Paygentic, an all-in-one billing and payments platform for AI-native and agent-driven products, has completed a $2 million pre-seed round led by MiddleGame Ventures, with participation from Anamcara Capital, Aperture, Alan Morgan (Chairman at Adfisco), Angel Invest, and others.

Founded by Susan O’Neill and SamuelAlarco Cantos, Paygentic addresses a core challenge for AI-native companies: highly variable compute costs paired with billing systems that default to fixed monthly SaaS fees, constraining upside and increasing exposure to downside risk.

The platform provides tooling and infrastructure for hybrid pricing, including subscriptions, usage-based, and outcome-based models, helping companies align revenue with actual consumption and results. Built for the speed and complexity of modern AI, Paygentic converts agent activity (prompts, outcomes, and usage events) into revenue, unifying billing, payments, and pricing in a single agent-focused stack that is quick to launch and easy to scale.

Operating in stealth since its founding earlier this year, Paygentic has been working with a select group of early adopters.

The investment will support team growth and faster product development, with a focus on advancing agentic billing capabilities and strengthening the payments infrastructure to serve a growing customer base.

OpenAI is offering UK customers, including the government and businesses, the option of storing their data in the UK for the first time, as it unveils an extension of its partnership with the UK government.

The move comes as the ChatGPT developer says the number of people using it products in the UK has quadrupled in the past year, though it did not disclose specific numbers.

The government today announced a further roll-out of its deal with the $500bn-valued OpenAI, aimed at helping Ministry of Justice civil servants benefit from ChatGPT. It supports the department’s plans to provide its employees access to OpenAI's business offering, ChatGPT Enterprise, aimed at boosting productivity.

As part of the deal, UK retail customers, businesses, developers and government departments will be able to store their data in the UK for the first time.

The move is designed to boost security and safety amid a rise in cyber attacks as well as meeting data protection requirements. The Ministry of Justice will be given the first option on data storage.

The move comes as OpenAI looks to drive up enterprise usage of its products. The government's current use of OpenAI tech, includes civil servants using Humphrey, the Whitehall AI assistant, to boost productivity.

Meanwhile, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the number of people using OpenAI products in the UK had increased fourfold in the past year.

Altman said: "It's exciting to see them using AI to save time, increase productivity, and get more done. Civil servants are using ChatGPT to improve public services and established firms are reimagining operations. We're proud to continue supporting the UK and the Government's AI plan.” 

Deputy prime minister David Lammy said:  “Our partnership with OpenAI places Britain firmly in the driving seat of the global tech revolution – leading the world in innovation and using technology to deliver fairness and opportunity for every corner of the United Kingdom.”

Europe’s cleantech sector attracted €1.1 billion in funding across 112 deals in H1 2025. While this represents a small share of the €33.7 billion raised across 1,941 European tech deals overall, the scale and ambition of recent cleantech rounds highlight the sector’s growing strategic importance in Europe’s transition to net zero.

The largest funding rounds spanned clean mobility, renewable energy, circular materials, and green industrial innovation. Investment activity remained strong across the continent, with Germany (21 deals), the UK (18), Switzerland (13), Spain (10), and the Netherlands (9) emerging as key hubs of climate innovation.

From waste-to-hydrogen pioneers to smart-energy leaders, European founders are turning deep-tech solutions into scalable climate impact, cementing cleantech as one of the continent’s most dynamic and promising investment frontiers.

The following are the ten largest funding rounds in the European cleantech industry during the first half of 2025.

Amount raised in H1 2025: €118M Aegis Energy is a UK-based clean mobility infrastructure company accelerating the decarbonisation of commercial transport. It develops and operates multi-energy refuelling hubs designed for van and truck fleets, combining high-speed electric charging with hydrogen, HVO and bio-CNG fuels. Backed by major institutional investment, Aegis is building a nationwide network of sustainable transport hubs offering bookable charging, driver amenities and fleet-friendly logistics solutions, supporting businesses in their transition to net-zero operations. In January, Aegis Energy secured €118 million in funding to develop clean energy hubs across the UK and drive the decarbonisation of commercial transport.

Amount raised in H1 2025: €110M Enpal is a renewable energy company dedicated to making green, affordable energy accessible to homeowners. Enpal offers a complete “all-in-one” solution that includes rooftop solar panels, battery storage, an EV wall box and a smart app for monitoring, and gives customers the flexibility to either rent or buy the system, typically without upfront payments. By integrating installation, financing, maintenance and energy management under one roof, Enpal aims to reduce dependency on conventional utilities and accelerate the transition to decentralised, clean energy. In April, the company received €110 million in investment.

Amount raised in H1 2025: £62M Pulpex is a sustainable packaging technology company that pioneers fibre-based bottles, replacing glass and plastic. It's patented, single-mould paper bottle is made from FSC-certified, responsibly sourced wood pulp and is designed to be widely recyclable in the paper stream. Pulpex licenses its technology and works with a global partner network to manufacture at an industrial scale, enabling brands to cut single-use plastics without sacrificing distinctive shapes or on-pack branding. Pulpex’s mission is simple: deliver sustainability at scale through renewable packaging and help shape a plastic-free future. Pulpex secured £62 million in February, which will be used to construct its first commercial-scale manufacturing facility near Glasgow.

Amount raised in H1 2025: €71.2M Fastned is a charging company building a European network of ultra-fast charging stations powered by 100 per cent renewable energy. Founded in 2012, Fastned designs, builds, and operates architecturally distinctive, people-centric stations along high-traffic routes to make long-distance electric travel easy and reliable. The company’s mission is to accelerate the transition to electric mobility by delivering the most convenient, joyful charging experience in Europe. The company raised a total of €71.2 million through two separate bond issuances in February and in June.

