The Exploration Company has raised $450m. Most of it goes into something the company is not yet famous for. Not Nyx, the reusable capsule that has drawn the contracts and the SpaceX comparisons. An engine. Kate Duffy reported the round for Bloomberg. Founder and chief executive Hélène Huby told her why the balance falls that […]

Plug-in hybrids registered in the EU in 2024 emitted an average 145 grams of CO2 per kilometre against an official rating of 24 grams, according to Transport and Environment’s reading of onboard monitor data from 220,000 cars. Carmakers want the 2027 correction to that calculation cancelled, weeks before the Council debates the file. Plug-in hybrids […]

China has imposed a cash deposit of up to 99.2% on imports of a Japanese chemical that chip fabs use to build the films inside logic and memory chips. The rate is close to prohibitive. It took effect on Tuesday. China’s Ministry of Commerce published the preliminary determination on 7 September as Announcement No. 37 […]

The chief executive of a consultancy with 799,000 staff has described what her clients are telling her about AI, and it is not a sales pitch. “We promised AI can do that,” Julie Sweet told the Wall Street Journal. “And they’re like, we get it, except it’s not happening, help us make it happen.” Sweet […]

An Australian company will build data centres in Malaysia and fill them with American chips. It will sell the output to an American company. Its co-chief executive calls this the moment Asia-Pacific stops consuming intelligence and starts producing it. Firmus announced the partnership from Sydney on Tuesday. OpenAI will contract dedicated compute from two Firmus […]

China’s effort to build its own chipmaking machines finally has a coordinator. It is Huawei. And the flagship machine it is coordinating still runs on German lenses. Eleanor Olcott and Zijing Wu reported the arrangement for the Financial Times, citing multiple people familiar with the matter. TNW has not independently verified it. Huawei is investing […]

The United States has asked Britain to abandon a plan to make social platforms promote trusted news. Its central argument is not about Britain at all. The submission sits on the US Embassy website in London, dated 2 September. It answers a consultation on the government’s media Green Paper, which opened on 23 June. That […]

A Welsh chipmaker has just posted a 40% jump in revenue. Its shares are up 849% this year. And its chief executive has told an interviewer that the industry has a supply problem it cannot fully solve. Sofia Gerace reported the interview for Bloomberg. Jutta Meier runs IQE, based in Cardiff. She said access to […]

Today, Green Eagle Solutions, a Spanish technology company that specialises in the automation of renewable energy operations, has raised a majority investment from Copilot Capital.

Green Eagle Solutions was founded in 2012 by Alejandro Cabrera and Juan Fernández, two software engineers who set out to automate the manual, round-the-clock operations that renewable control rooms run on. 

Rather than build another monitoring tool for operators to act on, Cabrera and Fernández automated operator actions and launched Green Eagle Solutions' flagship product, the ARSOS Automation Suite, in 2020.

The platform unifies operational data and automates critical workflows, including fault handling, curtailments, and dispatch, giving clients full visibility into their fleet while the software carries out the response, so operators, asset managers, and energy traders no longer need to intervene manually around the clock.

The complexity of renewable energy operations has been increasing on every front. Portfolios are growing and now span multiple technologies, from wind and solar to hydro and batteries; energy prices are increasingly volatile; and regulations are expanding rapidly as renewables’ share of the grid grows. 

Today, ARSOS manages 90 GW of wind, solar, BESS, and hydro assets, with over 10,000 wind turbines operating autonomously and more than 1 million automated actions executed every month, across markets spanning Iberia, Europe, North America, LATAM, Australia, and other EMEA markets.

“When Copilot Capital first got in touch, it didn’t feel like another investor testing the water,” said Alejandro Cabrera, Co-Founder and CEO of Green Eagle Solutions. 

“They already understood our business, where we sat in the market, and had a real strategy for a company at exactly our stage. That told us this wasn’t just an opportunity to raise capital - it was an opportunity to bring on a partner who could help us get there faster.

Together with Juan, I’m excited to keep building the autopilot for renewable energy operations, at a much greater scale.”

The partnership will enable Green Eagle to accelerate its international growth journey, particularly into the US, while building the operational foundations and go-to-market strategy to scale into a global champion. Green Eagle has already secured two of the country's largest power producers as customers. 

“Green Eagle Solutions is the ideal fit with Copilot’s strategy of backing fast-growing software businesses and helping them become European software champions and category leaders around the world,” commented John Messer, Founder and Managing Partner of Copilot Capital. 

The Exploration Company (TEC), the European space company, today announced a €387 million ($450 million) Series C financing. The funding will advance the Nyx reusable capsule toward a mission to dock with the International Space Station and return to Earth, while accelerating development of the high-thrust reusable Storm rocket engine.

