Toloka.vc, a Ukrainian investment syndicate, has announced an investment of €215k in British electric bike company GIN e-bikes, which is scaling a subscription-based electric bike rental service in London under its PLUTO brand.

The investment was structured as a two-year secured loan with an annual interest rate of 12%, backed by the company’s electric bike fleet. The fresh capital will be used to purchase 160 new electric bicycles and expand PLUTO’s subscription offering across London. The startup targets 100 active subscribers within six months, building on strong early traction.

Founded in 2022 by Ukrainian entrepreneur Marina Vlasenko and Indian entrepreneur Rahul Pushp, GIN e-bikes initially launched as a direct-to-consumer electric bike brand focused on the under-£1,000 price segment. In 2024–2025, the young company pivoted to a subscription-based electric bike rental model, primarily serving couriers, gig-economy workers, and urban commuters.

PLUTO’s subscription includes monthly rental, maintenance, accessories, and insurance. After completing a 12-month rental cycle, bikes are sold on the secondary market, creating
an additional revenue stream and supporting a circular economy approach.

The PLUTO pilot currently serves 37 active subscribers, with an average monthly revenue of approximately £158 per bike, including add-on services. Reaching 100 active users would
generate an estimated £200,000 in annual recurring revenue (ARR).

Future Growth Plans: In 2026, GIN e-bikes plans to raise up to £1 million to scale its fleet to 1,000 electric bikes and further expand its operational and service infrastructure across London.

Toloka.vc is an investment syndicate uniting entrepreneurs and private investors focused on early-stage and growth-stage technology businesses. In November 2025, the syndicate invested in ALICE Technologies, a Silicon Valley-based startup, marking its eighth investment of the year. The syndicate was co-founded by Oleksandr Kolb, entrepreneur and founder of Promodo, Taras Kyrychenko, former CEO of Pravex Bank and supervisory board member of Nova Poshta, and Igor Shoifot, venture capitalist and partner at TMT Investments.

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A UK AI firm that advises OpenAI and other frontier AI models on AI safety is to be acquired by IT consulting giant Accenture.

Faculty, which also worked with Vote Leave on the Brexit referendum, was co-founded in 2014 by Marc Warner, its current CEO, who is also a former government AI adviser. The acquisition of Faculty comes as Accenture undertakes an aggressive AI push, as it looks to cash in on robust demand for its AI-driven IT services.

Multinational giant Accenture, founded in the US, said the acquisition would help its clients with “safe and secure AI solutions”.

Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

Julie Sweet, chair and CEO, Accenture, said: “With Faculty, we will further accelerate our strategy to bring trusted, advanced AI to the heart of our clients’ businesses."

Manish Sharma, chief strategy and services officer at Accenture, added: “Together with Faculty we will assemble a powerhouse of talent helping clients make AI work in the real world.

“This will help our clients stay competitive, pursue sovereign solutions, and reinvent their operations with transparency and resilience at a critical time.” 

Warner said: “Our vision has always been a world in which safe AI delivers widespread benefits to humanity. We have spent the last ten years supporting our clients to bring this world about, step by step. 

“As AI advances rapidly, the ambition of our clients is now, rightly, no less than the reinvention of their business. I am delighted that by teaming up with Accenture, we have everything in place to support AI transformation from start to finish.”

The deal will see Faculty’s 400-plus staff joining Accenture, while Warner, in addition to his role as CEO of Faculty, will become chief technology officer of Accenture.

Faculty’s services include AI strategy and AI safety. Its client roster includes Anthropic and OpenAI, checking the safety of their models before they are released, as well as working with the UK government on a project to help develop AI to handle teacher lesson plans and mark homework. 

Accenture and the Faculty have worked together since 2023.

In 2021, Faculty raised £30 million ($42.5. million) in growth funding from the Apax Digital Fund.

Industrial data management platform United Manufacturing Hub (UMH) has raised €5 million in funding to accelerate its mission of building the foundational data layer for global manufacturing. 

The round was led by KOMPAS VC, with participation from seed + speed Ventures, Sustainable Future Ventures, Archimedes New Ventures, and renowned industry angels, including Jan Oberhauser (Founder & CEO of n8n) and Jeff Hammerbacher (Founder of Cloudera), amongst others.

Manufacturers are investing heavily in digital tools and AI-driven automation. But progress stalls because data is trapped in proprietary systems and scattered across machines, processes, and applications. 

UMH unifies industrial data into a real-time data hub, called Unified Namespace, replacing fragile point-to-point integrations with a scalable, interoperable structure.

The platform connects machines, sensors, and IT systems through standardised interfaces, then cleans and contextualises their data – creating a single source of truth that any application can use without custom integration work.  

On top of this foundation, UMH delivers ready-to-use capabilities: operational KPIs, energy and resource tracking, condition monitoring, alerting, and industrial AI applications.

Customers typically go from setup to measurable business impact in weeks.

Leading industrial organisations from various industries, including HiPP, Edeka, and Böllhoff, are already using UMH to digitise their factories.

"Instead of spending months building data infrastructure from scratch, we were up and running in no time," said Lutz Hermanns, Head of PDA & Supply Chain at Böllhoff who leads Böllhoff’s Digital Manufacturing.

"We now connect new data sources and build digital use cases in hours instead of weeks."

“Every factory runs on decades-old software – Data is trapped in proprietary protocols, siloed by vendors, missing the context that real use cases and AI depend on,"  said Alexander Krüger, CEO & Co-Founder of UMH.

"We're building the open-source data infrastructure layer that finally makes industrial data available in the quantity and quality it needs to be – ready for what comes next.

This round lets us double down: wider connectivity, greater scale, pool and a product that works for data engineers and shop floor engineers alike."

“Industrial AI will only scale once factories have a reliable, shared data foundation - and in manufacturing, that data lives on the factory’s shopfloor. UMH is building this foundation by turning fragmented factory data into accurate, contextualised input for modern analytics and intelligent systems, unlocking a step-change in innovation speed, giving European manufacturers the data backbone they need to compete globally,” said Andreas Winter-Extra, Partner Kompas VC

"In areas like ERP, CRM, or HR management, billion-dollar companies have emerged. In digital manufacturing, such a player is still missing. That's exactly our mission: We want to build the world's leading Industrial Data Company," says Niklas Hebborn, Chief Commercial Officer at UMH and former Partner at Freigeist Capital, where he was an early pre-seed investor in UMH. 

The fresh capital will be used to strengthen UMH’s open-source platform, accelerate product development, including broader connectivity, advanced data modelling and AI agents.

The UK Government has unveiled a £210 million cyber action plan to secure online public services and protect people’s data as more services move online. 

