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German startup osapiens which provides software-as-a-service (SaaS) services to help companies meet ESG targets, said it has become a unicorn after raising $100m.
The Series C round was funded solely by Decarbonization Partners, the joint venture between BlackRock and Temasek focused on late-stage VC investing in decarbonising tech.
The company is now valued at over $1.1bn, following this round, it said. The Mannheim-headquartered firm has previously raised $147m with Goldman Sachs and German VC Armira Growth as previous investors.
Osapiens provides enterprise software that helps companies manage regulatory compliance and sustainability across their businesses on a single platform. Its customers include Tesco and packaging company DS Smith.
It employs around 500 people and has a presence in markets including Germany, France, Spain, UK and the US. The company says it will use the proceeds to speed up product innovation and fuel growth in existing and new international markets.
Alberto Zamora, co-CEO and co-founder of osapiens, said: “This investment is a strong validation of our strategy and our long-term vision.“ It demonstrates that sustainable growth and AI-driven efficiency remain top priorities for global investors. Decarbonization Partners is an exceptional partner for us.
“With a focus on sustainability and the combined global presence and investment expertise of BlackRock and Temasek, they bring exactly the perspective and scale we need for our next phase of growth to become the indisputable global category leader in sustainable growth for enterprises of all sizes.”
Matthias Jungblut, co-CEO and co-founder, osapiens, said: “Decarbonization Partners understands both the regulatory dynamics companies face today and the business opportunity of AI-drivenefficiency that comes with it.
“Their deep experience in scaling category-defining technology companies makes them a perfect strategic fit alongside Goldman Sachs Alternatives and Armira Growth.”
14/01/2026 04:10 PM
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Belgian cybersecurity startup becomes unicorn
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14/01/2026
Belgian cybersecurity startup Aikido Security has closed a $60 million Series B funding round at a $1 billion valuation, marking a rare unicorn milestone for a European security company and highlighting the accelerating interest in developer-centric security platforms. The round was led by DST Global, a tech-oriented investment firm with a track record of backing major technology companies, and included participation from PSG Equity, Notion Capital, and Singular. Founded in 2022, Aikido has reached a billion-dollar valuation in just three years, a pace few cybersecurity firms attain, and according to company sources, the fastest in Europe. The new capital will…
incentifi, a well-being-focused workplace rewards startup based in London, has secured €174k (£150k) in phase one pre-seed funding as it prepares to pilot its platform with businesses across the UK. Alongside the investment, the company has appointed James Hardy as an investor and strategic advisor.
Founded to tackle the growing cost of poor health and employee wellbeing, incentifi is developing a rewards platform that incentivises healthier behaviour through real-world value. The company aims to address what it describes as a £150 billion annual cost to the UK economy linked to poor health, absenteeism, and reduced productivity.
James Hardy brings experience from scaling high-growth consumer businesses, having previously held senior finance roles at Deliveroo and currently serving as Co-founder and COO at Bioniq, which has scaled through Series B funding with backing from Cristiano Ronaldo.
Commenting on his involvement, James Hardy said: “What really stood out to me was the strength of the team and the clarity of the model. incentifi is built around improving healthier lives while delivering a clear return for employers and partners. Having seen firsthand at Bioniq how impactful it can be when wellbeing and business objectives truly align, incentifi delivers exactly that. I’m excited to be part of the journey ahead.”
The pre-seed funding will support a pilot programme with several businesses across different sectors. Independently run Specsavers branches are already signed up, exploring how rewarding movement and healthier habits can support staff wellbeing while offering tangible lifestyle benefits, such as reducing the cost of holidays.
Following the close of its phase one round, incentifi is now preparing a £500,000 funding raise, with SEIS assurance in place. This next phase will run alongside a closed pilot and soft launch, with a focus on learning, iteration, and gathering employer feedback.
Paul Kelbie, Co-founder of incentifi, commented: “From our own personal and professional experiences, we started incentifi with one mission and purpose in mind, to incentivise people to prioritise healthier choices through rewards they actually want. This funding and James joining us as an advisor validate both the mission and the model. Our focus now is learning. The pilot allows us to work closely with employers to understand how wellbeing incentives can support healthier, happier teams in a commercially sustainable way.”
With rising levels of stress, absenteeism, and presenteeism across the UK workforce, incentifi positions its platform as a way to align individual well-being with measurable commercial outcomes. By rewarding everyday activities such as steps, exercise, and workouts with meaningful lifestyle benefits, the company aims to help employees move more, feel better, and support healthier, more productive teams.
Belgian cybersecurity company Aikido has raised a $60M millionSeries B at a $1B valuation, led by Tom Stafford at DST Global, with participation from PSG Equity, Singular, Notion Capital, and others. Aikido is one of the fastest cybersecurity companies to reach unicorn status — in just three years — globally, and according to the company, the fastest ever in Europe.
Aikido’s Series B follows a year of rapid growth for the company, including five-times revenue growth and nearly three-times customer growth. Aikido is now the fastest-ever European cybersecurity company to reach unicorn status, reflecting this growing demand for security systems that can operate effectively as software development accelerates.
Aikido is a developer-first cybersecurity platform that helps software teams find, prioritise, and fix security issues across their entire software stack — from code to cloud and runtime — in a unified, automated way.
Built by developers, for developers
According to a blogpost written by CGO Madeleine Lawrence,
“We didn’t start Aikido because we thought the world needed another security product. We started it because we were developers ourselves, and we were tired of security being something that happened to us instead of something that helped us.
We were tired of tools that created noise instead of clarity, complexity instead of progress, and process instead of outcomes. As Willem reminds us every day, “Developers just want to get back to building fun features.”
