Gothenburg-based energy innovator Liquid Wind is charging ahead with its next-generation eFuel production facility, securing €3.6 million in support from the Swedish Energy Agency’s Industriklivet programme.

The backing will fund pre-engineering for what is set to be one of Europe’s largest eMethanol plants, based in Örnsköldsvik, Sweden.

The funding forms part of the EU-backed Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), with Industriklivet designed to accelerate Sweden’s green industrial transformation. The grant was awarded based on the project’s alignment with national emissions reduction goals and its potential to enable significant fossil fuel substitution in hard-to-abate sectors such as maritime shipping, aviation, and the chemical industry.

“We are pleased to receive the Industriklivet support for our project in Örnsköldsvik. It represents a strong commitment from the Swedish government that not only accelerates the transition to fossil-free eFuel production in Sweden but also sends a powerful signal to international investors and offtakers. It’s a clear endorsement of our vision to scale local and resilient eFuel solutions in Europe,” says Claes Fredriksson, CEO and founder of Liquid Wind.

Founded in 2017, Liquid Wind is carving out a leading position in the European eFuel landscape. The company develops commercial-scale facilities that produce green methanol – synthetic fuel derived from renewable electricity and captured carbon dioxide.

Unlike traditional fuels, eMethanol offers a carbon-neutral alternative, critical for decarbonising sectors that can’t easily electrify.

The Örnsköldsvik project will be the second such facility for the startup but is expected to double the production capacity of its predecessor. Once operational, it aims to produce around 100,000 tons of eMethanol annually by combining green hydrogen (generated via electrolysis using renewable electricity) with approximately 150,000 tons of biogenic CO₂ captured from Övik Energi’s bio-powered combined heat and power (CHP) plant.

In doing so, it could displace an estimated 200,000 tons of CO₂e emissions each year.

In a demonstration of circular and collaborative energy systems, the site will be integrated with Övik Energi, a regional utility and long-term partner to Liquid Wind. The integration allows for not only efficient resource use but also establishes a resilient local supply chain for sustainable fuel.

“I am very pleased to announce our new collaboration with Övik Energi. We have already been working together for a few years, so we are glad that this new partnership has now come together. We see a very strong desire from customers and fuel users to transition to sustainable fuels, something our facility in Örnsköldsvik will contribute significantly to. Our new eFuel project is already underway, and we are looking forward to bringing it to reality,” noted Fredriksson.

The Örnsköldsvik plant, is expected to be a blueprint for scaling similar facilities across Europe. Its planned capacity marks a considerable step forward in the sector, especially as the green methanol market is forecast to explode – from a projected €3–5 billion in 2025 to as much as €20 billion by 2030, according to projections from the IEA, IHS, and the IMO. The chemical sector alone is expected to comprise 32% of this demand.

Roland Nordin, CEO of Övik Energi, added: “We’re thrilled that Liquid Wind remains dedicated to setting up large-scale eFuel production in Örnsköldsvik. We are better positioned than ever to contribute to the green transition, thanks to our ability to operate our combined heat and power plant entirely on renewable energy. Together with Liquid Wind, we are strengthening our sustainability initiatives in Örnsköldsvik and fostering the industrial collaboration that happens every day at the High Coast Innovation Park business cluster.”

As Europe ramps up its climate ambitions, Liquid Wind’s eFuel model – pairing renewable hydrogen production with local carbon capture – offers a replicable path to greener fuels at scale.

The European Union has set ambitious targets to phase out fossil fuels in line with its European Green Deal, aiming for climate neutrality by 2050 and at least a 55% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 under the Fit for 55 package. These frameworks promote large-scale deployment of renewable energy, clean hydrogen, and sustainable fuels across transport and industry.

Through initiatives such as the REPowerEU plan, the EU also seeks to accelerate the transition away from imported fossil fuels, fostering domestic innovation in eFuel and carbon-recycling technologies – goals Liquid Wind could prove vital in.

EU-Startups previously featured Liquid Wind in a 2024 article detailing its €44 million Series C funding round, which focused on scaling commercial eMethanol production and expanding its network of industrial partners across Northern Europe.

The post Liquid Wind advances Europe’s eFuel ambitions with €3.6 million to advance Swedish eMethanol facility appeared first on EU-Startups.

Every enterprise runs on B2B transactions - the purchase orders, shipping notices, invoices, payments, and claims that form the heartbeat of modern commerce. When these flows align, shelves are stocked, supply chains move, and customers are happy. When they don’t, the cost is both immediate and compounding.

For decades, electronic data interchange (EDI) systems provided the backbone for these flows. Today, however, new layers of technology, from APIs and managed file transfer to event streaming and cloud-based ERP, have created a hybrid landscape that is faster but far more fragmented.

Each system captures part of the truth, but none can see the whole story. The result is a hidden loss that drains enterprise value every year.

The invisible cost of disconnection

Many organisations believe their current tools provide full visibility. Yet, in practice, most still struggle to reconcile transactions end to end.

Files move, APIs fire, and dashboards go green. But behind the scenes, purchase orders go missing, invoices don’t match, and payments stall without explanation.

The result is what experts increasingly call the assurance gap. This is the space between knowing something happened and proving it happened correctly and completely.

Across industries, that gap has measurable financial and operational consequences:

• Between one and five percent of EBITDA is lost each year through chargebacks, deductions, and disputes.
• Compliance teams spend weeks preparing audits because records cannot be reconciled across systems.
• Modernisation projects stall because leaders fear losing visibility during migrations.
• Partners and regulators lose trust when continuity cannot be demonstrated.

How confident are most enterprises that they could prove every transaction completed as intended?

Monitoring is not assurance

Most enterprises assume that their combination of monitoring and observability tools covers these scenarios. The problem is that these platforms only provide technical insight - not business assurance.

• EDI gateways confirm delivery but purge records after 30 days.
• API platforms show success codes but not whether transactions match downstream.
• Observability tools highlight performance metrics but not whether shipments, invoices, and payments align.

The gap between activity and truth remains.

“In complex B2B ecosystems, visibility alone isn’t enough, ” writes Andrew Mallaband. “Enterprises now need proof of continuity - the ability to demonstrate that every transaction completes, reconciles, and complies. ”

A new layer of assurance

This challenge has given rise to a new capability known as B2B flow intelligence, a unifying layer that provides cross-system visibility, reconciliation, and auditability.

It does not replace existing systems but overlays them to correlate, track, and prove the continuity of transactions across multiple technologies.

At the data layer, B2B flow intelligence correlates transaction identifiers, timestamps, and acknowledgements across systems to reconstruct an unbroken lineage from order to settlement.