The round was co-led by Bessemer Venture Partners, Atomico, and the Scaleup Europe Fund, managed by EQT, with participation from TEC’s existing European backers including Balderton, Plural, Cherry and Red River West.

“Everyone on Earth depends on infrastructure in space, yet the ability to reach, supply and return from orbit remains rare,” said Hélène Huby, founder and CEO of The Exploration Company. “This financing will allow us to execute with urgency: to bring Nyx to the International Space Station and safely back to Earth, while accelerating Storm, the high-thrust propulsion capability Europe needs for its future reusable heavy launcher.

“We are scaling from Europe with talent, customers and partners from around the world because the next generation of space transportation must be built to serve more nations, industries and people – and because our mission is to contribute to build a more collaborative and peaceful future in space.”

The Exploration Company’s €387 million ($450 million) Series C comes amid sizeable investment in European launch, orbital transport and propulsion companies in 2026. Spanish space transportation company PLD Space extended its Series C to €288 million to support its transition towards commercial launch operations, while Germany’s ATMOS Space Cargo raised €25.7 million in Series A funding to develop reusable orbital transport and re-entry vehicles for Earth-to-space-to-Earth logistics.

Germany has also seen investment further upstream in launch and propulsion. HyImpulse Technologies secured more than €50 million in a Series A extension to commercialise its suborbital and orbital launch services and advance its hybrid propulsion technology, while Spain’s Arkadia Space secured €14.5 million to commercialise propulsion systems for satellites and other space vehicles.

Together, these four closely related 2026 financings account for more than €378 million, illustrating the level of capital being deployed across Europe’s launch, reusable spacecraft and propulsion infrastructure alongside TEC’s latest round.

The financing expands TEC’s investor base across both sides of the Atlantic while maintaining a strong European foundation, bringing long-term capital behind a shared objective: to scale reusable space transportation platforms capable of serving customers and institutions across borders.

The announcement drew comment from leading political figures too.

Emmanuel Macron, President of the French Republic, commented: “Just before the International Space Summit in Paris, The Exploration Company has secured the largest Series C raised by a European space company. TEC’s transformational ambitions and excellence in execution, driven by the French German engine, are an inspiration for the space companies we build together in Europe.”

While Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, added: “This is a strong moment for Europe’s space industry. It shows what Europe can achieve when talent, ambition and innovation are matched with capital. A company built across several Member States and supported by the Scaleup Europe Fund has secured major financing to build critical space capabilities and scale them here in Europe. And its success sends an important message about women’s leadership in high technology.”

Space infrastructure already underpins communications, scientific research, security, and critical services on Earth. Yet the ability to reach, supply and return from orbit remains concentrated and fragile, just as demand for space-station logistics, in-orbit services and resilient infrastructure is accelerating. TEC say they are addressing these constraints by building reusable transportation systems for both public agencies and commercial operators.

The Nyx capsule remains TEC’s near-term priority and the foundation of its reusable space transportation platform. Nyx is designed to carry cargo to current and future space stations and return it safely to Earth, with the growth potential to carry crew afterwards. It will dock with the International Space Station before returning to Earth, demonstrating an end-to-end capability for reusable orbital transportation.

The Series C financing will accelerate the development of Storm, TEC’s next strategic capability. Storm is Europe’s first reusable high-thrust rocket engine using a full-flow staged combustion cycle with oxygen and methane as propellants. Designed to deliver efficiency and thrust currently unmatched in Europe, Storm will provide the propulsion foundation for a future reusable and affordable European super-heavy launcher capable of placing up to 40 tons into low Earth orbit in reusable configuration.

The funding will allow TEC to perform a series of tests, ranging from pre-burners tested with a subscale thrust chamber in the next months; an ox-rich power pack test; and a workhorse engine test in the next few years.

This financing, which is subject to applicable regulatory approvals, will support continued hiring and industrial scale-up across engineering, manufacturing, mission operations, propulsion and program delivery.

The post The Exploration Company secures €387 million to accelerate development of reusable high-thrust rocket engine appeared first on EU-Startups.

A new player in on-chain trading is bringing token discovery, real-time scoring and cross-chain execution into one terminal. Byrrgis has opened its beta to its full community, giving users access to a non-custodial trading platform spanning Solana, Ethereum and BNB Chain. The platform combines a live Scout Score with tools for finding coins early, buying […]

A San Francisco startup has raised $4M to help software get chosen by AI agents. Lightsage calls the category Agent-Led Growth, the company said. Nexus Venture Partners led the round. Angel backers include former Salesforce chief technology officer Steven Tamm, Postman chief executive Abhinav Asthana, Apollo chief executive Matt Curl and DocuSign president Robert Chatwani. […]

The boss of US AI coding startup Replit yesterday said it could hire up to 100 staff in London by early next year, as it opened its first overseas office in the capital.

