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The post Weekly funding round-up! All of the European startup funding rounds we tracked this week (Oct. 20-24) appeared first on EU-Startups.

This week, we tracked more than 70 tech funding deals worth over €1.3 billion, and over 10 exits, M&A transactions, rumours, and related news stories across Europe. 

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

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

? Notable and big funding rounds

?? Enpal secures €700M ABS facility with M&G for residential solar and heating loans

?? Non-drill brain monitoring startup CoMind raises over $100M ?? Refurbed closes £44M round as it targets UK expansion

??‍?? Noteworthy acquisitions and mergers

?? Ipsen expands oncology portfolio with €1B acquisition of French biotech ImCheck Therapeutics

?? Allica Bank snaps up UK embedded finance startup Kriya

?? Munich-based defense tech company Quantum Systems is acquiring the AI ​​company Spleenlab

?? Dutch truck-services platform TRAVIS acquired by Germany’s Knorr-Bremse

? Interesting moves from investors

? Iris Ventures closes €100M round for new consumer tech fund

? Lakestar calls time on generalist venture funds

?? From Seed to sovereignty: HV Capital’s expanding mandate across Europe

?️ In other (important) news

? A global AWS outage exposes fragile digital foundations

?The biggest European cleantech deals in H1 2025

☀️ Energy unicorn 1KOMMA5° takes on Germany’s gas plan with EU complaint

? OpenAI offers UK data storage, as says UK customer numbers quadrupled in 12 months

? Recommended reads and listens

?? Lithuania’s tech ecosystem: Founders and executives discuss its evolution

? 15% of Slush alumni become founders — a launchpad unlike any other in Europe

?? Meet AI-BOB: the Swedish startup bringing AI-powered compliance to the construction industry

? European tech startups to watch 

??  Paygentic nets $2M pre-seed to power payments for AI-native firms

??  Rightcharge raises £1.6M to power EV charging payments for Europe’s fleets

??  Aunoa raises €1.5M to scale its conversational AI agents across Europe

??  HotGreen Solutions raises £1.2M for ultra-efficient heat pumps

??  Every Health raises €1.1M to build Europe’s first LGBTQ+ virtual clinic

??  Certificall raises €1M seed to strengthen its position in the European market

Spanish company Aunoa has raised €1.5 million for its AI agent solutions for the automation of complex customer management tasks. 

Aunoa designs and implements advanced conversational AI “agents” for enterprise clients. They combine generative and proprietary AI models to automate customer engagement across multiple channels (WhatsApp, web chat, social messaging, voice) and integrate with existing systems, such as CRM/ticketing, to support functions such as lead capture, customer service, and scheduling. 

With an emphasis on data governance, regulatory compliance, and scalable automation of high-volume interactions, they target sectors such as retail, finance, telecom and logistics. 

Aunoa has had strong traction in 2025, with 2M€ recurring turnover and a team of 35 employees.

Its international commercial development already spans 10 countries and works with leading companies across critical sectors such as banking and logistics. 

Eoniq and Faraday led the round, which was supported by GoHub Ventures, Aurorial and Alea. According to Tom Horsey, eoniq managing partner:

“Aunoa represents the type of company we love to support. It has solid technology, powerful equipment and international vision. This investment reinforces our confidence in their leadership in the field of conversational agents.”

Lead image: freepik.

Energy-tech is probably one of the most exciting investment opportunities of our time, but at the same time, one of the toughest arenas for founders. Why is that?

Few other sectors bring together so many global megatrends: the decarbonization of economies and societies, the growing importance of energy security and resilience, the digitalisation of infrastructures, and the immense capital intensity required for the transformation. At first glance, the opportunity looks unique: battery technologies, smart grids, virtual power plants, new forms of energy efficiency, or digital solutions for grid integration are not just future markets but absolute necessities if Europe wants to achieve its climate goals and maintain geopolitical agency.

Energy-tech startups face markets characterised by long sales cycles, complex regulation, and dominant incumbent players. Unlike classic software or fintech markets, it is not enough to launch a good product quickly and then scale through network effects. Here, something else decides success: whether investors provide not just capital but also the international networks needed to secure market access, regulatory orientation, and strategic partnerships.

One thing is clear: capital is a necessary precondition, but never sufficient. Without investors who can open doors to international markets, regulators, industry players, and talent pools, even the best technology risks are getting stuck in pilot mode.

Capital alone is not enough

Many founders underestimate how fragmented energy markets really are. While software startups can often think globally and scale their products internationally with minimal adaptation, energy markets are defined by national regulation, subsidy logics, and entrenched market structures. A business model that works in Germany may face entirely different conditions in Spain or the U.S.

Take Germany, where the Renewable Energy Act (EEG) shaped decades of specific subsidies for wind and solar or Spain, by contrast, experienced aggressive subsidy programs in the 2000s, followed by a radical stop that drove many young companies into bankruptcy. Today, the market is booming again, but under completely different regulatory and financial mechanisms. For startups without local networks, this can mean losing valuable years.

This is where the difference between an investor focused purely on capital and one with an international network becomes clear. Internationally connected investors can open doors that go far beyond funding: they provide market access through their connections to grid operators, utilities, industrial players, and municipalities; they bring regulatory guidance by offering insights and access to policymakers, enabling startups to understand and leverage legal frameworks early; they foster industry partnerships with technology providers, system integrators, or infrastructure funds that make scaling possible; and they give access to talent pools, helping founders build international teams with experienced executives and specialists.

Without these bridges, many energy-tech startups remain stuck in local markets that are too small to unlock their full potential.

Why LPs are turning toward Energy-Tech

Another driver of the relevance of international networks comes from the investor side itself: Limited Partners (LPs) have, in recent years, begun to recognise energy-tech as a standalone asset class. Just a few years ago, it was common for funds to market themselves with generic sustainability labels. Terms like “green,” “impact,” or “sustainable” dominated pitch decks, often without hard numbers to back them up. That has changed. Today, LPs ranging from sovereign wealth funds to pension funds demand clear, measurable evidence.

