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Armilar, a venture capital firm based in Southern Europe, closed the
fourth generation of its flagship funds, raising over €120 million to invest
across Portugal, Spain, and the rest of Europe. Armilar IV has attracted a
diversified base of institutional investors, including the European Investment
Fund (EIF) and the Sociedad Española para la Transformación Tecnológica (SETT) and Spain’s NextTech vehicle for deep-tech innovation.
The fund represents an important milestone for Armilar and builds on
the firm’s track record across previous funds, reflecting the continued focus
on generating strong returns through early-stage technology investments.
Armilar IV has a strong Iberian allocation and focuses on Series A
rounds. Its investment thesis targets the intersection of digital technologies
and hard science, backing B2B startups with significant technological depth
that address large-scale problems across areas such as artificial intelligence,
cybersecurity, software development, infrastructure and computing,
digitalisation and automation, fintech, healthtech, spacetech, and dual-use
technologies.
The launch aligns with increased activity in Europe’s
high-technology ecosystem, with Spain and Portugal showing strong momentum in
venture investment and innovation.
Armilar IV marks a natural next step for our firm, the opportunity to
extend our Series A investment platform and continue backing exceptional
founders as they take their technologies from validation to scale. We see
outstanding innovation emerging from Iberia and across Europe, and we want to
help these companies grow globally,
With more than 20 years of investing, Armilar has supported
early-stage companies as they expand globally. The firm’s history of founder
support and performance across earlier flagship funds contributed to the
successful raise of Armilar IV despite challenging market conditions.
Armilar has already met with many founding teams
and is assessing several startups for its 2025 pipeline. Fundraising for
Armilar IV will continue, with a goal of doubling the fund’s size by the end of 2026.
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05/11/2025 08:56 AM
Tsuga emerges from stealth with $10M to modernise observability in the AI era
France-based observability platform Tsuga has closed a
$10 million seed round and emerged from stealth. The round was led by General Catalyst with participation from Singular, alongside angel investors including
Amjad Masad (Replit), Charles Gorintin (Alan, Mistral AI), Jonathan Benhamou
(Resilience), Olivier Bonnet (BlaBlaCar), and Philippe Corrot (Mirakl), among
others.
Over the past decade, data growth has outpaced IT
spend: logs, metrics, and traces have grown roughly 30 per cent annually while
budgets rose less than 10 per cent. AI-driven development is pushing this gap
to the limit as autonomous code and ephemeral microservices multiply telemetry
faster than most enterprises can manage, rendering current stacks increasingly inefficient
and risky.
As a result, observability has become mission-critical, yet the
prevailing model falls short. Despite the promise of a “single pane of glass,”
organisations face technical complexity, escalating costs, and rising
operational risk. Enterprises encounter three interconnected challenges (business-model
misalignment, operational burden, and value erosion), which produce a
fragmented landscape marked by tool sprawl and persistent blind spots.
Founded in 2024, Tsuga addresses this by enabling teams to focus on
their core mission rather than fragmented dashboards. The platform is built
from first principles for comprehensive coverage, minimal data gaps, controlled
costs, and fewer trade-offs between control and convenience. Its
bring-your-own-cloud (BYOC) architecture leverages modern cloud-native
capabilities while keeping data, scale, and spend under customer ownership.
Tsuga makes observability costs predictable by removing
typical SaaS markups with a single transparent pricing model, enabling
sublinear cost growth. Deployed in the customer’s cloud, it keeps logs,
metrics, and traces under customer governance and simplifies compliance. A
unified admin centre manages retention, access, and routing without
infrastructure overhead. Built on OpenTelemetry and open formats, it avoids
lock-in. With full-context data, the platform is AI-native, helping prevent and
resolve issues faster.
With
$10 million in seed funding, Tsuga will prioritise product innovation and
customer success, guided by direct user feedback.
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05/11/2025 05:20 AM
Goldman Sachs doubles down on MoEngage in new round to fuel global expansion
Barcelona-based Kabilio, which applies AI to automate accounting and tax
processes, has closed a €4 million pre-seed round led by Visionaries Club and
Picus Capital. The round includes €200,000 in public funding from ENISA, making
it one of Spain’s largest pre-seed financings.
In Spain, there are an estimated 65,000 accounting and tax advisory
firms serving millions of SMEs and self-employed workers. Current workflows
show inefficiencies: clients often collect and submit information manually,
which, given operational pressures, may arrive late or incomplete. These issues
intensify during quarterly peaks, when advisors must concentrate significant
effort on checks and manual data entry within a short window.
Kabilio’s platform streamlines information exchange between firms and
clients and automates processing, generating complete entries that integrate
with accounting software. Founded in 2024 by Jose Ojeda and Álex Valls, the
company uses generative AI to enhance collaboration.
Kabilio reports that nearly 100 accounting firms use its platform, with
productivity gains of up to 50 per cent. According to co-CEO Jose Ojeda, firms
struggle to attract and retain talent because much of the work is repetitive
and clustered around peak periods, and there is hesitation around adopting AI.
It is precisely to change this that we
created Kabilio, and the closing of this funding round gives us the definitive
push to help these firms alleviate their teams' workload and allow them to
focus on providing more value to their clients, which is what they are truly
trained for.
The platform comprises three tools: intelligent invoice processing
(multi-channel ingestion, complex cases, and account suggestions with a
reported 97 per cent accuracy), advanced bank reconciliation (secure links to
99 per cent of Spanish banks, AI-based matching, and a single review workspace)m
and a Verifactu-compliant invoicing tool for SMEs and self-employed workers
that synchronises data with advisors in real time.
We are experiencing a technological
turning point similar to the arrival of software in companies two decades ago.
Artificial intelligence will not only optimize processes but will also change
the nature of work and the relationship between advisory firms and their
clients. Our goal is to build the infrastructure that makes this new paradigm
possible,
added Álex Valls, co-CEO and co-founder of Kabilio.
The
new funding will enable the company to strengthen its team, develop additional
features and products, and accelerate its expansion in the Spanish market.
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With €4 million in funding, Kabilio scales AI tools helping Spanish accounting firms lift productivity by up to 50%
EU-Startups has learned that Kabilio, a Barcelona-based company specialising in the application of AI to automate accounting and tax processes, has closed a €4 million pre-Seed funding round.
The round was led by international venture capital funds Visionaries Club and Picus Capital. The round also includes €200k in public funding from ENISA, reportedly making it one of the largest pre-Seed rounds in Spain.
“We have seen firsthand the challenge of attracting and retaining talent in accounting firms because the work is concentrated on repetitive tasks and peak workloads. We have also perceived a certain fear of adopting AI.
“It is precisely to change this that we created Kabilio, and the closing of this funding round gives us the definitive push to help these firms alleviate their teams’ workload and allow them to focus on providing more value to their clients, which is what they are truly trained for,” states Jose Ojeda, co-CEO and founder of Kabilio.
The funding round for Kabilio fits into a broader European movement of 2025 investments in AI-driven financial software.
Comparable activity includes Bluebook (Sweden), which raised €2.4 million pre-Seed to advance its self-driving accounting platform; Stacks (Netherlands), which secured €9.5 million to streamline month-end financial close processes using AI; and Plino (Italy), which obtained €650k to enhance SMEs’ financial planning and analysis.
Within this context, Kabilio’s €4 million pre-Seed is comparatively substantial, signalling investor confidence in AI solutions addressing accounting inefficiencies.
While other notable rounds have occurred in Northern and Central Europe, Kabilio’s success highlights Spain’s emerging role in this segment, marking one of the country’s largest early-stage financings in AI-powered accounting.
Robert Jäckle, Partner at Visionaries Club, highlights: “Kabilio brings AI to the heart of advisory firms not to replace accountants, but to make their work smarter and more valuable. They are not creating ‘hype’; they are solving a real operational problem. We believe Kabilio can become the leading platform for modern accounting in Europe.”
Founded in 2024 by Jose Ojeda (formerly of McKinsey, Rocket Internet, and 011h) and Álex
Valls (formerly of Social Point, Exoticca, and 011h), the startup has developed a platform
that uses generative AI to help accounting firms and their clients modernise the way
they work together.