Amjad Masad, co-founder and CEO of San Francisco-headquartered Replit, also gently mocked Silicon Valley’s “monoculture”, which he contrasted with London’s “diversity”, as he gave a speech at the London launch event of its European hub, which London mayor Sadiq Khan also spoke at.

Replit is the latest US startup and tech company to open or expand its presence in London's King's Cross, joining the likes of OpenAI and Anthropic,  along with several US startups, which are located near Isomorphic Labs, Meta and Wayve.

Replit now has around 20 staff in London, hired in just a few weeks, which it plans to use as a hub for its European operations, but Masad said this could reach 100 early next year, albeit depending on AI adoption.

To date, it has hired across sales, support and engineering. It also plans to open offices in Tokyo and New York.

Speaking at the office opening, Masad said: “I love San Francisco. Silicon Valley is obviously a place that has given me a lot. But there is like one major downside, which is it’s a bit of a monoculture. Everyone speaks the same language. You can never escape tech, it's endless. When I come to London, I meet artists, I meet people in finance, I meet filmmakers. It’s really amazing how diverse the community is here.”

Masad also said that a diverse workforce and diverse working environment helped generate more diverse ideas.

Khan claimed that Europe’s cultural, technology, financial and political capitals were all located in London, which, he said, was a ”massive, massive advantage for somebody thinking about starting up, scaling up or expanding AI”.

Commenting more broadly on government’s role relating to AI, Masad said: “One of the first things is maintaining a level playing field. We don’t want to see what happened in the last generation of platforms happen again, meaning we don’t want just two or three companies controlling all of AI. We want open source AI, we want accessible AI.”

Founded 10 years ago, Replit is one of the leaders in vibecoding, the process in which non-coders and developers build software using AI.

It also has an AI agent which can deploy software applications. It says it has more than 60m users worldwide, with users at 85 per cent of the Fortune 500. Its enterprise customers include PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), Ernst & Young, and Mercedes-Benz.

In March this year, it raised $400 million in funding, in a consortium that included Databricks Ventures, Okta Ventures, Shaquille O’Neal, Y Combinator and others, at a $9bn valuation.

Britain’s publicly owned energy system operator has handed Palantir a £21.2m contract with no competition. The justification it filed is a plain description of why leaving will be difficult. Lindsay Clark reported the award for The Register on Tuesday. The underlying transparency notice sits on Find a Tender. It went up on 26 August. The […]

German defencetech company Ground A, which has developed a new generation of software and laser-based counter-drone systems, today stepped out of stealth, announcing a pre-seed financing round of more than €9 million in June, just six months after its founding. 

The GA 1000 combines radar and a range of sensors with computer vision, proprietary AI and precise laser effects. The system automatically detects, classifies, and tracks small, agile drones. The human operator decides whether to deploy the effector. Weighing less than 200 kilograms and with a Euro-pallet footprint, the GA 1000 is compact, mobile and designed for a variety of operational scenarios. 

Crucially, the GA 1000 was not developed as an isolated stand-alone system, but can be integrated into existing air defence, command and control systems, as well as into land-, sea- and air-based platforms. 

Vsquared Ventures led the funding, which included defencetech company Quantum Systems, as well as venture capital investors including GRIF, Robin Capital, ABACON, Leblon  Capital and OVNI Capital. 

Also on board at Ground A are experienced entrepreneurs and investors from the European defence and software industries, including Florian Seibel, Sven Kruck, J14 Capital, Andreas Nauerz, Marlon Braumann and Arx Robotics Managing Director Stefan Roebel. 

According to Dr Tobias Brune, CEO and co-founder of Ground A:

“Today our first system is in the testing and validation phase, on the verge of market launch.   This kind of speed is urgently needed for Germany, Europe and allied nations. We deliberately focused on advancing the product first and delivering results before talking more broadly about Ground A. 

Europe needs effective counter-drone solutions that not only work technologically but can also be industrialised quickly and made available in large numbers. That is exactly what we are building Ground A for. The GA 1000 is just the beginning of a much larger product platform.” 

Benedikt von Schoeler, General Partner of Vsquared, contends that the ability to counter drones effectively and cost-efficiently is becoming a key technology for  Europe's security. 

“What matters is that systems are not only high-performing, but also mobile and rapidly deployable to protect critical civilian infrastructure permanently while also being available at short notice wherever military threats emerge. 

Ground A combines this operational flexibility with technological excellence, a high execution speed and the ambition to  scale industrially from day one. We are convinced that Ground A can make an essential contribution to Europe's defence capability.” 

Ground A is setting up modular series production in Germany. With the next financing round planned for 2027, production capacity will be expanded significantly.  