Energy-tech delivers exactly that. Every kilowatt-hour saved, every ton of CO₂ avoided, every increase in energy security is quantifiable. Startups in this sector can show their “carbon ROI” as precisely as their financial KPIs. For LPs, this means less greenwashing and more substance.

Energy security as an economic opportunity
A second major driver is geopolitics. The 2022 energy crisis made Europe painfully aware of its dependence on external suppliers. The EU’s share of Russian gas imports fell from 40% to around 10%, but dependence on the U.S. and Norway remains high.

For LPs, this creates a new reality: investments in energy-tech are not just about sustainability but about national resilience. Energy security has become an economic competitiveness factor. Technologies that create independence are not only environmentally beneficial but economically essential.

Yet energy security is, by definition, international. It affects supply chains, raw materials, infrastructure, and markets that are interconnected across borders. That is why LPs today scrutinise whether funds can truly build these international bridges.

Fundraising 2025: What founders need to ask

For energy-tech startups, the current fundraising environment is both promising and challenging. On the one hand, enormous amounts of capital are flowing into low-carbon technologies: according to the IEA, investments are expected to reach a record €3.1 trillion in 2025. On the other hand, selection criteria are getting tougher. LPs and funds are more critical, business plans face deeper scrutiny, and capital without networks is losing its appeal.

Startups, therefore, need to ask the question: Does my investor bring more than money? What really matters is whether they can act as a global bridge, supporting entry into markets with complex regulation and opening doors to utilities or regulators in the target regions. Just as important is their scaling experience; can they point to concrete cases where technologies have successfully grown beyond pilot projects?

Founders should also look closely at the nature of the capital: is it truly patient, or tied to quick-return expectations that are often incompatible with energy-tech? Finally, the structure of the cap table plays a critical role. If it includes not only financial investors but also industrial and infrastructure partners, the chances of moving from pilot to large-scale deployment increase dramatically.

Especially in 2025, as the volume of investment in energy-tech grows while competition intensifies, these questions separate the wheat from the chaff. Founders who look only at ticket size risk lacking the levers they need when true scaling begins.

Challenges and differentiation in a crowded market

Energy-tech is no longer a niche. According to the IEA, there are currently around 72,000 startups active globally in energy-related fields. Add to that hundreds of funds competing for LP capital and the best founders. In such an environment, differentiation becomes decisive.

But how do you turn pilot projects into a true scale? A startup developing a new storage technology might win pilot projects with municipal utilities in Germany. But the real opportunity lies in southern Europe, where solar-driven grid fluctuations are especially high. Spain, for example, has invested massively in solar power and now often produces more electricity on sunny days than the grid can absorb. This creates huge opportunities for storage solutions, but only for startups that find the right local partners early.

Another example is data centres. Scandinavia continues to see a boom in sustainable facilities, thanks to low cooling costs from colder climates and abundant renewable energy. Startups offering efficiency or flexibility technologies here need access to highly specialised networks of operators, utilities, and regulators. Without that network, they lose ground.

Looking ahead: internationalisation as a survival strategy

The next five years will reshape the energy sector. Europe is leaning on regulation and subsidies, the U.S. is driving private investment through the Inflation Reduction Act, and within Europe, countries like Germany, Spain, and the Nordic states are following very different market logics.

For startups, internationalisation means survival. Focusing on a single market risks being derailed by regulatory changes or saturation. Only with international networks built early can founders adapt flexibly and seize new growth opportunities.

This diversity is not symbolic, but essential to help startups enter new markets, identify regulatory hurdles early, and connect with the right industrial partners. Only then can technologies break out of pilot mode and scale widely.

The post Why capital alone won’t scale EnergyTech internationally appeared first on EU-Startups.

This week, research reveals that Slush alumni are at the core of building the future of European tech, as 15 per cent (68 out of a total of 459) of the team go on to become founders, according to data released by Slush in collaboration with Dealroom and Accel. 

Held annually in November, Slush is a world-leading startup event and the largest gathering of venture capital firms. It brings together  13,000 attendees, including 6,000 startups and 3,500 investors.  The investors represent a total of $4T+ in assets under management. 

I spoke with Aino Bergius, CEO of Slush, and Mikko Mäntylä, former Slush President and now co-founder and CEO of Realm, to learn more,

Building the Finnish founder pipeline

According to Mäntylä, Slush is absolutely central to the Finnish startup ecosystem. 

“It’s responsible, in large part, for creating the kind of vibrant founder community we have today.

From the beginning, it’s been a student-run event, which means a lot of Finnish students — either while still at university or right after — join the organisation, gain experience, learn about the startup world, and then go on to found companies themselves.”

The 15 per  cent figure is more than double compared to the percentage of young people aged  18–24 founding businesses in Finland (GEM 2021).

In total, almost 70 former Slushers have gone on to found their own companies after their time working for the world-renowned startup event. 

“We want to be the best Founder Factory in Europe, by opening doors to the startup world and giving young people the tools and confidence to build world-changing companies” says Bergius, aged 26. 

Inside Slush’s startup mindset: ownership from day one

According to Bergius, while the Main Event focuses on supporting existing founders, everything Slush does year-round is about creating more of them.
It starts with hiring:

“We look for people who get excited about building and solving hard problems, instead of optimising the existing.

Or similarly, we don’t want someone who can just do the job well, we want people who can redefine what’s possible in that role.”

Crucially, Slush embodies the startup mindset through its agility and structure: the average team member is 23, and half of the team changes every year, including leadership. 

This means the team can’t rely on what’s been done in the past; they must intentionally start from scratch. 

According to Bergius, “at the beginning of each year, we invest heavily in learning about the startup ecosystem, and about how we want to work together. 

“That shared learning sets the foundation for ownership.

Because people join the Slush team to learn and build, we default to trust. From day one, each person is expected to act like the founder of their own domain, making decisions, setting direction, and shipping fast. That operational freedom, combined with support, feedback, and high standards, is what keeps Slush evolving, and what makes it work.

Team members are given responsibility that usually comes years into a career. 