But too often, they can’t. Instead, they’re forced to wade through a haystack of alerts, dashboards that look like the inside of an F-16 cockpit, and a barrage of four-letter acronyms developers are somehow expected to care about. “
She contends that somewhere along the way, security drifted away from how software is actually built and operated – “abstracted into quadrants, point tools, and snapshot reports that live far outside the reality of modern engineering teams.”
“That disconnect is the real problem. Today, organisations spend billions on disjointed products that can’t talk to each other. Risk correlation becomes impossible; noise becomes the only consistent outcome. As vendors and analysts chase the next four-letter acronym, vulnerabilities that matter slip by unpatched or unseen entirely.”
Aikido is built around the premise that security begins and ends with better engineering. That requires a single, unified platform to secure the entire software lifecycle — built for the people who actually ship software.
Instead of fragmenting security across five vendors, Aikido brings code, supply chain, cloud, runtime, and testing together so teams can answer one core question: “Are we actually at risk?” Detection alone, however, is not enough.
“The magic comes when we close the loop,” Lawrence writes. With full code and application context, Aikido automatically triages and remediates issues from the moment vulnerabilities are introduced through to discovery in production, turning security from a reporting function into an engineering system.
Software is being built at a pace that would have seemed impossible just a few years ago. AI-generated code is now the norm, and autonomous agents are writing and modifying systems faster than humans can review them. As engineering evolves, she argues, security must evolve with it.
Towards self-securing software
The next chapter, according to Lawrence, is “self-securing software” — systems that can secure themselves on demand.
Aikido has launched Aikido Attack, an AI-driven penetration testing capability designed to deliver “hacker creativity at machine speed.”
The system deploys hundreds of specialised agents to hunt vulnerabilities, validate exploits, and provide built-in remediation and retesting to ensure fixes hold — all observable in real time. Over time, this will evolve into continuous, autonomous testing embedded directly into every feature release.
The goal is to close the ship-test-fix loop and return developers’ focus to building, not firefighting.
Today, Aikido is used by more than 100,000 teams worldwide, including organisations such as the Premier League, SoundCloud, Niantic, and Revolut. Over the past year, the company has grown revenue fivefold and more than tripled its customer base.
Proof Europe can build and scale world-class software
Lawrence contends that in an industry long dominated by US and Israeli heavyweights, Aikido’s rise demonstrates that Europe can build and scale a world-class software security company on the global stage.
“Everything about Aikido shouldn’t have worked. A European team, based in a village, with no traditional cybersecurity pedigree, no CISO network, and a bottom-up, developer-led go-to-market strategy."
But that outsider position became an advantage. With no established network to sell into, the company had to grow inbound. With limited budget and powerful incumbents, it had to counter-position sharply.
With a freemium, developer-first model, it had to deliver real value every day or fail. Internally, that mindset is reflected in a team of 180 people, including more than 21 former founders, shipping over 60 deployments a day.
This next phase is backed by continued support from existing investors including Notion Capital, Singular.vc, Syndicate One, Entourage, Connect Ventures, and Innovia Capital, alongside early individual backers such as Christina Cacioppo (Vanta), Gilles Mattelin and Jorn Vanysacker (Henchman), Pieterjan Bouten (Showpad, Entourage), Louis Jonckheere (Wintercircus, Showpad), and Matthias Geeroms (Lighthouse).
Aikido has also welcomed new investors for this chapter, including Mark Coucke and Alychlo, Joris Van Der Gucht (Silverfin), Ian Thiel (Sublime Security), Lorenz Bogaert (StarApps), Hendrik Isebaert (Showpad), Nik Storonsky (Revolut), VDK Bank, Dovesco, and PSG Equity.
14/01/2026 03:10 PM
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Three-quarters of UK fintech founders use AI to speed up recruitment, says survey
Three-quarters of UK fintech founders are using AI to identify candidates and speed up recruitment, says a new survey.
But findings from the survey also show that human judgment remains critical to ensure founders are finding the right talent and mix of individuals to recruit.
The survey gauged the opinions of early-stage fintech founders, with 45 founders responding to the survey, within which the survey spoke to six founders in depth on an array of questions, on areas such as recruitment, culture and leadership.
These were founders from insurtech Loxa, data platform Hace, money management startup Munny, green fintech Grand Bequest, financial planning AI assistant PlannerPal, and gifting platform GiftRound.
The survey found that founders were curious enough to dip their toes into using AI-powered assistants and talent-matching platforms but were not ready to commit.
Mark Whitcroft, CEO, co-founder, PlannerPal, said: “We’re trying AI-first hiring platforms, ike Cord and Jack & Jill, to improve funnel speed at a fraction of recruiter cost.”
Andy Lang, CEO, Munny, said: "I’m not from a technical background—an AI assistant helps describe the role we need.”
Katherine Gunderson, CEO and founder, Grand Bequest, said: “We’ve opened an Asana ‘R&D opportunities’ board to universities to surface candidates."
Gunderson added: "Onboarding still takes 8–10 weeks. That’s too long. I want tools and mechanisms to operationalise faster.”
Other findings include that a company’s purpose is crucial in driving hiring and retention, with 21 per cent of new hires stating they joined a firm specifically for its purpose, while over half (53 per cent) said they would stay because of it.
The report was compiled by Ninety Two Ventures, the advisory firm, media consultant Sam Shaw, accountancy firm EY and fintech trade body Innovate Finance.
Automation platform creator Cast AI has announced an investment from Pacific Alliance Ventures (PAV), the US-based corporate venture arm of Shinsegae Group, an over $50 billion Korean conglomerate with leading businesses across retail, consumer, and digital platforms.
With this round of funding, Cast AI’s valuation exceeds $1 billion, marking the company as Lithuania’s 5th unicorn. Unlike traditional solutions that merely monitor clusters and provide recommendations, Cast AI leverages advanced machine learning algorithms to continuously analyse and automatically optimise clusters in real-time, cutting cloud costs, improving application performance, and boosting DevOps efficiency.
