Belgian accelerator imec.istart is expanding into Spain, Germany and Bulgaria, bringing its startup acceleration programmes and investment activities to six European countries, building on its existing presence in Belgium, the Netherlands and Italy. 

The expansion runs on a growing network of independently managed regional investment funds, worth more than €160 million today and set to exceed €250 million by 2027. The goal: founders get capital, expertise and networks in every market they enter, without starting from scratch each time they cross a border. ​

Imec.istart is behind fast-growing scaleups such as Octave, DataCamp, and Payflip. Founded in 2011, it combines early-stage funding with hands-on coaching and direct access to investors and industry partners, built specifically for digital and applied deep tech founders. ​

Founders build for international markets earlier than ever, yet still hit different legal systems, capital markets and business cultures the moment they cross a border. ​

"It's not another fund Europe is missing. It's a way through the fragmented rules, capital and expertise that still separate every national market. The moment a founder sets foot in a new market, they should already have capital, expertise and networks waiting for them, not have to build it all over again from scratch," says Sven De Cleyn, Program Director at imec.istart. ​

One network, many roots ​

Each program is built together with strong regional partners, such as Novel-T in the Netherlands, Additio Capital, Eurecat and Mobile World Capital in Spain, or Pariter Partners in Italy, rather than exported as a single template stretched across borders, and every regional fund stays independently managed and tailored to its own market, while sharing imec.istart's methodology, coaching and international investor network. ​

That network of regional funds already represents more than €160 million in investment capacity, with the ambition to grow it beyond €250 million by 2027. ​

Since 2011, imec.istart has supported more than 380 startups and its portfolio companies have gone on to raise over €1.25 billion in follow-on funding from outside investors.

Lead image: Vincent Gorissen.

DoorDash has agreed to buy grocery delivery rival Instacart in a cash-and-stock deal valuing the company at about $17bn. The acquisition would bring two of the biggest US delivery platforms under one roof, expanding DoorDash’s reach in grocery shopping. The companies announced the deal on Thursday. Instacart shareholders can choose $65 in cash per share, […]

Nexus Luxembourg will be back on 9 and 10 March 2027, barely nine months after an edition that outgrew everything the organisers had planned for.

The June 2026 summit drew more than 9,600 attendees from over 80 countries, up from 5,600 at the first edition in 2024. Over two days, more than 400 speakers took to five stages, while 80+ exhibitors and 240+ startups and scaleups filled 13,500 m² of exhibition space.

Three editions in, the event co-founded by Mike Koedinger (Paperjam) and Kamel Amroune (The Dots) has become the country's largest international business gathering. It is backed by the Luxembourg government, the City of Luxembourg, the Chamber of Commerce and Luxinnovation. The ambition for 2027 is less about getting bigger, and more about getting concrete.

From strategic ambition to operational reality

The 2027 edition runs under the baseline "Building AI, Sovereignty & Growth". Each word carries part of the agenda. AI, because it now shapes economies, security and democracy. Sovereignty, because Europe still relies heavily on technologies it does not control. And growth, because regulating innovation is not enough: Europe also has to build, buy and scale its own trusted alternatives, and turn them into companies that compete globally.

The programme is built around several tracks, from the infrastructure behind AI and what digital sovereignty really means, to cybersecurity, regulation, talent and the future of work. Others look at how finance is being reinvented, how companies move AI from pilots to real productivity, how Europe can grow its next tech champions and how technology is reshaping industry and cities.

The format stays the same "4-in-1" set-up: the Intelligence Forum, the Fintech Sphere, the Launchpad Arena for startups and scaleups, and the "Luxembourg Makes It Happen" institutional hub.

Who's on stage

The 2026 line-up set the tone. European Commission Executive Vice-President Henna Virkkunen called AI "a question of technological sovereignty", alongside OVHcloud's Octave Klaba, Odoo's Fabien Pinckaers, NVIDIA's Eva-Maria Hempe, Paytm's Vijay Shekhar Sharma and UNESCO's Dr Tawfik Jelassi.

Past editions have also welcomed Mistral AI's Arthur Mensch, Coinbase's Brian Armstrong and Rakuten's Mickey Mikitani. And every year since the first edition, Prime Minister Luc Frieden and members of his government have come to Nexus Luxembourg, a sign of how closely the country follows the event.

For 2027, the first name confirmed is Armand Thiberge, founder of Brevo, one of the few European SaaS companies to reach unicorn status. His call for "a true European champion in AI" sets the tone for an edition focused on building rather than lamenting. More speakers will be announced in the coming weeks.