Kabilio was born from the conviction that AI will transform the advisory sector and from a commitment to support them in this transition. This mission has already earned the trust of nearly 100 accounting firms using its platform, who are seeing a productivity increase of up to 50%.
Florian Reichert, Managing Director at Picus Capital, adds that the platform “will enable advisors to collaborate more efficiently with their clients, leveraging AI to automate the most tedious tasks and generate strategic value”.
In Spain, there are approximately 65,000 accounting and tax advisory firms that work with millions of SMEs and freelancers. The current workflow presents significant inefficiencies: clients must manually collect and send information, which, due to their operational load, often happens late or incompletely.
This is exacerbated during quarterly peak periods, when advisors must concentrate a great deal of effort on checks and manual data entry within a few days.
Kabilio currently features three integrated products:
Intelligent invoice processing: Allows receiving documents from multiple channels (email, Dropbox, etc.) and processing even the most complex invoices, such as intra-community and extra-community, reverse charge VAT, or multiple invoices in a single file. Furthermore, it suggests appropriate accounting accounts based on the content of each invoice and the company’s activity, with 97% accuracy.
Advanced bank reconciliation: Securely connects with 99% of Spanish banks, reducing the need to request statements. The platform suggests matches between invoices and transactions using AI rules, allowing the advisor to view and edit all information in a single environment.
Verifactu-Compliant invoicing: A modern, intuitive, and cost-effective product for SMEs and freelancers that allows for issuing customised invoices and synchronises all information with the advisor in real-time, eliminating the manual sending of data.
Additionally, the company is piloting its AI agent, Kabi, with several clients, which is being officially presented at Accountex Spain 2025. In its initial phase, it will allow users to query and extract information from the platform using natural language, and future versions will enable broader actions.
“We are experiencing a technological turning point similar to the arrival of software in companies two decades ago. Artificial intelligence will not only optimise processes but will also change the nature of work and the relationship between advisory firms and their clients. Our goal is to build the infrastructure that makes this new paradigm possible”, said Álex Valls, co-CEO and co-founder of Kabilio.
The software-as-a-service business of UK challenger bank Starling Bank has secured its biggest client deal to date, providing the cloud banking platform for the digital subsidiary of one of Canada’s biggest banks.
Engine has signed a 10-year deal with Tangerine Bank, a subsidiary digital bank of Canada's Scotiabank, to upgrade its core digital banking system to Engine’s cloud-native banking platform, marking Engine’s first major client win in North America.
Engine says the upgrade will mean reduced operational costs and complexity for Tangerine’s employees, while Tangerine’s over two million customers will also see a smoother experience, it said.
The snapping up of Tangerine Bank comes as Starling and its subsidiary Engine look to establish a foothold in the North American market.
Earlier this year, Starling announced it was opening offices in New York and Toronto and Starling was also said to be weighing up the US as a possible IPO market.
It axed plans to grow Starling across Europe through a European banking licence, instead opting to provide its tech on a SaaS basis to banking partners.
Engine sells itself as a “cloud-native, complete banking platform”. Clients can leverage its software to build and enhance services such as digital onboarding and savings accounts.
Engine’s other clients include Salt Bank in Romania and Australia's AMP mobile-first bank. UK-headquartered Engine, which employs around 300 people, is also looking to recruit around 100 staff.
Terri-Lee Weeks, president and CEO of Tangerine, said: “Tangerine chose Engine to help build the future of banking services for our clients – delivering a premier banking experience with intuitive, personalised features that evolve with client needs.
"Engine’s modern core banking system uniquely provides an end-to-end platform on which Tangerine can innovate quickly and continuously, reducing the time-to-market for new products and features, and delivering world-class experiences for our clients – all while staying true to the client-first design that Tangerine is known for in Canada.”
Sam Everington, CEO of Engine by Starling, added: “Engine’s technology and operating model is a tried and tested blueprint for building market-leading digitally-native banks. It is a true fintech success story as we see our software enabling ambitious, innovative and customer-centric banks all over the world.”
Photo: Engine
04/11/2025 05:10 PM
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04/11/2025 04:41 PM
Reflex Aerospace secures record €50 million as satellites deemed Europe’s “Achilles heel”
Reflex Aerospace, a German manufacturer of high-performance satellite platforms, today announced the successful closing of its €50 million Series A funding round – the largest Series A in the European New Space sector to date.
The round was led by Human Element together with Alpine Space Ventures, Bayern Kapital, HTGF, Renovatio Financial Investments.
“Europe cannot afford to remain reliant on external actors for space-based intelligence,” said Walter Ballheimer, CEO of Reflex Aerospace. “We will invest our own capital, we will work with the best partners in their respective domains, and we will act now because in the current environment , there is no time to waste.”
This announcement by Reflex Aerospace sits within a clear uptick of investment in European space- and defence-adjacent hardware startups in 2025.
While no other German startup in the same “satellite platform/ISR constellation” niche has appeared on our coverage, the presence of German players such as HyImpulse Technologies indicates a strong domestic environment for SpaceTech financing.
Elsewhere in Europe, Space Forge in the UK secured €26.8 million to advance in-space manufacturing, while Astradyne in Italy raised €2 million to develop ultralight solar panels for orbital platforms.
In that context, Reflex Aerospace’s €50 million raise represents the largest funding event in the European New Space sector so far in 2025, highlighting sustained investor interest in sovereignty-driven satellite infrastructure and manufacturing capabilities.
“While Europe is rebuilding its sovereign defense capabilities, Reflex is transforming how satellites are built, designing payload – centric buses that can be rapidly manufactured without costly megafactories,” said Christian Sullivan, Managing Partner of Human Element. “Their approach delivers the flexibility and speed needed to meet the growing ISR demand across Germany and allied markets.”
Founded in 2021, Reflex Aerospace is a manufacturer of high-performance, payload-specific platforms for commercial and defense applications. The company specialises in applying modern manufacturing techniques to reduce lead times and improve performance for critically important space infrastructure.
This new funding will accelerate the development, production, and deployment of sovereign satellite constellations providing Optical, Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), Space Domain Awareness (SDA), and Signal Intelligence (SIGINT) capabilities. Part of the financing round will be used to expand existing manufacturing capacity in Bavaria to manufacture satellite constellations for intelligence and communications purposes.
Reflex Aerospace aims to have all capabilities ready for deployment and demonstrated in orbit by 2027.
From NATO and the EU to the German government, recent announcements across multiple political levels underline the strategic imperative driving Reflex Aerospace’s mission.
Against this backdrop, Europe faces an urgent need for independent access to space – based intelligence. Global instability has exposed the risks of reliance on external providers for critical geospatial data.
Reflex Aerospace aims to close these gaps by dramatically improving lead times, resilience, and sovereignty of Europe’s intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) infrastructure.
Reflex Aerospace’s first remote sensing satellite reached orbit in January 2025. Upcoming satellites will be designed and built using Reflex’s next-generation Praetora platform architecture developed specifically for critical ISR missions.
Fit Collective, a fashion technology startup from London founded by Savile Row-trained designer Phoebe Gormley, has raised €3.4 million in pre-Seed funding – reportedly marking the largest round ever raised by a solo female founder in the UK.
The round includes backing from AlbionVC, SuperSeed, True Global, and January Ventures, alongside an Innovate UK Smart Grant. The funding will support team growth, product development, and deeper integrations with global fashion brands looking to improve both their bottom line and sustainability credentials.
“Fit is one of the fashion industry’s biggest blind spots, and returns are now a board-level issue costing the industry billions. We’re backing Fit Collective because they’re tackling this challenge at its roots. The team is building the kind of intelligence layer we believe will power the next wave of operational transformation in retail,” said Valerie Aelbrecht, Investment Manager at AlbionVC
This funding round for Fit Collective aligns with a broader wave of European investment into technology-driven and sustainability-focused fashion solutions reported by EU-Startups in 2025.
In France, Fairly Made secured €15 million to expand its SaaS platform for tracking the environmental and social impact of fashion supply chains. Also in Paris, Faume raised €8 million to scale its branded second-hand fashion marketplace across Europe. Meanwhile, Estonia-based Yaga collected €4 million to grow its resale platform and expand into the Middle East and North Africa.