European space company The Exploration Company (TEC) has raised $450 million in Series C funding to advance its reusable space transportation systems and expand its operations.

The round was co-led by Bessemer Venture Partners, Atomico and the Scaleup Europe Fund, managed by EQT, with participation from existing investors including Balderton, Plural, Cherry and Red River West. Bessemer's Alex Ferrara will join TEC's board of directors. The round brings the company's total funding to approximately $680 million.

Founded by Hélène Huby, TEC is developing reusable spacecraft and propulsion systems designed to transport cargo between Earth and orbit. The company is targeting growing demand for space-station logistics and in-orbit services as space infrastructure becomes increasingly important for communications, scientific research, security and other critical services.

TEC's near-term focus is Nyx, its reusable space capsule designed to transport cargo to current and future space stations and return it safely to Earth, with the potential to carry crew at a later stage. The company plans for Nyx to dock with the International Space Station (ISS) before returning to Earth, demonstrating an end-to-end reusable orbital transportation capability.

Hélène Huby, founder and CEO of The Exploration Company, said that while space infrastructure supports increasingly important services on Earth, the ability to reach orbit, supply missions and return from space remains limited.

This financing will allow us to execute with urgency: to bring Nyx to the International Space Station and safely back to Earth, while accelerating Storm, the high-thrust propulsion capability Europe needs for its future reusable heavy launcher.
We are scaling from Europe with talent, customers and partners from around the world because the next generation of space transportation must be built to serve more nations, industries and people – and because our mission is to contribute to build a more collaborative and peaceful future in space,

Huby said.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the financing demonstrates Europe's ability to combine technological development and ambition with growth capital. She also highlighted TEC's presence across several EU member states, the involvement of the Scaleup Europe Fund and the significance of female leadership in the technology sector.

According to TEC, the Series C is the largest funding round ever secured by an EU-headquartered company led by a female founder and CEO.

Part of the funding will go towards the development and testing of Storm, TEC's high-thrust rocket engine, which uses oxygen and methane as propellants. The engine is being developed for a future reusable European heavy-lift launcher designed to carry up to 40 tonnes into low Earth orbit. Planned development work includes tests of the engine's pre-burners and power system, followed by testing of a full engine prototype.

Alongside its technology development, TEC says it has secured more than $2 billion in contracts and commitments from public- and private-sector customers globally. These include work with the European Space Agency (ESA) and cargo logistics agreements with commercial space-station operators. The company has also signed a Space Act Agreement with NASA and is working with the agency on technical, safety and certification requirements for potential future missions to the ISS and commercial space stations.

Subject to regulatory approvals, the Series C will also support hiring and the expansion of TEC's engineering, manufacturing, mission operations, propulsion and programme delivery capabilities.

Tellia, the Paris-based voice AI assistant for agriculture founded in 2024, has raised a €4.3 million ($5 million) pre-Seed to scale technology that lets farmers, agronomists and field teams capture and use their data simply by speaking.

The pre-Seed round was led by Revent, with participation from Grey Silo Ventures (CVC of Cereal Docks Group), Jeriko (operated by Techmind) and Fund F.

“The Ag industry keeps facing the same challenge: the people who spend their days in the field spend their evenings at a keyboard.” said Coline Labadie de Faÿ, CEO and co-founder of Tellia. “That was never a data problem. It was an interface problem. Traditional software cannot accept it the way it actually comes out, spoken, in the field, in whatever language the team works in.

“So we did not build another platform that wants to own all the data. Instead, we built the interface. You talk, Tellia captures it, structures it, and interprets it into something the whole operation can act on. This funding round lets us push the voice AI further, build the agentic layer that sits between the field and the rest of the AgTech stack, and grow our team in the US and Europe.”

Tellia’s raise comes amid continued investment in AI and technology-enabled agriculture across Europe in 2026. Among the largest comparable rounds covered by EU-Startups, Belgium’s Rainbow Crops raised €9.7 million to advance its AI-supported crop gene-editing platform, while London-based Biographica secured €8 million to develop its AI platform for climate-resilient crop varieties.

In France, UBEES also raised €8 million to expand its technology-enabled regenerative agriculture operations and connected-hive monitoring capabilities.

Together, these three rounds account for €25.7 million in disclosed funding; while including Tellia’s financing brings and other comparable disclosed rounds covered by EU-Startups, brings that total to approximately €42.2 million.

Because no two operations work the same way, Tellia says it shapes its structure around how each farm actually runs, instead of forcing teams into a fixed template. The result is an agricultural agent that is easier to use than traditional software, more complete and more valuable in the field.