“Shinsegae Group’s investment, and our over one billion dollar valuation, underscore the market’s confidence in our platform vision and our ability to execute it globally,” said Cast AI Co-Founder and CEO Yuri Frayman.
“Enterprises don’t just need cheaper infrastructure – they need infrastructure that adapts automatically as workloads and constraints change. That is what our automation agents were built to do, and this investment helps us scale that globally.”
Cast AI also expands its platform with the introduction of OMNI Compute, which connects external capacity, including GPUs, as native compute, allowing workloads to run on the most appropriate resources, locally or across clouds, without code changes, reconfiguration, or operational changes. It enables organisations to run any workloads, starting with AI inference, without cloud lock-in, while maintaining control over where they execute, to meet compliance and regulatory requirements.
Teams can scale services without pinning workloads to a single region or provider, while keeping infrastructure behaviour automated, governed, and predictable as demand increases.
It applies the same optimisation used across the Cast AI platform to this external capacity, including GPU sharing, monitoring, and rightsizing, ensuring AI workloads remain efficient and consistent at scale.
“OMNI Compute makes GPUs fungible at the infrastructure layer so capacity isn’t trapped inside a single cloud or region,” said Cast AI President and Co-Founder Laurent Gil.
“Teams can move, allocate, and run production workloads wherever compute is actually available, with control over cost and performance.”
Global expansion has been a core pillar of Cast AI’s growth strategy following its Series C funding round. Since then, the company has significantly expanded its regional footprint by opening new offices in Bangalore, London, New York, and Tel Aviv, as well as subsidiaries in Canada, France, India, Korea, Lithuania, Singapore, and the UK.
“Cast AI has built a category-defining automation platform that aligns with the needs of modern, cloud-first enterprises,” said Hyuk Jin Chung, Managing Partner at PAV.
“We see strong demand for the company’s platform globally, and we’re excited to support the company’s continued expansion in Asia and help it realise its long-term Application Performance Automation platform vision.”
“With Cast AI, we’ve automated continuous infrastructure optimisation on Amazon EKS – reducing operational overhead while improving application efficiency and cost control in real time,” said Kyotack Tylor Kim, Head of Next Gen Cloud Group at Samsung Electronics.
“OMNI Compute’s unified control plane has the potential to change how enterprises like Samsung run AI infrastructure globally.”
14/01/2026 11:10 AM
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Goparity acquires Spain’s Bolsa Social to expand equity crowdfunding and strengthen Iberian presence
Goparity, a Lisbon-based impact investment platform, has acquired Bolsa Social, Spain’s first impact crowdfunding platform authorised by the country’s regulator, the CNMV. The acquisition marks a strategic step for Goparity as it strengthens its presence in the Iberian market and accelerates its broader European expansion.
Founded in 2017, Goparity has built its business around lending-based crowdfunding for sustainable projects. To date, the platform has launched more than 420 campaigns, raising over €55 million for impact-driven initiatives across Europe, Africa, and the Americas. The acquisition of Bolsa Social expands Goparity’s offering beyond debt-based products, adding equity crowdfunding to its investment portfolio for the first time.
In the short term, new equity investment opportunities will continue to be offered through the Bolsa Social platform, allowing for a gradual integration of services. Over time, the move positions Goparity as a more comprehensive investment platform, capable of supporting impact-driven companies across different stages of their growth.
Bolsa Social, founded in 2014, brings to the group a community of more than 13,000 users and a track record of mobilising around €15 million for over 50 Spanish companies. Its inclusion strengthens Goparity’s footprint in Spain, which the company views as a key strategic market, while also diversifying its financial products.
Goparity and Bolsa Social have collaborated closely within the European impact ecosystem for several years. According to the companies, a deeper partnership over the past year revealed strong operational synergies and a clear alignment between their respective investor communities, making the acquisition a natural next step.
“This acquisition marks a historic moment for Goparity and for impact investing in Europe”, explains Nuno Brito Jorge, CEO and co-founder of Goparity. “With the introduction of equity crowdfunding, we aim to become the financing partner for impact-driven companies and entrepreneurs throughout their entire life cycle, from moments when they are looking for new shareholders to phases where debt financing makes sense, depending on their needs”, concludes.
José Moncada Durruti, founder and CEO of Bolsa Social, added: “Thanks to this union, Bolsa Social investors will be able to access new impact investment opportunities, both within and beyond Spain. We are very pleased to take this step, as the Bolsa Social community of investors and companies will benefit from Goparity’s reach and professional strength”.
Following the acquisition, the combined investor base of Goparity and Bolsa Social exceeds 72,000 people, reinforcing Goparity’s position as one of Europe’s leading platforms dedicated to sustainable and impact-focused investment.
Mannheim-based osapiens, provider of enterprise software for sustainable growth, today announced that it has entered into an agreement for Decarbonization Partners to lead a €85.8 million ($100 million) Series C fundraising round. With this round, osapiens has hit unicorn status.
Decarbonization Partners, which is a joint venture (JV) between BlackRock and Temasek, will join existing investors Goldman Sachs Alternatives, which led osapiens’ €103 million ($120 million) Series B in 2024, and Armira Growth, which led the €23.1 million ($27 million) Series A investment in 2023.
Alberto Zamora, co-CEO and co-founder of osapiens, “This investment is a strong validation of our strategy and our long-term vision. It demonstrates that sustainable growth and AI-driven efficiency remain top priorities for global investors. Decarbonization Partners is an exceptional partner for us. With a focus on sustainability and the combined global presence and investment expertise of BlackRock and Temasek, they bring exactly the perspective and scale we need for our next phase of growth to become the indisputable global category leader in sustainable growth for enterprises of all sizes.”
Founded in 2018 by Alberto Zamora, Stefan Wawrzinek, and Matthias Jungblut, osapiens is an ESG platform and provider of enterprise software that enables companies to manage regulatory compliance, sustainability, and operational efficiency.