Against this backdrop, Fit Collective’s €3.4 million pre-Seed round positions it within an active European FashionTech ecosystem increasingly focused on efficiency and circularity.
While continental peers concentrate on resale and supply-chain transparency, Fit Collective distinguishes itself through AI-driven sizing optimisation -a root-cause approach to reducing returns.
Notably, among the 2025 funding announcements covered by EU-Startups, none originated from the UK, underscoring the company’s unique position in the domestic FashionTech scene and reinforcing the growing investor appetite for data-led operational improvements in the apparel industry.
Founded in 2023, Fit Collective is tackling the fashion industry’s hidden crisis: inconsistent sizing at the production stage, which costs the sector an estimated $230 billion annually in returns and lost revenue.
Rather than relying on pattern-cutting methods or placing the burden on customers to decipher sizing, Fit Collective acts as a co-pilot to brands, analysing returns, fabric behaviour and sales data before garments are made.
The platform is already being used by major brands including Rixo, Ro & Zo and Boden, helping them reduce returns, boost retention, and improve profitability, while giving customers clothing that not only looks good, but fits better.
Gormley’s path to fashion tech began when she left university and used her tuition fees to open Gormley & Gamble, the first women’s tailoring house in Savile Row’s 200-year history. Years spent designing bespoke garments for lawyers, brides, and businesswomen honed her obsession with fit, a passion now scaled through tech to impact the entire industry.
Qida, a HealthTech startup based in Sabadell, has secured €37 million in fresh funding to expand its elderly care services across Spain – marking the largest investment ever in the elder care sector in Spain and is one of the biggest for a Spanish social impact company.
The round was led by French growth investor Quadrille Capital, marking Qida’s first partnership with an international backer. Also participating were Barcelona’s Asabys Partners and the public-private Social Impact Fund (FIS) managed by Cofides, investing directly in a startup for the first time. Additional support came from the Institut Català de Finances (ICF), US-based Endeavor Catalyst, and returning investors Kibo Ventures, Creas, and Ship2B.
“It is a very powerful syndicate, because it is a triumvirate between a growth fund, a health fund, and an impact fund,” celebrates its co-founder and CEO, Oriol Fuertes Cabassa, who specifies that the three will have a representative on the board of directors. (Translated)
This raise by Qida in Spain is notable when set against recent European HealthTech and elder-care startup funding trends.
While most comparable deals tracked by EU-Startups in 2025 are relatively modest – such as Neu Health in London, which raised €1.9 million to apply AI to Parkinson’s and dementia care; Doctor.One in Warsaw, which secured €4 million to expand its asynchronous chronic-care model; and Teton.ai in Copenhagen, which closed a €17 million Series A for predictive healthcare – Qida’s investment size stands out significantly.
The presence of Spanish investors such as Asabys Partners and the public-private Social Impact Fund in the syndicate indicates continued domestic support for HealthTech and social-impact innovation. None of the comparable 2025 announcements covered by EU-Startups involve a Spanish company, highlighting Qida’s distinctive position in its home market.
The deal also aligns with the wider European HealthTech funding surge, with EU-Startups noting in its May 2025 analysis that AI-driven healthcare startups attracted more than €4.4 billion in early-year investment.
Overall, Qida’s round not only marks the largest in Spain’s elder-care sector to date but also reinforces the growing investor appetite for scalable, tech-enabled care models across Europe.
“I am extremely pleased to have the support of leading public and private funds in the sector, as well as all the partners who have been with us since day one, united in the same mission of maximising the quality of life of the senior segment. This investment not only allows us to grow and consolidate our leadership, but also to continue maximising our social impact,” added Cabassa. (Translated)
Founded in 2018, Qida began by helping families find home caregivers through a digital platform, but the company has evolved into a comprehensive HealthTech provider with ambitions to reshape the home care landscape.
Among its current ventures are a collaboration with the Catalan government to build patient monitoring software for the public system, and the launch of Spain’s first insurance product covering conditions like Parkinson’s disease. The company has also built a marketplace – think Amazon, but for senior services.
Alejandra Duran Gil, Partner and CIO at Quadrille Capital, emphasised: “We have complete confidence in Qida’s business model and its growth potential, backed by solid financial discipline and efficient capital management. The company combines technological innovation with a people-centered approach, positioning it as the undisputed leader in the sector.” (Translated)
The new funding will be directed toward three strategic pillars: growth, technology, and team development.
On the growth front, Qida plans to enter new Spanish cities and continue its aggressive acquisition strategy. It has already absorbed nine smaller home care providers in the past three years. The aim is to serve 100,000 people and reach €100 million in annual revenue by 2027, up from €40 million expected this year – quadrupling both revenue and reach.
This expansion could see the team grow from the current 300 staff and 2,000 caregivers to over 700 employees in the coming years.
“The company is profitable, and this capital is not to cover losses,” explained Cabassa. “There are three key goals: growth, technology, and team.” (Translated)
To drive the tech roadmap, Qida is bringing on new talent including Daniel Alonso, former CPO at Glovo, and Jordi Tusell, ex-managing director of ambulance firm Falck. The technology team is expected to build tools that allow for more proactive, preventative, and integrated care models – bridging the health and social services divide using AI-driven solutions.
From its base in Catalonia, Qida is already a standout in the social impact space. The company has raised a total of €57 million over four rounds, but insists the mission remains unchanged: improve the quality of life for the elderly while enhancing the sustainability of the health and social care systems.
Guillem Masferrer, Partner at Asabys Partners, added: “The investment in Qida reinforces our commitment to companies that have a real impact on the healthcare system and people’s lives, promoting a model of high-quality care, prevention, and home care with potential for sustainable growth.” (Translated)
With this injection of capital, Qida is now doubling down on its goal to transform home care into a more dignified, efficient, and human experience – starting at home, and perhaps soon, abroad.
Raúl Sánchez, Director of the Social Impact Fund (FIS) managed by COFIDES, added: “Qida is one of Spain’s leading companies in terms of social impact and proof that it is possible to be a profitable company while also generating a positive social impact.” (Translated)
London-based fashion technology
startup Fit Collective, founded by Savile Row–trained designer Phoebe Gormley,
has raised £3 million in pre-seed funding, reportedly the largest pre-seed round raised by a solo female founder in the UK. The round was backed by
AlbionVC, SuperSeed, True Global, and January Ventures, alongside an Innovate
UK Smart Grant.
Fit
Collective uses artificial intelligence to address inconsistent sizing at the
production stage, an issue the industry estimates costs around $230 billion
annually in returns and lost revenue. Rather than relying on traditional
pattern-cutting or placing the burden on customers, the platform acts as a
co-pilot for brands by analysing returns, fabric behaviour, and sales data
before garments are produced.
With
nearly half of womens-wear purchases returned and only one in three items kept,
Fit Collective offers a scalable solution that helps brands design more
effectively, reduce waste, and produce clothing that better meets customer
needs.
The
platform is already in use with Rixo, Ro & Zo, and Boden, aiming to reduce
returns, improve customer retention, and enhance profitability by delivering
better-fitting garments.
Fit is
one of the fashion industry’s biggest blind spots, and returns are now a
board-level issue costing the industry billions. We’re backing Fit Collective
because they’re tackling this challenge at its roots. The team is building the
kind of intelligence layer we believe will power the next wave of operational
transformation in retail,
saidValerie
Aelbrecht, Investment Manager at AlbionVC.
The funding will be used to
expand the team, advance product development, and strengthen integrations with
global fashion brands seeking to improve both profitability and sustainability
performance.
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CMS provider Totalmobile secures new investment to scale globally
UK-based field service management software provider Totalmobile has received new investment from Five Arrows, the alternative assets arm of Rothschild & Co, and funds managed by Deutsche Beteiligungs AG (DBAG) to support its next stage of growth and international expansion.
The transaction remains subject to regulatory approval. The deal marks an exit for Bowmark Capital, which invested in Totalmobile in 2020 and supported its expansion and product development over the past five years.
Totalmobile currently serves more than 900 customers and 500,000 field workers across sectors including health and social care, government, property and facilities management, and infrastructure. The company said the new backing will help it scale its technology globally and strengthen its position as a leader in field service management software.