Amount raised in H1 2025: €60M GravitHy is an industrial startup focused on decarbonising the iron and steel sector. The company aims to replace traditional coal-based iron production by using renewable or low-carbon hydrogen to produce Direct Reduced Iron (DRI) and Hot Briquetted Iron (HBI). By enabling low-CO₂ iron feedstock, GravitHy helps meet rising demand for greener steel in construction, automotive, wind power and other sectors, while aligning with Europe’s industrial decarbonisation goals. In March, GravitHy secured €60 million to advance low-carbon iron production and steel decarbonisation

Amount raised in H1 2025: €51.5M FAIRMAT is a deep-tech materials company that turns carbon-fibre waste into high-performance, recyclable composites. Using proprietary robotic processes, FAIRMAT transforms end-of-life CFRP into the “Fairmat Chip,” the building block for laminates, panels, and parts used across sports, energy, mobility, and electronics. The company operates an end-to-end, closed-loop ecosystem, from waste recovery to manufacturing, powered by in-house software, AI-driven layouts, and quality control. In April, Fairmat secured €51.5 million to close the loop on material recycling.

Amount raised in H1 2025: €30M tado° is a German smart-home technology company that specialises in intelligent climate-control solutions for residential buildings, offering smart thermostats, radiator controls, heat-pump optimisers and associated cloud-based services. tado°’s systems use geolocation of residents, weather forecasting, and building-characteristic data to reduce energy consumption while maintaining comfort. The company reports having saved approximately 2.5 million tons of CO₂ to date. By combining hardware (thermostats) and software intelligence (app control, analytics), tado° enables homeowners to automate climate control, integrate dynamic electricity tariffs, and optimise energy use, thereby contributing to lower bills and lower emissions. In March, tado° secured €30 million to transform the way heating and cooling systems operate in buildings.

Amount raised in H1 2025: €29.5M Plagazi is a cleantech company turning non-recyclable waste into circular, fuel-cell-grade hydrogen. Its patented Plagazi Process® uses high-temperature plasma gasification to convert municipal and hazardous waste, capturing CO₂ and yielding hydrogen plus recyclable by-products, offering an alternative to landfill and incineration. Plagazi develops turnkey plants, handling engineering, permitting, commercial set-up, and operations, and is scaling through flagship projects such as Gävle Circular Park, designed for carbon-negative hydrogen production. In May, Plagazi officially secured a €29.5 million grant from the EU Innovation Fund to support its flagship project, Gävle Circular Park (GCP).

Amount raised in H1 2025: €28M Gradyent is a company that powers the decarbonisation of district- and industrial-heating systems through its real-time Digital Twin Platform. The technology creates a virtual replica of heating, cooling, steam and CO₂ grids by fusing geospatial, weather, sensor and physics-based data to enable operators to optimise performance, cut CO₂ emissions by up to 10 per cent, reduce operational costs and lower CapEx by up to 20 per cent. Gradyent’s mission is to enable energy-operators to optimise, decarbonise and grow their systems, delivering reliable, flexible and sustainable grid operations and contributing to the broader transition toward integrated, low-carbon energy systems. In April, Gradyent secured a €28 million funding round to accelerate platform development and global expansion.

Amount raised in H1 2025: $32M BeZero Carbon is a global carbon-credit ratings agency for the voluntary carbon market. Built by a team that blends environmental science, geospatial analysis, and capital-markets expertise, BeZero’s platform combines project ratings, market data, and research to guide credible climate decisions. The company also publishes tools and insights, including portfolio ratings, a market risk report, and a policy tool, to give users structured visibility on quality, exposure, and regulatory context across project types and geographies. BeZero Carbon raised $32 million in January to expand global carbon ratings services.

Oslo-based Riff (formerly Databutton), the platform operators use to build and launch high-impact applications, has raised $16 million in Series A funding, bringing their total raised to $21 million. The round is led by Northzone, with backing from existing investors Skyfall Ventures, Maki.vc, Sondo Capital, Global Founders Capital, and new investor Illusian. 

Riff focuses on practitioners at all levels within organisations, enabling them to create AI applications and agents to improve productivity and output.

The company aims to solve a widespread challenge in AI app development, where the rapid growth of AI tools has not been matched by real business impact, and many initiatives still fall short of success. Riff’s platform extends beyond typical vibe coding tools by providing native data connections and integration with secure, production-grade infrastructure. Users can also draw on starter apps, templates, and guidance from Riff’s team.

This approach allows users to build applications that combine complexity, real data, and security to solve practical business problems. In turn, this supports higher customer satisfaction and retention, and better project completion rates.

Riff reports adoption across industries such as financial services, logistics, healthcare, manufacturing, and consumer goods.

The Series A funding will be used to expand Riff’s reach, enabling the company to empower thousands more professionals to build and deploy impactful AI solutions.

London-based Rightcharge, the startup that simplifies fleet EV charging payments, has raised £1.6 million in seed funding. The round was led by Soulmates Ventures, with participation from Blackwood Ventures, UnrulyCapital and Purple Ventures.

In the UK, businesses purchase more than half of all EVs, but public charging remains fragmented and reimbursing employees for home charging is often slow and error-prone. Many fleet managers still use spreadsheets and driver-submitted paperwork, which increases the risk of inaccuracies.

Existing payment systems, built for conventional fuel expenses, are not set up to handle EV home charging. Consequently, some companies rely more on public charging, which can be up to ten times more expensive than charging at home. These gaps in process and infrastructure are delaying fleet electrification at a time when adoption needs to accelerate.

Rightcharge removes this barrier by automating reimbursements for home charging. The platform links directly to a driver’s energy account, allowing payments to be credited to their electricity bill instead of their bank account. This approach maintains accuracy even when energy tariffs change, minimises the risk of fraud, and provides a transparent audit trail for tax compliance, all while preventing drivers from being left out of pocket.

Fleet vehicles can be connected as well, with AI-driven validation and anomaly detection to reduce fraud and improve accuracy. A paired public charge card gives drivers access to over 70 per cent of UK public chargers, while all costs are consolidated into a single HMRC-compliant monthly bill. Fleets using Rightcharge can reduce charging costs by up to 90 per cent and cut carbon emissions by roughly 30 per cent, while reducing administrative work for managers and giving drivers confidence that reimbursements will be accurate and fair.

The Automobile Association (AA) and other major UK fleets already use Rightcharge’s technology to manage both home and public charging. Customers in sectors such as construction, healthcare, and government are adopting the service to cut administrative work, support drivers, and accelerate their EV transition.