The osapiens HUB currently offers more than 25 enterprise-grade solutions, running on a multi-tenant infrastructure that enables AI-driven automation and cross-company collaboration. According to the company, the platform combines transparency and efficiency solutions to help companies minimise risks, maximise efficiency, and navigate changing regulatory and business requirements.
Transparency solutions enable companies to report on financial and non-financial data, manage supply chains, mitigate risks of all kinds (including cyber-risks and trade and geopolitical risks), and ensure compliance with product, reporting and supply chain regulations. On the other hand, Efficiency solutions enable AI-driven supplier collaboration, maintenance, service, and distribution processes to improve operational performance and strengthen competitiveness.
According to osapiens, this capital will be used to boost product innovation and fuel growth in existing and new international markets.
The company has an international team of over 550 professionals across Europe and the United States. It supports more than 2,400 customers worldwide, including Coca-Cola North America, Lidl, Carrefour, OTTO, and the Acciona-Nordex Group.
Dr Meghan Sharp, Global Head and Chief Investment Officer of Decarbonization Partners, said, “osapiens is redefining how companies achieve transparency, compliance, and operational excellence across increasingly complex supply chains. Enterprises around the world are looking for trusted, scalable software to meet rising regulatory, sustainability and decarbonisation expectations. osapiens’ platform delivers the clarity organisations need to operate and grow responsibly.”
Decarbonization Partners focuses on late-stage venture capital and early growth private equity investing in companies supporting global efforts to achieve a net-zero global economy by 2050. It has attracted €1.20 billion ($1.40 billion) in capital from over 30 institutional investors across North America, Europe, and the Asia Pacific.
Klarna is launching a service which allows its customers to send money to each other through its app, as it continues its shift to reposition itself as a bank.
The Swedish fintech, best known as a BNPL fintech, is launching peer-to-peer payments across 13 European countries, including the UK.
The feature means that Klarna customers can send money to other registered Klarna customers, such as splitting bills or gifting cash with friends and family, directly from the Klarna app. Klarna customers will have to have the required funds in their Klarna wallet to send the money.
To send money, users choose a recipient using a phone number, email address, QR code, or a saved contact. After confirming the amount, Klarna runs fraud and eligibility checks before proceeding with the payment. Klarna, which has over 100m users globally, hopes to broaden the service to non-Klarna customers and cross-border payments.
The launch forms part of a move by Klarna to reposition itself as a digital bank and shed its BNPL image. It has launched a debit card, which it says has registered four million sign-ups in four months and has bagged an Electronic Money Licence in the UK.
Sebastian Siemiatkowski, co-founder and CEO of Klarna, said: “Customers are sick of the friction and fees of traditional banking, which is why millions signed up to Klarna Card within a few months of launch.
"With peer-to-peer payments we’re making it even easier to manage all of your payments through Klarna, now including small transfers, making managing your money quicker, easier, and cheaper.”
Siemiatkowski yesterday told Bloomberg that Americans are being ripped off by high credit card fees, amid President Trump’s calls for a one-year 10 per cent cap on credit card interest rates.
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Introducing TNW Council
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14/01/2026
A private network for founders and executives, limited to 1,000 members The Next Web today announces the launch of TNW Council, a private membership community created for founders and executives leading technology companies. The Council is limited to 1,000 members globally. Each member is selected through an application and review process. The Council is designed to bring together experienced leaders who want peer conversations, meaningful connections, and visibility through editorial and event participation. Members gain editorial participation opportunities across the platform, access to curated expert panels, and verified executive profiles. They receive priority access to conferences, invitations to private gatherings…
London-based maritime tech startup Spot Ship has raised €1.15 million (£1 million) in a fresh funding round to modernise global ship chartering.
The round was led by the Lisbon-based venture capital fund Ventures.eu, with participation from Improbable’s CEO, Herman Narula, industry-specialist investors Tradeworks.vc and Marcel Kind. This deal marks Ventures.eu’s inaugural investment from its Fund I.
Fernando Ferreira, Managing Partner at Ventures.eu, commented, “We are thrilled to support Spot Ship as our inaugural investment. Our mission is to identify Europe’s most promising, market-ready innovations and help them scale by opening doors to the right corporate partners. Spot Ship has demonstrated exceptional technology, strong execution, and a clear opportunity to become a category leader.”
Founded in 2019 by James Kellett and Henry Waterfield, Spot Ship is a cloud-based SaaS platform modernising global ship chartering. The British startup claims to transform maritime logistics by reducing vessel chartering times from six days to just two hours by using AI and machine learning for brokers, charterers, ship owners, and operators.
“We see Spot Ship as the system of insight and action for fixing ships, cargoes, and insurance. Their AI-driven intelligence, with human-in-the-loop assurance, delivers best-in-class data accuracy, turning unstructured emails into actionable intelligence. This, combined with an amazingly dedicated team, provides a strong foundation for expansion into new markets,” commented Niklas Holck, Managing Partner at Tradeworks.vc.
Spot Ship’s solutions and features include a position directory, global vessel tracking, emissions calculator, interactive maps, voyage calculator for Time Charter Equivalent (TCE), and an updated database of over 7,500 global ports, including information on crane facilities, as well as draft and beam restrictions.
According to the company, its parsing technology removes the admin burden of brokers, charterers, and operators, and helps identify an optimal vessel or cargo in minutes.
With this funding, Spot Ship aims to modernise global ship chartering. “Our mission is to bring 21st-century speed to a centuries-old industry. Ventures.eu shares that vision and has delivered value from day one,” stated James Kellett, founder and CEO, Spot Ship.
Ventures.eu is a venture capital fund management company that invests in early-stage startups across Europe. It focuses on disruptive industries such as Deeptech and AI and provides strategic support and investments ranging from €0.2 million to €4 million, promoting the innovation and growth of the startups it supports.