The funding will enable Totalmobile to further develop its Field First platform and expand its footprint across new markets. The company has grown rapidly in recent years, entering the Nordics and Australasia, completing four acquisitions, and reaching £58 million in FY24 revenue, with continued growth expected through FY25.
“This investment from Five Arrows and DBAG marks the start of an exciting new chapter for Totalmobile,” said Phil Race, Chief Executive Officer of Totalmobile.
Sacha Oshry, Partner at Five Arrows, said: “Totalmobile has built an impressive platform that delivers measurable impact for customers across the public and private sectors. We see in the business a rare combination of strong technology, deep vertical expertise, and long-standing entrenched customer relationships.”
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04/11/2025 12:37 PM
Oxford spin-out OXCCU secures additional €2 million as first SAF company to receive ATI Non-CO₂ grant
OXCCU, an Oxford-based carbon-to-value company converting carbon dioxide and hydrogen into sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), has received €2 million through the ATI Non-CO2 Programme.
The ATI Programme is delivered in partnership with the Aerospace Technology Institute, Department for Business and Trade and Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). OXCCU is the first SAF company to receive grant, which will be used to investigate the non-CO2 effects of its synthetic crude ‘OXFUEL’.
“This ATI Programme funding not only enables us to advance our technology but also supports our ambition to lead the industry in producing cleaner aviation fuels with a reduced contribution to global warming,” said Andrew Symes, CEO of OXCCU.
This grant awarded under the ATI Non-CO₂ Programme aligns with a wider pattern of 2025 investment activity in Europe’s sustainable aviation fuel and e-fuels ecosystem.
Across the continent, similar startups are progressing from pilot to commercial scale – such as Spark e-Fuels (Germany), which raised €2.3 million to build its first e-fuel pilot plant; Catalyxx (Spain), which secured €3 million to enhance its sustainable chemicals and SAF R&D; and Brineworks (Netherlands), which obtained €6.8 million to scale its direct-air-capture technology for e-fuel production.
“Non-CO2 effects are an area of emerging science that could have substantial implications for climate strategy in aviation. This funding will provide critical insights as we work to validate and scale our OXFUEL product,” added Symes.
Founded in 2021, OXCCU, a ClimateTech spin-out company from the University of Oxford, is developing novel catalysts and reactor designs to convert carbon dioxide and hydrogen into hydrocarbons with high conversion and selectivity for use as fuels, chemicals and plastics.
The company is headquartered in the UK, with operations at Begbroke Science Park, Oxford, and London Oxford Airport.
The total funding cost of €3.4 million is a result of the co-investment between industry and the government through the Department of Business and Trade. The project runs from July 2025 to June 2027, aiming to better understand how to minimise the non-CO2 effects of OXFUEL, and supporting the broader goal of developing cleaner fuels with lower carbon intensity.
Supported by the Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI) Programme, the project will explore how this innovative new SAF produced with OXCCU’s novel F-T catalyst can potentially reduce the warming associated with the non-CO2 effects of burning hydrocarbon fuel in a jet turbine, in addition to the effect of the CO2 emissions.
The focus will include soot particles, which can cause cloud formation at altitude and therefore impact global warming, though the amount of warming (or cooling) these particles cause is dependent on the conditions and subject to ongoing research.
By focusing on cleaner fuel development, OXCCU seeks to position itself as a leader in the UK’s push towards a 10% SAF inclusion in jet fuel by 2030.
OXCCU’s SAF, marketed under the brand OXFUEL, leverages a novel iron-based Fischer-Tropsch catalyst which can work directly with CO2. It has high selectivity towards producing jet fuel range hydrocarbon syncrude in a single exothermic step, from which refined jet fuel can easily be made.
Compared to other processes, the company says this means fewer steps and less hydrogen input per amount of jet fuel, resulting in lower capital and operating costs.
By validating its technology at the OX1 demonstration plant at Oxford Airport in 2024, the company is focused on refining the lowest-cost pathways via direct hydrogenation of CO2, eliminating the complex RWGS step or the multiple stages associated with methanol production.
Residential buying and selling platform Homemove has acquired Home.co.uk, one of the UK’s original property websites, in a move that strengthens its ambition to build the UK’s most comprehensive free-to-list destination for estate agents and home movers.
The deal, for an undisclosed sum, follows Homemove’s $5 million growth funding round earlier this year and marks a major step in its strategy to simplify the moving process through technology, data and integration.
Every month, Homemove helps thousands of people manage their entire move — from selling and buying to moving and settling in — through one intuitive, AI-powered platform. In 2025, Homemove secured $5 million in growth funding to accelerate its national expansion.
By combining Homemove’s AI-led platform and fast product development with Home.co.uk’s trusted brand and respected market data, the acquisition creates a modern listings destination designed to connect every part of the moving journey — from first search to viewing, offer, conveyancing and move-in — on a single platform.
James Freestone, co-founder and CEO of Homemove, said:
“Portals have become profit engines instead of product companies that focus on improving the buying and selling experience for estate agents and consumers alike.
We’re building the UK’s most product-led listings destination - one that monetises outcomes, not estate agents.
Home.co.uk will remain free-to-list for estate agents forever and will provide an enriched and integrated full moving experience for home movers. ”
Ben Horton, Founder of Home.co.uk, said:
“Homemove’s technology and product focus perfectly complement Home.co.uk’s 30-year heritage in market data and informed decision-making. This partnership takes that foundation and scales it for a new era.”
Homemove plans to enhance Home.co.uk through 2025 with faster search, agent messaging & integrated booking tools, milestone tracking and listings with more detailed property insights. Listings will remain free for agents, while optional premium upgrades and downstream moving services will provide revenue growth for the Homemove ecosystem.
Home.co.uk will retain its name and continue to evolve under Homemove’s ownership. Both Ben Horton and co-founder Doug Shephard will remain as strategic advisers for twelve months.
04/11/2025 01:10 PM
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Beyond the lease: 10 European startups bridging real estate and finance
PropTech, short for property technology, is transforming how we buy, rent, and manage places to live, work and use. It covers a broad range of innovations across Property Search, Management, Smart Buildings, Fintech and Real Estate, Construction, Marketing, and Tenant Experience. From smart sensors in buildings to digital mortgage tools and data-driven marketing, PropTech is making the real estate world more connected, transparent, and efficient.
Last week, we explored how PropTech startups are reshaping property discovery and booking experiences across Europe. This week, we turn our attention to the intersection of Fintech and Real Estate, where technology is redefining how properties are financed, invested in, and traded. From tokenised ownership and rent-to-own models to AI-powered asset management and blockchain-backed investment platforms, these companies are transforming how money moves through property.
In this article, we highlight ten exciting European startups founded between 2022 and today that are leading the way in real estate finance, offering smarter, more inclusive, and more transparent ways to invest, own, and manage assets in the digital age.
Based in Amsterdam, Anyone.com is on a mission to enable anyone to own a home. Founded in 2023, the company offers an inclusive platform that helps people enter the housing market through innovative ownership models and financial flexibility. Its goal is to make homeownership more accessible for individuals who are often excluded from traditional lending or mortgage systems.
By combining technology with tailored financial solutions, Anyone.com is reshaping how people approach buying property. Its model promotes transparency and inclusivity, supporting a new generation of homeowners in overcoming financial barriers. To date, they have raised €5 million.
Based in München, einwert is reimagining real estate valuation through a hybrid, ESG-compliant approach. Founded in 2022, the company blends digital tools with human expertise to create a comprehensive and transparent appraisal experience. Its platform helps financial institutions, investors, and asset managers understand property values with precision while integrating sustainability criteria into their assessments.
Einwert’s technology-driven model streamlines valuation workflows and ensures consistent, data-backed results. By modernising how valuations are performed and reported, the company is helping set new standards in property analytics and green compliance. To date, they have raised €6 million.
Based in London, Factored provides rent-backed financing solutions that help renters unlock capital and landlords improve liquidity. Founded in 2023, the company uses technology to assess rental payment histories and offer flexible financial products tied to ongoing tenancies. Its approach supports both sides of the rental market by turning rent flows into usable, short-term financing opportunities.