Rightcharge will use the funding to accelerate its expansion across Europe, supported by a new partnership with Octopus Electroverse.

Estonian startup MarkeDroid has raised €300,000 in bridge funding to scale its AI-based distributed energy orchestration platform across Europe.

The round includes a €175,000 syndicate investment from the Estonian Business Angels Network (EstBAN), led by Jana Budkovskaja and David Clark.

To support its expansion, MarkeDroid has appointed Kätri Kübar as Chief Operating Officer. Kübar previously served as Chief Product Officer at Funderbeam and held leadership roles at Wise and Bolt.

MarkeDroid is developing an AI-powered orchestration layer that connects residential, commercial, and grid-level flexibility. Its technology coordinates distributed energy resources such as solar panels, batteries, EV chargers, and heat pumps by analysing real-time electricity prices, weather forecasts, and usage data. The platform enables homes and businesses to decide when to store, use, or sell electricity, helping reduce costs and improve grid stability.

“Grid operators are suddenly dealing with millions of solar panels on rooftops that weren't designed to communicate with each other,” said Toomas Teesaar, co-founder and CEO of MarkeDroid.

“MarkeDroid’s stands out not just for its technology but for its momentum, demonstrating clear product-market fit,” said David Clark, lead investor at EstBAN.

The company plans to expand beyond residential energy management into energy retailer orchestration in partnership with Enefit, and into microgrid flexibility projects with national transmission operators.

Italian ocean technology company WSense has raised €10 million in a pre-Series B round to accelerate the development of its subsea Wi-Fi systems and expand its Internet of Underwater Things (IoUT) platform internationally.

The funding round saw new investors Indico Capital Partners and SIMEST join existing backers CDP Venture Capital SGR, Blue Ocean by SWEN, RunwayFBU, Axon Partners Group, Fincantieri, and Rypples. The new investment brings WSense’s total funding to over €25 million.

Founded in 2017 and led by Chiara Petrioli, Professor of Computer Engineering at Sapienza University of Rome and CEO since 2022, WSense has developed patented underwater wireless communication technology that enables real-time, secure and cost-efficient transmission of ocean data. The company’s systems allow sensors and autonomous vehicles from multiple vendors to communicate, facilitating large-scale data collection to monitor marine ecosystems, infrastructure, and environmental conditions.

“The entry of new investors such as Indico Capital Partners and SIMEST represents a strong recognition of the value of our technology and our international growth strategy,” said Chiara Petrioli, CEO of WSense. “We will accelerate the development of cutting-edge IoUT solutions for the energy transition, infrastructure security, and the protection of the oceans.”

Stephan de Moraes, Managing General Partner at Indico Capital Partners, commented: “Wsense is a great example of Italy’s deep tech capabilities and the opportunities emerging in ocean-related technologies."

WSense’s technology is being deployed across applications including underwater infrastructure monitoring, real-time environmental tracking, and autonomous robotic networks that support the energy transition.

The company currently employs over 80 engineers and researchers, with offices in Italy, Norway, and the UK, and staff based in France and the United Arab Emirates.

Exnaton, a Swiss software company developing an AI-driven intelligence platform for utilities, has raised a Series A round to accelerate its European expansion and to deepen customer partnerships.

Founded by Liliane Ableitner, Arne Meeuw, and Anselma Wörner, exnaton combines cutting-edge research from ETH Zürich, the University of St. Gallen, and TUM with deep industry expertise to empower utilities with digital tools for a cleaner, smarter grid.

The firm’s technology sits at the intersection of digitalisation, helping utilities launch smart, data-driven sustainable energy solutions quickly and efficiently. 

As the energy sector becomes more decentralised, intermittent, and complex, exnaton enables utilities to turn shifting customer expectations, regulatory challenges, and digitalisation into growth opportunities, all without costly IT overhauls. 

exnaton’s modular white-label SaaS intelligence platform allows utilities to rapidly create and deploy sustainable energy products — including dynamic tariffs, energy sharing models, and smart EV charging — while seamlessly integrating with existing ERP systems.

By leveraging AI, the platform automates complex processes across billing, energy consumption and production data analysis, to reduce operational costs, increase efficiency, and improve customer experience and engagement.  

“AI is transforming the way we manage energy,” says Anselma Wörner, co-founder and COO of exnaton.

“With this funding, we will accelerate our go-to-market strategy, enhance our customer-facing operations, and make our software even smarter — from fine‑grained personalised billing to intelligent management of decentralised flexibilities.

Our goal is to build user‑friendly products that make investing in renewables so compelling that everyone participates and helps drive the transformation our society urgently needs.”

Today, over 50 utilities spread across Europe rely on exnaton’s technology to bring flexibility, transparency, and innovation to the new energy system. This includes clients such as TotalEnergies in Belgium, eprimo and Bayernwerk (E.ON brands) in Germany, as well as Burgenland Energie in Austria — together driving the digital transformation of Europe’s energy sector.

The round was co-led by 4impact Capital and Elevator Ventures, with participation from existing investors True Ventures and Übermorgen Ventures. 

“exnaton’s platform is a key enabler of the digital energy transition. By combining deep research expertise with strong execution, the team has built technology that empowers utilities to innovate faster, operate more efficiently, and accelerate decarbonisation,” says Yasmin Venema, Principal at 4impact capital.

According to Magdalena Chalas, Investment Manager at Elevator Ventures:

“At Elevator Ventures, we recognise the role of energy communities and prosumers as a key trend shaping the future of the energy sector.

We are glad to back a talented team through our investment in exnaton, that will drive innovation in flexible billing solutions for decentralised energy ecosystems."

The new funding will be used to accelerate international expansion and further develop AI-driven features within its intelligence platform. 

SheMed, London’s female-founded HealthTech company changing how women access personalised healthcare, today announced it has raised €43 million to further develop its innovative health platform and advance new breakthroughs for preemptive healthcare.

The new funding will be used to expand SheMed’s UK operations, scaling its medical and technology teams, strengthening clinical infrastructure and enhancing its data-driven capabilities.