At its core, B2B flow intelligence delivers:

• Unified lineage - linking all data from order to payment across EDI, APIs, ERPs, and partner portals.
• Real-time exception detection - spotting missing acknowledgements, duplicates, or mismatches instantly.
• Contextual routing - sending exceptions to the right resolver with full traceability.
• Immutable history - creating long-term, tamper-proof records for audits and regulators.

This combination turns reconciliation from a reactive burden into proactive assurance.

Industry snapshots

The effects of the assurance gap vary by sector, but the underlying cause is the same, fragmented visibility.

In retail, peak trading periods such as Black Friday reveal how fragile order-to-cash continuity has become. A single missing shipping notice can trigger millions in chargebacks and strained supplier relations.

In pharmaceuticals, a missing chain-of-custody record can delay shipments or regulatory approvals, disrupting both revenue and patient care.

In banking, complex payment modernisation programmes, such as the migration to ISO 20022, demand complete reconciliation across legacy and modern systems to avoid costly compliance breaches.

These examples highlight how a purely technical view of system health no longer guarantees business continuity.

What enterprises gain

Organisations implementing B2B flow intelligence are realising quantifiable outcomes:

• Leaner operations - 50 to 70 percent reduction in reconciliation effort.
• Margin protection - 1 to 5 percent of EBITDA safeguarded.
• Modernisation with confidence - ERP and API migrations delivered on time, without data loss.
• Audit readiness - 60 percent faster audit preparation with immutable lineage.
• Stronger trust - partners, customers, and regulators share the same source of truth.

CFOs see measurable protection of margin. CIOs gain confidence that transformation programmes will not disrupt business continuity. Compliance teams eliminate the manual scramble before every audit. The value is enterprise-wide.

From visibility to proof

The adoption of B2B flow intelligence signals a broader shift across industries, from monitoring systems to proving outcomes. Monitoring shows that something moved. Observability shows how it moved. Assurance proves it moved correctly. That assurance is fast becoming a board-level priority. It protects profit, strengthens compliance, and restores trust across the digital supply chain.

A growing movement

Several enterprise platforms are now developing capabilities in this space, bringing together data correlation, lineage, and governance.

One example is meshIQ, which has extended its operational intelligence suite to deliver cross-system reconciliation and assurance for hybrid B2B environments.

While approaches may differ, the direction of travel is clear. Enterprises no longer just need to observe. They need to prove.

FemTech startup Unfabled out of London has just raised an additional €1.4 million for their women’s health platform, as well as expanding into 737 Boots stores across the UK – bringing total Seed funding to just over €3.3 million.

Among the investors is Arāya Ventures, founded by Managing Partner Rupa Popat and backed by British Business Investments (BBI). Notably, this is BBI’s first-ever commitment to a solo GP. Investment into Unfabled has been made from their Arāya Super Angel Fund, a community-powered model that mirrors Unfabled’s own DNA of women supporting women.

Founder Hannah Samano said: “Women’s health has been sidelined for far too long. At Unfabled, we’ve shown that when you truly listen to women, you don’t just create better products – you create a movement. Boots expanding our footprint by over 1000% proves that women’s health is no longer niche. We’re proud to be building a brand, a community, and a category that retailers and investors can no longer ignore.”

Unfabled’s raise reflects continued investor interest in Europe’s women’s health and wellness ecosystem in 2025.

Similar activity has been seen across the continent, with Paris-based Solence securing €1.6 million to expand its AI-driven therapeutics app for PCOS, and Stockholm-headquartered Hormona closing a €7.8 million round to scale its hormone tracking platform. Even adjacent segments, such as men’s digital wellness, have attracted investor attention – as shown by Dutch startup Fellos raising €2 million for its telehealth services.

Within this context, Unfabled’s mix of female-led capital, community-powered product development, and rapid retail expansion positions it as one of the UK’s most visible contributors to the next phase of accessible, consumer-focused women’s health innovation.

Rupa Popat, General Partner at Arāya Ventures, added: “Unfabled represents the future of women’s health: community-driven, culturally relevant, and commercially explosive. Hannah has built unparalleled momentum, with DTC growth that has translated directly into retail success. We are thrilled to back her and this brand at such a pivotal stage.”

The company says that women’s health has long been underserved, underfunded, and treated as a niche. Despite making up half the population, only 5% of health research is dedicated to women’s health, with just 1% focused on non-cancer-related conditions. Yet the need is undeniable.

According to the company, more than 90% of women report experiencing difficult symptoms related to their cycle – from cramps and fatigue to hormonal imbalances – without adequate support.

Funded in 2021 by Hannah Samano, Unfabled was created with the drive to change that. A platform created “by women, for women“, Unfabled is powered by community, data, and lived experience.

Additionally, 67% of investments into Unfabled have come from female investors, compared to an industry average where just 14% of angel investors are women and only 15% of senior VC roles are held by women.

Retail chain Boots introduced six of the brand’s Essentials supplements into 50 stores in December 2024. The brand’s performance has now led Boots to expand Unfabled’s footprint by over 1000%, bringing the range to 737 stores nationwide. The brand was handpicked as one of the first entrants into Boots Ignite, the retailer’s accelerator programme for trending and viral brands.

The Unfabled Essentials range include supplements for bloating, cramps, low energy, sleep, and stress, is also proving popular.

At the heart of the brand is Unfabled Labs, a community-led methodology where trends are spotted, tested, and validated before being rapidly translated into products. This model looks to ensure that every supplement Unfabled creates is backed by both science and consumer demand.

The post “By women, for women”: London-based Unfabled turns community insight into retail success with €3 million appeared first on EU-Startups.

As enterprise businesses expand across borders, one quiet challenge can stall growth: payments.

From managing multiple acquirers to navigating PSD2, local payment methods, and high decline rates, scaling transactions is rarely simple. That’s where payment orchestration — and players like Akurateco — step in. The European-founded white-label payment software company has built a Payment Orchestration Platform designed to connect, route, and optimise every transaction across providers and markets. Instead of managing dozens of direct integrations, merchants and PSPs get a single, intelligent layer that automates routing, handles cascading, monitors fraud, and reconciles payments in real time.

“Payments shouldn’t be a barrier to global expansion,” says Akurateco’s team. “Our platform allows merchants to control their infrastructure, cut costs, and boost approval rates without rebuilding from scratch.”

Why it matters for European scaleups

For European businesses, the complexity runs deep. Consumers pay differently in every market: iDEAL in the Netherlands, SEPA in Germany, Bancontact in Belgium, cards and wallets elsewhere. Add SCA requirements under PSD2, and approval rates can quickly drop.