The plan aims to strengthen defences across departments, respond faster to cyber attacks, and support digitisation that could save up to £45 billion in productivity savings while cutting queues and paperwork.

Driven by a new Government Cyber Unit, the plan will rapidly improve cyber defences and digital resilience across government departments and the wider public sector, so people can trust that their data and services are protected.  

It underpins UK Government plans to digitise public services. This will make more services accessible online, reduce time spent on phone queues and paperwork, and enable citizens to access support without repeating information across multiple departments. This approach could unlock up to £45 billion (note) in productivity savings by using technology effectively across the public sector. 

Released as the Cyber Security and Resilience Bill has its Second Reading in the House of Commons, the Bill sets out clear expectations for firms providing services to the government to boost their cyber resilience. From energy and water suppliers to healthcare and data centres, strong defences throughout supply chains will help keep the water running and the lights burning - facing down the cyber attackers who want to grind our country to a halt.   

The plan aims to foster clearer visibility into risks and stronger cross-departmental collaboration on severe and complex risks.

It will also drive a faster response to threats and incidents, and an overall higher resilience across government, with targeted measures to close major gaps and protect critical services.

Digital Government Minister Ian Murray said: 

“Cyber-attacks can take vital public services offline in minutes – disrupting our digital services and our very way of life.   This plan sets a new bar to bolster the defences of our public sector, putting cyber-criminals on warning that we are going further and faster to protect the UK’s businesses and public services alike. 

This is how we keep people safe, services running, and build a government the public can trust in the digital age."

Further, a new Software Security Ambassador Scheme will now help drive adoption of the Software Security Code of Practice, a voluntary project designed to reduce software supply chain attacks and disruption.

Among others, Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, Sage, Santander and NCC Group will come on board as the scheme’s ambassadors, championing the Code across sectors, showcasing practical implementation, and providing feedback to inform future policy improvements. 

Thomas Harvey, Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), Santander UK said:

"We are pleased to be an ambassador for the UK government’s Software Security Code of Practice and it reflects our broader commitment to collective resilience.

By advocating for these standards we’re not just protecting Santander and our customers, we are helping to build a more secure digital economy for everyone."

According to Jason Soroko, Senior Fellow at Sectigo,  2025 was “brutal” for cyber defence. He believes 2026 will be worse.

“Attackers are now deploying AI at a speed defenders simply haven’t matched. It’s an asymmetry that widens by the month.”

Soroko argues that many organisations are still failing at the basics.

“Defenders have been slow to adopt stronger authentication — it’s like refusing to put better locks on the doors. Attackers take full advantage of that.”

While passwordless systems are increasingly critical, he warns that passkeys remain difficult to deploy in centralised enterprise environments, leaving “gaps everywhere.”

The result, he says, is a familiar but accelerating pattern: ransomware payouts continue to rise, attack surfaces keep expanding, and security teams struggle to keep pace.

“Without coordinated collaboration between vendors, the curve bends in the wrong direction.”

Looking ahead, Soroko predicts a turning point that the industry won’t welcome.

“2026 will mark the first publicly acknowledged Fortune 500 material breach caused by prompt injection.”

As organisations rush to deploy LLM-integrated systems, he warns that many will do so without adequate safeguards.

“Adversaries will learn how to coerce those models into executing harmful internal commands or leaking sensitive data. The industry still treats prompt injection like a clever party trick rather than a real security class. It’s not.”

Critically, attackers won’t need to compromise the model itself.

“Even without ‘attacking the model,’ they can weaponise its instructions — and organisations aren’t ready for that.” To counter this, he argues, defensive thinking will need to evolve quickly.

“Model-signing and treating small models like firmware will emerge as essential controls. Anything less leaves enterprises dangerously exposed.”

Like every year, we take a country-by-country look at the teams and technologies shaping the continent’s entrepreneurial landscape. In 2026, we start this journey by turning our attention to Belgium, a country known for its strong research institutions, thriving tech hubs, and an innovation ecosystem that consistently produces high-impact ventures.

Belgium, as we all know, benefits from a unique position at the heart of Europe, supported by world-class universities, a dense concentration of corporates, and a growing community of founders working across sectors such as deep tech, biotech, climate technology, and enterprise software. From Leuven to Ghent, Antwerp to Brussels, the country’s startup scene is steadily attracting more international attention and investment, driven by increasingly ambitious companies working on globally relevant solutions.

In this article, we highlight 10 exceptionally promising startups based in Belgium that are worth keeping an eye on in 2026. They span a variety of industries and technologies, illustrating the diversity and momentum of the Belgian ecosystem as it matures and expands its influence across Europe.

Ghent-based Aikido Security is a company developing a unified platform that helps engineering teams secure their code, cloud environments, and applications. The system brings multiple security checks together in one place and uses artificial intelligence to detect vulnerabilities and suggest fixes automatically. By simplifying the process and reducing the need for manual reviews across separate tools, Aikido Security aims to help developers address issues more quickly and stay ahead of potential risks.

Founded in 2022, the company has raised €21.16 million. Aikido Security focuses on ease of use and automation, enabling technical teams to reduce security backlogs and minimise operational overhead. Their platform is designed to integrate smoothly into existing development workflows, supporting organisations as they scale their security practices without significantly increasing workload.

Zaventem-based Bnewable specialises in energy management and battery systems for businesses. Their solutions help organisations optimise how they store and use energy, particularly when integrating renewable sources such as solar and wind. Bnewable designs systems that improve energy reliability, lower operational costs, and support companies in meeting their sustainability targets.

Founded in 2022, the company has raised €40 million. Their technology is aimed at organisations looking to manage energy more efficiently as electricity demand grows and regulatory expectations evolve. By offering scalable storage and distribution solutions, Bnewable contributes to the broader transition toward flexible and resilient energy infrastructure.

Antwerp-based Conveo is a startup that provides an AI-powered qualitative research platform for enterprises. The system uses real voice and video interviews rather than synthetic avatars to collect insights, helping teams understand how customers think and behave. Conveo’s artificial intelligence then analyses the content, identifying patterns, themes, and key statements to speed up the research process.

Founded in 2024, Conveo has already been able to secure about €5 million in funding. Conveo is designed for marketing, product, customer experience, and innovation teams that need qualitative insights without time-consuming manual work. Their platform aims to make in-depth research more accessible and efficient, enabling companies to gather richer customer feedback at scale.

Ghent-based Karomia is a company developing software to support sustainability officers in conducting Double Materiality Assessments as part of their ESG reporting. The platform guides organisations through identifying financial and environmental impacts, collecting relevant data, and documenting the findings in a structured way. Karomia is designed to help teams navigate increasing regulatory requirements while maintaining accuracy and transparency.

