Nearly two-thirds of workers have used AI at work in the past year. Yet fewer say they can get the training they need, PwC found in its 2026 Global Workforce Hopes and Fears Survey. The firm surveyed 49,364 workers across 48 countries and regions in May and June. It published the results on Tuesday. In […]

Volkswagen has agreed three joint ventures with China’s Gotion to build lithium iron phosphate battery capacity, selling 49% of PowerCo’s Valencia plant and taking minority stakes in a Slovak cell plant and a Moroccan cathode plant. Volkswagen says Europe currently has no relevant capacity of its own in the chemistry. Volkswagen has agreed three joint […]

NASA will pay Boeing $359m to help get its Starliner spacecraft flying again. It will also buy two more Starliner flights to the International Space Station. NASA and Boeing announced the plan at a news conference on Monday, and NASA set it out in a statement. It wants astronauts back on Starliner by 2028. “I […]

Nvidia has talked to insurers about taking on some of the risk of loans backed by its AI chips, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday. The talks are at an early stage and may not lead to any deals, according to the FT. TNW has not independently verified the report. One idea would insure loans […]

The AI industry will need about $6tn in annual revenue by 2031 to pay for the data centres being built today. Bain & Company makes the estimate in its Global Technology Report, published on Tuesday. Existing AI products could bring in only $1.2tn to $1.8tn of that. “The debate today is fixated on employee productivity. […]

Finland-founded smart ring maker Oura is delaying its US IPO due to market uncertainty, it said today.  

Oura said it had taken the decision to postpone listing on the Nasdaq “despite strong demand”.  

Oura, which was founded in Finland in 2013, did not provide a date for when it intends to IPO.  

Tom Hale, the Oura chief executive, said: “Our mission is to empower people to live healthier, longer, and an IPO is just one step in our journey.

"We aim to deliver an extraordinary initial public offering for our employees and investors and we have the luxury of choosing our moment. In the meantime, we will execute against the opportunities ahead.”  

Oura said that its business had “further strengthened” since it started the IPO process and that revenues were expected to grow 90 per cent in 2026 on the previous year.  

Oura, known for its popular smart rings, had been seeking a $15bn valuation. It sells smart rings which track sleep, recovery, activity, stress and health signals and is partucular popular for sleep and recovery tracking.

IMAGE: Oura

BYD executive vice-president Stella Li says the company will have one model with solid-state batteries next year, which is the earliest date any carmaker has given. Toyota says 2027 or 2028, Mercedes and Honda closer to 2030, and LG Energy Solution puts solid-state in electric cars roughly a decade away. BYD will have one model […]

Bill Gates says AI crossed two danger thresholds early this year: it can now help a bioterrorist, and it can power a crippling cyberattack. He made the case on The Ezra Klein Show, in an interview published by The New York Times on Tuesday. “We crossed the cyber threshold and we crossed the bio threshold […]

Anthropic is experiencing high error rates with Claude.ai, Claude Code, Claude Cowork, and the Claude API, and users have reported failed requests as well as difficulties loading their conversations. Claude is currently unavailable to some users as Anthropic investigates high error rates across several of its services. The company published on its status page that […]

AI safety warnings are not “fake news”, Pope Leo XIV said on Monday. He told reporters the world should heed the concerns of AI experts. He spoke on his flight back to Rome after a four-day trip to France. He said he was not in “panic mode”, and that he sleeps at night. “I do […]

Google will stop updating ChromeOS in mid-2034, it says on a support page for schools and businesses that manage Chromebooks. Many newer Chromebooks will be able to switch to Googlebook OS, the system behind Google’s new Googlebook laptops, which is built on Android’s tech stack. “ChromeOS devices will continue to receive regular updates and security […]

Manus, the AI agent startup founded in China and now based in Singapore, launched Manus 2.0 on Monday. It also released Cue, a standalone app for personal AI agents. In Cue, each agent gets its own email address, phone number, wallet and computer, the company wrote in a blog post. “Manus 2.0 is not a […]

Human contractors hired to improve Microsoft’s Copilot see the photos users upload for AI editing, with faces uncensored, Joseph Cox reported for 404 Media on Monday. They also see the prompts users type, and many of those requests are sexual, according to internal documents the outlet obtained. “Faces are always uncensored, and many of the […]

Many startup founders have it backwards when thinking about PR. They imagine you land the biggest publication you can and reap the benefits of instant fame. This process may have worked for a few startups 15 years ago, when venture capital was sparser and a handful of publications could still put young companies on the map overnight. 

That perception is a relic of a different era, but founders still cling to it. They think PR is a trophy or a reward. They open a conversation with an agency by telling us they want to be in the biggest publication right away. 

They don’t always like the reality. Startups need to continuously prove themselves as real companies rather than momentary bets. PR can be described as a discipline built around building trust at scale. Only seeking one-off big write ups is not a feasible long-term approach.