“For more than a decade, I searched for answers to an undiagnosed health issue,” said Olivia Ferro, Co-founder and CEO of SheMed. “As a GLP-1 patient myself, I know how transformative the right diagnosis and treatment can be. We built SheMed to give women the personalised support I struggled to find: care that listens, understands and empowers.”

The new  funding for SheMed fits within a broader wave of 2025 investment activity in UK and European HealthTech, particularly in preventative care and women’s health.

Other UK companies in adjacent areas have also attracted significant capital this year – including Numan, which secured €51.6 million to expand its digital healthcare platform into female health, and Hormona, which raised €7.8 million for its AI-driven hormone health tracking solution.

Related UK-based ventures such as Perci Health and CoMind have also secured fresh capital to advance personalised and data-led healthcare solutions.

According to EU-Startups’ analysis, UK startups collectively raised around €14.7 billion in 2025 to date, signalling sustained investor confidence in the country’s innovation ecosystem.

Within this context, SheMed’s new funding reflects both a strong national momentum and the growing investor recognition of women’s health and metabolic-care platforms as key growth areas in European healthcare innovation.

“The demand for SheMed’s services has been extraordinary,” added Chloe Ferro, Co-founder and President of SheMed. “Women are seeking care that recognises their individuality, their biology and their experiences. It’s why women continue to turn to SheMed for a tailored, more supportive path to healthcare.”

Founded in April 2024 by sisters Olivia and Chloe Ferro, SheMed has grown rapidly to a market frontrunner for its ability to address the persistent gap in women’s healthcare: access to customised, trustworthy and sustainable solutions.

Its programme integrates medical oversight, wellness tracking and 24/7 support through an all-in-one digital platform, ensuring every woman receives tailored individual care while providing a platform that is redefining the healthcare space.

The new investment will also support new research and patient-experience initiatives designed to improve access to high-quality, personalised care for women across the UK.

SheMed is most known for its leading GLP-1 and weight-management platform, which blends medical expertise, data insights and continuous support to help women achieve lasting health results.

In less than a year, SheMed has cared for 60k+ members, reportedly cementing its position as the fastest growing GLP-1 programme in the UK.

Later this month, SheMed will publish results from the first-ever female-focused GLP-1 clinical study, marking a significant milestone in women’s metabolic-health research. The findings will provide insights into how GLP-1 medications affect women’s hormonal and metabolic responses, helping refine future treatment pathways.

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Zparq, a DeepTech company developing next-generation electric drivetrains out of Stockholm, has been awarded €5.5 million in EU funding to complete the development and scaling of its Z10 platform and to drive the marine industry’s transition towards sustainable, zero-emission propulsion.

This funding is a combination of an EIC grant and an equity investment through Zparq’s existing investors InnoEnergy, Santander Climate Fund and Almi Invest Greentech.

“This milestone underscores both the technological strength of our platform and the momentum for change across the marine industry,” says Jonas Genchel, CEO and Co-founder of Zparq. “With increasing regulatory pressure and clear customer demand for sustainable propulsion, the time for electrification is now. Our Z10 platform proves that electric propulsion can be clean, safe, and fully competitive, not only in performance, but also in cost and reliability.”

The funding awarded to Zparq for its Z10 marine drivetrain platform fits within a broader 2025 trend of European startups advancing electrified propulsion and clean mobility technologies.

This includes Finland’s Donut Lab, which raised €25 million to develop a modular EV platform for land, sea and air vehicles, and the Netherlands’ Deftpower, which secured €12.5 million to expand its AI-driven EV charging network across Europe.

While Zparq is the only Swedish company in this group, the activity across the Nordic region – particularly Donut Lab’s Finnish raise – illustrates the region’s strong momentum in sustainable propulsion and deep-tech innovation.

Zparq’s combination of grant and equity financing under the EIC Accelerator also reflects how public instruments continue to play a pivotal role in scaling European clean-transport technologies.

“Zparq is a prime example of how European DeepTech innovation can transform entire industries,” says Lowina Lundström, CEO of InnoEnergy Scandinavia. “Their drivetrain platform addresses one of the most challenging sectors to decarbonise – marine propulsion – by combining technical excellence with industrial scalability. At InnoEnergy, we are proud to support Zparq in bringing this breakthrough to market, thereby accelerating Europe’s leadership in clean and competitive marine technology.”

Founded in 2020, Zparq looks to provide the most compact and scalable direct-drive system for propeller-driven watercrafts on the market. Zparq offers electric motors and complete powertrains for the full range of leisure boats as well as commercial vessels, enabling an environmentally friendly, efficient, and quiet propulsion with minimal maintenance.

Zparq is one of only 40 European start-ups to be selected for the EIC Accelerator programme, chosen from over 1,000 applicants. In this round, nearly €230 million was allocated to only 40 selected companies, with the majority provided as blended finance.

“We are incredibly happy and proud to have been selected for the EIC Accelerator in such tough competition. It is a strong validation that our technology comes at the right time and has the potential to make a real difference,” adds Genchel. “This recognition and funding will allow us to scale faster, build new partnerships, and drive the systemic change needed to decarbonize waterways.”

According to the company, the marine sector has long relied on internal combustion engines, but their environmental impact, higher maintenance costs, and regulatory hurdles are accelerating the shift toward electrification. Zparq aims to address these challenges head-on with its ultra-compact, scalable, and fully integrated electric drivetrains.

Its Z10 platform is designed not only for leisure boats but also for demanding commercial and rescue applications, with integrated safety systems, advanced battery management, and theft-prevention technology redefining the standards for marine mobility.

With this financing, Zparq will be able to:

• Complete the development of the entire Z10 platform, the company’s core technology for electric drivetrains.
• Scale up the technology for wider market adoption and industrial production.
• Continue attracting international partners and customers in the transport sector

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smartbax, a Munich-based BioTech company developing next-generation antibiotics against multi-drug resistant bacteria, today announced the successful first closing of its €4.7 million pre-Series A financing round.

The round was led by new investors Anobis Asset and Bayern Kapital, with participation from UnternehmerTUM Funding for Innovators as well as existing investors HTGF – High-Tech Gründerfonds and Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund (BIVF). A second closing of the round remains open to investors.