As part of the investment process, Ventures.eu has introduced Spot Ship to shipping companies and industry experts using its network. According to the firm, it does not just focus on existing customers; it also helps bring new high-value prospective clients. Ventures.eu claims that this has resulted in Spot Ship securing additional customer engagements and attracting further co-investors.
“Their (Ventures.eu’s) ability to bridge the gap between a startup and global shipping giants has already resulted in new customers and investors, and we’re thrilled to have them leading this round as we modernise ship chartering globally,” Kellett further noted.
Ventures.eu claims to utilise a model that combines proprietary sourcing via Dealflow.eu and hands-on commercial validation. In an exclusive interview with EU-Startups, Thijs Povel, founder of Dealflow.eu and Ventures.eu, explained how the firm’s data-driven approach to sourcing and vetting startups gives it an edge over other venture capital funds and the role that the extensive network from Dealflow.eu plays in this. He stated, “Thanks to our data engine, which provides real-time and AI-enriched information about thousands of startups, investors, and corporations, we are able to source and support the most promising new innovations.
“Leveraging our network of corporates and helping them establish business deals with these startups allows us to invest in the startups when they need it most—when they are ready to scale up their production as they have found product market fit. This gives Ventures.eu a unique opportunity to invest at the right time while the company is still early with little revenue and a lot of upside potential.”
Ventures.eu Fund I aims to back technology-driven companies that address real industry challenges across Europe. Its first close was announced in July 2025.
Today, we are once again shining a spotlight on Cyprus, a Southern European startup ecosystem that continues to steadily advance and secure its niche. While it may not yet rival the scale of the continent’s largest innovation hubs, Cyprus is home to a growing startup scene that fosters entrepreneurial ambition and cross-border collaboration.
Our annual deep dive into national startup landscapes shows how the country is shaping its own niche by blending local talent with global potential.
Its strategic location at the crossroads of Europe, the Middle East, and Africa makes Cyprus a natural launchpad for founders aiming to cover multiple markets. From gaming to B2B software, SaaS, and broader ICT, including Web3, AI, and digital infrastructure, Cyprus startups are active across a diverse range of sectors. The ecosystem also boasts niches in EdTech or tourism, reflecting both its traditional strengths and a forward-looking vision.
Today, we highlight 10 promising Cyprus-based startups founded since 2021, each worth looking into in 2026. Together, they offer a snapshot of an ecosystem that demonstrates how Cyprus is positioning itself in Europe’s innovation landscape.
Blood GPT: This Nicosia-based healthcare startup develops an AI-driven platform that delivers insights from blood test results for clinics and telemedicine providers. Designed to be integrated seamlessly into existing healthcare workflows, the solution offers instant, personalised health recommendations, trend tracking, and automated reporting, helping medical professionals save time while improving patient engagement. The app is offered as a white-label product, enabling healthcare providers to brand the service as their own and enhance their offerings without heavy development costs.
Its AI also delivers actionable guidance, including diet and lifestyle recommendations based on specific biomarker deviations, helping clinicians reduce administrative workload and focus more on patient care. Since its 2025 founding, Blood GPT has raised €1 million to develop AI-driven growth, automating clinical interpretation and reporting to ease clinicians’ manual workloads.
Bolsterup: Launched in 2023 in Nicosia, this PropTech startup has developed an app designed to unite all players in the construction industry on a single platform. By creating a comprehensive digital blueprint of both completed and upcoming projects, its AI-software connects developers, contractors, architects, engineers, and suppliers. Users can build professional digital portfolios, discover relevant partners through intelligent matchmaking, and access new opportunities for collaboration and growth across markets. The platform enhances visibility, streamlines networking, and provides tools for smarter project discovery and business development.
To support its mission of making the industry more connected, efficient, and competitive, the startup has raised around €506k in funding. These resources are being used to accelerate product development and business expansion, helping to overcome the traditional barriers that have slowed digital progress in the built environment.
Eschatology Entertainment: This Lakatamia-based game development studio focuses on creating immersive, hardcore gaming experiences for PC and console players, with a strong emphasis on narrative depth and challenging gameplay. Launched in 2022, the studio brings together more than 65 professionals across eight countries, led by a founding team with extensive experience on landmark titles such as Half-Life 2, Dishonored, and World of Tanks. Its debut project is a Souls-like first-person shooter set in an atmospheric, alternative apocalyptic Wild West, currently in active development and designed to deliver a demanding, story-driven experience for core gamers.
The studio has secured substantial financial backing to support its ambition of developing and self-publishing AAA titles. It closed a €10.2 million Seed round in 2024, led by KRAFTON with participation from existing investors. This funding underpins the long-term goal of building a game studio rooted in themes of collapse, rebirth, and resurrection, targeting a global audience of players drawn to high-difficulty gameplay.
Heroes Made: It is a Nicosia-based EdTech startup focused on integrating emotional intelligence into learning for primary school students. Its core product is a SaaS platform for K-6 students and teachers, delivering a zero-prep, story-based social and emotional learning programme aligned with established educational frameworks. Through personalised avatars and narrative-driven lessons, students engage as the main characters in over 210 customisable activities designed to build self-awareness, emotional resilience, social skills, and responsible decision-making. The platform also includes tools such as an emotions tracker for real-time classroom, data-led assessments to monitor progress, and a student authoring library that allows children to create and publish their own illustrated stories.
Heroes Made was founded in 2021, having secured around €300k in funding to support its growth to date. In January 2024, the startup expanded into the US market. By prioritising ease of use for teachers and personalised, immersive learning for students, the startup aims to make social-emotional learning a natural and effective part of classes.