"Responsibility comes early here, way earlier than in most workplaces. You’re leading teams, owning external partnerships, and making budget decisions. You’re also building something from scratch under real pressure, on a real deadline. That’s startup life in disguise,” shared Bergius.

The approach is designed to accelerate growth fast — combining hands-on experience with direct exposure to the ecosystem. Every other week, teams take part in open Q&A sessions with prominent founders and investors, gaining insights that might otherwise take years to learn. This creates a constant loop of learning and reimagining what a startup career can look like — making founding a company feel as normal as starting any project that matters.

Bergius asserts that if you combine that kind of talent with ownership, trust, and the space to learn fast, companies become a natural byproduct. 

Building a company becomes doable

When asked which aspects of Slush’s culture best prepare people to become founders, Bergius points to three in particular: ownership, standards, and feedback.  “At Slush, you’re trusted with outcomes, not just tasks — there’s no micromanagement,” she explained.

“You’re held to a global benchmark, not a student one. And you learn in public: documenting everything, giving feedback early, and talking openly about failure.”

All of this happens within a one-year cycle — a complete loop of building, shipping, and reflecting — which, she said, is “a huge accelerator for founder readiness.” “Once you've shipped an experience for 13,000 people with a team of your peers, building a company doesn’t feel like a far-off dream anymore, it feels quite doable."

“You run out of excuses not to build something”:

Out of the 15 per cent of Slush alumni who have gone on to become entrepreneurs, one of the most famous examples is Miki Kuusi, co-founder and former CEO of Wolt and Head of DoorDash International. After spending four years as the CEO of Slush, he founded Wolt in 2014, which in 2022 joined forces with US-based S&P 500  DoorDash. 

Other former Slushers forming their own companies include:

• Eerika Savolainen, co-founder & CEO of Clair (2025);
• Elmo Pakkanen  and Tommi Bergström founded Ambio in 2023; 
• Niilo Pirttijärvi, co-founder & CEO of Inven (2022);
• Andreas Saari, co-founder & co-CEO of Paebbl (2021).

Mäntylä co-founded Realm in 2023 with two other Slush alumni — one of whom, Miika Huttunen, was CEO when he was President. Half the company’s current team also worked at Slush, which says a lot about the organisation’s impact and network.

Mäntylä joined Slush in 2019 as a second-year student who knew very little about the startup ecosystem.  “What was supposed to be a few months turned into four transformative years of my life,” he shared.

“By the end, I had become President, leading the external-facing side of Slush — things like the stage program, relationships with our core audience and partners, and the overall experience.

That journey made me realise I couldn’t imagine a life where I didn’t try to build something of my own.”

How founders are made

I was curious if there was something specific during his time at Slush that made you think, I can actually be a founder — that sense of “I can create impact beyond running events”?

Mäntylä admits, “First, when you join Slush, you’re surrounded by people who are dreaming of solving really hard problems by starting companies. That’s incredibly inspiring — it normalises ambition. You realise that people your age, with a similar background, are taking on these huge challenges.”

Second, being part of Slush means meeting some of the most iconic entrepreneurs on the planet — “and sometimes even getting to know them a bit.”

“And you realise they’re just people. They were also students once, just figuring things out. They didn’t know much more about the world than you do, but they went on to build companies that changed it.

That’s very empowering. You realise startups are one of the most democratised opportunities in the world — anyone can start one, and anyone can have a real chance at success.

Once that sinks in, you sort of run out of excuses for why you couldn’t do it yourself.”

He contends that Slush condenses five years of classroom learning into a single year of hands-on company building.

“We’ve lived it, and that’s why we know how to value it in the people we hire”, Mäntylä explains. 

How a Slush problem became a startup idea

The idea for Realm came from Slush. According to Mäntylä,” the first time we ever wrote down something resembling the idea for Realm, it came from reflecting on problems we’d had at Slush.” Because the team changes so often, so institutional knowledge gets lost. 

“We’d all document things constantly, but there was no good way to go back, access it, and make use of it. That was the missing piece. With AI, we can now build systems that actually understand and organise that kind of internal knowledge.”

Since then, Realm has narrowed its focus to customer-facing roles — sales, success, partnerships — but the fundamental idea remains the same.

Specifically, Realm is building an AI-powered knowledge platform helping sales, customer success, and pre-sales professionals instantly find and use information scattered across company tools.

By connecting to CRMs, document hubs, and communication platforms, Realm creates intelligent AI agents that can answer questions, generate responses to RFPs or security questionnaires, and surface the right context in seconds in a secure environment. And the team is the most enthusiastic users of its own product.

  “That’s one of the best parts of building a startup — creating something you rely on every day yourself,” shared Mäntylä. 

However, it's not easy to build what’s effectively a plug-and-play AI layer, that's both universal and deeply adaptable.

According to Mäntylä, the key is combining the reasoning capabilities of large language models with each company’s private data in a secure and intelligent way. 

“That means building lots of integrations, designing advanced search to retrieve only the most relevant documents, and packaging everything into workflows that fit naturally into someone’s day. It’s a mix of heavy engineering and thoughtful product design.

But so far, the reception has been great. Our users say it genuinely changes how they work — and that’s the best validation we could ask for.”

“Slush lets you practice those founder muscles first”

Mäntylä believes the experience provides vital transferable skills that few other environments can match:

“If you’re 23, 25, 27 — there aren’t many places in the world that will let you manage a team or run a complex operation. Slush gives you that experience early.

You learn how to lead, how to make decisions, how to balance ambition with responsibility — all before your own company is on the line."

He asserts that crucially, Slush provides a training ground for startup management teams, contending that if the first time you’re managing people is when you’re already a founder, you’re setting yourself up for a lot of pain.

“Slush lets you practice those muscles first.

“You learn how to recruit exceptional people, handle operational complexity, keep culture intact through hyper-growth, and deliver under huge pressure.

There are endless spreadsheets, tight deadlines, and thousands of moving parts. It’s operationally intense — and that’s very similar to running a company.”