“Small-molecule antibiotics remain one of the most effective tools in combating the rapidly growing threat of antimicrobial resistance. smartbax is currently the only German BioTech dedicated exclusively to developing these crucial tools, and we are proud to advance complementary approaches with both a classical inhibitor against a novel target and enzyme activators with a truly novel mode of action in the antibiotic realm,” said Dr Robert Macsics, CEO of smartbax.

This pre-Series A positions smartbax among a growing group of European companies tackling antimicrobial resistance (AMR).

In 2025, EU-Startups has reported several notable rounds in the field, including SNIPR Biome in Denmark, which secured €35 million in Series B funding to advance CRISPR-based anti-infection therapies, and Phagos in France, which raised €25 million in Series A to develop bacteriophage-based treatments.

These examples illustrate sustained investor interest in diverse AMR approaches across Europe. While many peers focus on gene or phage therapies, smartbax’s work on small-molecule antibiotics offers a complementary route within this innovation landscape.

“Our programs focus on WHO priority pathogens and aim to provide new treatment options for critically ill patients who currently have limited alternatives. We are delighted to have assembled such a strong consortium of investors who share our commitment to addressing this urgent public health threat,” added Dr Macsics.

Founded in 2021 as a spin-off of the Technical University Munich (TUM), smartbax is developing a new generation of antibiotics to address the increasing spread of multi-drug resistant bacteria.

Their team is advancing a complementary pipeline of small molecules against novel bacterial targets and with innovative modes of action to prevent resistance.

Their lead programme is a new inhibitor of lipopolysaccharide synthesis in Gram-negative bacteria. Moreover, the company specialises in the tailored activation of enzymatic pathways that trigger bacterial self-digestion, as this approach is particularly promising in the context of difficult-to-treat biofilms.

Two activators are in development, targeting both Gram-positive bacteria and Gram-negative bacteria individually.

Martin Falk, managing director at Anobis Asset, said: “Antibiotic resistance is one of the most urgent medical challenges of our time, and there is a clear need for new therapeutic approaches. In Germany alone, nearly 10,000 people die each year as a direct consequence of infections with multi-drug resistant bacteria; many more are hospitalized and often face lengthy recovery times.

“We are proud to support a team focused on developing solutions that could help patients and protect public health worldwide.”

smartbax will use the funds to progress its proprietary pipeline of small-molecule antibiotics designed to overcome bacterial resistance with innovative approaches and novel mechanisms of action.

The lead candidate is an inhibitor that blocks a previously unexplored step in the synthesis of lipopolysaccharides (LPS), key structural components of the outer membrane in Gram-negative bacteria. This new inhibitor has already demonstrated in vivo proof of concept, including activity against multi-drug resistant strains, shows potential as an orally available drug, and will now be advanced through preclinical development.

Monika Steger, Managing Partner at Bayern Kapital, commented: “Rising bacterial resistance to antibiotics poses an enormous burden on global healthcare. smartbax is tackling this problem with two novel drug approaches that are already showing great potential at their current stage. At the same time, the market for new antibiotics is opening up a highly attractive growth area with great economic opportunities. Our investment in smartbax is therefore a promising investment in the local BioTech ecosystem and the resilience of our healthcare system.”

In parallel, smartbax is advancing its platform of small-molecule activators of bacterial hydrolases. Rather than inhibiting bacterial functions like traditional antibiotics, these compounds stimulate hydrolase activity, causing bacteria to digest themselves from within.

According to the company, this innovative mode of action has not been exploited in commercial antibiotics to date and offers a promising strategy to overcome established resistance mechanisms.

smartbax has identified two activator classes effective against different targets in Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria, both of which display encouraging drug-like properties, are able to eliminate biofilms and show no development of resistance.

The company will further develop these candidates toward lead selection and in vivo proof of concept using the current funds.

Inga vom Holtz, Director Investments at UnternehmerTUM Funding for Innovators, added: “smartbax has grown from academic research into a BioTech company with a clear focus on antibiotic innovation. We are pleased to join this financing round and to support a team that is advancing both classical inhibitors and entirely new antibacterial mechanisms with enzyme activators, and we are proud that such innovation has its origins at the Technical University Munich.”

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The cost of creating convincing synthetic media has collapsed – and so has society’s ability to distinguish between real and fabricated information. So what are Europe’s rising startups doing about it?

According to the latest study by Dutch cybersecurity startup Surfshark, reported losses linked to deepfakes have now surpassed €1.3 billion, with €860 million stolen in 2025 alone, up €500 million year-on-year.

As Oliver Quie, CEO of British cybersecurity startup Innerworks commented: “We’re facing AI-powered deception that can mimic legitimate users with frightening accuracy. Existing security companies have become obsolete because they assume threats will behave differently than legitimate users.”

Only a few years ago, producing a one-minute deepfake video could cost anywhere between €257 and €17k, depending on quality. With the arrival of widely accessible AI video tools such as Veo 3 and Sora 2, that same minute can now be generated for just a few euros.

This dramatic price collapse has made deception cheaper to run and far easier to scale.

Scalable deception and “lost pet” scams

As costs fall, new categories of fraud have emerged. One striking example is the lost pet scam – fraudsters now generate AI-made images of supposedly found pets, tricking anxious owners into paying small ‘recovery fees’, often around €43, in the hope of reuniting with their animals.

“As the cost of fabricating lifelike images and videos approaches zero, scammers are industrialising deception,” said Miguel Fornes, Information Security Manager at Surfshark. “The lost-pet scam is a clear example: it exploits emotion for small sums, making victims less suspicious and far less likely to pursue legal action. For criminals, that’s an ideal model for mass-scale fraud.” (Translated)

Fornes adds that such small-ticket scams are only part of the picture. The larger threat comes from deepfake-enabled investment schemes and identity spoofing.

Deepfakes have been used in corporate recruitment processes to bypass background checks, including one case where a cybersecurity company unwittingly hired a North Korean hacker who successfully faked his video interview and credentials.

A wave of European startups fights back

So how is Europe fighting back?

The surge in AI-driven deception has triggered a corresponding wave of innovation – and investment – across Europe. So far this year, EU-Startups has reported on several funding rounds targeting the detection and prevention of deepfake-enabled fraud.