Founded in 2024, the company has raised €2.1 million. Karomia’s system supports organisations as they adapt to new reporting standards and integrate sustainability considerations into their broader strategy. Their goal is to make ESG assessments more efficient, consistent, and accessible for businesses of different sizes.

Ghent-based LEGALFLY is an AI-native workspace designed for in-house legal, compliance, and procurement teams. The platform offers tools for contract review, risk analysis, drafting support, workflow automation, and knowledge retrieval. LEGALFLY’s legally trained AI agents help teams accelerate approvals, reduce bottlenecks, and ensure contractual and regulatory compliance across the organisation.

Founded in 2023, the startup has raised €17 million. LEGALFLY provides security features and automation capabilities tailored to corporate legal departments, enabling teams to manage high volumes of documents more efficiently. Their system aims to improve collaboration between legal, procurement, and business teams while reducing the administrative burden associated with contract work.

Mol-based PanTera is a company focused on the large-scale production of actinium-225, a radioisotope used in targeted cancer therapies. The material is considered highly promising in personalised nuclear medicine, and PanTera aims to make its supply more reliable by improving production processes and recycling key materials. Their work supports researchers and healthcare providers developing next-generation cancer treatments.

Founded in 2022, the company has raised €134 million. PanTera is working to address global shortages of actinium-225 and support the broader adoption of targeted alpha therapies. Their approach contributes to advancing precision oncology while ensuring long-term sustainability in isotope manufacturing.

Brussels-based Sirona Technologies is a company developing direct air capture technology designed to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Their systems prioritise simplicity, low capital costs, and scalability, enabling more widespread deployment. Sirona Technologies focuses on solutions that can be installed quickly and expanded efficiently as demand for carbon removal grows.

Founded in 2023, the startup has raised €6.37 million. Sirona Technologies aims to support climate mitigation efforts by providing an industrial process for capturing CO₂ directly from ambient air. Their focus on cost-effectiveness and high-speed deployment positions them as a contributor to emerging carbon removal markets in Europe and beyond.

Antwerp-based Spica Therapeutics is a biotechnology company developing therapies that target macrophages, specialised immune cells involved in many diseases. By focusing on macrophage biology, Spica Therapeutics aims to unlock new therapeutic pathways and address conditions that lack effective treatment options. Their research is centred on translating scientific advances into practical clinical applications.

Founded in 2024, the company has raised €10 million. Spica Therapeutics is part of Belgium’s strong biotech ecosystem and is working to develop new treatments that can improve outcomes for patients with difficult-to-treat diseases. Their approach reflects growing interest in immune-based therapies across the global biotech sector.

Leuven-based Swave Photonics is a company developing holographic chips that enable advanced augmented reality experiences. Their NanoPixel technology is designed to create compact, lightweight, and high-resolution displays capable of blending digital information with the real world. This technology aims to support new applications in manufacturing, entertainment, education, and consumer devices.

Founded in 2022, the startup has already raised €43 million. Swave Photonics is contributing to the next generation of augmented reality hardware by addressing key challenges such as size, clarity, and power efficiency. Their work positions Belgium at the forefront of holographic display innovation.

Louvain-la-Neuve-based Vertical Compute is a company building next-generation computing hardware and advanced manufacturing technologies. While still early in development, the company focuses on designing systems that enhance computing performance and efficiency across key industrial applications. Their work is aimed at solving problems that require specialised hardware rather than standard off-the-shelf components.

Founded in 2025, the company has raised €20 million. Vertical Compute represents a growing segment of deep tech companies in Belgium working on foundational technologies. Their ambition is to provide new computing solutions that can support sectors such as electronics, automation, and high-performance computing.

By the way: If you’re a corporate or investor looking for exciting startups in a specific market for a potential investment or acquisition, check out our Startup Sourcing Service!

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Salzburg-based BENTELER Group has signed an agreement to acquire Frankfurt-based provider of software-based mobility solutions, ioki, from Deutsche Bahn. The transaction is expected to close in the near future.

With this acquisition, BENTELER subsidiary HOLON, ioki, and Benteler Mobility form the first European full-service provider for autonomous mobility. As part of this deal, HOLON will manufacture the autonomous HOLON urban shuttle, ioki will provide platform and routing technology for on-demand services and integration with public transport, and Benteler Mobility will deliver operational services and fleet financing for autonomous vehicle deployments.

HOLON is an OEM for autonomous movers. It is a subsidiary of the BENTELER Group and a Saudi Arabia-based investment company, TASARU. Benteler Mobility provides a transportation-as-a-service platform that covers services required to implement and operate autonomous mobility, including vehicle acquisition, asset financing, maintenance and repair, and fleet operations.

“This integrated approach is unique in our industry. It radically simplifies the deployment and operation of autonomous vehicles for customers. Alongside our core business in metal processing, BENTELER is thus strategically evolving into a leading provider in the autonomous mobility sector,” said Ralf Göttel, CEO of the BENTELER Group. 

Founded in 2018, ioki is a digital mobility company and a key player for on-demand transport in the DACH region. In cooperation with partners, the company offers data-based mobility analysis, digitalisation of mobility, and operational implementation. It claims to have deployed its on-demand software in around 200 flexible transport services, and has served nearly 10 million passengers. 

As an example of the potential benefits of the collaboration, ioki stated in the press release, “Data-driven analyses and simulations by ioki, for example, identify potential areas where autonomous vehicles such as the HOLON urban can meaningfully complement and enhance public transport. Both the software and the vehicle are scalable and designed to work seamlessly together. This enables municipalities and operators to significantly reduce costs while simplifying the introduction of autonomous mobility services.”

According to ioki, this acquisition also allows access to international markets. “As part of the BENTELER Group, we can further strengthen and scale the market leadership of our successfully established software and analytics products on an international level,” said Michael Barillère-Scholz, co-founder and CEO of ioki. 

BENTELER is a global company operating in the automotive, energy and mechanical engineering sectors. As metal processing specialists, it develops, produces and distributes safety-related products, systems, and services. It employs more than 20,000 people across nearly 90 locations worldwide.

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Milano-based MotorK, an AI-centric SaaS provider to the automotive retail industry in the EMEA region, has secured an additional €3 million tranche of financing from its existing lender Atempo Growth. 

The fresh capital will be utilised to strengthen the Group’s financial position further and support general corporate purposes. According to the company, additional funds were secured under similar financial terms and conditions to those of the original facility. 

London-based Atempo Growth is a pan-European growth debt provider with offices in London and Italy. In April 2025, it announced the first close of €300 million towards its second Fund, Atempo II, bringing total assets under management by the firm to €800 million.