And as for Realm, the small team is growing fast. While most customers are currently in Finland and the Nordics, it also has clients across Europe and North America, and just signed its first one in Australia.

“Expansion is the focus: hiring exceptional people and reaching more markets,” shared Mäntylä.

The Slush experience is highly regarded by investors

Lifeline Ventures is a Finnish early-stage VC firm that  has invested in multiple startups founded by former Slushers. Some of these companies include Realm, Ambio,  Flow AI and Inven. According to Timo Ahopelto, serial entrepreneur and founding partner of Lifeline Venture: 

“Slush is a human accelerator. It gives young people ambition, the opportunity for exponential growth and ownership from day one. These are all things that lay the groundwork for becoming successful founders. 

Sonali De Rycker, Partner at Accel, states: 

"Since its founding in 2008, Slush has evolved into one of the world’s premier startup events — the beating heart of the Nordic tech ecosystem and a launchpad for entrepreneurial talent.

From unicorns like Wolt to emerging companies such as Paebbl and Realm, as well as  venture firms like Wave, Slush has consistently fostered the ambition and determination that drives future  founders.” 

Slush offers founders an unfair advantage

Mäntylä asserts that if you’re 22 or 23 and can even imagine yourself founding a company someday, there’s no better place to spend the next couple of years than Slush. He contends that it’s not just about experience — it’s about connections. 

“The startup world is open and welcoming, but it’s also relational.

Spend two years at Slush, and by the time you’re ready to start your own company, you’ll already have those relationships — sometimes literally in your WhatsApp. That’s one of the unfair advantages you can give yourself: access to investors, mentors, and peers who already know and trust you.”

Scalable lessons from Slush for Europe

often talks about needing more “repeat founders.” When asked about what lessons from the Slush experience could other ecosystems, universities, or accelerators adopt,  Bergius asserts:

"Let people take on slightly too much responsibility before they feel ready. Give them real ownership, real stakes, and support them with feedback.

Skills can be taught, but drive and willingness to learn come from character, and that shows up fast when responsibility is real.

And failure can’t be a taboo. At Slush, failure is visible, fast, and shared. That’s how people learn to bounce back, and build confidence to try again."

Lead image: Slush volunteers 2024. Photo: Riikka Vaahtera.

Cytely, a Lund-based DeepTech startup, has secured €3 million in a new funding round to power the expansion of Cytely’s smart microscopy platform, which transforms standard laboratory microscopes into real-time data engines, drastically reducing the time scientists spend on manual analysis.

The round was led by Ugly Duckling Ventures, with continued support from existing investor Icebreaker.vc. Cytely is part of the portfolio at SmiLe Venture Hub and has team members based in Lund, San Diego, and Singapore.

“Scientists have been constrained by workflows built for images, not data. Cytely transforms any microscope into a real-time measurement instrument, closing the loop from acquisition to decision on an experiment-day timescale rather than a grant cycle,” said Philip Nordenfelt, Cytely Co-founder & CEO. “Our goal is to make every experiment analysis-ready from creation, so discoveries stack and science compounds.”

The funding announced for Cytely fits within a broader European DeepTech and HealthTech pattern seen across 2025.

In February 2025, QT Sense (Netherlands) secured €6 million to develop its quantum-sensing technology for single-cell diagnostics, while Pixel Photonics (Germany) received €1 million in grant funding to advance multi-mode photon detectors for microscopy and diagnostics.

Together, these raises illustrate a shared focus on automation, precision imaging, and data-centric research infrastructures. Within this context, Cytely’s smart-microscopy approach – enabling real-time, analysis-ready data from standard instruments – positions it as part of a growing European movement towards accessible, scalable scientific innovation.

“Their vision is truly transformative. We’re thrilled to lead this round and support the mission to make smart, data‑centric microscopy accessible to every lab,” said Louise Lachmann, Partner at Ugly Duckling Ventures.

Founded in 2023, Cytely builds data-centric tools for biological discovery. Its core platform allows labs to capture, process, and analyse complex cellular data automatically. This makes the traditionally slow and manual process of microscopy analysis not only faster but also statistically robust – unlocking new possibilities for labs that may not have had access to high-end infrastructure.

The company was co-founded by Philip Nordenfelt, who also serves as CEO. With a background in immunology and mechanobiology, Nordenfelt brings both scientific and technical credibility to the table. His mission is to transform the current microscopy bottleneck into a feedback-rich workflow that accelerates hypothesis testing and discovery.

The platform has already been adopted by major research institutions, including Lund University, and is being used in biomedical research fields such as virology, oncology, and metabolic diseases.

“Cytely’s software is a democratising force in science. It decouples world‑class discovery from world‑class funding, empowering any researcher with a microscope to tackle the biggest challenges in human health. All microscopy will become ‘smart microscopy’; Cytely is turning the ‘wild west’ of possibility into a powerful, accessible platform that will accelerate discovery for researchers everywhere,” said Dr Vinay Swaminathan, Head of the Laboratory of Cell & Molecular Mechanobiology at Lund University.

Traditionally, microscopy has revolved around static images, leaving researchers to manually assess individual cells – a process that can take weeks and often fails to produce data with statistical confidence.

Cytely looks to change that paradigm by making data, not pictures, the primary outcome. Its system automates image acquisition, quantifies entire samples, and offers results that are standardised, reproducible, and analysis-ready in real time. The software is hardware-agnostic, designed to work with most modern microscopes, eliminating the need for costly, specialised imaging rigs.

“Finally, we feel like this project is actually working… We’re collecting large‑scale data and unraveling mechanisms of viral latency, something that just wasn’t possible before,” said Prof. Alex Evilevitch.

A case from Lund University exemplifies the platform’s impact: researchers studying herpesvirus latency were previously unable to process more than 0.1% of their sample data due to manual limitations. Using Cytely, they reportedly processed nearly 100% of samples and identified a previously unobservable cell-line defence mechanism. The change enabled them to redesign their protocol and achieve more progress in one month than in the previous five years.