Akurateco’s orchestration layer solves this by automatically routing transactions to the best-performing acquirer or gateway based on geography, card type, or performance data. If one route fails, cascading logic retries instantly through another connection, recovering otherwise lost revenue.
Early adopters have seen higher approval rates and significant savings in processing costs.

Inside Akurateco’s payment orchestration platform

Akurateco’s Payment Orchestration Platform provides a ready-made, customizable backbone for enterprise payments.

Among its standout capabilities:

• Smart routing and cascading: Automated transaction routing that selects the optimal acquirer for each payment, improving conversion and lowering decline rates.
• 600+ ready integrations: Access to global acquirers, APMs, and PSPs through one connection.
• Dedicated payment team as a service: Solves complex technical challenges with step-by-step guidance from dedicated account managers and the tech experts.
• 150+ configurable fraud filters: Real-time risk management and adaptive fraud detection.
• Comprehensive reporting and reconciliation: Unified dashboards for finance, operations, and risk teams.
• Tokenisation and recurring billing: Secure handling of customer credentials, supporting subscriptions and repeat payments.

Enterprise clients using Akurateco’s orchestration layer report up to 30% higher approval rates, faster time-to-market when adding new providers, and measurable reductions in transaction costs.

Built on a modular, API-first architecture, the platform supports both SaaS and on-premise deployments, giving merchants full control over infrastructure, compliance, and data sovereignty – a critical requirement in regulated industries.

Built for global reach and local relevance

For enterprise merchants, success in Europe depends on localisation, offering preferred payment methods in every market while staying compliant with PSD2, SCA, and local data-privacy rules.

Akurateco simplifies this by enabling merchants to instantly activate local providers like iDEAL, SEPA, Bancontact, or Sofort within its orchestration layer, without reintegration or additional development effort.

This flexibility also extends beyond Europe. With connectivity to over 600 providers globally, merchants can enter new regions, from the Middle East to Latin America, while keeping full operational oversight from a single platform.

Why enterprises are re-architecting their payment stacks now

Payment orchestration is no longer a “nice-to-have.” As digital commerce volumes rise and alternative payment methods grow, maintaining dozens of direct integrations is unsustainable.
For enterprises, the strategic advantage lies in control and agility – the ability to switch providers instantly, test routing strategies, and adapt to new regulations or market shifts without disrupting operations.

With payment orchestration, enterprises regain ownership of their infrastructure rather than relying entirely on third-party gateways or acquirers for performance and reliability.

The future: AI-driven optimisation and beyond

Akurateco’s roadmap points toward even deeper automation. The company is exploring AI-driven routing, where the system learns from real-time approval data to predict the best-performing route per transaction, and machine-learning fraud detection models that minimise false declines without adding friction.

As real-time payments, open banking, and account-to-account rails expand across Europe, orchestration platforms like Akurateco’s will become the connective tissue enabling enterprises to integrate these innovations seamlessly.

Conclusion: Turning payments into a growth engine

For enterprise merchants, payments are more than an operational necessity – they’re a strategic growth lever.
Akurateco’s Payment Orchestration Platform empowers large businesses to optimise every transaction, improve approval rates, and scale globally with confidence.

In a landscape where every percentage point in conversion counts, orchestrating payments intelligently may be the difference between growth and stagnation.

The post Akurateco: Powering Europe’s next wave of scalable payments (Sponsored) appeared first on EU-Startups.

Quivo, a Wien-based technology and logistics scale-up, has secured a €5.2 million strategic investment from Qatar’s leading logistics provider GWC, marking the beginning of a joint expansion into the Gulf region.

The capital injection will fuel Quivo’s move into Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia, aiming to address the demand for professional e-commerce fulfilment services in one of the world’s fastest-growing digital commerce zones.

Co-founder and CEO, Christoph Glatzl, adds: “Together we are expanding a network that not only facilitates international brands’ entry into the Gulf States, but also enables seamless intra-GCC expansion, giving them genuine access to a rapidly growing market of millions of digitally savvy consumers for the first time.”

Quivo’s strategic investment and its expansion into the Gulf region align with a wider 2025 trend of European logistics and fulfilment startups securing capital to enhance cross-border capabilities.

In Portugal, Lyzer raised over €10 million to scale its e-commerce fulfilment network, while in the UK, Relay and HIVED secured €33.4 million and €35.6 million respectively to grow technology-driven parcel delivery infrastructure.

Against this backdrop, Quivo’s partnership stands out for combining strategic investment with operational integration – embedding its fulfilment technology within GWC’s Gulf network. This hybrid model positions Quivo between Europe’s software-driven logistics innovators and established regional infrastructure providers, illustrating how fulfilment scale-ups are increasingly forming cross-market partnerships to extend reach beyond Europe.

“With GWC we have found the ideal partner to bring our fulfilment expertise to one of the most dynamic regions in the world,” says Georg Weiß, Co-founder and CEO of Quivo.

Founded in 2017 with a mission to streamline logistics for fast-growing e-commerce brands, Quivo offers integrations with over 40 shop systems and ERP platforms, operated by a team of over 400 employees serving more than 1,500 companies globally.

Quivo is currently operating six warehouses across Austria, Germany, France, the UK, and the USA. The collaboration with GWC brings fresh capital and a crucial regional footprint, as the Gulf’s e-commerce market accelerates toward a projected USD 47 billion by 2029 – according to the Seamless GCC Market Report 2024.

The first major milestone of the partnership is already in place: GWC’s warehouse in Qatar has been equipped with Quivo’s software, integrating their proprietary fulfillment technology. Rollouts in Dubai and Saudi Arabia are planned over the coming months, creating a tri-hub network that opens up the region to international e-commerce brands.

GWC’s investment not only provides Quivo with critical regional infrastructure and market access but also benefits GWC by enhancing its logistics portfolio with much-needed e-commerce capabilities.

The integration will enable both companies’ clients to seamlessly scale between Europe, the US, and the Gulf, a region where internet penetration now exceeds 99% and where consumers are young, mobile-first, and increasingly turning to online shopping.

“E-commerce is one of the fastest-growing sectors in the GCC region,” said Matthew Kearns, Acting Group CEO of GWC. “As the regional market leader, we are constantly expanding our offering. With Quivo at our side, we now provide customers with a fully integrated fulfillment solution – covering everything from storage and processing to delivery.”

The partnership is timely: the Seamless GCC Market Report 2024 projects that Saudi Arabia’s e-commerce sector will grow from USD 10 billion in 2022 to USD 23 billion by 2027. The UAE is expected to climb from USD 12.3 billion to 17.2 billion in the same period, with Qatar doubling from USD 1.8 billion to 3.5 billion.