By connecting rental income with innovative funding models, Factored bridges the gap between property management and financial access. The company’s platform enhances transparency and reduces friction for property owners, investors, and tenants. To date, they have raised €24 million.
Based in Dublin, MetaWealth offers a modern investment platform that tokenises real estate properties, giving investors access to income-generating assets. Founded in 2022, it allows users to buy digital shares in global properties and earn passive income through tokenised ownership. The model combines transparency, accessibility, and blockchain security.
MetaWealth’s platform bridges traditional real estate with decentralised finance, making property ownership more flexible and liquid. Its innovative approach enables investors to diversify portfolios and participate in markets once reserved for institutions. To date, they have raised €2 million.
Based in Limassol, MHV Group is a hospitality and real estate investment company focused on risk-adjusted and value-appreciating assets. Founded in 2022, the group manages a portfolio of properties across key destinations, combining investment expertise with operational excellence. Its strategy prioritises sustainable growth and stable returns through a balance of hospitality and property ventures.
MHV Group’s integrated approach connects capital, development, and management under one framework. By leveraging deep industry experience and data-driven analysis, the company continues to expand its portfolio while delivering long-term value to investors. To date, they have raised €20 million.
Based in Stockholm, Navian develops AI-driven tools that enhance the predictability and profitability of real estate projects. Founded in 2022, the company’s platform supports developers and investors with automated financial modelling, risk assessment, and project management capabilities. Its mission is to make property investment more data-driven and accessible.
By merging technological innovation with financial insight, Navian bridges the gap between property development and investment. Its solutions enable users to evaluate projects efficiently, optimise capital allocation, and maximise returns. To date, they have raised €2.3 million.
Based in Paris, Nopillo provides automated tools that simplify and optimise real estate tax declarations and investment returns. Founded in 2022, the company helps property owners and investors manage financial obligations more effectively through digital automation. Its solution reduces complexity and ensures compliance, allowing users to focus on profitability.
By integrating technology into tax management, Nopillo enables more efficient reporting and clearer financial oversight. The platform’s user-friendly design and automation capabilities streamline property-related accounting for both individuals and businesses. To date, they have raised €4 million.
Based in Zürich, Optiml helps real estate asset managers plan investments and renovations that balance profitability with sustainability. Founded in 2022, the company offers AI-powered asset and portfolio workflows that allow users to understand current performance, assess future potential, and make data-backed investment decisions. Its technology helps optimise renovation planning and portfolio strategy while ensuring compliance with evolving regulations.
By combining sustainability data with financial modelling, Optiml empowers professionals to make realistic decisions that drive both performance and environmental progress. Its platform simplifies collaboration across teams, transforming complex climate and financial goals into actionable insights. To date, they have raised €3.8 million.
Based in Lugano, Piece is a digital investment platform that makes income-producing real estate accessible to individual investors. Founded in 2023, it enables users to buy fractional shares in properties, diversifying portfolios while reducing capital requirements. Its transparent model offers a simple and secure entry point into institutional-quality real estate.
Piece’s technology bridges fintech and property, offering seamless onboarding, asset tracking, and performance monitoring. By lowering barriers to investment, the company is democratising access to real estate ownership across Europe. To date, they have raised €2.7 million.
Based in Paris, Skarlett gives senior citizens access to their home equity by converting real estate value into liquid assets. Founded in 2023, the company helps older homeowners improve their purchasing power without leaving their homes, providing financial independence and stability in retirement.
Skarlett’s model focuses on unlocking the wealth tied up in property while maintaining long-term security for its clients. By combining social purpose with financial innovation, the company is redefining how older generations can benefit from the value of their homes. To date, they have raised €12 million.
Czech defence group STV has signed a multi-year licence and strategic cooperation agreement with British cybersecurity startup Post-Quantum to deploy its quantum-safe communications platform across European, NATO, and global defence markets.
Founded in London, Post-Quantum develops modular encryption, identity, and transmission systems designed to remain secure in a post-quantum world. The company’s technologies have been adopted by NATO and major financial institutions and include the NIST-recognised Classic McEliece algorithm.
STV Group, headquartered in the Czech Republic, is one of Europe’s fastest-growing defence manufacturers and a leading supplier of munitions, armoured platforms, and loitering systems.
The partnership marks the first large-scale quantum migration of its kind and comes amid growing concerns over the risk of “Harvest Now, Decrypt Later” attacks, in which adversaries collect encrypted data today for future decryption once quantum computers mature.
Under the agreement, STV will integrate Post-Quantum’s NATO-tested platform into its defence systems to protect sensitive data and mission-critical operations from emerging quantum threats.
“This isn’t just about acquiring technology - it’s about building an uncompromising, end-to-end secure ecosystem for the future,” said JUDr. Pavel Kudrhalt, CEO of STV. “With the rising threat of ‘Harvest Now, Decrypt Later’ attacks, quantum-safe defences are no longer optional."
Rikky Hasan, CEO of Post-Quantum, added: “STV’s vision and leadership in defence innovation make them the ideal partner.”
04/11/2025 12:10 PM
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Kara Swisher Would Rather Work for Sam Altman Than Mark Zuckerberg
Swedish embedded finance provider Froda has partnered with UK-based Triffin, an AI finance platform for consumer brands. Froda will embed flexible working capital directly into Triffin’s agentic finance workflows and make up to £100 million in data-driven financing available to UK businesses over the next three years.
Triffin, launched in 2025, builds AI-powered finance operations tools for consumer brands and operates as an agent of Plaid Financial Ltd, authorised by the UK Financial Conduct Authority.
The integration went live in October and is expected to make working capital more accessible and efficient for UK small businesses.
Froda provides embedded financing solutions to banks, fintechs, and payment providers across the Nordics, the UK, Ireland, and Germany.
The partnership embeds Froda’s automated lending technology directly into Triffin’s AI finance workflows, enabling small businesses to access financing instantly for challenges such as upfront inventory costs and long retail or wholesale payment cycles. It marks Froda’s fourth embedded finance deal in the UK and strengthens its footprint in one of Europe’s largest SME markets.
“SME lending is at an inflection point, we’re leaving behind legacy systems built for another era and moving toward a model that reflects how modern businesses actually operate.” said Olle Lundin, co-founder and CEO of Froda.
Triffin’s AI agents automate finance tasks including pay runs, invoicing, and forecasting. The integration of Froda’s financing aims to give brands real-time liquidity while maintaining operational efficiency.
“We’re thrilled to partner with Froda to deliver on our vision of AI finance operations for the next generation of consumer brands. Our customers can focus on growing their businesses without worrying about cash flow, and without being limited by outdated finance models,” said Franklyn Martin, co-founder and CEO of Triffin.
04/11/2025 12:10 PM
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04/11/2025 11:24 AM
Europe’s founders unite: new Fund aims to build Europe’s first trillion-dollar tech giants
Today over 100 founders and operators from across Europe have joined forces to launch United Founders, a new Pre-Seed and Seed-stage fund dedicated to supporting deeptech and emerging tech startups.
United Founders was created by Vít Horký — the entrepreneur behind B2B startup Brand Embassy (acquired by US software group Nice in 2019) — and Jakub Havrlant, founder of Rockaway Capital. They’ve brought together a founding team of former entrepreneurs operating across major European hubs, including the UK, France, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, and Central Europe.
The fund’s members include lead entrepreneurs from 26 countries including Florian Seibel, co-founder of Quantum Systems; and Christina Mace-Turner, known for her roles at Apple and Flipboard.
Also among the mentors are André Petry, founder of Tacto; Liina Laas, Partner at The Better Fund; and Michal Pechouček, former CTO of Avast. They are joined by leaders such as Laurent Philonenko, who previously held senior positions at Cisco and Asana, and Sébastien Borget, co-founder of The Sandbox.
The fund plans to write cheques of up to €1 million for startups working on hardware, dual-use innovation, and medtech solutions. Its early investments include Israeli startup Wonderful, which develops customer-facing automation tools, and German healthtech company Every Health.
“No European tech company has surpassed €100 billion in valuation in the past 50 years,” said Vít Horký, General Partner of United Founders.