Traditional media newsrooms have shrunk and the industry has fragmented into smaller niche outlets, including formats that lead with newsletters, podcasts and social media. This is a challenge, but one that offers serious opportunities to those willing to adapt accordingly.

Start with the “why”

Startups grow on sales and performance marketing, and for a while that is enough. But levelling up often requires a much larger pool of customers and a more sophisticated roster of partners such as enterprise buyers, investors and senior hires. A great product, killer sales team and brilliant ads do a lot of the heavy lifting, but they can’t produce trust, and a reputation that speaks for itself.

Startups typically arrive at the point when reputation goes from nice-to-have to indispensable upon reaching a major milestone, usually their first significant venture round. A launch is rarely newsworthy, except in very specific cases, since they happen very early on and there isn’t enough traction to prove real-life impact and therefore newsworthiness yet.

PR only works once that traction exists. Until then, any energy spent chasing coverage is probably better redirected toward building the substance that coverage rewards.

The stakeholders

Before obsessing over specific outlets, slowly start thinking in terms of short and long-term objectives. Are you raising, hiring, entering a market, or pursuing a licence? How do you want the company to appear in a year or two? This will illuminate not only what you do this month, but position this month’s work within your larger vision for the company.

From there, work out your stakeholders. These are the people who help you reach those objectives. Most startups first prioritise clients, investors and talent. Additional stakeholders may include partners and regulators or other governmental actors, depending on the industry.

Often, investors and talent might do much deeper due diligence than customers. They want to know who is behind the company, why it will win, what the market looks like, what kind of place it is to work at. They will corroborate your answers from third parties, meaning reviews, comparison sites, and the earned media that PR helps to obtain. Earned media is particularly powerful, because the people behind earned media platforms are trusted, whether deep sector experts or professional journalists.

Messaging and narrative

Stakeholders are moved along by verifiable facts, strong numbers and success stories. An investor won’t spend on a team that might not deliver. A senior candidate won’t join a company where the environment is toxic. A regulator wants evidence you are competent and credible. Each stakeholder wants different things, so choose which points matter most, and deploy them at the right time in the right place.

No need to overcomplicate it, that’s what messaging is. Some messages are specific to one audience, others carry across all of them.

Unlike in emotion-driven marketing, every message has to be verifiably true and substantiated with facts, stats and examples. Founders often forget that PR reflects reality but cannot create it. A claim that does not survive fact-checking does more harm than no claim at all. Truth is the best foundation for PR. And do not confuse them with calls to action!

Everything you do will compound into a narrative, the general story about the company. This overarching narrative answers why the company exists and what it’s trying to achieve. For ambitious startups, that usually means meeting a serious problem with a scalable solution.

Provide a clear account of the problem, its size, how to fix it, and why your team is the one that will. What is the origin story and why are these founders motivated and skilled enough to tackle that issue?

Channels: the whole board

Channels are types of media platforms that can earn you trust and positive visibility. This spans traditional publications that still do print and brand new digital newsletters.

Unlike in performance marketing, these platforms aren’t pay-to-play. The journalist, editor, producer or event organiser own the platforms and use them to provide value to their audiences. You gain access by helping to provide that value. 

Journalists need to write well-balanced articles that draw on sources, hard-to-get information and different points of view. Events and podcasts hosts need experienced, insightful and personable leaders and market-movers on their stages. Pitching harder and being extra friendly won’t override this, at the end of the day you need to provide the goods.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t aim for good rapport. People remember who made their job easier, and those are the relationships you draw on when you do have something to say. Build a reputation for yourself as reliable and reasonably generous. Don’t behave as though everything is transactional.

Consider giving trade and niche outlets a central role in your strategy. They’re approachable earlier, have more targeted audiences, and reward depth. Treat them as destinations with their own value, not just springboards.

Newsletters and podcasts suit how people consume now. When not run by journalists, they tend to be experts who own a topic and have built a real following in that space. Due to their depth of expertise, experience and specialisation, these experts are highly trusted, and followed by specific, high-value audiences. A positive word from the right one can do a lot for your startup.

Never underestimate simply being in the room, especially if that room has a stage and you are on it. A founder on a stage or a panel with a point of view and the right audience supercharges trust-building. If you choose your events wisely, they tend to have relevant stakeholders, and the impact of such a direct interaction is much deeper than any written piece.

Top-tier coverage is still possible, just don’t bank on it right away. Work local to regional to trade to national, roughly in step with your stage. If you start your journey right, the inroads to those publications you dream about will become clearer. 

Ready to execute on all this? Then see you on the next article where we will discuss execution.

The post 2026 PR playbook for startups: the strategic framework appeared first on EU-Startups.