Tellia says the funding will accelerate the rollout of their agentic AI suite. Partners embed it through a simple API: their users just talk, and Tellia captures, structures and interprets the field, delivering records and recommendations directly inside the partner’s own product. This is said to give richer data and higher daily usage.

The post French AgTech startup Tellia raises €4.3 million to scale voice-enabled data capture appeared first on EU-Startups.

Legaltech Lexroom today announces the acquisition of French legal AI company Query Juriste and Bulgarian Praven Intelekt, marking the first M&A transaction since its founding.

Following its organic expansion into Germany and Spain, this move marks a new phase in Lexroom's European growth strategy, combining organic growth and M&A to scale its AI operating system across Civil Law markets — bringing its footprint to five European markets, including Italy.

The founders and teams of both companies will join Lexroom and continue to develop their respective markets, while the Query Juriste and Praven Intelekt brands will gradually transition to Lexroom. 

According to Paolo Fois, co-founder and CEO of Lexroom:

"Over the past year we've met dozens of founders building toward a mission close to ours - Query Juriste and Praven Intelekt stood out immediately: exceptional teams, real traction, and products built with the same conviction we started Lexroom with. It doesn't make sense to reinvent the wheel market by market.

When we find founders who've already built something great, the smartest move is to combine Lexroom's technology, scale and capital with local expertise and hustle. That's how you build the category-defining platform for legal AI in Europe."

Scaling legal AI across Europe comes with a fundamental challenge: legal work remains deeply local. Every jurisdiction has its own legislation, case law, regulatory framework, legal language and professional workflows, so building a reliable product across these systems demands deep, country-specific legal data and sustained local expertise rather than a "one-size-fits-all" model.

This is precisely the problem Lexroom's data-first approach was built to solve. Rather than treating a general-purpose language model as the product itself, the company has built its platform around a proprietary infrastructure of certified legal sources, structured to deliver reliable, verifiable AI output across multiple jurisdictions.

In France, Query Juriste brings nearly 300 customers and around 1,000 paying users, together with a legal research platform connected to more than five million French and European legal documents. In Bulgaria, Praven Intelekt counts more than 900 customers, giving Lexroom its first foothold in Central and Eastern Europe.

Both teams are joining Lexroom: Etienne Le Guay will lead the company's development in France, while Siyanna Lilova will become Head of Central and Eastern Europe, steering Lexroom's presence across the region.

“We built Query Juriste on the conviction that AI is useful to lawyers only if it is built on the legal data itself rather than on top of a general-purpose model," said Etienne Le Guay, co-founder of Query Juriste.

"We joined Lexroom because they built on the same data-first principle. It's a chance to accelerate what we started in France and bring it to European scale." 

“We built Praven Intelekt because we wanted to bring a world class solution to the legal market in Bulgaria. Legal professionals needed AI built around the realities of local law, rather than a generic tool” said Siyanna Lilova, co-founder of Praven Intelekt and Head of Central and Eastern Europe at Lexroom.

Lexroom now serves more than 20,000 customers, employs over 200 professionals and has built its technology on a data-first architecture connected to more than 13 million legal sources. In summer 2026, the company surpassed €20 million in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR).

In May 2026, Lexroom raised a $50 million Series B led by Left Lane, with participation from Base10 Partners, Eurazeo, Acurio Ventures, Entourage and View Different.

The round came just eight months after its $19 million Series A, bringing Lexroom's total funding to more than $73 million. Lexroom's longer-term ambition is to become the AI operating system for legal work, bringing legal research, drafting, document analysis and broader professional workflows into a single platform — starting with Europe's Civil Law markets.

Google changed how search works in Europe on Tuesday. Then it told everyone the new version is worse. Foo Yun Chee reported the rollout for Reuters, which had the story first. The company is complying with an order from the European Commission, and it is doing so while describing the result as the biggest quality […]

Milan-based VC firm Techshop announces the first closing of Techshop II at €43 million dedicated to pre-Seed and Seed startups developing AI B2B solutions – this edition exceeded its initial fundraising target and is now aiming to to raise €100 million in 2027.

CDP Venture Capital joins as a reference investor, backing the new fund through FoF VenturItaly II and the Digital Transition Fund, which draws on NextGenerationEU resources to support the digital transition of supply chains and SMEs. The commitment of the two vehicles can grow progressively as fundraising with third-party investors advances.

“With Techshop II we want to become the reference Seed fund for European startups applying AI to B2B processes,” say Techshop’s three Partners; Giovanni Strocchi, Gianluca D’Agostino and Aurelio Mezzotero. “The new generation of software does not simply digitise existing tasks, it can automate entire business processes. That calls for specialised investors who move fast and can stand alongside founders from the very earliest stages, bringing operational expertise and international co-investors.”

Techshop II’s first close joins a broader wave of European venture funds raising dedicated capital for early-stage AI, B2B software and enterprise technology in 2026.