Quivo’s clients, including brands like Tractive – a European pet tracker provider – have already leveraged its scalable logistics infrastructure to expand across markets like the UK and the US. By integrating with GWC’s vast regional network, Quivo is now positioned to do the same in the Gulf States.

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Most small and medium-sized businesses face a dangerous paradox: they need robust Identity and Access Management to protect their data and systems, but the traditional IAM platforms designed for enterprises — with their six-month implementations, mandatory consultant fees, and requirement to upgrade every software tool to expensive enterprise plans — aren't built for companies of their size.

I came across Stackbob.ai during a recent visit to Lviv for the IT Arena conference. It's a Ukraine-founded startup that uses AI to help SMEs and mid-market companies overcome the cybersecurity poverty line, where IAM has traditionally been too complex, too slow, and too costly for anyone but large enterprises.

The company won two prizes in the pitch competition at IT Arena 2025:  3rd prize in the Business Track and the most interesting startup of the IT Arena.

It's built a cybersecurity platform that helps businesses manage employee access across all the software tools they use.

I spoke to CEO Ole Shved to learn more. 

From $100M exit team to starting over in wartime Ukraine

According to Shved, everything really started ten years ago. He'd worked at several B2B startups and at his last company before StackBob, he met his current co-founder, Yarik Rozum, when he hired him as one of the lead engineers. 

The duo worked together for about three years. That company—called Ad-Lib—was later acquired by Smartly.io for around $100 million. 

He admits, "We were employees there, not founders, but it was still an incredible experience being part of an exit." At the end of 2021, Rozum went to work for a Seattle-based company, and while Shved (originally from Kyiv) was figuring out what to do next in Lviv, Russia's invasion of UK started.

"When the war broke out, everything changed. We started helping people evacuate, driving them to the borders, and buying supplies for the army.

For a while, I should go and fight, because everyone around me was so motivated. But there were long lines everywhere to join, and a friend of mine in Kyiv told me it was the same there. Eventually, when Kyiv became safer, I went back. When I got back to Kyiv, I met with Yarik again.

He said, 'We've always wanted to do something together, and it turns out life is finite — you never know when you might die. Maybe we should do it now.' And that's how StackBob started."

Breaking the "API and SSO tax"

SStackbob's proprietary AI agents automate access and license management without SAML SSO or SCIM API integrations, cutting implementation from months to days and making enterprise-grade IAM affordable to companies that were previously locked out.

tackbob's focus is on small and midsize businesses —" we call it breaking the cybersecurity poverty line, shared Shved. 

"Those are the organisations that need protection and automation but can't afford or manage enterprise-level IAM systems."

According to Shved, existing IAM platforms like Okta, Microsoft Entra ID, and others all share three significant issues because they're built on older generations of technology.

"The first problem is what we call the API and SSO tax. If you're a midsize company and want to manage employee access centrally across all your tools, you have to upgrade every single one of those tools to its enterprise plan — because the connectivity features are locked there.

So you pay for the most expensive plan just to get SSO access."

"It's basically a massive vendor lock-in, he shared, asserting, "I sometimes call it a cartel."

"It's even become standard advice for startups: 'Just add SSO and call it an enterprise plan, then charge two, three, or four times more.

For midsize companies, it's ridiculous—they can't afford that. It's a huge burden."

The second problem is the setup complexity. Implementing these systems takes months — sometimes six, nine, or even twelve months — and requires highly skilled engineers or consultants.  Shved shared that this is standard for many Series A or Series B companies.

"And in the end, you still have parts of the stack that can't be integrated because there's no compatible protocol. So you end up managing some tools manually or using spreadsheets."

So the team thought: How can we do this differently? How can we minimise our reliance on APIs and legacy protocols such as SAML or SCIM?

From APIs to AI agents

After several iterations, the idea emerged to utilise AI agents and browser automation for integrating and managing any web application. 

"That means we don't need APIs at all, and the company doesn't need to upgrade to enterprise plans," Shved explained.

"You simply invite our agent — just an email address—to your software tools.

It acts as an AI administrator in the cloud and uses browser automation to perform actions like onboarding, , password resets, and permission changes, exactly as a human would do in a web interface."

Closing the offboarding gap

Critically, Stackbob also solves the problem of offboarding — I know I'm not the only one who has had access to an ex-employer's accounts months after leaving.

Shved often finds that employees leave, but their accounts stay active across CRMs, analytics tools, or internal systems. 

"It's a serious security gap, and most companies don't even realise it until there's an incident. Our agents automatically detect and revoke access across every integrated tool, without needing traditional IAM setup."

The platform also addresses shadow IT — where employees use tools or apps without approval – by automatically discovering all the tools employees log into, "even the ones management doesn't know about. It gives full visibility."

To achieve this, Stackbob built its own integration engine supported by a pretrained model that helps automate the process.  As a result, it can integrate all your applications — third-party, custom-built, or even legacy tools. 

According to Shved, "as long as there's a browser interface for managing users, our agent can work with it.

"If it runs in a browser, we can manage it"

"Our marketing team likes to say we can integrate with more than 300,000 applications. It's probably true! Basically, if it runs in a browser, we can manage it."

Stackbob started a little over three years ago and, in 2023,  joined the Techstars Seattle accelerator, which helped it expand into the US market and start signing US customers.

Currently, the company is expanding into the UK and Nordic markets to strengthen its European presence, and with its growing customer base

Ultimately, Stackbob is proving that there's significant demand for IAM solutions built for the 99 per cent of companies left behind by traditional platforms.

ClaimSorted, a British startup transforming insurance claims from a “chronic pain point into a competitive advantage“, today announced a €11.4 million Seed funding round, one of the largest InsurTech Seed rounds on record.

The round was led by Atomico, with participation from Eurazeo, Y Combinator, firstminute capital, Start Ventures Capital, and a network of insurance veterans.

“Ask anyone in insurance where the weakest link is, and most will point to claims TPAs,” said Pavel Gertsberg, Founder and CEO of ClaimSorted. “We saw the claims process being painfully slow. Mistakes made by TPAs that should’ve been caught early ended up eating our entire profit margin. So, we decided to build something better.”

ClaimSorted’s Seed round positions it among the largest early-stage InsurTech fundraises in Europe in 2025, particularly within the claims and operations automation segment.

Most comparable startups have raised smaller rounds – for example, muffintech (€3.5 million), Loxa (€1.9 million), and Klaimy (€1.2 million), each focusing on specific insurance automation niches. Larger rounds, such as Baobab Insurance’s €12 million Series A, tend to come from companies expanding underwriting or cyber-risk offerings rather than claims operations.

The most directly comparable model is MarvelX’s €5.4 million round, which funds development of an AI backbone for insurance workflows, including claims.