Founded in 2010, MotorK develops integrated digital solutions to support the sales and marketing activities of automotive manufacturers and dealers. It claims to offer its customers digital solutions, SaaS cloud products, and the largest R&D department in the European automotive digital sales and marketing industry. The company’s SparK platform integrates marketing, sales, data, and operations within a single ecosystem, enabling the coordination of these functions to support business activities.

In June last year, the company announced changes to its leadership structure. Marco Marlia, co-founder and CEO of MotorK, assumed the role of president, focusing on business development, industry relations, strategic partnerships, and key enterprise initiatives. Executive Chairman Amir Rosentuler has taken on the additional responsibilities of interim CEO on a short-term basis.

Last year, in March, the company announced a reserved capital increase of €4.8 million with participation from investors such as 83 North and Lucerne Capital Management. 

MotorK has been listed on Euronext Amsterdam since November 2021 and achieved ISO 27001 certification in November 2024. It currently employs nearly 310 employees, and has offices in eight countries (Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, the UK, and Israel).

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Have you ever attended a climbing class? If so, you know that the first thing you are taught is how to fall. The logic is simple. If you are not afraid of falling, you are more likely to keep climbing.

The same applies to entrepreneurship. Have you ever re-arranged a cap table before a Series A? If so, you will know that if the percentages were not right in earlier rounds, founders may later need to buy people out or dilute more than expected. Even when a round is successfully closed, earlier mistakes often resurface, becoming costly lessons rooted in inexperience.

What often stops us from continuing is the fear of falling. For founders, what prevents them from closing a Series A when a cap table was poorly structured is often the fear of losing control over their company, whether through higher-than-expected dilution or the need to buy out early supporters sooner than anticipated. At its core, it is resistance to change. We do not want to dismantle something that already exists, even if it is flawed.

A few months ago, part of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences was awarded to recognise, through formal economic modelling, that the concept of “creative destruction”, first introduced by economist Joseph Schumpeter in the early 1940s, is not just theoretical, but observable in practice.

“Creative destruction” implies that innovation creates new methods or products while rendering old ones obsolete, requiring continuous experimentation and adaptation. Along those lines, it demonstrates that destruction is not necessarily negative, but fundamental for growth. Planning, trying, failing, getting up and trying again are what eventually lead to celebrated growth.

These are some of the basic principles of entrepreneurial culture, an asset that Europe has been promoting to leverage its potential for the decades to come, through the recent EU Startup and Scaleup Strategy and the upcoming European Innovation Act.

One may think the opposite. Europe does not have an entrepreneurial culture. And yes, it is our missing piece.

But the real question is, why?

When did the fear begin to settle? After 1945, 1948, 1991? While the twentieth century brought us comfort, it surely did not erase centuries of innovation and creativity paired with adventurous spirits. Are we struggling to find the balance between our standards of living and the wish for more?

Maybe it is because Europe never really teaches you how to fall.

A friend of mine, who is an Executive Director of a well-known European NGO, once told me, “If you fall in Europe, you fall soft.”

And the more time passes, the more this becomes a reality. Our systems, social protection, benefits, and safety nets are built to keep us stable, not to let us stumble. We are designed to enter the workforce safely, not to take irrational leaps into the unknown.

And when someone decides to build something new, they expect, more than anywhere else, that the government will be there to help.

That supportive mindset, while valuable, is often the opposite of what drives entrepreneurial transformation. It might even be the opposite of the concept of creative destruction. Because to create, you must be ready to lose control first, to change jobs, leave a comfortable bubble, and start something without knowing how it will end.

That is where one of Europe’s greatest opportunities lies today. To cultivate a new way of thinking, one that embraces what we do not know, builds new industries we cannot yet define, and invests in people before they have proven themselves.

That is risk. That is entrepreneurship. It is backing a founder you have never met, funding a startup whose success is uncertain, believing in a future that has not yet taken shape.

Is it too much to ask?

For much of the world, no. Uncertainty is a way of living.
For Europe, it still is.

In our recently launched volume on Talent and Entrepreneurial Culture, we reflected on different areas that converge with the concept of entrepreneurial culture, which usually relates to a mindset that values experimentation and is open to destroying or changing something for a greater outcome. It is important to note that this is not limited to startups, but reflects how societies approach risk, manage uncertainty, and navigate scenarios that are difficult to play out.

Is this one of Europe’s main assets? Probably not. We have been better at analysing and building diagnoses, but not at moving fast and managing risk.

But can this change?

Absolutely, but to do so, we need to fail more, not less. Because failure is how we learn, and learning by failing is how we eventually win. Excellence in theory must finally meet courage in practice.

Some initiatives are already in place, including Innofounder, which offers a full-time course for entrepreneurs in Denmark or the Startup Officers Network in the Netherlands. Across the continent, you can feel a quiet shift – a new pace for founders, policymakers, and doers trying to do things differently.

Europe may not yet match the U.S. or China when scaling tech, but it has something else – resilience, diversity, and the power of policy to drive a cultural shift.

If cultivated intentionally, entrepreneurial culture could become Europe’s next strategic asset. Not just a value we talk about, but a new foundation for competitiveness –
less about capital gaps, and more about mindset.

Because in the end, it’s not only about startups or scaleups, it is all about daring to fall, and choosing to stand up – together, again and again, until this becomes a habit.

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This week CES, the Consumer Electronics Show, kicks off in Las Vegas.  It's a truly mammoth event, encompassing a myriad of venues and side events. 

While there’s the usual suite of wearables and gadgets sure to end up in your junk drawer within the year due to product failure or inactivity, there’s a whole lot of practical tech that you’d actually buy worth checking out.

IoT, in particular, while ubiquitous in its quiet reach, has seen a sizable boost in capacity due to advancements in AI, hardware, and edge intelligence, but there’s also plenty happening in battery, industrial tech, and robotics.

And Europe is showing up with the intent to demonstrate how connected hardware is maturing into real-world infrastructure.  

Allergen Alert (France)

Allergen Alert is a portable device that directly detects allergens or gluten in a meal with laboratory-level precision. It enables people with food allergies or celiac disease to test their food autonomously, wherever they are.

Unlike barcode scanners or apps attempting to interpret a photo of a dish, this pocket-sized mini-lab relies on a patented, single-use pouch derived from bioMérieux’s laboratory technologies, which miniaturises and automates every step of a professional analytical test. 

How it works: Collect a food sample, insert the single-use pouch into the device, and press the button to start the analysis. Within minutes, you’ll receive a clear, easy-to-understand result indicating whether an allergen or gluten is present.