• Acoru (Madrid, Spain) – Just today they raised €10 million (Series A) to help banks predict and prevent AI-powered fraud and money laundering before transactions occur. Its platform monitors pre-fraud intent signals and uses consortium-based intelligence sharing to stop scams at the source.
• IdentifAI (Cesena, Italy) – secured €5 million in July 2025 to expand its deepfake detection platform, which analyses images, video and voice to authenticate content and flag AI-generated material. The startup reports an increase in demand from newsrooms and law-enforcement clients since early 2024.
• Trustfull (Milan, Italy) – raised €6 million in July 2025 to broaden its fraud-prevention suite to cover “deepfake scams and large-scale phishing campaigns.” The company said this is a pivotal moment for the global fraud detection and prevention market, which is projected to nearly triple from €28.4 billion in 2024 to €77.4 billion by 2030.

• Innerworks (London, UK) – raised €3.7 million in August 2025 to expand its AI-powered platform for stopping synthetic-identity and deepfake-driven fraud. The company reported that fraud attempts using deepfakes rose by over 2,000% since 2022.

• Keyless (London, UK) – closed a €1.9 million round in January 2025 to strengthen its privacy-preserving biometric technology, designed to thwart injection attacks and deepfake-based identity spoofing. It reports its clients have seen a 73% reduction in Account Takeover (ATO) fraud and 81% reduction in help desk costs.

Together, these startups reflect a continental effort to counteract a new layer of cyber-risk. Italy in particular stands out, with two active ventures in the space, suggesting a developing national cluster around biometric and deepfake-detection innovation.

Regulatory backdrop: EU policies tighten in 2025

The rising economic impact of AI-enabled deception has coincided with new EU-level measures aimed at increasing accountability and transparency in artificial intelligence and digital services.

In February 2025, the EU Artificial Intelligence Act began applying key provisions. It requires clear labelling of AI-generated content and transparency when individuals interact with AI systems. These rules directly target the misuse of generative tools for manipulation or fraud, including deepfakes and voice cloning.

AI systems that deceive or exploit vulnerable users can now be classified as posing an “unacceptable risk,” making them illegal within the EU market.

Meanwhile, under the Digital Services Act (DSA), large online platforms are now obliged to assess and mitigate systemic risks arising from manipulative or fraudulent content – a framework that extends to deepfake media used in phishing and impersonation scams.

The financial sector has also been addressed. In July 2025, the European Banking Authority (EBA) issued an opinion highlighting how AI is being exploited for money laundering and fraud, including through fabricated identities and deepfake documents. It urged financial institutions to adapt anti-money-laundering (AML) systems to account for AI-enabled risks – a move that aligns closely with the missions of startups such as Acoru and Trustfull.

Together, these policy developments show that 2025 is shaping up as the year Europe tightened its legal net around AI misuse – introducing a compliance-driven incentive for startups combating fraud and synthetic deception.

What can you do?

“AI has changed the face of fraud and money laundering. You simply cannot expect technology built in 2010 to combat fraud happening in 2025,” – Pablo de la Riva Ferrezuelo, Co‑founder and CEO of Acoru.

His words reflect a wider sentiment among Europe’s cybersecurity Founders: that a new generation of technology – built for an era of synthetic media and AI‑powered deception – is urgently needed.

This perspective is echoed across the sector. Founders and investors alike describe 2025 as a turning point, with the convergence of regulation, awareness, and financial backing fuelling an arms race between scammers and defenders.

While fraudsters exploit generative AI to manipulate voices, identities and video, Europe’s new breed of startups are deploying AI to expose, verify and block malicious activity before it reaches victims.

At the user level, industry experts still stress the importance of vigilance and education as the first line of defence:

• Use strong cybersecurity and identity-verification tools and ensure regular staff training.
• Verify unexpected requests – especially those involving money or sensitive data – through trusted channels before acting.
• Scrutinise media for subtle inconsistencies: overly clean audio, slight lip-sync errors, or unnatural hand movement.
• Resist urgency or emotional hooks – common tactics in scams.
• Implement multifactor checks and require out-of-band confirmations for payments or account changes.
• Equip high-risk teams (finance, HR, customer support) with in-person verification protocols.
• Treat contacts with new domains or virtual numbers as potential red flags.

The Surfshark study used data from the AI Incident Database and Resemble.AI to create a combined dataset of deepfake-related incidents from 2017 to September 2025. Only cases involving falsified video, image or audio content reported in the media were included. Fraud-related incidents with a clearly quantified financial loss were further classified into 12 specific sub-categories.

For the complete research material, visit Surfshark’s research hub.

The post European startups get serious about deepfakes as AI fraud losses surpass €1.3 billion appeared first on EU-Startups.

Italy-based Sizable Energy, a developer of long-duration ocean energy storage, has raised $8 million in a round led by Playground Global, with participation from Verve Ventures and Unruly Capital.

Sizable Energy is building gigawatt-scale storage using an offshore pumped-hydro approach. Founded by engineers across nuclear, mechanical, energy, and maritime disciplines, the company aims to deliver long-duration energy storage (LDES) for a more reliable and cost-effective grid. Its patented system applies proven pumped-hydro principles to a marine architecture designed for modularity and scale, storing energy by pumping saturated sea-salt brine from the seabed to a surface reservoir and leveraging ocean depth for efficiency.

With the International Energy Agency estimating a need for up to 120 TWh of LDES by 2040, about ten times today’s capacity, Sizable targets and constraints are facing onshore pumped hydro (slow builds, geographic limits, environmental concerns) with an offshore solution that is modular, cost-effective, and designed for rapid deployment.

Invisible from shore, the system targets a low levelized cost of storage, scales from single-digit to hundreds of GWh, and uses readily available materials that can be manufactured and installed at depths of 500+ meters using existing maritime infrastructure.

The company has validated its core technology in wave-basin laboratories and open-ocean trials. Recent testing at MARIN indicated reliable operation in harsh ocean conditions, a key milestone ahead of a megawatt-scale pilot. A new sea trial off Reggio Calabria, Italy, will validate major floating components and the full assembly and deployment process, paving the way for a multi-MWh demonstration plant in the Mediterranean.