Beyond academia, Cytely is delivering strong returns in commercial settings. A cancer research lab using the platform reduced manual analysis time by 75%, saving approximately €300k annually – effectively doubling its workforce.

A nanowire BioTech company increased its R&D throughput by 40%, estimating an additional $1 million in annual value. Another lab replaced a €400k high-throughput imaging setup entirely with Cytely’s pipeline on existing microscopes.

The newly secured funding will support the development of intelligent acquisition tools compatible with all microscope brands, and create one-click workflows for researchers regardless of their data analysis skills.

These enhancements aim to turn the platform into a fully integrated discovery network, where validated protocols and datasets can be shared, replayed, and iterated upon—ultimately laying the foundation for predictive analysis and partially autonomous research.

The post Sweden’s Cytely raises €3 million as labs report 75% faster analysis using its smart microscopy platform appeared first on EU-Startups.

Lithuania’s tech ecosystem is one of the fastest-growing in Central and Eastern Europe, fuelled by the can-do attitude of startups, innovation, and government support. While unicorns Vinted and Nord Security might grab the headlines, Lithuania boasts startups across varying sectors based in the capital Vilnius and emerging hubs like Kaunas.

In total, Lithuania, with a population of less than three million, is home to more than 1,100 startups employing around 20,000 people. According to the Tech.eu 2024 Annual report, Lithuanian tech companies raised nearly €600 million in 2024, with major deals including Vinted (€340 million) and Green Genius (€100 million).

Meanwhile, a Lithuanian Startup Ecosystem 2024 report highlights that the ecosystem’s valuation has surpassed €16 billion— 39x growth in just a decade— establishing Lithuania as a regional leader. Vilnius, according to Dealroom, is the fastest-growing tech city in the European Union in 2025 and the 13th fastest in the world. Tech.eu spoke to several Lithuanian startups and trade bodies, to gauge the upsides and challenges of the Lithuanian tech ecosystem and how it’s evolved.

Nord Security

Nord Security, a Lithuanian heavyweight along with the country's other unicorns, Vinted and Baltic Classifieds Group, was founded in 2012 and hit unicorn status in 2022. Boasting over 15m users globally, the 1,700-strong startup is best known for its “bread and butter” VPN service, NordVPN, but has also expanded to other cyber services.

Bootstrapped until 2022, it also has offices in Germany and Poland and the $3bn valued startup is backed by Warburg Pincus, the US private equity firm, German VC Burda Principal Investments and US VC General Catalyst. Sigita Jurkynaitė, information security manager, Nord Security, who returned to Lithuania after living abroad for 15 years, said: “Many people are surprised Nord comes from Lithuania.

"People are surprised how such a big company came out of such a small country. Basically, from the very get-go, the founders had the big idea of becoming the biggest cyber company offering these products worldwide.” On Lithuania’s evolving tech landscape, Jurkynaitė said it had changed “immensely” over the years.

She added: “In Lithuania, our main resource is people, really highly educated people. Another thing that we notice in terms of talent is that we don’t really have such as big brain drain. People are coming back, like myself.”

Payabl

Fintech Payabl operates a key hub in Vilnius, as it looks to expand across the Nordics and Baltics. The payments and business account provider employs around 10 people in Lithuania. Fintech is a growing part of the country’s ecosystem, home to 282 fintech companies serving more than 30 million customers and employing nearly 8,000 professionals — double the number from just five years ago.

Heading up its Lithuanian hub is Esfira Zaka, who is also Payabl’s chief marketing officer. Zaka, who is originally from Latvia, said: “We chose Lithuania first and foremost because of the talent pool. I think success stories like Nord and Vinted etc gives an idea of the readiness of the market for a bit of a more global scale."

The hub is located in a co-working space, which, Zaka says, means the staff don’t have to think about making coffee and cleaning. “It is vibes”, she adds.

Exacaster

Exacaster, founded in 2011, is a data analytics and predictive AI firm, which offers clients consulting, tech and managed services across three business lines: data, AI and Customer Value Management. It has clients across 16 countries across telecoms and seven other industries. 

Egidijus Pilypas, Exacaster, co-founder, said the talent density is “quite good” in Lithuania but not like in India or US, where you can quickly pull in 1,000 engineers. Pilypas, who has lived in Vilnius for 20 years, said the ecosystem has changed dramatically over the years, but that one of its key attributes is the work/life balance it offers, given the city is very concentrated.

Neurotechnology

Neurotechnology was founded in 1990 in Vilnius, with the idea of using neural networks for applications such as biometric person identification, computer vision, robotics and artificial intelligence.

Over 90 per cent of its products now relate to biometrics, such as for border controls, and national IDs. It currently has over 3,000 partners and employs over 125 people. It also has offices in India and Sri Lanka, as well as other Lithuanian cities. Neurotechnology says it could expand to the UK and the US in future but has no immediate plans.

On the upsides of being located in Vilnius, Neurotechnology cited close connections with the “quite strong” universities, working together on research projects. But one thing the company would like to see change is the introduction of an AI factory in Lithuania.

Startup Lithuania

Startup Lithuania is the government-backed body which acts as the facilitator between startups, VC funds, accelerators and the government. It helps early-stage startups combat challenges, such as networking. Karolina Urbonaitė, head of Startup Lithuania, said: “We try to help startups as much as possible because we saw that the gap in the startup ecosystem is in the early stage, where they maybe have an idea, to pre-accelerate and then accelerate them and help them find international partners.”

Urbonaitė also pointed to the positive impact the so-called Vinted and Nord mafia have had on the ecosystem, with alumni from the two startups founding nearly 30 Lithuanian startups. She also said Kaunas, Lithuania’s second biggest city, had its own “very tight” ecosystem, with plenty of meetups and accelerators.

Unicorns Lithuania

Unicorns Lithuania is the biggest startup association in Lithuania, looking to “mobilise and encourage startups and the public to build the future of Lithuania". The trade body encompasses 225 members and is focused on “ecosystem growth” and “promoting change”.