“Our ambition is for Europe to create its own trillion-dollar giants like Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Nvidia, and Meta.”
“I’m delighted to join United Founders’ exceptional team and Founder Force community,” said Tony Kypreos, Managing Partner for the UK and Entrepreneur in Residence at the London Institute for Healthcare Engineering.
“This once-per-cycle moment of transformation demands a new kind of venture model and United Founders is delivering it across Europe.”
04/11/2025 12:10 PM
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Agate Sensors wins Swedish defence contract for physiology monitoring
Finnish deep tech startup Agate Sensors has secured an innovation contract with the Swedish Defence Materiel Administration (FMV) under its Military Innovation Program to demonstrate its hyperspectral sensing technology for human performance monitoring.
Founded in 2024 as a spin-out from Aalto University, Agate Sensors is headquartered in Espoo and backed by investors Voima Ventures and LIFTT. The company develops software-defined, chip-scale hyperspectral imaging solutions designed to deliver laboratory-grade optical sensing across multiple industries.
The agreement marks Agate Sensors’ first defence collaboration and the first external demonstration of its physiological monitoring technology in high-stress and high-risk military environments. The project aims to evaluate how the company’s ultra-miniaturised hyperspectral sensors can enhance understanding and decision-making in defence contexts.
Agate Sensors’ hyperspectral photoplethysmography (HPPG) system captures hundreds of light wavelengths to measure subtle biochemical and metabolic changes, going beyond conventional wearable sensors that rely on only a few wavelengths. The technology has been miniaturised into a fingertip-sized solid-state chip suitable for wearable integration.
“This isn’t an incremental step, it’s a new capability that changes how defence forces can understand, predict, and optimise human performance in the most demanding environments,” said Mikael Westerlund, Chief Business Officer at Agate Sensors.
The FMV collaboration will run until March 2026 and include technical validation, joint demonstrations, and presentations at Purple NECtar 2025 in the Netherlands and Defence Innovation Paris later this month. While the project focuses on wearable-based human monitoring, Agate Sensors said its hyperspectral platform could eventually support applications such as smart weapon optics, drone systems, and autonomous platforms.
Beyond defence, the company sees potential for its technology in sectors including consumer health, agriculture, food quality control, and product authentication.
04/11/2025 11:10 AM
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04/11/2025 10:52 AM
Bulgarian unicorn Payhawk plays down Brex's European challenge
The CEO of Bulgarian spend management unicorn Payhawk has played down the threat of US rival Brex, which recently announced it was launching across the EU, saying they were targeting different customer bases and that the EU was a fragmented market.
Payhawk CEO and co-founder Hristo Borisov also said that Payhawk was not pursuing an IPO in the near term, but was keeping its options open regarding a potential listing venue if and when it decided to go public.
Borisov said: “We’re keeping optionality. The US offers deep capital markets for large SaaS/fintech issuers; Europe is core to our business and talent footprint. We’ll choose the market that best matches our scale and investor base when the time is right.”
Payhawk, which became Bulgaria's first-ever unicorn in 2022, now employs around 480 people with offices in Sofia, London, Berlin, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Vilnius, Munich, Paris, New York and a soon-to-open new office in another European city.
Payhawk offers customers spend management services, so employees can manage their spending lifecycle, from company card to bills and invoices in one place.
Payhawk, founded in 2018, reported revenues of €23.4m in the year ending December 2024, up 85 per cent on the year, but it is not yet full-year profitable.
The boost in revenues was attributed to the startup offering a broader suite of services, on top of its corporate cards, including travel, accounts payable and procurement services.
Currently, around 95 per cent of Payhawk's revenues come from Europe.
Earlier this year, San Francisco-based spend management rival Brex said it was launching in the EU, having bagged an EU Payment Institution licence.
But Borisov played down the threat from Brex, saying the US firm had a different target market to Payhawk, targeting startups and small businesses with up to 40 people.
Borisov: "We are usually owning the mid-market space, the more mature companies, so that is a key differentiator."
Furthermore, he also pointed out that the EU was a fragmented market, with different rules across areas like payments and currencies.
He added: "You don’t have to win in one market, you need to win in 29.”
Big incumbents like American Express also have a major presence in the corporate card market.
In the US, Borisov said he expected Payhawk’s US revenues to grow as much as 30 per cent of its overall revenues in five years. He said US businesses were more amenable than European businesses to working with startups like Payhawk.
He said the two firms had gained traction by giving out free corporate cards to startups and small businesses.
He said: “The problem we have seen in the US is that the spend management market has been a market which has been heavily subsidised from a go-to-market perspective.
"From a price perspective, there are several companies that have already raised more than $3 billion. The way they compete is really heavily subsidising the product.
"What we have been trying to do in the US is if they are playing that game, to try and change the game, so instead of us offering a free product and trying to monetise the customer later on, we have tried to build something sustainable that customers are willing to pay with right now.”
Instead of offering its own corporate cards, Payhawk offers services on top of existing card giants like Visa and MasterCard.
Borisov also said that Payhawk, which has yet to make any acquisitions, was currently being turned off from making acquisitions by, generally speaking, prices being too high for potential targets, saying startups were clinging to their high valuations of 2021.
04/11/2025 11:10 AM
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Why henQ chooses the roads less travelled: Inside the Dutch VC’s new €67.6 million fund for the “odd ones out”
Venture capital investor henQ out of Amsterdam has successfully launched its fifth fund, having raised €67.57 million out of their €90 million target – with the intention of investing in 8-12 B2B software teams across Europe, with initial check sizes of €1-10 million.
For this fund, henQ substantially increased its base of entrepreneurial LPs with, among others, founders of companies such as Optiver, Exact, Mendix, SEOshop, Zivver and inSided, the latter four being henQ alumni. henQ’s investment philosophy is guided by their interest in investing in the “odd ones out” in European B2B software.
Mick Mackaay, Partner, on why henQ prefers to invest in markets that other investors see as boring or irrelevant: “there is a tendency among venture capitalists to focus on market predictions and macro analyses, and to invest based on rather specific takes on the future or ‘market theses.’
“At henQ, instead, we focus almost exclusively on the level of execution of the founders, here and now. All other investment criteria are trumped by this, they can never sway us to invest. Therefore, we are able to make very fast decisions, often in markets that are temporarily undervalued.”
The launch of henQ 5 aligns with a broader pattern of European venture funds in 2025 focusing on B2B software and adjacent enterprise-tech segments.
In the UK, Notion Capital announced a €114 million growth fund aimed at AI-driven software and FinTech, while Evantic Capital launched a €341 million debut fund to support B2B-AI companies.
Meanwhile, in the Netherlands – henQ’s home market – DFF Ventures secured €50 million (out of a €60 million target) for investments in vertical AI, recommerce and marketplaces.
Against this backdrop, henQ’s decision to build an independently funded, moderately sized vehicle focused on early-stage B2B software startups illustrates a more concentrated and entrepreneur-driven approach within the same ecosystem.
Rob Rousseau, Principal & Head of Investor Relations, shared with EU-Startups: “At henQ we do not want to scale through fund size or the number of people on our team. We will stay as lean and small as we can. At the same time, we want to get better every single year. And the quality and entrepreneurial background of the LPs in henQ 5 help us to do just that.”
Founded in 2004, henQ is venture capital fund for B2B software startups that support European founders with initial checks that range from €1 to €10 million. The VC remarks that they like “boring” or “too small” markets, unconventional business models, or any early-stage company that’s just a little different in one way or another.
henQ invests throughout Europe in Seed and Series A rounds of B2B software startups, and was an early investor in, among others, Mendix, Mews, Sendcloud, Zivver, Wemolo and imagino.
It is run by fund managers Mick Mackaay, Coen van Duiven, Rob Rousseau and Jan Andriessen.
Jan Andriessen, Partner, said: “A common misunderstanding is that a European top performing company looks exactly like its American counterpart, whereas it’s considerably more complicated to scale from Europe than it is in the US. Due to the complexity of running a European company, focus and founder time to unlock new geographies and products are key, and oftentimes simply deploying more money hurts more than it helps.