KEK Entertainment: This Limassol-based gaming startup focuses on developing high-quality AAA games for a global audience, with the goal of delivering immersive experiences that appeal to both casual and hardcore players. Its work centres on polished gameplay, rich virtual worlds, and long-term player engagement. A key technical focus lies in building competitive multiplayer systems that function reliably across different platforms, supported by robust backend infrastructure for matchmaking, player progression, and live game updates.
Founded in 2021, the startup has raised €9.4 million in funding to date. The capital is being used to develop its first title, a mobile action game with strong tactical depth, while also expanding the development team. Part of the funding supports the studio’s ambition to enable cross-platform gameplay across mobile devices, PCs, and consoles, aiming to create a more unified experience for players across different hardware ecosystems.
Nice Plans Studio: Built in 2024 by founders with a long track record in mobile shooter development, this Limassol-based game studio focuses on fast-paced multiplayer experiences designed specifically for smartphones. Its main game is a 3v3 multiplayer shooter where players use fast-paced action and destructible environments to change the map and gain an advantage during matches. A server-side simulation ensures that environmental changes, such as explosions and debris, are synchronised in real time for all players, creating a consistent and competitive gameplay experience.
To support the continued development and global launch of its debut game, the startup has raised €3.6 million in funding, including a €3 million round announced in June 2025 led by the family office Pixeldog, alongside a €600k contribution from the founders. Looking ahead, the studio is preparing for a Series A round to scale its current title and expand its portfolio around physics-based multiplayer gameplay.
Placy: Focused on automating everyday workflows in the real estate sector, this Nicosia-based startup has developed an AI-powered platform designed to support professionals across sales, property management, and short-term rentals. Its white-label AI agents handle tasks such as lead management, property searches, and appointment scheduling, while providing round-the-clock support in more than 50 languages. The system supports both text and voice interactions, including AI-powered voice assistants that can collect lead information and book viewings autonomously.
The platform analyses data from property listings, public registries, and social media to deliver personalised information and build detailed client profiles, helping agents respond faster and more accurately to enquiries. In addition, AI-driven voice assistants are used to collect new lead details and manage viewing bookings without manual input. To support its development and early market expansion, the startup launched in 2023 has landed €1.28 million in pre-Seed funding.
SOULA: Built to support women throughout pregnancy, childbirth, and the postpartum period, this Limassol-based digital health startup has developed an AI-powered mobile app that combines educational guidance with emotional support. The platform includes a smart chatbot, personalised content programmes, and a pregnancy tracker, giving users constant access to trusted information tailored to their stage of motherhood. The chatbot adapts its guidance based on user inputs, pregnancy stage, and behavioural patterns, enabling personalised recommendations and content delivery over time. Soula also uses data-driven personalisation to power its pregnancy tracker and learning programmes, adjusting tone, frequency, and topics as the user progresses.
SOULA blends expert-led medical and parenting knowledge with conversational AI. The app aims to improve maternal well-being, reduce the risk of postpartum depression, and strengthen family relationships through continuous, accessible support. Founded in 2021, the app has raised €1.2 million in funding to support product development and market growth.
Studio42: This Limassol-based mobile game development studio has raised €3.2 million in Seed funding to develop its first title. The game-creation studio, established in 2024, focuses on casual and hybrid-casual puzzle games built around simple but engaging mechanics.
Studio42 is already working on its debut game, which combines classic puzzle mechanics with a hybrid-casual approach and has moved from concept to live testing in just two months. This experimentation pipeline is designed to run a high volume of simultaneous tests, with plans to evaluate up to ten new game concepts each year. This often involves deploying lightweight versions of gameplay features to small player groups and using analytics to measure engagement, retention, monetisation and other key metrics before committing resources to full development.
Top App Games: Founded in 2024 in Nicosia, this mobile gaming startup focuses on online multiplayer games, creating immersive player-versus-player (PvP) experiences with action-packed, strategic gameplay. It offers a blend of real-time battles and deck-building mechanics through its flagship title, LUDUS (also known as Ludus: Merge Arena), where players collect units, build decks, join clans, and engage in fast-paced battles against global opponents in a world of magic and mayhem.
The startup has secured €9.3 million in funding to support the ongoing development of its games. The capital is being used to strengthen live operations, introduce new content and features, and grow an engaged global player base through continuous updates and optimisation.
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!
Spot Ship, the SaaS platform
modernising global ship chartering, has raised £1 million in a round led by
Ventures.eu, marking the Lisbon-based VC fund’s first investment from Fund I.
The round included Improbable CEO Herman Narula, industry specialists, Tradeworks.vc
and Marcel Kind.
Spot Ship is a British cloud-based
company focused on improving efficiency in maritime logistics. Its platform
uses advanced AI and machine learning, combined with global fleet tracking and
a continuously expanding data set, to provide brokers, charterers, ship owners
and operators with high-quality, actionable data.
By automating complex data processing
and streamlining decision-making, the company reduces typical vessel chartering
timelines from several days to a matter of hours. Its API-first technology
addresses longstanding data and efficiency challenges across the shipping
industry, enabling seamless integration for major market participants.
Commenting on the investment, James Kellett, Founder and CEO of Spot Ship, said the company is focused on bringing
faster, more modern processes to an industry that has traditionally moved
slowly. He noted that Ventures.eu closely aligns with this vision and has
already delivered strategic value by connecting Spot Ship with major players
across the global shipping sector.
Ventures.eu leveraged its corporate
network to introduce Spot Ship to leading shipping companies and industry
experts, bringing potential customers into the investment process. This
approach provided early market validation and supported rapid commercial
progress, with new customers onboarded and additional co-investors joining the
round.
The new funding will support continued
product development, commercial expansion, and the scaling of Spot Ship’s
AI-driven platform across global shipping markets.
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China’s Hottest App Is a Daily Test of Whether You’re Still Alive
Are You Dead Yet soared to the top of app-store charts and became a magnet for investors. In an exclusive interview with WIRED, one of its creators says they’re changing the name anyway.