Gintarė Verbickaitė, CEO of Unicorns Lithuania, said: “Lithuania has built a remarkably dynamic and resilient tech ecosystem for its size. “What makes Lithuania’s tech scene stand out is its deep expertise in fintech, cybersecurity, e-commerce, and deeptech – along with the ability to reach consumers globally from day one.

“A small domestic market naturally pushes founders to think internationally, and most Lithuanian startups earn the majority of their revenue abroad – from the US, the UK, EU markets, and beyond. Another unique trait of our ecosystem is that many of our success stories are bootstrapped.

“Companies like Nord Security, Hostinger, Kilo Health, Omnisend, and CarVertical reached international scale without venture capital. It shows how far ambition, product excellence, and a global mindset can take you.”

Immaterial, a Cambridge-based advanced materials company developing monolithic metal–organic frameworks (m-MOFs), has announced today the successful closure of its Series A2 funding round successfully raising €15.4 million.

The investment round was led by SLB with participation from other existing investors including AP Ventures, Moeve and long-term investor and Chairman of Immaterial Ltd, Jogchum Brinksma, as well as new investor Finindus (ArcelorMittal-Flemish Government).

‘‘We are delighted to have our existing investors continue with their commitment and demonstrate confidence in Immaterial and the team, and support us to scale a differentiated industrial solutions platform that delivers an economic transformation to our customers in hard to abate sectors,” said Mohammed Khan, CEO of Immaterial.

The  Series A2 round by Immaterial Ltd reflects a growing 2025 European trend towards DeepTech innovations supporting industrial decarbonisation.

Within this context, H2SITE, based in Spain, raised €36 million to scale its hydrogen membrane and reactor technology for ammonia cracking and maritime applications – illustrating investor appetite for material-driven process engineering.

While EU-Startups’ 2025 coverage includes few other peers directly focused on metal–organic frameworks or advanced material engineering platforms, the Immaterial round exemplifies continued confidence in hardware-intensive climate technologies that combine novel chemistry with scalable manufacturing.

The company’s work in carbon capture, hydrogen storage, and HVAC energy reduction aligns with Europe’s strategic funding emphasis on practical decarbonisation infrastructure.

“We are equally delighted to welcome Finindus as a new investor with deep knowledge of the global steel sector and look forward to their support as we roll out our Generation 2 decarbonization system pilots with our partners and customers’’, added Khan.

Founded in 2015, Immaterial innovates further on the recent Nobel Prize winning chemistry recognition for metal organic frameworks (MOFs). The company has a proprietary technology platform to apply monolithic metal-organic frameworks (m MOFs) with engineering design solutions for multiple industrial sectors.

Immaterial is aiming to reduce the financial cost of industrial decarbonisation by bringing to market bespoke advanced materials which are optimised to a specific use case, manufactured at scale through proprietary methods, and combined with novel process engineering innovation. These systems have the potential to reduce the footprint, capex and opex of industrial decarbonisation process systems across multiple applications, making these solutions economic within the existing incentive mechanisms.

The Immaterial proprietary technology platform can be applied to existing metal–organic framework (MOFs) compositions to deliver an augmented volumetric effluent effect as a result of the monolithic form. Demonstrated pilot use cases include among others point source-carbon capture, intermittent hydrogen storage, water harvesting and HVAC energy reduction solutions.

‘‘It is a special moment for me to realise the next phase of Immaterial’s journey, from pure academic ideas to products that solve timely challenges such as climate change; the confidence of our new investors in the technology is a testament to the potential of monolithic materials and I am thrilled to be making an impact with a Cambridge, UK, developed technology’’, mentioned Professor David Fairen-Jimenez, Chief Scientific Officer and Founder of Immaterial.

The capital raised will accelerate the company’s commercialisation plans through pilot projects that demonstrate the impact of the technology platform with partners and customers in Europe and the U.S., while building on the momentum from the successful pilot project already concluded in Europe.

According to Immaterial, they are the only company in the world that can produce MOFs in monolith form: macroscopic, ultra-dense crystals of MOFs that are thermally and chemically stable and preserve their ultra-high storage performance.

Immaterial has developed their own proprietary materials with ‘Wet-AI’ combining digital discovery and design of new materials with green chemistry synthesis and optimisation of materials for industrial readiness.

Immaterial is commissioning its multi-tonne manufacturing facility in Cambridge to supply and enable roll out of its pilots to collaborating customer sites.

“We are encouraged by the progress made so far by the Immaterial team in proving out their proprietary technology platform for developing and designing monolithic metal-organic framework (m-MOF) based solutions for industrial applications”, said SLB’s Director of Ventures Arindam Bhattacharya.

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Iris Ventures, a Barcelona-based growth investor focused on purpose-led consumer brands, has announced the first close of its second fund, IRIS Fund II, securing €100 million toward a total target of €200 million. The new fund will back companies in the beauty, wellness, nutrition, longevity and conscious living sectors.

Founded in 2021 by Montse Suarez, Iris Ventures aims to support brands that combine commercial success with a strong sense of purpose. The firm’s first €100 million fund invested in companies such as Olistic, VICIO, Essentialist, Superlativa, Maurten, Healf and Artemest.

Suarez said Iris Ventures was created on the belief that innovation does not only come from technology, but also from how people live, consume and care for themselves and the planet.

Her goal has been to “champion founders who build with purpose: entrepreneurs determined to grow responsibly and shape a more inclusive, regenerative economy.”

The firm takes a partnership-focused approach, working closely with founders on scaling, brand strategy and international growth. Its investor base includes European family offices with deep roots in consumer industries, providing both financial backing and sector expertise.

The launch of IRIS Fund II comes at a time when investors are increasingly seeking opportunities in purpose-driven consumer brands as customers prioritise ethical production, transparency and wellbeing. While Europe has traditionally lagged behind the United States in scaling lifestyle and wellness companies, Iris Ventures is positioning itself as a bridge between the two markets. With IRIS Fund II, the firm plans to invest between €5 million and €20 million per company, supporting 12 to 15 scale-ups over the next four years. Around 80 per cent of the capital will go to European startups, with the remainder backing US ventures aligned with its mission.