EU-Startups has reported approximately €430 million raised across a selected group of comparable vehicles this year, including Merantix Capital’s €103 million early-stage AI fund, Elaia’s €120 million first close for its B2B-focused Digital Venture Fund V, DFF Ventures’ €70 million fund for software and AI in underdigitised industries, and Samaipata’s €70 million first close towards a €110 million AI-native fund.

At the earlier end of the market, Munich-based Vanagon Ventures closed €20 million specifically for pre-Seed B2B AI and DeepTech companies.

“Over the years Techshop has shown consistency in its Seed and post-Seed investment strategy, scouting young startups and supporting them through their growth, including internationally. These capabilities are essential to deliver on our commitment to the development of the Italian and European innovation ecosystem. Techshop II continues a partnership built for the long term, aimed at supporting the creation and growth of new companies in B2B software,” addds Cristina Bini, Head of Indirect Investments at CDP Venture Capital.

Founded in 2021, Techshop is an asset management company specialising in early-stage VC funds dedicated to B2B tech. The firm takes a vertical, hands-on, founder-to-founder approach, supporting pre-Seed and Seed startups in product development, market validation and commercial growth.

Through its first fund, Techshop I, the firm invested in B2B software and SaaS startups, building a portfolio that includes 23 companies such as Shop Circle (now Circeus), Smartness, hlpy, Qomodo, Tot, AxyonAI, GenomeUp, SylloTips and Allsides.

Just over four years from launch, the portfolio shows a MOIC, or “Multiple on Invested Capital”, of 1.8 and a TVPI, or “Total Value to Paid-In Capital”, of 1.5, one of the strongest performances in Europe among funds launched in the same period – according to Techshop.

With Techshop II, the firm becomes a multi-fund platform, with the goal of reaching €150 million in total AUM. The strategy remains focused on early-stage B2B software, with particular attention to the pre-Seed and Seed rounds.

The fund’s thesis is that AI will make the world of B2B SaaS ten times larger (in value) and deeper (in focus), through a multitude of innovations and vertical AI SaaS solutions that will automate tasks, decisions and operational workflows in markets such as consulting, healthcare, finance, software development, customer conversation, data management, enterprise applications, robotics and manufacturing processes.

The fund will invest at least 70% of its capital in private companies resident in the European Union or in the European Economic Area with a permanent establishment in Italy.

The first investments of Techshop II will be announced in the coming weeks and will cover AI solutions for sales, development tools and advisory.

The post Italian VC Techshop launches second fund with €43 million first close appeared first on EU-Startups.

Memory prices are finally slowing down, and the reason is not that supply improved. It is that buyers ran out of money. TrendForce expects conventional DRAM contract prices to rise 13% to 18% quarter on quarter in Q3. Dan Robinson reported the forecast for The Register. He paired it with separate European shipment numbers that […]

King Charles is convening about 30 senior figures from the AI industry at a Scottish country house this month. He does not intend to tell them what he thinks. Joseph Bambridge reported the plans for Politico. Two people familiar with them spoke on condition of anonymity, because nobody has announced the event. One of them […]

There’s a meme I often see doing the rounds: “Give me the confidence of a middle-class white male.” And, well, British entrepreneur Tom Noble encapsulates it. But he combines that confidence with an unusually vulnerable approach to building businesses: doing it in public, while crowdsourcing opinions on LinkedIn and other social media.

From sustainability to farming attention

Noble studied sustainability for two degrees before becoming an accountant and working at an energy company. He later founded a sportswear business, which he ran for five years until COVID and Brexit prompted a change in direction.

He then moved into tech, building AI-powered websites, but quickly realised that the technology was making it increasingly easy for customers to build websites themselves.

“It became so easy to do things that actually getting people's attention was starting to become the hard part. I thought,

“I don't mind being on camera. Why don't I create some media channel through which I can build and grow businesses?””

That's when Flat White or F*ck Off happened.

Back in early 2025, advertising and behavioural science heavyweight Rory Sutherland loated the idea of Flat White or F*ck Off, a coffee chain that served nothing but flat whites. If you didn’t want a flat white, the clue was in the name. Noble originally came on board to make a fun video around the messaging, but it went viral with around 30 million views in total, and the Instagram account reached over 46,000 followers.

On 28th January, at 7 am last year, the first Flat White or F*ck Off opened to the public at OUTERNET, outside Tottenham Court Road Station. They were unsurprisingly “flat out”, and served 1,500+ flat whites across 12 hours.

When 30 million views aren’t enough

Documenting the endeavour every step of the way on Instagram, from pop-ups to partnerships with sportswear brands, with brutal honesty, Noble admitted that the endeavour cost £27,000 but only made £5500. ​ And there were other problems, as he explained:

“We all met online and didn't know each other. And you know how it is with founders: we all thought that we owned it. I completed the videos, which I considered the most important part.