The mini-lab is being developed in collaboration with allergists, allergy patients and advocacy groups, as well as experts in food safety and the restaurant industry.   

Thanks to automated sample preparation, future applications could extend well beyond allergens, including broader food analysis, water testing, environmental monitoring, and more. 

.lumen (Romania)

.Lumen is a Romanian deeptech startup creating mobility and independence for people who are blind or severely visually impaired by applying autonomous-driving-inspired AI tech to pedestrian navigation challenges. 

.lumen Glasses for the Blind is a wearable navigation system described as the world’s first technology to replicate the functionality of a guide dog through AI-driven guidance. 

These smart glasses combine multiple cameras, inertial sensors, GNSS localisation (e.g., GPS), and advanced onboard processing to interpret the environment in real time. Using a patented haptic feedback interface on the forehead and complementary audio prompts, the system subtly “guides” the user by indicating safe walking paths, detecting and helping avoid obstacles at and above ground level, and steering toward specific destinations. 

The product has been tested by hundreds of visually impaired users across more than 40 countries and is engineered for durability and everyday use.

Ongoing software updates aim to expand capabilities, including guided navigation to saved addresses and new destinations. 

Its glasses were named a CES 2026 Innovation Awards Honoree in the Accessibility & Longevity category.

Kuube (Hungary)

Kuube is a Budapest-based smart street furniture company focused on sustainable, solar-powered solutions that transform public spaces into connected, service-rich environments.

The company designs and manufactures a range of street furniture that combine renewable energy with digital services such as free Wi-Fi, USB and wireless device charging, environmental sensors, and digital displays.

From  Kuube PLUS, a large eight-seater with Wi-Fi, multiple charging options, environmental monitoring, and digital displays to Kuube BOOK, a solar-powered public book exchange that fosters community engagement, these products merge functionality, sustainability, and community value in public infrastructure.   

Swistor (Switzerland) 

Swistor is an EPFL spin-off developing high-performance supercapacitors that are fast-charging, long-lasting, and environmentally friendly. 

It uses nanostructured carbon-based electrodes and advanced materials to create energy storage devices that can deliver high power density, rapid charge/discharge cycles, and slow degradation over time—addressing key limitations of traditional lithium-ion batteries such as slow charging, limited lifetime, and reliance on scarce materials like lithium and cobalt. 

Swistor’s products are designed to complement or potentially replace conventional batteries in applications ranging from portable electronics and IoT sensors to higher-power systems such as renewable energy integration or grid support, with a B2B focus and customizable solutions for partners.

Tinental  (Italy)

Startup Tinental seeks to make energy optimisation and predictive maintenance accessible and profitable for industrial operators by using AI, digital-twin modelling, and IoT.  

The company has created Caleno Energy, a plug-and-play IoT device that integrates with existing motor-driven machinery (such as pumps) via variable-frequency drives (VFDs) to dynamically match machine output to actual system demand, significantly reducing energy waste by up to 60 per cent while maintaining the same production output. It installs quickly with zero downtime and no need for additional sensors.

Further, Caleno Predict is a predictive-maintenance solution that uses AI and certified analyst support to detect anomalies, deliver actionable maintenance guidance, and minimise unplanned downtime and recurring faults.

Together, these tools help industries optimise energy use, reduce costs, and extend asset lifespans.

UTU (Ukraine)

UTU is a Kyiv-based Ukrainian company developing industrial 3D printing technology for construction.

It designs and builds large-scale concrete 3D printers that can be deployed directly on construction sites to print structural walls and building elements layer by layer, significantly reducing construction time, labour needs, and material waste compared to traditional methods.

The startup is the first Ukrainian company to build and 3D print a residential house in Ukraine using its own technology. This project was completed in a remarkably short timeframe (reported around 58 hours).

A UK social and community networking app has raised a “major seven-figure investment”, its co-founder has announced, as it looks to scale globally. Cliq, founded in 2023, allows users to connect with like-minded individuals, join interest-based communities, and attend local events. 

It was founded as a counterpoint to typical social media platforms. Users can join communities focused on their interests and hobbies, such as exercise, reading, and faith-based groups. The idea is that users meet in person and build friendships, amid figures showing a rise in loneliness levels. Cliq bills itself as a social networking app, with a focus on meeting in person, as opposed to a social media app.

To date, it has amassed over 100,000 users, with its key markets being the UK, US, Australia, and Bali.

Nicola Gunby, co-founder and chief marketing officer, said: “Cliq has raised a major seven-figure investment to scale globally.

“Two years ago, we set out with one mission: to challenge the social networking industry and build something that gets people off their phones and back into real life.

“With £0 spent on marketing and hundreds of thousands of users already connecting both online and offline, Cliq has quickly become one of Europe’s fastest-emerging social apps.

‘This investment brings us one step closer to taking that mission worldwide and accelerating real-life connection for more people than ever.”

Gunby did not reveal the specific amount raised to Tech.eu. The funding has been raised from VC Artesian, along with funding from family offices and some angel investors, Gunby said.

Gunby, who founded the startup with her partner Jason Iliffe, added that the funds will be used to grow and scale the startup. The startup has previously raised over £500,000.

For anyone who has searched for a job recently, the experience is painfully familiar: hours spent scrolling through job boards, submitting dozens of applications, and hearing nothing back. The same roles appear across multiple platforms. Listings stay up months after positions are filled. And despite applying to what seems like a perfect match, most applications disappear into a void.

TalentAid, a Germany-based startup, is setting out to change this. The company is developing an AI-powered job matching platform designed specifically to solve this issue, promising to cut through the noise and surface only the opportunities that genuinely fit a candidate’s skills, experience, and career goals.

The job search is broken, and candidates know it

The job market has become crowded, noisy, and repetitive. Job seekers face a landscape cluttered with duplicate postings, ghost listings that were filled weeks ago, and roles that bear little resemblance to their actual requirements once you dig past the job title.

For many professionals, especially those navigating career transitions or looking to level up into senior roles, the process feels overwhelming. The traditional approach of mass-applying to everything that looks vaguely relevant leads to burnout, not job offers.

TalentAid’s core message to job seekers is simple: you’re not the problem. The process is.

How TalentAid works

The platform takes a fundamentally different approach to job matching. Rather than simply aggregating listings, TalentAid scans trusted job boards, automatically removes duplicates and ghost listings, and then evaluates each remaining opportunity against the candidate’s profile.

Each job is presented with a compatibility score and a clear explanation of why it appeared, whether that’s alignment with specific technical skills, seniority level, industry experience, or working style preferences. A role might show as a 98% strong match for a Staff Developer position at Apple, or a 75% good match for a UI Engineer role at Vercel, with the reasoning visible at a glance.