The new funding will accelerate the development and deployment of Sizable Energy’s offshore pumped-hydro system to deliver economical, reliable LDES.

Fintech advice company Saturn has raised a $15 million Series A funding round led by European VC Singular, with participation from Shapers, Y Combinator, and Zeno Ventures.

The advice gap is one of today’s biggest societal challenges. Fewer than 1 in 10 people in the UK  received financial advice last year, according to the Financial Conduct Authority. That leaves millions of families without the help and expertise they need to secure their futures.  

The problem? Delivering advice is too expensive. Advise professionals, whether they are financial advisers, paraplanners, or administrators, spend too much time bogged down in admin and compliance tasks. 

The result: it costs on average £2,000 / year to serve just one client, making financial advice a privilege for the wealthy.  

Founded in 2023 by Amal Jolly, Michael Ettlinger, and Rohit Vaish, Saturn’s mission is to make human-led advice accessible to one billion people.

After uncovering the scale of the issue by reading an industry report, the founding trio saw how AI could transform the economics of advice and open access for everyone.   “Behind every financial plan is a human story,” said Amal Jolly, Saturn CEO.

“Advisers and their teams quietly change lives, giving families confidence and peace of mind. Our job is to empower humans in the financial advice process.

By doing the heavy-admin-lifting and  making compliance much more reliable and less painful, we can help financial advice  professionals offer their life-changing services to more people at a significantly lower cost.”  

Saturn’s compliance-focused AI tackles the root of the problem by automating the most time-consuming administrative and regulatory work.

Tasks that once took four hours of paraplanner time now take just 20 minutes of review - including client suitability reports, meeting documentation, onboarding, and pension transfer processing. 

This frees advisers and their teams to focus on what they do best: delivering expert, human-led advice at scale. By giving firms full control of their data and reducing manual processes, Saturn eliminates inefficiencies, cuts risk, and helps strengthen client relationships.

Built to be Compliant by Design, Saturn adapts to each firm’s internal policies and local regulatory requirements, ensuring every process, document, and workflow aligns with the regulations e.g., FCA and Consumer Duty standards, from the start. Its AI is purpose-built for  UK financial advice compliance - not a generic CRM or automation tool - and is continually refined in collaboration with Saturn’s in-house team of compliance experts and paraplanners. 

All AI-generated documentation remains subject to mandatory adviser review before distribution, ensuring firms retain full oversight and regulatory accountability while benefiting from automated efficiency. 

Saturn’s technology is trusted by over 600 leading advisory firms, consolidators, national firms, and advice networks, including Progeny, Hoxton Wealth, Perspective Financial Group, and Insight Financial Associates. 

Jeremy Uzan, Co-Founder and GP at Singular, commented:

“We have rarely seen such an ambitious, high-velocity founding team that combines deep technical expertise with real industry insight.

They have built an exceptional group around them that moves fast, executes  with focus and attracts top talent - and their early traction already reflects their ambition.”  

The new funding will accelerate the development of next-generation AI and tech that enable faster, more scalable and more compliant advice delivery. Saturn will also expand its AI, engineering, research, customer delivery, and partnerships teams to strengthen industry collaboration. 

Copenhagen-based CFO-services company, Scaleup Finance, has secured £3 million to launch Nume, an AI CFO positioned to address the financial leadership gap faced by 50 million SMEs globally. 

While CFOs are standard in larger businesses, nearly 50 million SMEs globally lack a proper finance function, relying heavily on manual processes, spreadsheets, and limited access to financial expertise.

Scaleup Finance aims to address this gap with Nume. which acts as a CFO for small and mid-sized businesses, answering complex financial questions, preparing reports, and proactively guiding founders on the health of their business through their familiar communication channels like Email, Slack etc.

I spoke to CEO Alexander Sonne Wulff to learn all about it.

Sonne Wulff has been a founder throughout his whole career. He started back in 2010 with a deep tech company developing a new type of concrete material. 

Of all things, they decided to reinvent concrete, and he recalled "everyone told us we would fail because I’m not an engineer. I studied at Copenhagen Business School. But the product turned out to be both greener and cheaper."

"We used to joke that if we could sell a contractor a product that emitted 5 per cent more CO₂ but saved 20 per cent in cost, they would always choose it.

The incentive structure was very much like that back then — and, honestly, it still is to a degree. Anyway, the company ended up doing really well. I was there for 11 years, scaling it into the US and across Europe."

“I’m building the product I always wished I’d had as a founder”

When he exited in 2021, he wanted to solve one of the biggest and hardest problems he’d faced personally — financial management. He teamed up with my two co-founders to start Scaleup Finance.  Sonne Wulff recounts: 

“Every time I met other founders at events, the same topic came up — managing finances was a recurring pain point.

For many, the CEO or founder is effectively the CFO, even though that’s not their area of expertise.  That’s the problem we set out to solve when we started Scaleup Finance in 2021."

“We’re six in total — three of us entrepreneurs and the others with finance and tech backgrounds. We’d all experienced the same challenge: managing our own company finances without the right tools."

Inside the financial black box 

The most common financial challenges faced by startups and SMEs are cash management and visibility — questions like “When will we run out of cash?” or “How accurate is our forecast?”

Sonne Wulff admits, “I’ve probably had hundreds, maybe even close to a thousand meetings with founders, and so many have said, “I have no idea how we’re performing.”

"When I ask, “Do you get a monthly report to see how you did last month?” they often say no. Their process is literally logging into their bank account to check the balance."

He sees this as the biggest warning sign.

“A lot of founders call finance a “black box.”They know they need to handle it but have no idea what to look for. If you map out how most early-stage companies operate, you’ll usually see one person — the founder or CEO — doing everything.

Then they hire an outsourced bookkeeping provider or accountant to handle two things: bookkeeping and payroll, because they legally have to. Everything else is left to the founder.”

Building investor trust starts with the numbers

Significantly, for startups with external funding — grants, angels, or VCs — there’s another layer of reporting and accountability.

Sonne Wulff often tells founders that “finance is like your internal steering wheel — you need a good grip on it to make decisions.

