features such as global distribution, built-in SEO, automated improvements and secure payments. Its AI website builder aims to simplify the process for property managers who want a modern, fast and cost-effective way to grow their direct booking revenue without relying on traditional web development. Founded in 2023, Flataway.ai has raised €1.15 million to continue developing its product suite.

Huskycare provides cloud-based software designed to simplify the daily operations of outpatient and day care providers. The platform combines planning, billing and digital care documentation in one system, allowing teams to organise visits, manage staff schedules and record services directly with patients.

By automating administrative work such as billing, performance tracking and preparation for audits, Huskycare aims to reduce manual effort and improve the accuracy of care documentation. The startup was founded in 2023 and has raised €1 million to continue developing its solution for care providers who want to streamline operations and free up more time for patient care.

Paypercut is a fintech startup that helps small and mid-sized merchants offer Buy Now, Pay Later options without the complexity usually involved. Its platform allows businesses to accept payments and settle in local currencies, while integrating flexible instalment plans directly into the checkout process. Paypercut’s BNPL aggregator recommends suitable providers based on the merchant’s location and customer profile, streamlining approval and reducing checkout drop-offs.

Founded in 2025, the young company has raised €2 million to expand its payment tools and support merchants looking for simple ways to increase conversions. With fast onboarding, bank-grade security and direct human support, Paypercut aims to give smaller businesses access to payment capabilities traditionally reserved for larger players.

Raven is a high-frequency algorithmic trading company that develops proprietary strategies for digital finance. Its technology is built for low latency and high throughput, which helps improve market efficiency and stability for exchanges and blockchain ecosystems. The team works with major CeFi and DeFi platforms, offering continuous market coverage and focusing on transparent, reliable partnerships.

Founded in 2023, the startup has secured about €2.3 million to strengthen its trading infrastructure and expand its role in digital finance. Raven aims to support exchanges and projects by delivering consistent liquidity, clear communication and fast execution.

Smart Farm Robotix builds autonomous robots that help farmers remove weeds efficiently and sustainably. Its main product, the RoboAiWeeder, is a fully solar-powered machine that can work in hilly or rocky terrain. Using AI image recognition, it identifies weeds and removes them without chemicals, giving farmers a cleaner and more environmentally friendly alternative to herbicides and heavy machinery.

The robot operates independently, guided by GPS, sensors and smart navigation algorithms. Its lightweight design makes it easy to transport, while its autonomous operations reduce the need for manual labour and lower costs for farmers. Founded in 2022, Smart Farm Robotix has secured €2.4 million to advance its technology and support the adoption of automated weeding across more farms.

Thinkpilot is an AI-powered workspace that helps product teams quickly understand large volumes of customer conversations. It analyses messages from tools such as Slack, Intercom and support channels, identifies recurring themes and highlights the insights that matter most. Everything runs locally on the user’s device, which keeps sensitive data secure and avoids the heavy costs linked to cloud-based analysis tools.

Beyond insight extraction, Thinkpilot can track competitor updates, connect feedback to strategic goals and send prioritised findings directly into tools like Jira. Founded in 2024, the company has raised €600k to continue developing its local analysis engine and broaden its integrations for product teams.

Vodar is a mental coaching toolbox designed for sports coaches who want to help young athletes build stronger mindset skills. The app offers practical, easy-to-implement on-court and off-court drills based on neuroscience principles such as resilience, focus, emotional regulation and goal setting. Coaches can integrate the exercises into regular training sessions in just a few minutes, making mental practice a natural part of player development.

Founded in 2023, the team has raised €300k to expand its content library and further develop its 3D training environment. The platform is built to scale across different sports, allowing coaches to offer structured mental training without needing sports psychology expertise. Vodar aims to support young players in improving concentration, confidence and overall performance through consistent and accessible mental practice.

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!

The post Bulgaria’s rising stars: 10 promising Bulgarian startups to watch in 2026 and beyond appeared first on EU-Startups.

As Europe’s startup ecosystem accelerates toward an AI-driven future, a new program is stepping in to empower first-time founders and bridge the gap between idea and paying customers.

LeapX, a market-driven accelerator founded by Leap2Peak (Estonia/Tallinn) and Entrepreneurs for Global Change (USA/New York), has officially opened applications for its inaugural cohort. This five-week hybrid bootcamp is designed to help early-stage founders turn concepts into investor-ready startups. The program is led by EU and U.S. based mentors with backgrounds coming from Google, Microsoft, LinkedIn, Morgan Stanley, and other leading tech and finance companies.

Marking a new approach to startup acceleration and market readiness,, LeapX compresses what typically takes six months into an intensive five-week journey, blending AI-powered tools, hands-on mentorship, and real market validation. The program concludes with a one-week immersive sprint in Spain/Canary Islands, where founders refine their products, pitch to investors, and connect with mentors from global tech companies.