Unlike traditional private equity funds, Iris Ventures operates with a partnership model that involves close collaboration on scaling, brand strategy and international growth. Its investor base includes influential European family offices with deep roots in consumer industries, allowing the firm to combine patient capital with operational expertise. This approach has helped Iris carve out a strong position in Europe’s increasingly competitive consumer growth investment space.

Oxford-based QFX, a spin-out from the University of Oxford, has raised €2.2 million in a Seed funding round to develop modular hardware for quantum technologies, with applications spanning computing, sensing, and secure communications.

The round was led by Silicon Valley heavyweight and Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham.

“With strong investor backing and a leadership team rooted in deep technical and commercial expertise,” said Dr Timothy Ballance, CEO of QFX, “I am thrilled to be leading QFX, delivering quantum hardware which will enable the next generation of quantum systems.”

The Seed investment in QFX situates the Oxford-based spin-out within a broader European surge of activity in quantum hardware and enabling technologies during 2025.

In the Netherlands, QuantWare raised €20 million to scale superconducting quantum-chip fabrication, while QuiX Quantum secured €15 million to develop a universal photonic quantum computer. Sweden’s FirstQFM AB closed a €1.2 million pre-Seed round to enhance NISQ-era hardware through foundation-model optimisation, while the UK’s Phasecraft raised €29 million for its quantum-algorithm platform.

Although QFX’s €2.2 million Seed round is smaller in scale, it reflects a complementary approach — building modular, interoperable hardware to underpin scalable quantum systems. The company’s focus on cross-platform integration aligns with the cross-disciplinary “DeepTech moment” highlighted by EU-Startups in its 2025 DeepTech feature on Europe’s quantum and photonics innovators.

Incorporated in 2024 and headquartered at Begbroke Science Park, QFX already has a commercially available product: a compact, high-performance atomic source designed to support integration across quantum platforms. This reflects the startup’s modular philosophy n- building scalable components that can plug into broader systems, whether for computation, navigation, or ultra-secure communication.

QFX was founded by Dr Joe Goodwin, Dr Laurent Stephenson, and Dr Peter Drmota.

Built on cutting-edge research in trapped ion and neutral atom quantum computing, QFX is pursuing a vision of scalable, networked quantum systems. Its unique modular engineering approach targets one of the field’s biggest bottlenecks – scaling up from isolated quantum experiments to robust, interconnected technologies with real-world utility.

With the fresh capital injection, the startup plans to accelerate development of its foundational hardware products and expand its operational footprint.

Alongside the funding, QFX has made strategic executive hires to bolster its leadership. Dr Timothy Ballance, previously President – UK at Infleqtion, has joined as Chief Executive Officer. Ballance brings deep academic roots in networked trapped ion research from Cambridge and Oxford, as well as a proven commercial track record scaling Infleqtion UK from a one-person setup to a 50-person quantum tech operation delivering products like atomic clocks and cold atom sources.

Joining him is Sadie Mansell, also formerly of Infleqtion, who takes the role of Chief Operating Officer. Mansell has extensive experience in operational strategy and scaling complex R&D ventures.

With national interest in quantum defence, navigation, and encryption on the rise, QFX is well positioned to provide the hardware backbone to what could become Europe’s next-generation quantum infrastructure.

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Astut, an AI startup spun out of Oxford University mathematics research, today announces €1.8 million in Seed funding to commercialise its breakthrough technology that helps organisations navigate unprecedented crises where traditional AI systems fail due to lack of historical data.

The funding round was co-led by technology VC East X Ventures and specialist AI VC firm SVV (Sure Valley Ventures), with contribution from UK Innovation & Science Seed Fund (UKI2S), managed by Future Planet Capital.

Pete Grindrod, Astut’s Founder and CEO said: “Astut has assembled a first-class development team and the funding will allow it to further develop its strategic stakeholders and channel partners within different sectors. The technology will go to market via those channel partners, becoming embedded within their own products and services to benefit their end-customers facing HSUD challenges.

Across the continent, investment in AI startups has risen sharply – with EU-Startups reporting a ~55 % year-on-year increase in Q1 2025.

Within this landscape, Astut’s focus on high-stakes unseen decision-making (HSUD) and its combination of symbolic reasoning and generative AI places it in an emerging sub-segment of explainable and trustworthy AI. This aligns it with startups such as Reshape Systems (Switzerland), which raised €856k to develop risk-analysis AI for complex systems, and Dragonfly (UK), which secured €3 million to simplify AI-driven decision-making.

Astut also shares thematic ground with larger rounds, such as EvoluteIQ’s €44 million raise in Sweden for “agentic AI” at enterprise scale, and Optimuse’s €4 million Seed round in Austria for AI-driven engineering automation.

Notably, the UK remains active in this space – Gradient Labs (London) raised €11 million+ for its autonomous-agent AI in regulated industries. Together, these deals show that the UK continues to be a leading hub for AI startups focusing on reasoning, explainability, and decision support.

“But this is only the beginning. In the future, Astut will develop further technologies that address intelligent and creative abilities of the human brain that current AI paradigms cannot emulate. Our creative AI is radical and will become a Sovereign competence for the UK,” added Grindrod

Founded in April this year by Pete Grindrod CBE, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford, Astut’s technology looks to address the need for transparent and auditable AI-driven decisions in situations with no historical precedent, high-impact consequences, and limited data – all conditions under which current AI methods fail.

These High Stakes Unseen Decision (HSUD) challenges are faced by a range of institutions and corporates in business-critical situations when there is no previous case data – such as reacting to unexpected or urgent disruptions, exploring one-off opportunities, or developing new practices.

Barry Downes, Managing Partner at SVV commented: “We’re delighted to support Astut as it advances explainable AI for high-stakes decision-making in sectors like defence, energy and retail. Pete and David have developed a reasoning engine purpose-built for complex environments where AI must justify and audit its decisions. In a world where AI outputs often lack transparency or logic, Astut is redefining how enterprises and institutions apply reasoning-based AI to critical decisions.”