AI agents are no longer just answering questions. They’re shopping, booking trips, signing up for services, and increasingly acting on their users’ behalf. However, when an agent shows up at a website or app, how does the business know who it’s working for, and what it’s actually allowed to do? Moca Network, the digital identity […]

House Speaker Mike Johnson said he hopes safety guardrails for AI will be “voluntary”, speaking to CNBC on Tuesday. Johnson spoke on the channel’s “Squawk Box” hours before a meeting with AI leaders and President Donald Trump in Washington. “I hope it’s voluntary. We’ll find out what comes out of the meeting today. I think […]

Rep. Ro Khanna plans to introduce a bill that would ban AI models that improve themselves until federal safeguards exist, Garrett Downs reported for CNBC on Monday. Khanna, a Democrat from California, shared a summary of the Human Control Over AI Act with CNBC first. TNW has not seen the bill. “There’s actually a civilizational […]

Feeding, housing and entertaining the people who build AI data centers could be worth $3.2bn a year to catering companies by 2032, Bloomberg reported, citing analysts at Bloomberg Intelligence. Aramark, Compass Group and Sodexo have already been engaged to carry out jobs ranging from laundry to providing food service throughout the day. The report includes […]

Earlier this month, Pontes went live, enabling transactions in Europe’s emerging digital capital markets to be settled in central bank money for the first time.

The Eurosystem service bridges platforms that use distributed ledger technology (DLT) to trade digital securities and TARGET Services, the existing infrastructure used to settle euro payments in central bank money. In simple terms, it lets the securities side of a digital transaction take place on DLT infrastructure while the corresponding payment settles through the central banking system.

Four market infrastructures are participating in the initial launch: Luxembourg-based Clearstream and Frankfurt-based SWIAT and Cashlink, alongside Vilnius-based Axiology.

I spoke with Martynas Pilkis, Business Development Officer at Axiology, while visiting Vilnius, to learn more.

Axiology is building digital infrastructure for European capital markets, enabling companies and governments to issue, trade, and settle digital securities such as bonds.

Its platform brings together services including securities issuance, trading, custody, and settlement in one regulated environment, aiming to make it easier and cheaper for issuers to raise capital and for investors to access investment opportunities across Europe.

While the retail digital euro is being developed as a new form of central bank money for everyday payments, Pontes addresses a different part of that picture: how central bank money can support settlement in digital capital markets.

TARGET Services is the Eurosystem’s infrastructure for settling payments in central bank money — euros held at central banks rather than money issued by commercial banks or private assets such as stablecoins. In the context of Pontes, it provides the cash side of a tokenised securities transaction, while DLT operators such as Axiology handle the securities side.

Why "the cash leg" matters

“We are not dealing with cryptocurrency. We are dealing with financial instruments. But when you trade financial instruments on DLT-native infrastructure, you also need a settlement asset.” Axiology already supports settlement in euro-denominated stablecoins, allowing transactions to settle on the same day or atomically, depending on customer needs.

With Pontes now live, customers have another option: settling the cash leg in central bank money.

Pilkis previously spent two years working with the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures in Basel on the G20 cross-border payments programme, including work examining stablecoins. He argues that while stablecoins offer benefits, their limitations matter most for high-value transactions.

“Stablecoins, for high-value payments, are not that good because you still have certain credit and liquidity risks.”

Even supposedly secure stablecoins have experienced fluctuations.

“If your stablecoin can trade for 87 cents per dollar, that's not very good for serious payments. That's why access to central bank money is very important.”

There is also an incentive for the Eurosystem to ensure central bank money remains relevant as new forms of financial infrastructure develop.

Today, DLT market infrastructures such as Axiology remain relatively small compared with incumbents. But Pilkis argues that this could change quickly if tokenised capital markets reach an inflection point.

“What happens if central bank money is left behind and doesn't give access to these new infrastructures? We will make do without central bank money, and maybe we will reduce its usage overall.”

That, he argues, could introduce additional credit and liquidity risk into securities settlement.

“This is not something that the ECB would like to see. That's why they are also prioritising this.”

Three years of infrastructure development

DLT allows transactions and ownership records to be maintained on shared digital infrastructure. Axiology operates a regulated DLT Trading and Settlement System under the EU DLT Pilot Regime, enabling digital securities to be issued, traded, and settled through the same infrastructure.

While Axiology also holds a pan-European MiFID brokerage licence, Pilkis says its DLT Trading and Settlement System designation is far more unusual.

“There are only four DLT Trading and Settlement Systems in Europe,” he explained.

Obtaining that status involved scrutiny beyond Lithuania's national regulator. “It's not only the national regulator vetting you, but also the European Securities and Markets Authority, and the European Central Bank for your settlement mechanism — how settlement finality is reached on your trading platform.

“These things have been carefully reviewed, and it's not easy to jump onto that train.”