Participation is limited to 30 founders per cohort to ensure a personalized, high-touch experience. From this group, 12 of the top founders will be invited to the in-person final week in the Canary Islands, where they will take part in live mentorship, peer feedback, and investor pitches.

• Application deadline: January 20, 2026
• Program start date: February 2, 2026
• Apply here

For founders who want to learn more about the program and ask questions, LeapX will host an online info session on January 14 at 4:30 PM CET. Registration is available here.

An accelerator built for Europe’s AI generation

LeapX is designed as a founder-first bootcamp that prioritizes execution, accountability, and tangible outcomes through the use of AI-powered tools. Participants receive:

• €5,000+ worth of AI tools and credits (GPT-5, Jasper, Lovable, Bolt, and more)
• Access to private angel investor network (up to €20K)
• Daily 1:1 mentorship from experts with backgrounds from Google, Microsoft, and Morgan Stanley
• Investor-ready deliverables, including a fully-functional  MVP and validated customer pipeline
• An in-person founder sprint in the Canary Islands for selected teams

The program targets early-stage and idea-stage founders across Europe who are eager to move fast, test ideas, and gain real traction. The four-week online phase comes at a  €1,000 fee, while the fifth week for those selected in the Canary Islands is an additional  €300, covering lodging, workspace, and on-site mentorship.

From idea to investor-ready in one month

LeapX’s methodology is built on the belief that today’s founders can build faster and smarter with AI. Over four online weeks, participants go through AI-powered market validation, MVP development, and go-to-market strategy. By the end of the bootcamp, each founder is expected to walk away with a validated idea, a functional prototype, their first paying customer, and a pitch deck ready for investors.

The program gathers a transatlantic network of founders, engineers, and investors who’ve worked at the highest levels of tech and venture. The mentor lineup includes Stefan Karadzic (ex. Director, Solution Architecture at Microsoft Viva), Abdul Hamdan (Google), Aladdin Kashout (Morgan Stanley), Marko Gazivoda (senior consultant), Rahul Jaglan (Denpaflux), Marina Trajkovska (Odyseek), Filip Sasic (EGC), and Shadi Nemer (Leap2Peak, TDK, Greenda AI).

“AI has completely reshaped what’s possible for early-stage founders,” said Filip Sasic, CEO of Entrepreneurs for Global Change. He continued: “With the right guidance, a solo founder can now validate an idea, test demand, and build an MVP in weeks, not months. LeapX gives them a high-speed runway to make that leap.”

“This program is built to make AI a practical accelerator for entrepreneurs,” added Shadi Nemer, Founder of Leap2Peak. “LeapX integrates AI into every stage of company building, from validating a problem to launching an MVP, so founders walk away with traction, not theory.”

About the organizers 

Entrepreneurs for Global Change (EGC), is a New York-based social impact organization supporting young founders worldwide while working with global tech companies, U.S. State Department, and leading New York based universities. Through its entrepreneurship fellowships, workshops, and university partnerships, EGC has become a bridge between the European startup ecosystem and U.S. mentors and investors.

Based in Tallinn, Leap2Peak is a non-profit association that empowers youth, social innovators, and mission-driven professionals to design impactful ICT projects. Its team has led numerous regional and international initiatives strengthening digital skills and innovation capacity across Europe.

Together, Leap2Peak and EGC are shaping a new generation of European founders who are bold, AI-literate, and globally ambitious.

Apply now at leapx.dev and turn your AI startup idea into a business with real traction.

The post LeapX: A new AI bootcamp helping Europe’s early-stage founders go from idea to customers in just five weeks (Sponsored) appeared first on EU-Startups.

Paris-based Equitable Earth (formerly ERS), a provider of certification for nature-based carbon projects, has announced a €12.6 million financing round to accelerate the expansion of its certification programme. 

The round was led by a US-based family office and supported by existing investors, including AENU, noa and Localglobe, bringing the total funding to over €25 million.

“Equitable Earth continues to focus on enabling organisations to protect and restore the natural world by certifying projects in a trusted, scalable way. This new round of funding allows us to continue to grow and establish ourselves as the global standard for nature-based projects,” said Thibault Sorret, CEO of Equitable Earth.

Founded in 2020, Equitable Earth claims to be the global standard for conservation and restoration projects on the carbon markets. It reported that its programme has been formally recognised as eligible against the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM)’s Core Carbon Principles (CCPs), the market’s highest benchmark for quality. 