Based at the Culham Science Centre in Abingdon, Astut’s Hybrid AI consists of a creative, explorative, and logical AI layer sitting on top of a large language model, generative AI layer. These twin elements generate proposed decision options, together with their supporting logical reasoning, which cannot be refuted by any of a given set of various hard and soft constraints.

Culham Campus, owned and managed by the UK Atomic Energy Authority, was designated in February this year as the first of the Government’s AI Growth Zones: dedicated hotbeds for developing AI infrastructure and attracting new private investment. Astus is the Growth Zone’s inaugural AI company.

Rory Scott Russell, General Partner at East X Ventures, said: “In the areas of explainable AI and automation for decision support, current technologies (including GPTs and LLMs) face multiple problems that are impeding their uptake in industry, despite significant market pull. This is particularly apparent in applying AI in high stakes ‘unseen’ decision-making. This is a high-value, but hard-to-solve, use case with multiple highly defensible business models to deploy.

“We are particularly excited about Astut’s combination of symbolic AI and machine learning/LLM technology combined with inverse reasoning. This approach has been developed from decades of leading research and the founding team’s experience in successfully deploying statistical and automation technologies in industry.”

Despite launching just six months ago, Astut is in discussions about pilot programmes with  companies in critical sectors such as defence and security (including the Ministry of Defence), business-to-consumer retail, corporate strategy and management consultancies, the UK’s fusion energy programme, and financial, risk and investment firms.

Mark White, Investment Director at UKI2S, added: “As a fund, we invest at the very frontier of innovation – where uncertainty isn’t a risk, but the spark for discovery and transformation. Whether it’s defence, BioTech, or fusion energy, we see immense potential for Astut’s technology to bring clarity and confidence to decision-making in complex, high-stakes environments.

“Astut’s approach to combining symbolic reasoning with generative AI directly aligns with the kind of sovereign capabilities the UK needs to develop and protect. We’re excited about how this could support our partners across UKAEA, MOD and beyond, where unseen challenges demand new kinds of intelligent, explainable AI.”

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The Barcelona Deep Tech Summit (BDTS), promoted by Barcelona Activa, will hold its fourth edition from November 4 to 6 with a clear theme: ‘Deep tech for a better future’. The event aims to become the benchmark congress for the sector in Southern Europe, positioning Deep Tech as a tool to address humanity’s future challenges.

This edition will reinforce its mission to promote science and Technology based entrepreneurship by connecting emerging projects with investors, researchers, companies, and institutions. BDTS will host over 600 startups—including 100 exhibitors—180 investors, more than 275 corporations, 180 researchers, and over 250 university representatives. Deep tech ecosystems from countries such as Canada, Sweden, Portugal, France, and Italy will also actively participate, positioning the event as a global platform for the sector.

The congress is going to cover a total of 1,300 m² at Fira de Barcelona Gran Via and is expected to welcome more than 2,500 visitors.

Internationally renowned speakers

To explore technological potential and upcoming challenges, the event will bring together more than 70 top-level international speakers, including futurist health expert Zayna Khayat from the University of Toronto; venture capital investor Michael Jackson; sustainability consultant and founder of Volans, and father of the concept of ‘corporate sustainability’, John Elkington; Libelium CEO Alicia Asín; Profoundo founder and CEO and media reference in the startup ecosystem, Robin Wauters; and OXOLife founder and CEO, Agnès Arbat.

BDTS will feature an exhibition area with over 100 startups and demos, a pitch corner for project presentations, a one-to-one space to connect entrepreneurship and research with corporations and investors and an auditorium with a capacity for 200 people to follow the main sessions.

To ensure a program aligned with European objectives and capable of showcasing Barcelona’s potential, BDTS has relied on an advisory board composed of 14 representatives from the fields of investment, technology transfer, tech-based entrepreneurship, and leading institutions from Spain, France, Italy, Portugal, United Kingdom and European Commission.

The Deep Tech aim: a better future

Deep tech startups and spin-offs develop solutions based on scientific discoveries and disruptive innovations to address major social challenges. This mission has led to the definition of three thematic axes aligned with the goals of showcasing Deep Tech’s capacity to solve global challenges and achieve strategic autonomy in Europe:

• LIFE & PLANET: Explore how Deep Tech is revolutionizing health and sustainability with life-saving innovations. Cross-cutting sessions dive into investment and real-world implementation.
• COMPUTING & TECH SOVEREIGNTY: Explore key frontiers in digital sovereignty and advanced computing, with investment opportunities in strategic technologies. Cross-cutting sessions reveal funding trends and venture capital strategies.
• FROM LAB TO MARKET: Bridges innovative research with real-world impact through tech transfer, Deep Tech talent, and startup creation. Cross-cutting sessions explore how to accelerate scientific entrepreneurship.

Deep Tech requires highly specialized talent and a financing ecosystem that understands the need for time and capital to achieve returns. Moreover, they carry higher risk due to their disruptive nature. In this context, public administrations and sector stakeholders have the mission of connecting potential investment with the individuals who have the initiatives and can develop them. BDTS is the place for the interaction between entrepreneurship, companies, venture capital, and the public sector that Deep Tech needs to discover disruptive ideas and transfer knowledge to society to help transform it through research and technology.

Barcelona as a generator of opportunities for Deep Tech

In a context of geopolitical change, open autonomy has become a priority. The European Union has expressed the need to reduce dependence on critical technologies such as artificial intelligence, semiconductors, quantum computing, and biotechnology to ensure the continent’s competitiveness, resilience, and innovation capacity.

In this scenario, Deep Tech emerges as a strategic sector with high global transformation potential, and Barcelona offers a privileged environment with some of the strongest ecosystems in Europe. It includes five top-tier universities—UPC, UAB, UB, UPF, and UOC—and research centers such as the Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (comprising seven research centers), the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, the Alba Synchrotron, the National Center for Genomic Analysis, the Barcelona Science Park, and more than 340 Deep Tech startups that raised €544 million between 2019 and 2024, positioning the city as the leading European hub for funding in this sector.