“In practice this means that, from a certain critical size onwards, many European B2B software companies can actually scale up rather cash efficiently and without much external funding. This fits perfectly with a more concentrated portfolio.”
henQ 5 has achieved almost the same size as its predecessor fund in its first close already (henQ 4), despite the fact that its team decided to raise the fund without institutional or government sponsored money, which constituted almost half of the committed capital for henQ 4.
That decision reflects henQ’s commitment to independently make investment decisions that are solely focused on long-term returns, as well as their view that a great fund with commensurate returns should not be dependent on public money.
But the proven formula will remain intact, meaning the same type and number of investments, in the same phase, with the same team.
henQ intends to deploy the fund in the next 5 years, by investing in 8-12 world class B2B software founding teams across Europe, with initial check sizes of €1-10 million – ideally in markets that most other founders and investors see as boring or irrelevant.
This means an average of two new investments per year, only a handful compared to other players in the same phase. henQ’s aim is for every deal to have an interesting return profile in and by itself – not that returns of the fund are driven by only a tiny fraction of the portfolio.
EU-Startups has previously featured henQ in several contexts, including its role within the Amsterdam startup ecosystem (EU-Startups, 2019) and as an investor in Formulate, a Stockholm-based AI retail promotions startup that raised €3.7 million (EU-Startups, 2020).
Deeptech mu-ray.tech, founded by experts from DESY and CERN, and deeptech GScan, which specialises in muon tomography, have closed their €325,000 initial investment round to commercialise disruptive Muon Beam Imaging (MBI) technology.
MBI, which utilises cutting-edge Laser Plasma Accelerator technology, is positioned as a potential game-changer across numerous industries:
Defence, aerospace, and car industries need more penetrative diagnostics for production and Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul (MRO).
Safer medical imaging, especially focused on sensitive patient groups, including children and pregnant patients, and the early diagnosis of cancer via chemical element analysis (calcium, iron, and iodine buildup)
"Muon radiation allows us to identify the composition of materials, creating completely new opportunities in the aerospace, automotive, defence industries, and in the long term, medical imaging. It will be the next revolution in the imaging domain after Computer Tomography (CT), Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and Positron Emission Tomography (PET),” noted co-founder Kristjan Põder, a researcher who currently leads the development of Laser Plasma Accelerator-based commercial applications at DESY in Hamburg.
According to Andi Hektor, co-founder and GScan veteran:
“In Hamburg, we are right next door to our potential partners and customers— Airbus, Philips, Rheinmetall, Siemens, and many others.
This proximity allows us to validate and deploy the technology much faster. In Tallinn, we are building our software and AI team enjoying the dynamic startup ecosystem and software engineering talent pool in Estonia,”
MBI has established ties within the Cambridge and Oxford deeptech ecosystem, developed through research and work with GScan, which are critical for attracting top UK talent.
The investment was led by Mart Maasik and Matti Hautsalo at Nordic Science Investments, with participation from Toomas Bergmann at Peaksjah and Swiss CERN angel investor Michele Battistin. The startup also received support from the Estonian Business and Innovation Agency.
According to lead investor, Mart Maasik, Partner at Nordic Science Investments, Kristjan Põder and Andi Hektor possess a unique combination of scientific expertise and business acumen:
“As a deeptech investor, we are excited by mu-ray.tech's unique combination of world-class competence —bringing together AI, advanced sensors, high-power photonics, and particle physics with proven commercial expertise.”
The funding will fuel the company’s mission to deliver safer, penetrative 3D imaging capabilities with the power to identify the chemical composition of imaged materials.
Since 2021 to date, the European AI tech ecosystem has experienced strong growth, particularly in
funding volume. According to the Tech.eu database, after a significant drop in
investment activity in 2022, the market saw a notable recovery in 2023,
followed by continuous year-over-year growth in funding.
Over the five-year
period, the total amount of investment nearly doubled (from €2.2 billion in
2021 to €4.6 billion in the first ten months of 2025), while the number of deals remained relatively
stable. The average deal size more than doubled, indicating growing investor
confidence in scaling existing companies rather than supporting early-stage
startups, a shift aimed at ensuring sustainable growth.
In this
period, European AI startups had collectively raised around €13.2 billion in
funding, with France, Germany, and the UK emerging as key development hubs.
French AI companies alone raised over €4.1 billion, followed by Germany with €3.4
billion and the UK with €2.5 billion. This influx of capital has fueled a new
generation of European AI “unicorns” and even “decacorns,” showing that
Europe’s AI scene is maturing rapidly and becoming globally competitive.
Looking at
the 2025 data (first ten months), investments in AI companies amounted to €4.6
billion. This year was particularly marked by mega funding rounds, such as the €1.7 billion investment in France’s Mistral AI in the third quarter of 2025, led by
corporate giants ASML and Nvidia. That single deal alone drove a significant
growth (approximately 37 per cent) in European AI funding in 2025.
The most
highly funded European AI companies between 2021 and 2025 span a broad range of
applications, from generative AI content creation to enterprise automation and defence
technology. These companies illustrate how Europe’s AI strengths have
diversified and deepened, confirming that Europe now has its own major AI
technology players.
Mistral AI is a Paris-based AI startup, founded in 2023, which focuses on large language models. It provides an enterprise platform to build, fine-tune, and deploy large language models, agents, and multimodal systems. Tools like AI Studio, Le Chat, and Mistral Code support search, creation, coding, and automation, with deployment on-prem, in the cloud, or at the edge. The company offers services for bespoke pre-training and domain specialisation, emphasises privacy and data control, and serves global customers across technology, defence, automotive, and finance.
So far, the company has raised over €2.8 billion. Backed by prominent VCs (a16z, Lightspeed) and European funds (BPI France), Mistral is Europe’s leading contender in foundational AI models.
In its latest funding round closed in September 2025, Mistral raised €1.7 billion, lifting its valuation to around €11.7 billion. The round marks the start of a strategic partnership with ASML, which has taken a major stake in the company.
Helsing is a Munich-based defence AI company focused on software for sensor fusion, electronic warfare, and autonomy. The company develops AI-enabled capabilities across air, land, sea, and space in support of defence and national security.
Helsing’s systems fuse sensor and battlefield data, network existing platforms, and provide resilient precision effects. Its portfolio includes strike and ISR/strike coordination tools designed for contested electronic-warfare environments. The company partners with European governments and the defence industry and emphasises stringent ethical and safety standards.
Founded in 2021, Helsing has raised more than €1.3 billion across several large financing rounds (including €600 million raised in June 2025) to expand product development and research, accelerate deployment of its all-domain defence technologies, and strengthen European technological sovereignty.
Notable investors include Prima Materia (Daniel Ek), General Catalyst, Accel, and Lightspeed Venture Partners, alongside strategic collaboration with Saab and programmes with customers across Europe.
UiPath is a global company that enables enterprises to automate complex business processes by integrating AI-agents, robots, people, and models into a unified automation platform.
Founded in 2005 in Bucharest and now headquartered in New York, UiPath serves thousands of customers across more than 100 countries, helping organisations transform how they operate through advanced automation and AI.
The company’s flagship product, UiPath Platform™, supports the full lifecycle of automation, from process design and deployment to orchestration and management, with a strong emphasis on governance, security, and scalability. UiPath’s mission is to “uplevel knowledge work so more people can work more creatively, collaboratively, and strategically.”
In early 2021, the company raised $750 million to strengthen its balance sheet ahead of its listing. After that, the company listed on the NYSE in April 2021, raising approximately $1.34 billion at $56 per share. Since the IPO, UiPath has focused on public-company execution, broad platform expansion, ecosystem building, and large-enterprise penetration.
Poolside is a next-generation AI company focused on building foundation models, multi-agent systems, and developer-centric tools to accelerate software engineering in enterprise environments. The company combines model development and deployment into a unified stack. It offers proprietary models such as Malibu and Point, developer surfaces including IDE extensions and binaries, and enterprise-grade infrastructure supporting deployment in private clouds, VPCs or air-gapped environments.
Poolside AI partners with major cloud providers to enable corporations to fine-tune its models on proprietary codebases and deploy them with strict security and governance.