"But it’s also what builds trust with investors. The external reporting component is huge. Investors need confidence that you’re managing their capital responsibly.

Even if you’re not actively fundraising, maintaining that transparency with your current investors lays the groundwork for your next round.”

Open banking created more complexity

Scaleup Finance is a combination of service and technology. According to Sonne Wulff, when the team started in 2021, they saw that there were plenty of startups focusing on bookkeeping, payroll, expense management, and payments — all important but very operational. 

According to Sonne Wulff, “Nobody was tackling the strategic side: budgeting, forecasting, and decision-making.” “When I started my previous company, my financial tools were very fragmented. I had a cloud accounting system, a payroll system, but also stacks of paper invoices because some clients still wanted them sent by mail. This was only about 10 years ago!”

The rise of open banking in 2015 saw an explosion of fintech — expense management tools, corporate cards, payroll platforms. Everything moved to the cloud.

But according to Sonne Wulff, “what happened was that I now had all my transactional data spread across multiple cloud tools, all with APIs, and I was exporting CSV files every month to rebuild a master spreadsheet just to understand performance."

"It was ridiculous. I’d spend hours every month reconciling data manually in Excel — making mistakes, updating forecasts — and every founder I spoke to said the same. Everyone had “the spreadsheet.” So we decided to focus on that top layer: the strategic financial management part.

It’s harder to build than a basic accounting tool because it requires deep accuracy and context.”

Scaleup Finance was inspired by Palantir’s model — embedding domain experts deeply within the product. 

“We realised that to succeed, we’d need financial professionals in-house to help build the technology. So we started as a tech-enabled CFO service, offering an end-to-end solution where human CFOs are supported by automation,” shared Sonne Wulff.

Nume is built on four years of Scaleup Finance’s CFO-as-a-Service experience, including 40 CFOs working with more than 500 high-growth startups across Europe. The team has condensed thousands of hours of learning and knowledge into a tool for every SME to use. It connects directly to banking and accounting systems to deliver CFO-level insights in minutes - from liquidity forecasts to board-ready reports, and proactively surfaces risks and opportunities in real time. ​​

Over the past year, Nume has been tested in private beta with a select group of companies, refining its capabilities in real-world conditions.

Already, more than 2,500 companies from 80 countries have signed up for the launch. 

According to Sonne Wulff, “For larger companies or those with very complex audits, you still need a person involved. But for the long tail of SMEs, Nume delivers professional-grade financial management without the cost of hiring a CFO.” How

Scaleup Finance hit €1M ARR without a single euro in marketing

Scaleup Finance’s biggest source of growth has always been word of mouth. In our first year, it went from zero to €1 million in ARR without doing any marketing at all.

“I remember coming back from summer vacation just a few months after we launched,” recounts Sonne Wulff.

“We had automated the monthly reporting process, producing beautiful reports that clients could export as PDFs. These reports said “Powered by Scaleup Finance” at the bottom and looked like something out of a Fortune 500 board deck.”

Clients started sharing them with their boards and investors — and then those investors started calling, saying, “I just received this report from one of my portfolio companies. It’s the best monthly report I’ve ever seen. Tell me more about what you’re doing.” That created a powerful organic flywheel for growth.

Helping founders sleep better at night

According to Sonne Wulff, “What we hear most is: “I finally feel on top of my finances.”

“It sounds simple, but for many founders it’s transformative. Finance goes from being a source of anxiety to something under control. A lot of our clients talk about finally sleeping better at night because the “black box” has been opened.

Even personally, when I was a founder, I took a master’s in finance and accounting — not because I loved it, but because I thought it would help me make better strategic decisions.

Even then, I was never 100 per cent sure I was doing things correctly. That constant uncertainty is stressful. So when our clients tell us they finally feel confident about their numbers, it’s exactly why we started the company.”

Global accessibility for SMEs and startups

Nume brings the cost of professional financial management down tenfold, making it accessible to thousands of smaller companies. And it’s global from day one with a logical UX: onboarding takes about five minutes. You connect your bank and accounting systems, answer a few simple questions, and Nume immediately starts working.

"The first thing it says is something like, “Hi, I’m your AI CFO. I’ve analysed your data and created a tailored financial plan and a list of tasks I’ll handle for you.” Then users can choose to communicate via Slack or email," shared Sonne Wulff.

Nume proactively monitors finances, sends monthly reports, flags issues like growing receivables, and keeps everything running smoothly.

“We’ve spent more than a year building what I call the most sophisticated financial brain for SMEs. The hardest challenge was accuracy — large language models are great with text, but when it comes to numbers, they tend to hallucinate,” shared Sonne Wulff.

“We solved that by creating a multi-agent setup: splitting complex tasks across specialised AI agents, each with the right tools and validation processes. That’s how we achieved 100 per cent accuracy. Most AI adoption so far has been in text-based use cases — sales, customer support, legal — but not in numerical, data-driven work like finance. Our architecture finally makes that possible.”

For Sonne Wulff, Nume's proactiveness stands out. "Most tools wait for users to ask questions, but most founders don’t even know what to ask. Nume behaves like a real CFO,” shared Sonne Wulff. 

After onboarding, Nume immediately creates a plan and starts sending tailored updates — “Here’s your monthly report,” or “Hey, your receivables are climbing.” It’s an active financial partner, not just a reactive tool.

Sonne Wulff asserts, “We’ve basically tried to mimic an entire CFO job description — and automate it. That proactivity is the key difference between a chatbot and an actual AI CFO.”

The round was led by a syndicate of European investors, including Mainset (UK), Circlerock (Ireland), North Ventures (Denmark), Crowberry (Iceland), Inveready (Spain), and SeedX (Liechtenstein), alongside angels such as former Google UK Managing Director Dan Cobley.

With the funding, Scaleup Finance is now bringing Nume to the global market making CFO-level support accessible to millions of SMEs for the first time.

“SMEs are the backbone of the global economy, yet most still lack access to the financial leadership they need. With Nume, Scaleup Finance is opening up CFO-level capabilities to millions of businesses worldwide. With a proven founding team, we believe Nume can set a new standard for how SMEs worldwide run their businesses,” says Mikkel Rørvig, Partner at North Ventures.