13/01/2026 07:10 PM
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Quantum startup Haiqu raises $11M
quantum-startup-haiqu-raises-dollar11m
13/01/2026
A quantum startup headquartered in the UK, Ukraine and the US has raised what it says is one of the largest seed rounds in quantum software, bagging $11m.
The funding round in Haiqu was led by Primary Venture Partners, with participation from Qudit Investments, Alumni Ventures, Collaborative Fund, Silicon Roundabout Ventures and returning investors Toyota Ventures and Mac Venture Capital.
Haiku is focused on building the software layer that can optimise the current state of quantum hardware. The startup said the funding will be used to support the upcoming launch of Haiqu’s operating system for quantum applications, which it says makes quantum more efficient and more resistant to errors. The funds will also be used to expand its team.
Haiqu was co-founded in 2022 by Richard Givhan, a Stanford-trained engineer, and Mykola Maksymenko, a former quantum researcher at Max Planck Society and Weizmann Institute.
Givhan said: “Quantum teams need to make empirical progress on hardware to close the gap toward industrially useful quantum applications. Today, too little experimentation happens because quantum cloud costs are prohibitive and hardware performance remains insufficient.
"Our goal is to change that overnight with a software system that can run larger applications at a fraction of the cost. We are grateful to have found investors who recognise the ugly truth: middleware isn’t sexy, but it matters.”
Brian Schechter, partner, Primary Venture Partners, said: “Quantum computing must demonstrate commercial advantage over classical compute in some domain in order to scale. The premise underlying our investment in Haiqu is that software is essential to realise this goal.
“More specifically, quantum hardware needs to operate more noise-resiliently and at greater scale. Haiqu minimises hardware shortcomings to get the best of what quantum has to offer today and in the many years before we have fully fault-tolerant qubits."
Italy’s Bricks.sh, an AI-native internal tool builder, announces that it has raised €1.6 million in a pre-Seed round in order to continue building the core team – they are also announcing the launch of its public beta.
The round was led by Primo Capital, with participation from Octopus First Cheque Fund, Eden Ventures, Vesper Holding and Vento, alongside a roster of impressive angel investors including Gianluca Cocco (Qomodo), Filippo Conforti (Commerce Layer), as well as the entire founding team of online operations automator, Smartness.
Dario Di Carlo, CEO and founder of Bricks.sh, says “A staggering amount of engineering time is being wasted on internal tools. In fact, building internal platforms to refund orders, update subscription plans, and so on generally takes a third of each developer’s time. When building them, the previous generation of internal tool builders posed a trade off for both business and tech team: if you want a tailored solution, it takes months of development. If you want a fast solution, you sacrifice a bespoke fit. The result? Tooling that slows down tech teams, and just doesn’t work for your business teams.
Across 2025 and early 2026, analysis shows a steady flow of early-stage capital into AI-native platforms and developer-focused enterprise tools, providing useful context for Milan-based Bricks.sh’s pre-Seed round.
In adjacent areas, Interhuman AI (Copenhagen) raised €2 million pre-Seed to develop a social-intelligence layer for AI systems, while Creem (Tallinn) secured €1.8 million pre-Seed to build financial infrastructure for AI-native companies. At a similar stage, Dragonfly (London) closed a €3 million pre-Seed round to support AI-assisted software decision-making, and Optimuse (Vienna) raised €4 million at Seed stage to scale its AI-driven engineering optimisation platform.
Larger rounds in the broader AI enterprise landscape include Zepo Intelligence (Spain), which announced a €12.8 million Seed round focused on AI-enabled workplace security.
Taken together, these rounds represent roughly €35 million in disclosed funding across adjacent AI and developer-tool segments, positioning Bricks.sh’s raise at the lower end of the current early-stage range, but firmly within an active funding environment for AI-native infrastructure and productivity software.
“Speed where developers need it, customisation where operators demand it – and a path out of the months-long grind of building internal tools that don’t drive revenue, but do drain time. The real, positive impact we’re seeing is on user bottom line,” adds Dario.
Founded in 2025, Bricks.sh embodies a new approach to building internal tools. The platform gives developers the opportunity to automatically generate an admin panel, purely by plugging their API and databases into Bricks.sh’ AI.
In “three clicks“, Bricks.sh empowers developers to generate a ready‑made admin panel for the entire team – both technical and non-technical members. All users can then easily use and interact with the admin panel.
Bricks.sh keeps the admin panel in sync with a user’s API and database. Whenever Bricks.sh detects a change – such as a new field, an updated table, or a modified endpoint – the platform updates the admin panel’s frontend to match.
The company says this saves developers’ time twice over: automatically building internal tools, and staying on top of ongoing maintenance.
Niccolò Sanarico, General Partner, Primo Capital says, “Having spent years as a software engineer and then CTO, I’ve experienced firsthand the frustration of building internal tools. What immediately drew us to Bricks.sh was the elegance of their idea, and their smart use of generative AI.
“But what truly convinced us to lead this round was the team itself. Dario and Giuliano embody the rare combination of technical skill, youthful energy, dedication, and the hunger to fundamentally reshape how developers work, with a global vision from day one. That’s the kind of team we like to back at Primo Capital.”
Bricks.sh has so far signed up over 500 users, 99.7% from outside of Italy, the company’s home country; with 35% of users in the USA.
Bricks.sh’ recent integration with Supabase illustrates how the developer market has taken to the platform. Bricks.sh’ one-click admin panel developed specifically for Supabase users allegedly resulting in sign-up numbers tripling within the month; in addition to ongoing strong traction and consistent positive feedback.
Speaking on its technical capabilities, CTO and co-founder Giuliano Torregrossa, says, “As developers, we observed that regardless of industry or use case, internal tools have the same structure: tables to list users, orders, transactions; and forms to act on that data.