Over the past five years, Poolside has raised around $626 million aimed at scaling infrastructure and models ahead of its first commercial product. Poolside is backed by a group of prominent global investors, including Bain Capital Ventures, along with DST Global, NVIDIA, Felicis Ventures, and Bpifrance.
Aleph Alpha is a Heidelberg-based AI research and development company (founded 2019) focused on explainability and “sovereign” AI for European industry and government use. It builds human-centric generative-AI systems with an emphasis on security, transparency, and regulatory compliance.
Its platform, centred on the full-stack PhariaAI suite, supports customisation and deployment of advanced models in controlled environments (on-premise, cloud, hybrid, and air-gapped), enabling customers to retain data and IP sovereignty. Aleph Alpha develops the Luminous family of large language models and related components and provides transparency tools to support enterprise evaluation and governance.
To date, Aleph Alpha has raised around €500 million, including a Series B round in November 2023 supported by investors such as Bosch Ventures, Schwarz Group, and IPAI, to accelerate research and deployment in regulated sectors.
Synthesia is a London-based AI video company whose platform enables organisations to generate professional videos from text using lifelike avatars and voiceovers, without the need for traditional production resources. Founded in 2017 by researchers from UCL, Stanford, TUM, and Cambridge, Synthesia is used in enterprise communications, training, and localisation and includes governance features for large-scale deployment.
The company has introduced “Synthesia 2.0,” expanded enterprise tooling, and continues to advance its research in synthetic media.
Since 2021, Synthesia has raised over €485 million across multiple financing rounds to support platform development and international expansion. In 2025, the company accelerated its growth, completing $380 million in financing ($180 million in January and $200 million in October), resulting in a $4 billion post-money valuation. Notable investors include NEA (Series D lead), Accel, GV (Google Ventures), NVentures (NVIDIA), Kleiner Perkins, IVP, ICONIQ Growth, WiL, Atlassian Ventures, and PSP Growth.
DeepL is a language-AI company that develops an enterprise platform for translation and writing, offering products such as DeepL Translator, DeepL Write, DeepL Voice, and the DeepL API, plus integrations with a range of business tools. The platform places particular emphasis on data privacy, user control, and flexible deployment for organisations. Founded in 2017 and headquartered in Cologne, DeepL serves customers globally across multiple sectors and continues to expand its specialised language models and features such as glossaries.
Over the past five years, DeepL has raised over $400 million in two funding rounds (January 2023 and May 2024) to support R&D, product innovation, hiring, global expansion, and go-to-market efforts. Notable investors include Index Ventures, ICONIQ Growth, Teachers’ Venture Growth (Ontario Teachers’), IVP, Atomico, WiL, and Bessemer Venture Partners.
ElevenLabs is a London-based Voice AI research and deployment company that develops advanced audio models for text-to-speech, voice cloning, dubbing, and conversational agents in over 70 languages. Its platform enables creators, developers and enterprises to generate realistic, emotionally rich voices and deploy them across content localisation, podcasts, customer support, gaming, education and accessibility use-cases. The company’s technology powers voice agents, multiplies language coverage, and helps users scale audio creation while reducing engineering overhead.
Founded in 2022, the company raised over $290 million, including $180 million raised in January 2025, which valued the company at $3.3 billion. ElevenLabs is backed by several leading global investors, including Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), ICONIQ Growth, NEA, and Sequoia Capital, which have participated across multiple rounds.
n8n is a Berlin-based, source-available AI workflow automation platform that enables technical teams to build multi-step automations and AI agents through a visual, node-based editor, deployable self-hosted or in the cloud. The platform combines more than 400 integrations, guardrails, and optional custom code to orchestrate applications, data, and LLMs across business processes. Founded in 2019, n8n operates under a fair-code (Sustainable Use) license.
Over the past five years, n8n has raised approximately $240 million, including a $180 million raise in October 2025 that valued the company at $2.5 billion. Notable investors include Accel (Series C lead), Meritech, Redpoint, Visionaries Club, NVIDIA’s NVentures, and Deutsche Telekom’s T.Capital, while earlier backers include Highland Europe, HV Capital, Sequoia, and Felicis.
Stability AI is a London-based generative AI company founded in 2019. It develops foundational models that span image, video, 3D, audio, and language modalities, most notably its flagship Stable Diffusion, and offers a suite of tools via a cloud-native platform for enterprise and creator workflows. Stability AI emphasises open access to its model weights and advocates for the democratisation of AI, allowing developers, creatives, and businesses to build and deploy generative-AI applications with flexible licensing and deployment options.
The company is backed by a diverse group of investors, including Coatue Management, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Greycroft, Sound Ventures, and O’Shaughnessy Ventures, with WPP also making a strategic investment and partnership agreement. Over the past five years, Stability AI has raised over $230 million to accelerate open models across image, language, audio, video, and 3D.
04/11/2025 10:10 AM
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04/11/2025 09:16 AM
With hopes of bridging the AI “trust gap”, Britain’s Vigilant AI.ai raises €665k for their AI teammates
Vigilant AI.ai, the Derby-headquartered tech platform that delivers AI teammates designed for regulated businesses, has raised €665k in pre-Seed funding to grow the team and accelerate the move from pilots to revenue-generating deployments.
The round was led by B2B SaaS investor Haatch. The round combines funds from three Haatch-managed sources including funding from Haatch, the East Midlands Combined County Authority and British Business Bank.
Mark Wood, Co-founder & CTO of Vigilant AI.ai, shares: “As a trusted advisor to financial services boards, I kept seeing the same pattern: teams got excited about the potential of generative AI but then hit a wall when asked about governance and compliance. We founded Vigilant AI.ai because the toolset to answer those questions simply didn’t exist.
“Our platform enables people in the business to onboard AI Teammates where work happens whilst real-time guardrails and audit logs protect and govern. Customers gain AI productivity at speed, with regulatory compliant trust.”
This pre-Seed investment in Vigilant AI.ai comes amid a wave of UK startups building AI agent and governance platforms for regulated and enterprise environments.
In August 2025, Archestra secured €2.8 million to help companies deploy secure AI agents that manage internal data sources safely. The following month, Zango AI raised €4 million to address regulatory complexity in financial compliance through autonomous AI systems. Also in July, Magentic attracted €4.6 million for enterprise automation, while Synthesized closed a €17 million + Series A to scale its AI testing and data governance tools.
Together, these announcements illustrate an active 2025 funding environment for UK-based AI startups addressing trust, compliance and workflow integration in enterprise settings.
While Vigilant AI.ai’s pre-Seed amount is smaller, its focus on real-time governance for regulated teams positions it within the same trend toward provable-trust AI solutions. The company’s Derby base also reinforces the UK’s strength in producing compliance-focused B2B SaaS innovators outside the London core.
Mike Anyfantakis, Co-founder & CPO of Vigilant AI.ai, adds: “We’re already finalising our first pilots, and it is clear that clients want to go live fast. They are keen to create and collaborate with their AI teammates in their everyday work, at speed. By making compliance an always-on, real-time feature, we give financial services and other regulated firms confidence to deploy AI Agents in their team workflows. We’re excited by the feedback received from early customers and looking to further develop our product in collaboration with our partners.”
Founded in 2024, Vigilant AI.ai delivers AI Teammates that embed generative AI into enterprise workflows with real-time compliance guardrails. The company says their mission is to unlock the potential of AI whilst ensuring every action is provably compliant.
Vigilant AI.ai aims to create an immutable audit trail, letting teams work faster without breaching policy.
AI promises double-digit efficiency gains, yet most regulated firms still face a “trust gap”: they struggle to prove every AI action is policy-safe – this is where Vigilant AI.ai looks to make a name for themselves.
Fred Soneya, Partner at Haatch, adds: “We back Founders solving deep, universal pains in B2B SaaS. Vigilant AI.ai tackles the biggest blocker to enterprise GenAI adoption: provable trust. Their real-time compliance layer is exactly what our fintech and financial-services network has been asking for.”
The fresh capital will be used to:
Hire key engineering and go-to-market talent.
Productise the platform for broad rollout – adding intuitive controls, enterprise-grade security certifications and self-service onboarding.
Convert in-flight pilots into revenue in Q4 2025 and launch additional deployment with forward-thinking regulated businesses.