The system learns and adapts over time. As users set preferences for location, industry, seniority, and work mode, and as they interact with suggested roles, the matching becomes increasingly personalised. TalentAid describes itself as a job-search assistant that evolves with you.​

Four pillars of the TalentAid experience

TalentAid is built around four core capabilities designed to guide job seekers from initial search through to landing the offer:

Smart job discovery: The platform’s AI continuously scans trusted job boards, filters out duplicates and ghost listings, and surfaces only the roles that genuinely match a candidate’s profile. Each recommendation comes with transparent match scoring and clear reasoning, so users understand exactly why a role appeared and can focus their energy on opportunities that matter.

CV optimisation: TalentAid helps users transform their experience into polished, professional CVs. The platform can suggest adjustments like tweaking tone for leadership roles or highlighting skills mentioned in specific job postings, ensuring each application puts the candidate’s best foot forward.

Automated applications: TalentAid will take the friction out of applying. Once a user identifies a role they want to pursue and finalises their CV, the platform will handle the application submission on their behalf, eliminating repetitive form-filling and freeing up time for what matters most.

Interview preparation: TalentAid’s interview prep tools will conduct background research on target companies, surface questions commonly asked in their interview processes, and compile the information candidates need to walk into interviews with confidence. They will also pose practice interview questions to candidates and provide feedback on the answers. The goal is to maximise success at every stage of the hiring process.

Together, these features will create a comprehensive career copilot, an application that guides users through every step of getting a new job, from the first search to the final offer.

Addressing a growing market need

The timing for TalentAid’s launch is notable. Recruitment across industries has experienced significant turbulence over the past two years, with waves of layoffs followed by cautious rehiring. Competition for quality roles has intensified, making efficient job searching more critical than ever for candidates.

At the same time, the proliferation of job boards and aggregators has created information overload without necessarily improving outcomes. Many platforms optimise for volume, encouraging candidates to apply to as many roles as possible, rather than quality matches that lead to actual hires.

TalentAid is betting that a more thoughtful, AI-driven approach will resonate with professionals who are tired of the spray-and-pray method.​

What’s next

The platform is currently accepting job seekers to join the waitlist to be among the first to use the full product. TalentAid is positioning itself not as another job board, but as a smarter layer on top of the existing ecosystem, one that filters, analyses, and personalises the job search experience.

For tech professionals exhausted by the current state of job hunting, TalentAid’s promise is compelling: not more applications, just the right ones. Learn more and join the waitlist.

The post TalentAid unveils AI-powered platform to fix the broken job search (Sponsored) appeared first on EU-Startups.

As of late 2025, 88% of organizations are using AI in at least one business function, up from just 55% in 2023. But while this is the case, only 7% have fully scaled AI across their organization, while 62% are still experimenting or piloting. Most companies are drifting with AI—using tools because they’re available or trendy, not because they’re part of a coherent strategy.

While some may hope that the AI wave will pass, the truth is the opposite: AI is here to stay. Companies that don’t embrace AI will likely fall behind. But the companies that are building intentionally will pull ahead.

Gartner predicts that by 2028, organizations with sustained AI-first strategies will achieve 25% better business results than their peers. As we enter 2026, the window to move from drifting to building is closing. It’s a certainty that AI will reshape your industry—the only question is whether you’ll direct that change or react to it.

Why strategy can’t wait

Many organizations still question the need for an AI strategy. They don’t see direct applications, are concerned about the unknowns, or think AI is only for coding.

But AI is already embedded in industries far beyond traditional tech. In healthcare, for example, AI systems can already examine stroke patients’ brains with twice the accuracy of human professionals and detect epilepsy lesions that radiologists miss. In education, 57% of higher education institutions are prioritizing AI for digital acceleration and personalized learning.

Here’s an uncomfortable truth: your organization is already using AI, whether you have an AI strategy in place or not. Many employees are using AI tools to complete their work. Some are using approved tools according to clear protocols. Others are pasting proprietary data into the free version of ChatGPT and copying the results blindly.

The absence of a strategy creates two problems. First, employees using AI haphazardly create security vulnerabilities, compliance issues, and what’s now called “workslop”—low-quality output that looks professional but lacks depth and substance. Second, employees who should be using AI aren’t, either because they don’t know which tools are approved or because they fear being replaced by them.

Strategy solves both problems. It channels AI use toward value creation while establishing guardrails. It helps employees transform anxiety into capability. And most importantly, it purposefully redefines what good work means in your organization—because AI is already redefining roles, whether you acknowledge it or not

3 strategic imperatives for 2026

Building an intentional AI strategy requires more than just declaring “we’re AI-first” on your homepage. It requires structural changes across three key dimensions:

1. Treat AI as infrastructure, not innovation.

The first mistake organizations make is treating AI as something special—like a center of excellence. This thinking leads to AI remaining peripheral.

Instead, AI must become infrastructure: as unremarkable as email, as essential as your Slack channels. Your leadership team should actively identify processes to automate, not to reduce headcount, but to redirect human effort toward higher-value work. When AI handles the routine tasks, your people can focus on the complex, creative, and strategic work that actually moves your business forward.

This shift must come from a cultural change. Software engineers should reach for AI coding assistants by default. Finance teams should assume AI will flag anomalies in real-time. Support teams should expect AI to handle basic questions. The goal is to make AI invisible, not impressive, as it’s woven into how work gets done every day.

2. Establish baseline AI competency standards.

You wouldn’t hire engineers who can’t use version control. You shouldn’t hire engineers who can’t effectively use AI coding tools.

As AI streamlines routine coding tasks, the role of software developers is evolving. Developers who master AI tools can focus on architecture, complex problem-solving, and work that requires deep contextual understanding—the work AI can’t handle. Developers who don’t will struggle to keep pace.

Having baseline standards doesn’t mean everyone needs to be an AI researcher. It means establishing basic competencies: understanding which tasks AI excels at, how to write effective prompts, how to validate AI output, and when to override AI recommendations. These should be hiring criteria, onboarding requirements, training mandates, and promotion considerations.

The alternative is a growing skills gap within your own organization, resulting in team members who’ve embraced AI becoming more productive, while those who haven’t struggle with the basics.

3. Implement guardrails before incidents happen.

AI offers organizations transformative productivity and efficiency gains. It also introduces serious risks: copyright infringement lawsuits, data leakage, hallucinated information presented as fact, and security vulnerabilities, to name just a few. The question isn’t whether these risks exist, but rather whether you’ll address them proactively or reactively.

Being reactive is expensive. It means learning about data leaks from customer complaints, discovering copyright issues through legal threats, or finding that proprietary code was used to train external models after the fact.