“But, this was just an observation, so we pressure-tested it. We mapped the market, and shaped our thesis: developers need speed and safety, while business teams need tailored tools that boost their workflows. Compared to building in house, Bricks.sh can ship an admin panel 1000x faster and with a 10x better UX.“
Istanbul-based
Dataroid has closed a $6.6 million pre-Series A funding round led by the FinAI Venture Capital Fund of Tacirler Asset Management, with participation from the
Tacirler Asset Management Future Impact Venture Capital Fund and Endeavor
Catalyst.
The
company had previously raised $2 million in December 2023 from Koç Group’s
Private Venture Capital Investment Fund and İşbank’s 100th Year Venture Capital
Fund.
Dataroid
is a digital analytics and customer engagement platform that enables
organisations to measure and analyse customer interactions across multiple
digital channels.
The platform integrates customer data, behavioural analytics,
application performance monitoring, and data modelling into a single system,
providing marketing, product, and technology teams with comprehensive insight
into customer experience and performance. It is used by medium and large
enterprises across sectors, including financial services, aviation, and retail.
According
to co-founder Fatih İşbecer, the company’s long-standing work with large
banking customers in Turkey has helped establish a strong foundation for
international expansion. He added:
As
the market-leading digital analytics platform for banking and financial
services in Turkey, our platform today enhances the digital experience of more
than 120 million users. We see expanding this value to new markets as a
priority. With this new funding, we aim to strengthen Dataroid’s AI-focused
capabilities in line with customer needs and accelerate our global marketing
initiatives, particularly across EMEA and Europe.
In
2025, G2, a B2B technology marketplace, recognised Dataroid as a leading
digital analytics platform in the Middle East and awarded it top placement in
the “Best Support” category for both product and customer journey analytics,
based on user feedback. The company reported net revenue retention of 127 per
cent by the end of 2025, with no customer or revenue churn.
With
the new funding, Dataroid plans to expand into additional geographies,
strengthen its presence in EMEA, accelerate global marketing efforts, and
further develop its AI-powered self-service analytics capabilities.
13/01/2026 01:10 PM
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European tech in 2025: The data, the deals, and what comes next
At 42 pages, Tech.eu's 2025 Annual Report is our largest to date and packed with a comprehensive review of topics including investments, geographic and industry performance, top M&A and exit activities, insights and predictions from startups and VCs, and much more.
While there's plenty more information packed inside the full report, let's dive into some top-level items.
Key findings
€72 billion
In 2025, European tech investment reached €72 billion, positioning the year as the second-strongest of the past three years and reinforcing the market’s long-term growth despite a modest 3.2 per cent correction from 2024’s peak.
3740+ deals
2025 saw a steady stream of investments both in terms of the number of deals and the total amounts raised month-over-month.
UK on top
From a geographic view, 2025 saw little change in the top countries funded, with the UK retaining its lead position.
Fintech reins supreme in 2024
In 2025, fintech was the best-performing industry, with €11.1 billion raised over 397 rounds.
715 M&A and exit activities
In 2025, the number of exits increases to 715, compared with 648 in 2024, indicating a moderate recovery in exit activity.
While this is an improvement on the previous year, exit volumes remain below the 2023 level of 847, suggesting that 2025 reflects a stabilisation phase rather than a full return to earlier highs.
Pre-Seed and Seed investors drive deal flow in 2025
In 2025, the European tech ecosystem was supported by a balanced mix of public institutions, early-stage specialists, and global venture capital firms, creating a resilient and scalable funding environment.
Investors such as Bpifrance, CDP Venture Capital, and High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF) played a central role in backing innovation, particularly at early stages, while specialised pre-seed and seed investors, including Antler, SpeedInvest, and Seedcamp, led overall deal activity.
Gain a deeper understanding of the European tech landscape and make informed decisions for your business with data-driven analysis, exclusive reports, and valuable research.
From all of us here at Tech.eu, we wish you a very happy, healthy, and prosperous 2026.
13/01/2026 12:10 PM
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From 2025 to 2026: Listen to the startups and VCs behind the year’s biggest tech stories
As we close the chapter on 2025 and look ahead to what 2026 may bring, we’ve released a special Tech.eu podcast episode that does something a little different.
Instead of our journalists alone unpacking the biggest stories of the year, we turned to what you read most in 2025 — and invited the founders and investors behind those headlines to share their perspectives on the moments that shaped Europe’s tech and innovation landscape, and the forces they believe will define the year ahead.
From defence tech and deeptech to venture capital, regulation, and Europe’s ambitions for global scale, the conversation brings together voices from across the ecosystem to reflect on what really mattered in 2025 — and what is now coming into focus for 2026.
Watch or listen:
? Hosts
Cate Lawrence, Senior Journalist, Tech.eu
John Reynolds, Journalist, Tech.eu
?Guests
Ricardo Mendes, TEKEVER
Andreas Klinger, co-initiator of the EU-INC, former CTO, investor, and entrepreneur
Simon Schaefer, Founder of Factory, angel investor, President at Allied for Startups, and co-initiator of the EU-INC
Filip Dames, Founding Partner, Cherry Ventures
Jevgeni Kabanov, President, Bolt
Gilles Retsin, co-founder of AUAR
Riam Kanso, CEO, ConceptionX
Jed Rose, Partner, Antler
Some of the stories you read most in 2025
TEKEVER becomes the latest unicorn in Europe's defencetech industry
Inside Antler’s "Day Zero" strategy: backing founders before the first round
Cherry Ventures launches $500M in funds to propel Europe’s first trillion-dollar company
One year on from Draghi report: Europe’s innovation future hangs on the 28th Regime
Conception X launches angel syndicate for Europe’s deeptech PhDs h
Bolt sounds alarm over Lyft's €175M FREENOW acquisition: “We’re the last European
Construction tech startup AUAR raises £5.1M to expand robotic micro-factories