Another guy did the logo, so he thought that was the most important part. People were organising the events. It was doomed to fail.”

He admits that while some of his videos got a million views, “it became very clear that views aren't money. I was basically farming views. I knew it was going to drop off at some point because it was so flash in the pan. At the peak of our fame, we did nothing. We sat and waited.”

Further, he asserts, “You probably can't build a business selling basically just flat whites unless you're in exactly the right location.”

And with that name, they couldn't get into somewhere like a train station. Much less compete with locations peppered with Pret, Starbucks, and other big chains already paying huge rents. He’s particularly frustrated that Flat White didn’t sell coffee beans:

“I was quite angry about that because we had a supply lined up. A supplier gave us beans for the first event, and we could have sold them from day one. Instead, we didn't use that supplier commercially until two months later.

I found that incredibly frustrating, so I left. But I thought: if I can do it with Flat White F*ck Off, I can try to do it again.”

From flat whites to wine

After the fallout from Flat White F*ck Off, Noble took a month off. He visited a vineyard and spoke to the owner.

“I said, “Can I just start my own wine brand?” She said, “Yeah, go on then.” So I bought a bottle, crossed out their name, and wrote my name underneath it.” He posted on LinkedIn saying, “If I can sell 20 bottles, I'll start this wine business.”

“I failed. I sold 16. But then the post saying I was going to close the business went viral. So I thought, “I probably should keep going.”

He named his business Chateaunoble, and argues that the wine business is already commercially viable. Noble spent around £4,600 to acquire and collect 150 bottles of wine, with potential revenue of around £7,000 if they all sell.

“I'll probably lose money on this batch because I'm giving wine away and doing various marketing stunts. But I'm doing those things deliberately to sell more later.”

Putting the wine on a credit card

Noble says the early stages of building Chateaunoble have meant personally financing the business, including putting the cost of wine on his credit card. While the venture is gaining attention, that has yet to translate into enough revenue to cover the costs of building a physical product and brand.

“I’ve hit my first £3k month — and it’s not in sales. It’s credit card debt. Welcome to running a business and putting it on your credit card.”

Despite the financial pressure, he remains convinced that Chateaunoble has potential. He also sees his growing profile as a creator as closely connected to the wine brand's development, with each helping generate attention for the other.

“I truly believe Chateaunoble will be something one day, as well as myself becoming a creator alongside it. Both feed each other.”

Noble says his move towards physical businesses was partly driven by the limitations of creating content around digital products.

“I started making videos of myself building websites, and no one cares. All I can film is myself sitting at a screen.”

Vineyards and coffee shops, for example, offer an aspirational element that translates readily to social media.

“If I’m at a vineyard or in a coffee shop, that’s visually engaging. Who doesn’t want to go to a vineyard? It’s aspirational.”

Noble believes physical businesses are often judged more harshly on their commercial success than startups — consider, for example, how readily restaurant failures are scrutinised compared with the oft-cited 80 per cent startup success rate.

“You can throw money at a young tech founder with no track record, but if someone starts a physical business, suddenly everyone wants to know where the profit is.”

“Why should I listen to you about wine?”

Unsurprisingly,  Noble pushes back against the idea that he needs formal wine qualifications to select wines for Chateaunoble. He says feedback from customers who have opened the wine has been overwhelmingly positive, and some buyers have even chosen to keep their bottles as collector's items.

“I’m not a trained sommelier, and I don’t have a wine degree, but I know what a good glass of wine is.”

Noble says the concept is deliberately straightforward: source established varieties from respected wine regions and work with credible, affordable producers. For his first wine, he chose a producer whose previous vintages had scored above 90 points.

“That’s kind of the point of what I’m doing here: good wine, from a good wine-making region, in a good wine-making country.”

His approach is also relationship-driven. He wants to find affordable vineyards, ideally organic, and work directly with producers whose stories can become part of the Chateaunoble brand and its content. Noble is now looking to deepen his practical understanding of winemaking, including taking part in three harvests this year.

“Time to learn wine like I learned how to navigate customs with my own paperwork.”

After directly asking followers why they weren't buying his products, he received 137 comments — ranging from constructive criticism to outright trolling.

Basically: "why is the wine good? Why should I trust Tom that the wine is good? Tell me about the vineyards. Your website sucks."

Among the most common responses, 10.2 per cent questioned the quality of the wine, 8.8 per cent asked why they should trust Noble’s judgement, and 8 per cent wanted more information about the vineyards. Another 8 per cent criticised the website, while comments also raised issues around the label design, pricing, sampling, and Noble’s relative lack of recognition.