In this context, ClaimSorted’s round underscores the growing investor focus on AI-enabled claims modernisation, an area where Europe is seeing increasing activity but relatively few players at scale.

“Insurers don’t want yet another ‘AI claims platform’ with an ambiguous value proposition. They want a tangible end-to-end service that takes the headache out of claims, supports their customers when they need it most, and protects their bottom line,” said Andreas Helbig, Partner at Atomico “And it’s working: Through faster and better claims resolution, ClaimSorted is increasing policyholder NPS by +10, while delivering significant reduction in cost per claim. It’s rare that we see such a clear and strong ROI.”

Founded in 2024, ClaimSorted was born out of firsthand frustration. While running their own insurance business, Founders Pavel Gertsberg and German Mikulski relied on outsourced claims providers, also known as, third-party administrators (TPAs) to process claims.

But they kept running into the same issues insurers face across the board: claims that should take a week dragged on for months, inconsistent service hurt customer retention and poor claims management by TPAs eroded profitability.

They also quickly realised that customers don’t care about underwriting or glossy ads, they care about what happens when life goes wrong: the car breaks down, they lose their job or there’s a fire.

“By combining a market leading claims team with a suite of embedded AI agents, we’re able to provide policyholders with a 5-star experience during the claims process, settle claims 3 times faster than traditional TPAs while helping insurance companies save millions,” continued Gertsberg.

ClaimSorted spent a year assembling their team with experience from top insurers including Hiscox, Lemonade, AXA, Hartford, and Liberty Mutual. That team was merged with the startup’s proprietary AI-enabled claims platform, resulting in a next-generation TPA: Claims TPA 2.0.

“Claims aren’t just a cost centre, they’re the moment of truth in the insurance journey,” added Gertsberg. “With this funding, we’re doubling down on helping insurers turn claims into their biggest asset.”

Since launch, ClaimSorted has partnered with more than 20 insurers across the US, UK, and EU, reportedly serving tens of thousands of policyholders.

This new funding will accelerate product development, expand operations across key global markets, and scale partnerships with insurers seeking a modern alternative to legacy TPAs.

The post London’s ClaimSorted raises €11.4 million in one of the largest InsurTech Seed rounds this year appeared first on EU-Startups.

The StepUp Startups project has released a new report detailing how AI is starting to reshape everyday business support functions such as HR, finance, and customer relations. The report offers fresh data and recommendations, making it a must-read for founders, investors, and policymakers who want to stay ahead in Europe’s digital economy.

AI adoption in Europe

AI adoption in business support processes remains in its early stages. In 2024, only 13.5% of European enterprises reported using AI technologies, up from 8% in 2021. Adoption is highest among large firms – 41.2% compared with 21% of medium-sized companies and 11.2% of small ones. Regionally, Nordic countries such as Sweden and Denmark lead the way, while uptake is lowest in eastern Europe.

Business support processes are often less complex and easier to automate, providing quick wins for companies. They offer a practical testing ground for AI, helping organisations build confidence in AI solutions and establish the necessary frameworks, skills, and governance for wider adoption across core business areas.

Benefits and challenges

According to the report, AI can help businesses improve efficiency and free up staff to focus on higher-value tasks. By automating routine activities and optimising back-office operations, companies can streamline workflows and redeploy human resources more effectively.

Despite these opportunities, barriers remain. Businesses report risks related to data accuracy, legal uncertainty, and ethical, privacy, and security concerns. Access to talent is also essential for implementing AI effectively. Other challenges include high implementation costs and internal resistance to change. These factors make many European companies cautious about making long-term, potentially high-risk AI investments without clear paths to tangible business benefits.

The role of European startups

European startups are seizing opportunities across business support services, including HR, accounting, and customer service, among other areas. However, those that use AI as a core solution remain limited, and most investment continues to flow into non-AI offerings.

Compared to the US, European AI startups face a persistent funding gap: AI startups in HR and accounting receive roughly five times less investment, and those in customer service up to eight times less. Addressing this imbalance and supporting the European startup ecosystem with deeper AI innovation will be crucial for competitiveness.

Recommendations to unlock the full potential of AI adoption

To ensure Europe unlocks the full benefits of AI in business support, the report calls for action in several areas:

• Improve conditions for greater AI uptake by providing relevant standards, scaled-up access to sandboxes, and insights on best practices.
• Strengthen Europe’s AI startup ecosystem with a dedicated AI Startup Scale-up Fund and AI Clusters in EU regions.
• Provide targeted support to SMEs for shaping AI strategies, developing skills, accessing innovation services, and securing regulatory guidance.

For those interested in exploring the full findings and insights, the StepUp Startups report is available to read in full, offering a detailed overview of AI adoption, opportunities, and challenges across European business support processes.

Download the full report here.

P.S. Stay tuned – this report is part of StepUp Startups, an EU-funded project delivering data-driven insights to accelerate the growth and impact of Europe’s startup ecosystem. More reports like this are on the way.

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It’s the week after Italian Tech Week and the likes of Jeff Bezos have packed up their private jets and zoomed back to wherever the Tech Bros go next. The Jet Set are always on the move, but sometimes it’s better to go to a place after they’ve left.

So it was in Turin last week, lying provocatively in the foothills of the Alps to the north-west of the city. The sun was out and the atmosphere felt Himalayan. Fresh air and the days that autumn sometimes delivers. Crisp and optimistic, beautiful and powerful.

Bezos spoke the previous week about AI while President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen effused about the European tech ecosystem, perhaps over-effused about it, but maybe that was the point. As China and the US apparently race ahead, it is sometimes wise to listen to Aesop and the tale of the hare and tortoise. Slow and steady regularly wins that race.

Italy often gets overlooked when it comes to that ecosystem of Europe. London, Paris and Berlin abound, and the likes of Lisbon, Madrid, and Stockholm make it on to the PowerPoint slides of venture capitalists everywhere. But Italy, quietly and historically, has great DNA when it comes to the history of global technology.

Because before Silicon Valley, before the Valley was Silicon, before the word ‘startup’ was even coined, there was Olivetti.

The House of Olivetti

Olivetti was not merely a company; it was an idea dressed in steel and typewriter ribbon. Founded in 1908 in Ivrea, a small town an hour north of Turin, Olivetti made machines that looked and felt like the future. Sleek, ergonomic; sensual even. They were Italian design meeting industrial modernity, la dolce vita for the office desk.

In an era when machines were built to intimidate, Olivetti built machines to seduce. The Lettera 22 typewriter, still a design classic, was so elegant it made Hemingway switch from pen to typewriter keys. Its lines were the Ferrari of the literary world.