According to the company, its model is designed to ensure climate finance reaches threatened ecosystems more quickly and reliably. Its digital certification platform streamlines the project journey and enables developers to progress efficiently. Carbon accounting and risk modelling are managed in-house through its centralised and standardised accounting. It also deploys tools for transparent and cost-effective monitoring and reporting.

The platform requires projects to demonstrate measurable benefits for climate, nature, and local communities through a structured, interconnected approach. Another key component of its model is community engagement, which involves establishing measurable requirements for participation, protection, and equitable benefit sharing with Indigenous Peoples and local communities. 

“The carbon markets need scalable, reliable projects that deliver real climate, ecological, and social outcomes. This funding helps Equitable Earth to meet that demand, cementing its position as a market leader in high-integrity, nature-based certification,” said Arjun Jairaj, investor at noa, Europe’s largest built world VC. 

The fresh capital will be used to enhance technology and tools, including data systems, modelling, and user-centric tools to enable faster, more transparent certification in one integrated platform.

In addition, the company plans to expand its research and development, engineering, commercial, and certification teams. It also intends to certify millions of additional hectares, increasing the global supply of nature-based credits, as well as build new methodologies to cover more threatened ecosystems.

Last year, in July, Ecosystem Restoration Standard (ERS) announced its rebrand as Equitable Earth, forming a unified global standard for both forest conservation and restoration on the carbon markets.

The rebrand followed ERS’s acquisition of Equitable Earth, a forest carbon standard developed by a global coalition of more than 125 experts from 60 organisations, including Indigenous leaders, scientists, policymakers, and civil society representatives. Equitable Earth was designed to halt deforestation and support the long-term protection of the world’s forests by ensuring fair and meaningful investment in the people and communities who safeguard them.

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Bordeaux and Tours-based FineHeart, a clinical-stage medical device company developing technologies in the cardiovascular space, has announced the completion of a €35 million first closing of its Series C financing round. 

This first close brings together investors, including Groupe Pasteur Mutualité and Groupe Etchart, alongside significant participation from the European Innovation Council (EIC)’s EIB fund. Existing investors FH Founders (the founders’ holding company comprising primarily international private investors from healthcare and entrepreneurship), Lurra, IRDI, Groupe Doliam, and NACO have also participated in the round.

The company has also secured €48 million in grants from the Important Project of Common European Interest (IPCEI) Tech4Cure programme, disbursed in several tranches, in its role as the lead partner in the project to structure the European Active Implantable Medical Devices (AIMD) sector. 

Arnaud Mascarell, CEO and co-founder of FineHeart, said, “Together with the IPCEI, this funding strengthens our ambition to build disruptive, IP-protected technologies that enable more predictive, personalised, preventive, and participatory medicine—while advancing Europe’s industrial competitiveness and healthcare sovereignty.”

FineHeart was founded in 2010 by Arnaud Mascarell, Dr Stéphane Garrigue, CSO and inventor of FLOWMAKER®, Dr Philippe Ritter, co-inventor of cardiac resynchronisation therapy (CRT), and Philippe Plas, who brings over 25 years of experience in the cardiac rhythm management field.

FineHeart’s core product is FlowMaker®, which it claims is the world’s first fully implantable cardiac output accelerator designed to treat advanced heart failure. The company calls it a hybrid between a pacemaker and a cardiac assist device. It is fully intraventricular and provides physiological support synchronised with the natural heart contractions. It does not require aortic bypass as it respects the heart’s natural blood flow. 

“By operating in synergy with native cardiac contractions, the FlowMaker® consumes little energy and does not require any percutaneous connection to external batteries. It is recharged via a transcutaneous energy transfer (TET) system, thereby reducing any risk of infection and significantly improving patients’ quality of life,” FineHeart explained in the press release. 

The device is implanted using a minimally invasive beating-heart procedure, commonly performed by cardiac surgeons, with an average duration of approximately 90 minutes.

In total, FineHeart has secured €83 million in financing, combining private capital and non-dilutive European public funding. Last year, in July, the company was designated as the lead partner of the IPCEI Tech4Cure project. This project was approved by the European Commission under EU State aid rules to support innovations in medical devices, including the introduction of novel digital and AI features in medical devices. It is jointly notified by six EU Member States – France, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Slovakia, and Slovenia. 

The company holds an international portfolio of 160 patents in 27 different families. It is financed by a consortium of public and private investors, including the founders’ holding company, FH Founders, as well as Doliam, Etchart Group, and investment funds Groupe Pasteur Mutualité, Lurra, Aquiti Gestion, Galia Gestion, Broadview Ventures, IRDI Capital Investment, M Capital, UI Investment & Verve Capital. FineHeart is supported by the European Union (EIC), Bpifrance and the Nouvelle-Aquitaine and Centre-Val de Loire regions. 

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