The exercise highlighted a gap between Noble’s personal connection to wine and what he had communicated to potential customers.

“I went all in on building the business and forgot to mention that I’ve been drinking wine for the past eight years.”

Rather than dismissing the criticism, Noble says he intends to use it to adjust how he presents Chateaunoble, particularly by explaining more about the wine, the vineyards, and his own journey into the industry.

“Time for a slight course correction.”

Stop worrying about the algorithm

Noble’s theory of content is that you're trying to get a second glance — a double take. You're trying to stop someone's thumb. Noble cites George Rawlings, co-founder of the dating app and IRL events brand Thursday, as one of his LinkedIn inspirations. Thursday has grown from an app that only works one day a week into an events and media brand with a reported 3.5 million-person community.

“He didn't take any of it seriously, and his posts were absolutely going off.”

Noble has a great love for LinkedIn, asserting that he's probably seen too other people doing the same thing, which is "being honest and taking the piss out of it. "

"It does really well. I've done about four million impressions this year.

You need to do something different because people's feeds are so bad. If you can be somewhat relatable and personable on LinkedIn, you can do really well because hardly anyone else is doing it.

At one point, LinkedIn made a change, and everyone's views dropped. I thought, “I give up. I don't care anymore.” So I started posting what I actually thought. And it went much better. People want to be entertained."

Turning attention into opportunity

However, there’s a difference between gaining attention and turning it into a financial opportunity. According to Noble, Flat White or F*ck Off’s viral success began generating opportunities without the team actively seeking them.

Puma approached the brand about appearing at the London Marathon, and it was also invited to the London Coffee Festival, attracting interest from coffee machine manufacturer Sanremo. While not every opportunity was paid, Noble saw value in those that generated publicity and could ultimately support direct-to-consumer sales. He is now seeing a similar effect in his wine business, with invitations from vineyards and producers to send him samples.

“I’m putting it out there. People know I’m starting a wine business, so they’re sending . I get to go to them, and by doing so, I have content for the next thing. So it’s creating itself.”

The audience is not only a source of attention and opportunities; Noble also uses it for real-time market research. ​

Noble says the constant stream of public feedback has influenced decisions across his ventures. When he posted his wine labels, for example, “everyone hated them”. He had already been considering changing them, but the response reinforced the decision.

“I probably get two messages a day from random people giving me their opinions, and some of them are really useful.”

He applies the same thinking to smaller experiments. He recently promised to hold a launch party if a post received 500 likes. It didn't. “But that's a win-win. If it got 500 likes, I'd do the party. If it didn't, I could post saying I'd cancelled the party, and that would probably get views too.” 

The content remains the engine

Ultimately, Noble likens his approach to Clarkson’s Farm, the British series that follows Jeremy Clarkson as he learns, often chaotically, how to run a farm. Noble wants to apply the same formula to entrepreneurship.

“He learns to run a farm. I will learn to and build a wine business,” he asserts.

According to Noble, branded content that gets views is the gold standard. Views lead to followers, which lead to more views.

“And if you're creating content that frames both you and your product in the right way, eventually it should lead to sales. Everything I do is based around: what could do well in terms of views?”

For example, Noble picked up a fridge from the side of the street to use as a wine cooler. Then he realised, “Oh, I can actually sit in this.”

“So I took a picture of myself sitting in it drinking wine. That cost me nothing. And if it doesn't perform well, I'm doing something else anyway.”

Noble’s creator strategy is already producing significant reach. He recently generated one million LinkedIn views in a week and has averaged around 25,000 impressions a day over the past two months. He is now considering monetising that expertise through personal-branding consultations.

“Or should I start to write a paid Substack with all the ins and outs of what I’m doing? I'm a magpie. I collect shiny things. I'm very aware of my flaws,” admits Noble.

“There's a gap in the market for middle-aged white men making podcasts! declared Noble, who also decided to start a podcast called Help Tom build a wine business, please. The first episode is on creating a podcast.

“If I said I was starting an airline as a joke and it got 10 million views, I'm starting an airline.”

Noble has also been seeding the idea of starting an airline on LinkedIn, using audience response to test whether an outlandish idea might have legs.

“It's almost a test. Then I need to determine how to do it. Maybe I will charter a plane. Maybe I will crowdfund the charter and call that starting an airline.

And then I can sell some wine on the plane, and because it's generating PR. It's incredibly cheap PR. That's how I think about a lot of these things.”

For Noble, the line between publicity stunt and genuine business idea is deliberately fluid. An idea might begin as content, but a sufficiently strong audience response could persuade him to pursue it for real.

“If I said I was starting an airline as a joke and it got 10 million views, I'm starting an airline. I'm sorry, but I just am.”