The Valentine, designed by Ettore Sottsass in 1969, turned the typewriter into pop art, bright red plastic and portable, a statement of joy in a world of grey.

But beauty wasn’t the only thing Olivetti understood. They were a company decades ahead of their time in understanding the human side of technology. Adriano Olivetti, the founder’s son, believed that capitalism could be compassionate. Workers were given healthcare, housing, cultural activities - an ecosystem before ecosystems were fashionable.

And when the computer age came calling, Olivetti didn’t shy away. They built one of Europe’s first commercially available electronic computers, the Elea 9003, in 1959, designed by architect-engineer Mario Tchou. It was modular, modern and magnetic. Italy, not California, had the world’s first programmable transistorised computer.

For a brief, incandescent moment, Europe had its own Silicon Valley in Piedmont. But the dream was fragile. Tchou died in a car accident in 1961, and Adriano Olivetti had passed away the year before. Without its visionaries, Olivetti faltered. The Americans came, the Japanese came, and Ivrea became a footnote.

But DNA, as any biologist or investor will tell you, doesn’t disappear. It mutates. It re-emerges and Ivrea wasn’t a footnote at all because it gave rise to the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea (also known as Interaction Ivrea or IDII), which brought together the founders of Arduino… and the reason I’ve flown into Turin.

From Typewriters to Tinkerers

Fast forward six decades, and Italy’s technological pulse beats again. Not in the boardrooms of multinationals, but in the workshops and labs of a new kind of maker, the open-source engineer. And like Olivetti, this rebirth began not in a metropolis but in a small town with a big idea.

In 2005, in Ivrea, yes, the same Ivrea, five academics at the Interaction Design Institute created Arduino. Named after a local bar, the project aimed to make electronics accessible to artists, designers, and anyone with curiosity and a soldering iron. It also makes for a cracking founders’ story.

Arduino’s open-source microcontroller became the democratisation of hardware. Suddenly, creators didn’t need to work for Intel or Apple to build something smart. They could be a teenager in Naples, a teacher in Nairobi, or an engineer in Nagoya. If they had an idea and a USB cable, they could prototype the future.

Arduino became the quiet backbone of the maker revolution, powering everything from drones to 3D printers to wearable tech. Its ethos was pure Olivetti: design for humans, technology for all.

And last week, in the autumn of 2025, history looped back on itself.

The Qualcomm Connection

Qualcomm announced its acquisition of Arduino last week, in a move that surprised some but made perfect sense to anyone who’s followed both companies closely.

The announcement was made to the press in the Museo Nazionale dell'Automobile, another stunning example of Italian design. Later that afternoon, the buoyant founders of Arduino invited their fans to watch a two-hour show of the company where much whooping ensued. When people love Arduino, they really love Arduino.

For Qualcomm, the deal is about cementing dominance in the edge-computing and IoT markets. For Arduino, it’s the next evolutionary step, from a homespun and beloved open-source ecosystem to a scalable industrial force.

But there’s a poetic resonance too. Once again, a company born in Ivrea finds itself at the crossroads of design and computation, of Europe and America, of idealism and industry.

Qualcomm’s CEO, Cristiano Amon, was quick to praise Arduino’s ‘deep community roots and agile innovation culture’, but beneath the corporate phrasing lies something more symbolic. Arduino represents a continuity of European ingenuity that refuses to die, even when the capital, headlines, and hype migrate elsewhere.

This acquisition, if handled wisely, could turn Arduino into the beating heart of Europe’s next industrial renaissance. Picture the combination: Qualcomm’s chip architecture and global reach married to Arduino’s ecosystem of millions of developers, educators and makers. Everybody wins.

Europe’s Eternal Autumn

Turin in autumn is a metaphor for Europe itself, mature, reflective, quietly confident. The leaves turn gold not because they’re dying, but because they’re transforming.

Europe has long been accused of being the old continent, content to watch the technological revolutions happen elsewhere. But maybe, just maybe, that’s changing. The EU’s newfound assertiveness on AI regulation, digital sovereignty and semiconductor independence, backed by initiatives such as the Chips Act, suggests a Europe finally aware of its strengths.

Italy, in particular, has a knack for reinvention. Its art, architecture and cuisine have evolved for centuries without losing their soul. Now, its technology seems poised to follow suit. From Olivetti’s typewriters to Arduino’s microcontrollers, the country’s influence has always been about elegance meeting engineering.

As the world wrestles with the ethical and existential questions of AI, it’s worth remembering that innovation doesn’t just happen in code; it happens in culture. And culture is something Europe has in abundance.

The Long View

If Adriano Olivetti were alive today, he might smile at the symmetry. The machines have changed, no more typebars or ribbons, but the principles haven’t. Design still matters. Accessibility still matters. Human-centred technology still matters.

Arduino’s story, culminating (or perhaps beginning anew) with Qualcomm, is proof that Europe’s technological past is not a museum piece but a living continuum. It’s not nostalgia; it’s lineage.

Maybe it takes an American acquisition to remind Europe of its own potential. Or maybe this time, Europe will take the lesson and build something lasting again, something that doesn’t just compete with Silicon Valley but complements it, offering a different vision of what technology can be.

As the mist rolls down from the Alps and the streets of Turin glow in the soft light of October and the Arduino fanboys and fangirls leave the Museo Nazionale dell'Automobile, it’s been a very good day. Because autumn, after all, isn’t the end of something, it’s the preparation for renewal. And in that sense, Europe’s best season may just be beginning. Maybe that’s what Ursula von der Leyen was really trying to say last week.

The Tech.eu Q3 2025 Report reveals that European tech companies raised €21 billion across over 900 deals during the third quarter of 2025.

Approximately 14.1 per cent of these companies successfully closed seed rounds, amounting to over half a billion euros (€587.8 million).

Today, we share the list of the 10 largest seed rounds among European tech companies that were completed in Q3 2025.

Amount raised: €25M Donut Lab is a company that offers a full-stack EV hardware platform featuring modular, plug-and-play components including in-wheel motors, batteries, compute units, and software. Their in-wheel “Donut Motors” deliver high torque and power density, eliminating the need for traditional drivetrains. The platform is designed for electric mobility across land, air, marine, and robotics markets. Donut Lab’s modular approach reduces development complexity and accelerates time to market. In July, the company raised €25 million in seed funding, supporting the validation of Donut’s drivetrain-free architecture, engineered for flexible use across land, sea, and air applications.