The Eurosystem began its exploratory work on DLT-based wholesale settlement in 2024, followed by the formal Pontes project and the development of its initial launch model. Axiology's involvement stretches back to that earlier experimentation.

According to Pilkis, the company has been working with the Bundesbank since close to its inception and participated in testing of the Bundesbank's trigger solution in spring 2024.

“We had early traction and showed that our platform is capable of handling these transactions and being interconnected with the TARGET system.”

Pilkis believes smaller technology companies also offer something important to regulators and institutions: speed.

“They really want to have us. They admire our speed because we have an agile technical team which can deliver fast. We are fast with our clients. I think for any startup, that's a good sign to have.”

What Pontes changes in practice

According to Pilkis, TARGET is the core Eurosystem infrastructure moving central bank money.

“What we do is stand in the middle between the asset leg and the cash leg, and on behalf of our participants, we instruct the cash leg.”

Axiology is testing the connection across the digital securities lifecycle, including primary issuance, secondary-market transactions, redemptions, and coupon or interest payments.

The choice of settlement asset can therefore match the needs of a transaction, whether that means the speed and programmability of a stablecoin or central bank money through Pontes. This means financial institutions no longer have to choose between using new DLT infrastructure and settling in central bank money.

What will move onto the new infrastructure? Pilkis expects fixed income to be one of the first areas where the infrastructure gains traction.

“In Germany, we're seeing state-led initiatives, particularly from KfW, so I'm sure we'll see issuances there.”

He also points to France, where there is interest in moving part of the Negotiable European Commercial Paper market onto DLT infrastructure.

Elsewhere, Axiology is working with banks on how they could move assets between entities within the same banking group using Pontes for settlement.

The company is also in discussions with European treasuries about sovereign issuance.

“Most treasuries are really interested in how we can make sovereign issuances on new rails, accessing new types of investors and saving money because the new system can be more cost-efficient.”

However, he expects adoption to be uneven.

“This will not be fast. As always when you're moving with the public sector, it really takes time.

I have this feeling that bigger countries, especially France and Germany, are prioritising these projects. Others are a little bit in wait-and-see mode.”

Can digital infrastructure help fix Europe's fragmented capital markets?

For Axiology, the opportunity extends beyond changing the technology used to settle securities. Pilkis argues that one of the longstanding problems with European capital markets is that infrastructure remains fragmented along national lines.

“One of the major problems with Europe's existing financial market infrastructure is that it remains highly divided along jurisdictional borders. That's one of the big hurdles to achieving a genuine Capital Markets Union.”

Axiology, by contrast, has been designed as a pan-European platform.

“With a new breed of companies like Axiology, we're pan-European from day one.”

Pilkis believes more open and cost-efficient digital markets could also make capital markets accessible to smaller issuers.

“Today, if you're issuing a fixed-income instrument in Europe and you're not issuing roughly €100 million, obtaining ratings and accessing the broader market can be difficult.

With open digital capital markets, we can bring smaller issuances into the market more efficiently and create more opportunities for investors.”

What needs to happen next?

Pontes solves one piece of the infrastructure question. The next challenge is ensuring Europe doesn't build a collection of disconnected digital markets around it. For Axiology itself, Pilkis says the immediate priority is growing its network.

“At the moment, our network is focused on brokerages and crowdfunding platforms. With Pontes, it's the right time to grow the commercial-banking side.”

Axiology already has commercial banking partners in the Baltics, but wants to bring more banks from across the EU onto its infrastructure.

“Pontes is a great help with that.”

Further ahead, Pilkis sees programmability as one of the more transformative possibilities created by tokenised capital markets.

“Today, your commercial bank can programme certain things on your behalf — for example, an automatic monthly utility payment. But in a tokenised future and digital capital markets, we want stakeholders themselves to be able to build programmable functionality. That could enable entirely new business models.”

For Pilkis, that's ultimately where the technology's potential becomes most interesting. “If we see that emerge five or ten years from now, I'll be very happy.”

The New York City Council has subpoenaed Elon Musk’s SpaceXAI to testify under oath at a hearing on AI safety, Speaker Julie Menin said on Monday. Anthropic, OpenAI, Google and Meta have all agreed to appear. The hearing is set for Monday 5 October. It is a rare Committee of the Whole, which brings all […]

OpenAI’s GPT-6 Astra ran full supply-chain attacks in 29.2% of simulated tests, the UK’s AI Security Institute (AISI) said on Monday. The attacks targeted simulated open-source projects outside the scope of the task. AISI had only asked the model to complete a cybersecurity evaluation. Every action ran in a simulation, so the model touched no […]

Meta is bringing its Muse AI agent to small businesses, letting owners connect it to the software they already use to run their companies, the company announced today. The new version, Muse for Small Business, works with Shopify, Stripe, Canva and Intuit’s QuickBooks, among others. The agent can also read analytics from Instagram business accounts […]