Being proactive means establishing clear policies now: which AI tools are approved, what data can be shared with them, how to verify AI-generated output, and what happens when the policies are violated. This requires training employees not just on how to use AI, but on how to use it responsibly within your organization’s risk tolerance.

Guardrails, when properly designed and implemented, aren’t about limiting AI use, but about enabling it safely at scale.

Building, not chasing

Becoming AI-first requires changes that feel difficult because transformation of any kind is challenging. But organizations that invest in deploying AI capabilities to existing operations are fundamentally redesigning how work gets done.

At MacPaw, we don’t treat AI as an add-on or a trend to ride. It’s the foundation of how we build products, support customers, and operate as a company. This didn’t happen because AI became fashionable. It happened because we recognize that the companies that integrate AI deepest and earliest will have compounding advantages that competitors can’t easily replicate.

The difference between 2026 and 2025 won’t be more AI tools; rather, it will be which organizations stopped drifting and started building. The strategy you implement now determines which category you’ll be in.

By Volodymyr Kubytskyi, Director of AI at MacPaw

Sicily is an island known for its vibrant lifestyle, rich culture, and world-renowned cuisine. Yet beyond its heritage and charm, the island is steadily carving out a reputation as a centre for innovation and entrepreneurship. While the pace of startup growth may not yet match established Italian centres like Rome or Milan, Sicily is steadily gaining visibility on the innovation map and positioning itself as a rising hotspot in southern Italy.

At the core of this development is Catania, where a mix of corporate ventures, universities, and institutional support has created fertile ground for new ideas. Often described as the “Milan of the South”, the city hosts one of STMicroelectronics’ most important semiconductor plants, a cornerstone of the Etna Valley, an area with a dense concentration of innovative companies. Combined with a steady pipeline of highly skilled engineers graduating from universities, the city has become a key driver of the island’s tech and creative industries.

Taking into account all this information, we have selected 10 promising startups that are based in Sicily or which where originaly founded in Sicily, shaping the technological future of the island by fostering innovation and science. Note that all the startups presented here were founded since 2020 until now.

Baze: Based in Aci Castello, Baze connects families with qualified, pre‑verified domestic workers, including caregivers, babysitters, housekeepers, and live‑in staff.  They aim to simplify and modernise traditional employment pathways in the domestic sector, promoting legality, transparency, and efficiency.

The process starts when a family completes a short online questionnaire outlining their needs. Baze’s platform then uses matching algorithms to identify suitable candidates from its database. Once matched, families can view profiles and schedule free interviews. Founded in 2023, they have secured €100k, aiming to become a key player in the hiring of domestic workers.

Hidonix: This DeepTech startup transforms physical spaces into smarter, more interactive environments by blending multiple technologies such as AI, robotics, extended reality (AR/MR), among others. They create smart systems that help physical spaces, like museums, airports, malls, hospitals, schools, and event venues, become more interactive and navigable online.

Since its founding in 2020 in Catania, Hidronix has developed one of its standout innovations, “ION”, a navigation system that guides people seamlessly indoors and outdoors without the need to use GPS or extra hardware, using just their phone and the Earth’s magnetic fields.

Kazaam Labs: Launched in 2020, this Palermo-based startup provides decision support in healthcare. They turn data into meaningful solutions. Their core product, the Kazaam eHealth Platform, leverages AI to integrate vast amounts of biomedical information, from molecular and clinical data to phenotypic profiles, into complex network models and real-time analytics. This enables physicians, labs, and pharmaceutical companies to identify the most effective, personalised therapies for serious diseases, thereby advancing the reach of precision medicine.

Their products support users in making difficult decisions, such as selecting suitable therapy for individuals affected by serious diseases. Kazaam Labs is backed by €50k in funding, which has allowed them to fine-tune their technology.

Keplera: Headquartered in Palermo in 2021, Keplera is a LegalTech startup that combines specialised legal consultancy with the development of digital tools to simplify legal processes. The platform integrates advanced features such as generative AI, end-to-end encryption, and electronic signature solutions, making legal workflows more efficient, secure, and accessible for startups, SMEs, cultural organisations, and the non-profit sector.

Its flagship product, LexHero, is a SaaS platform that manages the entire lifecycle of legal documents, allowing users to create, archive, share, and digitally sign them. Keplera’s technological progress enabled them to secure €770k in funding.

Lualtek: This AgriTech startup empowers agricultural entrepreneurs, whether they manage greenhouses or open-field cultivations, to remotely monitor and manage their crops without relying on internet connections, wiring, or costly renovations. They have developed LoRaWAN, a wireless protocol known for long-range, low-power data transmission. This technology ensures real-time access to environmental data via a web app accessible from phones and computers. Farmers can view and control sensors and automated systems from anywhere, with no need to be physically on-site.

Since 2021, Lualtek has raised €501k to enhance its technology, which uses easy-to-deploy sensors and actuators to automate tasks such as irrigation, ventilation, and greenhouse management. Farmers can manage everything through a web interface, setting automations, receiving notifications, and running customised workflows.

MUV: Founded in 2020 in Palermo, this gamification startup transforms sustainable mobility into a community-driven sport. Through its mobile app and web dashboard, users earn points by walking, biking, using public transport, or carpooling, turning everyday eco-friendly actions into engaging training sessions, challenges, and team tournaments. This approach not only fosters healthier habits and environmental awareness but also integrates friendly competition and rewards to motivate behavioural change.

The startup emerged from a 2012 research project, which demonstrated a significant reduction in carbon emissions among its participants if encouraged to adopt greener habits. This experience shaped the startup’s mission to transform sustainable commuting into a global sport. A key feature is the calculation of environmental impact, providing users with data on their personal CO2 savings. This journey enabled the startup to secure €107k in funding.

The post How Sicily is reinventing itself through entrepreneurship: 10 Sicilian startups to watch in 2026 appeared first on EU-Startups.

UK-based qualitative analytics startup WholeSum has raised £730,000, combining grant funding from Women TechEU with a pre-seed round led by Twin Path Ventures. The round also included participation from SFC and strategic angel investors via Ventures Together, including founders and operators from JustPark, Episode 1, ClearScore, and Prolific.

A significant share of organisational data is unstructured, yet many teams lack consistent methods for analysing large volumes of text. Key information is often found in transcripts, open-ended survey responses, online discussions, and customer feedback, while analysis frequently relies on time-intensive manual processes or automated summaries that are difficult to verify or reproduce.