Amount raised: $27M Tulum Energy is a climate-tech company developing a methane pyrolysis platform to produce “turquoise” hydrogen and solid carbon from natural gas or biogas, without CO₂ emissions. The technology repurposes electric arc furnaces commonly used in steel production to crack methane molecules thermally, enabling a scalable, energy-efficient route to hydrogen. Tulum aims to bring hydrogen production costs down to parity with conventional grey hydrogen, positioning its technology as a viable, lower-emission alternative in heavy industries. In July 2025, the company secured a $27 million seed round to build a pilot plant in Pesquería, Mexico, within Ternium’s industrial complex.

Amount raised: $26M Arago is a Paris-based AI and computer hardware company developing an energy-efficient photonic AI processor that uses light instead of electricity, paired with a full software stack for standard framework compatibility. The approach targets data centres and edge AI with high throughput and significantly lower power consumption. Arago raised $26 million in seed funding in July to accelerate the commercialisation of its photonic processor, codenamed “JEF”.

Amount raised: $25M Maisa is an enterprise automation company building accountable AI agents that execute complex, decision-heavy workflows with full traceability. Its platform provides a “Chain of Work”, a step-by-step, auditable record of every action, decision, tool, and rule used, so teams can deploy digital workers that are explainable and compliant rather than black boxes. Maisa is model-agnostic and offers developer docs and a studio for building agents, alongside its research into the Vinci Knowledge Processing Unit (KPU) to improve reasoning and tool use at inference time. Following a $25 million seed round closed in August, the company launched Maisa Studio, a model-agnostic, self-serve platform that enables users to deploy digital workers trainable through natural language.

Amount raised: €21M Paid is a business engine built for AI agents, managing pricing, subscriptions, margins, billing, and renewals with minimal integration. It allows agent companies to monetise automatically, track per-agent profitability, and implement outcome- or usage-based pricing models without building custom billing infrastructure. The company aims to help AI agent developers capture more value and scale revenue operations. The company closed a €21 million seed round in September to further develop its results-based billing infrastructure for AI agents and expand its offering to more enterprise customers.

Amount raised: $20M Motor Ai is a Berlin-based startup working to accelerate the development of autonomous mobility systems. It offers an operating system for robots and vehicles that handles perception, planning, and control, enabling developers to build and deploy autonomous agents. Motor AI combines modular software architecture with real-world data to support robotic delivery, autonomous shuttles, last-mile logistics, and mobility applications. MOTOR Ai closed a $20 million seed round to deploy its certified, neuroscience-based autonomous driving technology, beginning with public road trials in Germany.

Amount raised: $18M THEKER Robotics is a company specialising in AI-driven inspection robotics and infrastructure solutions. Its technology enables autonomous visual inspection of industrial facilities such as pipelines, bridges, and offshore equipment using drones and robotic platforms. THEKER Robotics integrates advanced perception, simulation, and automation to improve safety, reduce downtime, and lower inspection costs. In July, the company raised $18 million to advance AI-driven industrial automation.

Amount raised: €12M Kongsberg Ferrotech provides robotic solutions for inspection, repair, and maintenance (IRM) of underwater infrastructure in the energy and maritime sectors. Using remotely operated robots, it offers all subsea IRM services in a single operation. Since 2021, it has been collaborating with Equinor, SINTEF, and Gassco to develop in situ 3D metal-to-metal printing for underwater repairs. In July, the company raised €12 million to advance its technology for improving the repair and maintenance of critical underwater infrastructure worldwide.

Amount raised: €11M Brainr is a company that develops AI agents to review, verify, and summarise video content at scale. Its system uses multimodal reasoning across video, audio, and visual metadata to automatically detect events, anomalies, and quality issues. Clients in media, sports, and brand safety use Brainr’s agents to streamline monitoring workflows, reduce moderation costs, and enhance trust in content. With €11 million raised in September, BRAINR plans to support key growth initiatives, including international expansion to new regions and facilities, and to accelerate its research and development in artificial intelligence.

Amount raised: $12M Conduct.ai is a startup developing autonomous agents for workplace automation. Its platform enables users to deploy AI agents that execute multi-step workflows, such as document review, data entry, or complex decision paths, and integrates with enterprise systems and business tools. Conduct.ai emphasises transparency, audit Trails, and user control, aiming to give organisations scalable, responsible automation. In September, Conduct closed a $12 million seed round and emerged from stealth with a mission to lead the largest transformation in enterprise IT by modernising legacy ERP systems

Prague’s Resistant AI, a provider of native AI models for financial crime and fraud prevention, today announced a €21 million Series B funding round to expand its document fraud detection and transaction monitoring offerings into new territories and partnerships, and build out its threat intelligence capabilities.

The round was led by DTCP, with participation from existing investors including Experian, GV, and Notion Capital who are doubling down on their investment.

Martin Rehak, CEO and Founder of Resistant AI , said, “The financial crime landscape has fundamentally changed with the deployment of LLMs and AI agents in risk prevention settings, and the weaponisation of generative AI by fraudsters. Our fraud and fincrime models offer any institution the tools to empower both their human and agentic co-pilots to combat these AI-powered threats at scale.

“This funding, combined with our near-term path to profitability, allows us to accelerate our mission of protecting the global financial system from increasingly sophisticated criminal networks.”

The new funding comes as the anti-fraud and RegTech market is being transformed by fully-native or bolted-on agentic solutions that replace static workflows with cheaper, smarter adaptive ones. However, Resistant AI says these LLM-based agents are structurally unable to perform the quantitative risk analysis needed to combat fraud and fincrime, suffer from high systemic hallucination rates of 10-30%, and have proven extremely difficult to keep secure from adversarial manipulation.

Financial crime is itself undergoing an AI-driven transformation and growing at unprecedented speed with 35% of businesses reporting being hit by GenAI-related fraud.

Meanwhile, Resistant AI’s Threat Intelligence research shows the Fraud-as-a-Service economy is rapidly maturing with easy-to-search online markets selling over 160,000 verified accounts from more than 3,000 financial institutions to fuel APP scams that have reportedly ​already cost the economy a trillion dollars.

Since its Series A, Resistant AI’s ARR has increased 10x, while its customer base has grown 4x. The service has now verified over 150 million documents, and the number of transactions analysed for fraud and AML has grown 100x as demand for advanced fraud detection capabilities across the financial services sector soars.

The company continues to protect a growing roster of global financial institutions, FinTechs, and enterprises, building on its existing customer base that includes Dun & Bradstreet, Payoneer, Close Brothers, PennyMac, AXA, Anna Money, Finom, and Bank of Va lletta. Resistant AI now employs over 100 team members across offices in Prague, London, and New York.

EU-Startups previously covered Resistant AI’s €14.28 million Series A round in 2021, which focused on strengthening its AI models for document and transaction fraud detection within financial automation systems.

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London-based AI home care platform Gladys has raised £1.5 million in seed funding led by Cornerstone VC, with participation from Exceptional Ventures, Embryo Ventures, Ufi Ventures, Houghton Street Ventures, and Conduit EIS Impact Fund.

