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.

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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.

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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!

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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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Explainability as evidence

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

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

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

Built for real-time, high-stakes workflows

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

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

Accuracy, latency, and architectural edge

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

According to Jarimenko:

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

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

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

Built for real-time investigation workflows

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

IMAGE: PIXABAY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The post From Statista to ECDB – Friedrich Schwandt on the Data Gold Rush appeared first on EU-Startups.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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