WholeSum provides an AI-based analytics layer for qualitative data, converting large amounts of free text into statistically supported, auditable outputs. Founded by Emily Kucharski and Dr Adam Kucharski, the company combines experience in commercial and public sector insights with expertise in statistical inference and machine learning.

The platform is designed for direct API integration and produces quantified, reproducible insights that can be incorporated into existing analytics workflows. Tasks that would typically take weeks of manual analysis can be completed more quickly and then examined further using statistical tools to support decision-making.

Through collaborations with organisations including Imperial College London and Female Founders Rise in partnership with Barclays, WholeSum has found that high-value insights are often contained within unstructured data rather than simplified survey metrics. However, identifying these insights consistently and at scale has historically been difficult.

John Spindler, Partner at Twin Path Ventures, said that qualitative analysis has long depended on manual processes and inconsistent approaches. He noted that WholeSum introduces a more systematic and automated framework and described the platform as an important foundation for how qualitative evidence may be produced and relied upon in the future.

The platform is primarily aimed at sectors such as research, healthcare, and financial services, where reliable qualitative evidence plays an important role in decision-making and outcomes. According to internal evaluations, WholeSum demonstrates improved performance compared with several established reasoning models on certain datasets, offering faster processing and lower theme attribution error while maintaining reproducible results.

The company plans to use the new funding to advance product development, expand its science and engineering teams, and scale early enterprise deployments.

It’s remarkable to think that a year or so ago, securing a coveted page-one search engine ranking was considered the marketer’s holy grail. No easy feat, getting there required absolute precision, constant fine-tuning and the perfect mix of keywords and backlinks.

Of course, today that world looks rather different. As AI-driven search experiences dominate, they have blown the doors off the old search-first mindset. Brand discovery is no longer about ranking for blue links; it is about appearing in AI-generated answers. And to do that, brands need content that machines can interpret just as easily as humans, something many are far from ready for.

The consequences are already clear. Traffic is dipping, zero-click answers are overshadowing genuine expertise, and outdated website content is reappearing in AI-generated responses. Brands are losing credibility and control of their own narrative long before a customer ever reaches their site.

Cue an inevitable onslaught of debate over whether AI has, in fact, “killed the website”, as the internet supposedly heads towards a future where machine-led noise takes precedence, and quality information and authentic human interaction fade away.

But the truth is far less bleak. AI isn’t a website killer. Rather, it has simply exposed the brittle foundations, outdated structures and messy content models that have been holding websites back for years. AI is not an ending; it is a turning point, offering brands a chance to rebuild their digital foundations and finally do content right.

Be relevant, not just ranked

Previously, brands could get away with a content ecosystem that was outdated and internally inconsistent. Take a look at almost any site, and chances are you’ll find old news releases or dusty product specs. While humans might overlook a stale blog post from 2018 or incorrect pricing buried three levels deep, AI systems do not.

Algorithms now crawl and compare information at a scale and speed no person can match. They evaluate how current your content is, whether your messaging stays consistent across pages and channels, and how authoritative your knowledge base looks against competitors. In other words, AI is no longer just reading what you publish; it is judging whether your entire digital presence adds up.

Generative Experience Optimisation (GEO) is the roadmap for this new landscape. At its core, GEO is about ensuring that content is relevant, coherent and authoritative so that AI can accurately interpret and surface it. For marketers, this translates into designing content that prioritises clarity, consistency and authority: clear language, cohesive messaging and demonstrable expertise that generative AI can reliably recognise and elevate in its responses.

Crucially, GEO also shifts the focus from individual pages to the overall logic of your digital estate. It asks whether every touchpoint, including product pages, help centres, blogs and social media copy, tells the same story and uses the same definitions. When that ecosystem hangs together, AI systems can more easily map questions to your answers, quote you as a primary source and elevate your brand in aggregated, AI-generated experiences.

Historic bottlenecks

This shift is also placing a sharper focus on content governance. Across many organisations, individual channels still operate in isolation. Web teams publish one thing, marketing says another, and brand information is fragmented.

AI interprets this inconsistency as a lack of authority and reduces trust accordingly. This is further compounded by legacy CMS systems that were never designed for the dynamic, multi-channel, AI-driven environment we now inhabit, making timely updates slow and consistency nearly impossible.

To remain visible and trusted in this discovery environment, brands need content systems that are flexibly structured and built for speed. This strengthens the case for composable, API-driven architectures, technology stacks made from interchangeable, best-in-class components rather than rigid, all-in-one systems.

Composable CMS platforms allow marketers to update information once and distribute it everywhere, ensuring that every channel, region and touchpoint reflects the same up-to-date source of truth. They also encourage more thoughtful content modelling and governance, which is essential for maintaining accuracy and coherence across increasingly complex digital ecosystems.

A composable stack also makes it easier to introduce new tools, such as personalisation engines, automation layers, AI assistants or creative workflows, without disrupting the entire system. This level of flexibility gives marketing teams the agility they need to operate confidently in an AI-first discovery landscape, where freshness, structure and adaptability determine relevance.

A catalyst for change

The rise of AI-driven discovery does not signal the end of the web; it signals an opportunity. Brands that embrace coherent and authoritative content, supported by flexible, composable systems, will not only survive but thrive. By prioritising relevance over rankings and designing digital ecosystems built for clarity and consistency, businesses can regain control of their narrative, earn trust and increase visibility in an AI-first world. In this way, AI should be viewed not as a disruptor but as a catalyst for positive and much-needed change.

The post AI didn’t break your website: It exposed its weaknesses appeared first on EU-Startups.

Hybrid-casual puzzle game Pixel Flow has closed a seed round with participation from Akın Babayiğit and e2vc. The amount of the investment was not disclosed.

Three months after launch, the game has reached seven-figure daily revenue and entered the Top 25 of the US App Store Top Grossing chart, reflecting the team’s accelerated scaling efforts and the commercial potential of the hybrid-casual category.

Pixel Flow was developed by Kübra Gundogan and Emre Çelik, an Istanbul-based team previously involved in the game Twisted Tangle. Drawing on their experience in product development, go-to-market execution, and scaling within the hybrid-casual category, the team has supported the game’s early adoption and growth.

Co-founder and CEO Kübra Gundogan said the project emerged from the team’s long-term focus on creating original game mechanics. She noted that the game’s reception reflects their analysis of player behaviour and the insights derived from that work, and that Pixel Flow represents a new core mechanic and design direction for the team.

Commenting on the investment, Akın Babayiğit said that Pixel Flow has attracted strong attention across the industry, describing it as a notable recent success from the region and pointing to both its performance metrics and the originality of its core mechanic.

Following the investment, the team expanded its scaling efforts, indicating that hybrid-casual games can reach wide audiences while generating sustainable revenue.