Gladys connects families with local caregivers and helpers through a streamlined, AI-supported experience, enabling direct matching and coordination without traditional intermediaries. Co-founded by Georgina Robinson and Alex Sorisi, the company focuses on simplifying access to support, improving care quality, and solving the logistics needed to deliver home care at scale, reducing client costs and increasing carers’ earnings.

The platform matches people seeking care with top local carers across the UK, offering high-quality support at fair prices, alongside industry-leading pay and career-development tools for carers.

According to co-founder and CEO Georgina Robinson, Britain’s care system is fundamentally broken, and incremental fixes aren’t enough, with preventable deaths continuing as carers remain underpaid and undervalued.

Gladys is using this investment to supercharge its technology and deliver the service we’d want for our loved ones.

To date, Gladys has delivered care across a 20,000 km area and supported tens of thousands of hours of independent living. Its AI-powered agents simplify finding and managing community care and help carers earn up to 65 per cent more than typical agency rates.

The new funding will support a national rollout, deployment of AI back-office agents, and investment in trusted local care communities, with the goal of delivering hundreds of thousands of hours of support by the end of 2026.

Resistant AI, a provider of native artificial intelligence models for financial crime and fraud prevention, has raised $25 million  Series B funding. 

Resistant AI produces document fraud detection and transaction monitoring models that make fintech AI and automation systems resilient to manipulation and attack — without replacing their existing tech stack. Resistant Documents checks any document, from anywhere, for fraud and authenticity in seconds, while Resistant Transactions upgrades existing rules-based transaction monitoring systems with over 80 models targeting advanced fincrime typologies. 

Its customers include Dun & Bradstreet, Payoneer, Close Brothers, AXA, PennyMac,  Bank of Valletta and Finom. Investors include DTCP, GV (formerly Google Ventures), Index  Ventures, Notion Capital, and more.

The new funding comes as the anti-fraud and regtech market is being transformed by fully native or bolted-on agentic solutions that replace static workflows with cheaper, smarter adaptive ones. 

However, these LLM-based agents are structurally unable to perform the quantitative risk analysis needed to combat fraud and finance crime, suffer from high systemic hallucination rates of 10-30 per cent, and have proven extremely difficult to keep secure from adversarial manipulation.  

Resistant AI aims to protect and empower these AI agents and their overwhelmed fraud,  risk and compliance teams. Its machine learning models detect fraud in documents, transactions, and behaviours, and can leverage signals from the rest of the customer’s risk tech stack.

This unique approach creates unparalleled uplifts in recall, precision, and contextual decision-making in detecting sophisticated financial crimes such as real-time payment (APP) fraud, synthetic corporate identity fraud, money muling, generative AI document fraud, and complex money laundering schemes.  

Since its $27 million Series A, Resistant AI’s ARR has increased 10x, while its customer base has grown 4x, with over 150 million documents verified, and the number of transactions analysed for fraud and AML has grown 100x as demand for advanced fraud detection capabilities across the financial services sector soars. 

Martin Rehak, CEO and Founder of Resistant AI, said, "The financial crime landscape has fundamentally changed with the deployment of LLMs and AI agents in risk prevention settings, and the weaponisation of generative AI by fraudsters.”

“Our fraud and finance crime models offer any institution the tools to empower both their human and agentic co-pilots to combat these AI-powered threats at scale.

This funding, combined with our near-term  path to profitability, allows us to accelerate our mission of protecting the global financial  system from increasingly sophisticated criminal networks." 

DTCP led the round, with strong participation from existing investors including GV, and Notion Capital, who are doubling down on their investment. 

Michael Rager, Partner at DTCP Growth, comments:

"Resistant AI represents the future of financial crime prevention, with their in-house built multi-model approach to fraud detection marking a paradigm shift in how financial institutions can protect themselves and their customers.

We look forward to partnering with Martin and the Resistant AI team to  support the business in its next stage of growth." 

The company, which was breakeven in September, will use the capital to solidify its position as a profitable EU AI champion by expanding its document fraud detection and transaction.

Meta-Flux, a Dublin-based biotech startup, has raised €1.8M in Seed funding to expand its decision-support platform for preclinical drug development, bridging the gap between preclinical research and clinical application. 

Acting as an “AI biologist,” the platform analyses complex biological, clinical, and experimental datasets to help scientists test hypotheses, identify promising therapeutic pathways, and make faster go/no-go decisions. 

Specifically, Meta-Flux combines data from genes, proteins, and metabolic pathways, applying biological reasoning with AI to reveal how biological systems function as a whole. 

By turning vast amounts of data into clear, actionable insights, Meta-Flux helps researchers reduce wasted effort, lower costs, and accelerate the development of new treatments. This systems-level view helps drug developers discover better treatments faster, avoid costly dead ends, and bring medicines to patients sooner.

“Bringing a new drug to market is slow, expensive, and uncertain. Too often, promising drugs fail because researchers can’t clearly predict how they’ll behave,” said founder Lee Sherlock.  

“A lot of drugs end up failing because they have the wrong application. Our goal isn’t just to get more drugs to market, but to make sure the ones that do actually help the right people.

Once you have that drug and once you have the target, we help you figure out what application you should go after, what particular type of disease, what subtype of that disease, and what patients you’re going to be treating.”

The round includes backing from senior executives at Pfizer, Merck, and Gilead Sciences, along with technology leaders from Google, Amazon, and Indeed.

“In a market saturated with AI claims, Meta‑Flux stands out because it delivers actionable answers,” said Fernando Ferrer, a data engineering leader and investor in Meta-Flux.

“Their platform gives scientists a way to cut through the noise and accelerate the path from development to decision.”

A senior director in R&D at Gilead Sciences, also an investor in Meta-Flux, added:

“Over the next 12 to 18 months, I expect AI to transform preclinical research, accelerate discovery, improve prediction accuracy, and reduce costs.

The key for big pharma is identifying valuable AI partners in an increasingly crowded space, those who marry deep biological insight with advanced modelling to address focused, high-impact questions.

Meta-Flux exemplifies this biology-first approach, zeroing in on niche scientific challenges that unlock outsized commercial value and turning AI’s promise into tangible breakthroughs.”

Meta-Flux recently completed Techstars Chicago (powered by J.P. Morgan), MassBio DRIVE in Boston, and the NDRC Accelerator at Dogpatch Labs in Dublin, programs that connect emerging techbio companies with pharma mentors and investors. The company is now building out its team to support pharmaceutical collaborations across the EU and the United States.

Lead image: Meta-Flux. Photo: uncredited.