A stage for 240 startups - and the clock is ticking

For founders, the most concrete opportunity is the Startups & Scaleups Awards. Around 240 companies will be selected to pitch live in the Launchpad Arena in front of investors, corporate decision-makers and a jury of experts, competing for a Grand Prize worth more than €125,000.

Applications are open to startups and scaleups from anywhere in the world, across 12 categories: RegTech & LegTech; FinTech & InsurTech; Cybersecurity & Data Sovereignty; Digital Society & GovTech; Enterprise AI & Workflow Automation; SpaceTech; Industrial AI & Smart Logistics; Smart Mobility; GreenTech & ClimateTech; Digital Health & Platforms; Clinical & MedTech Innovation; and EdTech & Future of Work.

Selected companies pay €99 for an all-inclusive package: a turnkey exhibition booth for both days, a live pitching slot and a seat at the awards ceremony on day two

The call closes on 16 November 2026 at 12:00 CET, with selected companies announced on 10 December. Founders who want to apply can do so on the Nexus Luxembourg website.

Why Luxembourg, why now

What sets Nexus Luxembourg apart is its size relative to its host: in a country of around 680,000 people, it brings government, the financial centre, EU institutions, innovation experts and international founders into the same hall for two days. The organisers' bet is that this proximity makes it easier to turn talk into business opportunities.

Nexus Luxembourg 2027 takes place on 9–10 March 2027 at Luxexpo The Box in Luxembourg-Kirchberg, with a programme for international delegations on 8 March. Tickets and programme updates are available at nexusluxembourg.com.

Microsoft is looking to raise at least $25bn through a US bond sale, its first high-grade debt offering in the country since 2017, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter. The deal is divided into as many as 10 tranches, with repayment dates ranging from two to 40 years. Its final size will depend on […]

Mistral has released the weights of Mistral Large 4, the 1 trillion-parameter model it previewed three weeks ago, and the version now on Hugging Face is noticeably sharper. The Paris-based company says three extra weeks of reinforcement learning, guided by customer feedback, have made ML4 the strongest open model for agentic coding and cyber defence. […]

Paris appeals court has rejected Meta’s challenge to emergency orders that require it to resume talks with French news publishers over payment for their content, Reuters reported on Thursday. France’s competition authority, the Autorité de la concurrence, imposed the interim measures in July after talks between Meta and the publishers broke down. The Facebook and Instagram owner appealed in […]

Bleu Robotics, a Paris-based startup building AI models for industrial humanoid robots, has raised a €5 million pre-Seed round, to reach its goal of reducing the full humanoid robot deployment process to one hour or shorter.

The round was co-led by Contrarian Ventures and OVNI Capital, with participation from Kvanted, WEPA Ventures, Motier Ventures and Charlie Songhurst, and board members at Meta.

Benoît Berkoukchi, co-founder of Bleu Robotics, says, “Humanoid robots in manufacturing are the next automotive sector, with the potential to help Europe and the US reshore production. But most robotics companies are trying to train humanoids with millions of data points and build fully general-purpose models. That approach isn’t suited to manufacturing. There isn’t enough data on factory work, and there won’t be internet-scale data, the kind LLMs were built on, for robots for a long time. Our methodology means we can do more with less.”

The round comes amid continued European investment in robotics software, humanoid systems and Physical AI during 2026.

In France, Paris-based Inbolt raised €11 million to expand its hardware-agnostic robot intelligence platform, while Norway- and US-based Trener Robotics secured €26 million to develop AI-powered skills for industrial robots.

Elsewhere, Belgium’s Motion raised €1.7 million for humanoid deployment, Spain’s THEKER secured €73 million to scale generalist industrial robotics, and London-based Humanoid raised €133 million for its industrial humanoid platform.

Together with funding rounds for Germany’s Sereact, Switzerland’s Enact Intelligence and Poland’s Nomagic, these financings total €372.7 million in 2026, rising to €377.7 million when including Bleu Robotics’ latest round.

Thomas Poitrineau, Investor at Contrarian Ventures, adds, “We were attracted to Bleu Robotics because of their ambitious choice to rethink how humanoid robotics software should work from first principles. It’s rare to find a company led by two world-class robotics researchers and a manufacturing expert, which is also why their software works differently from their competition. Their goal is far bigger than simply making the best model in a lab. It’s an approach that can already scale, putting robots to work in factories within months rather than years.”

Founded in Paris in 2025 by two INRIA researchers and a former Renault manufacturing manager, Bleu’s abductive learning technology reportedly lets robots learn new tasks from only a handful of operator demonstrations.

Its software runs on any humanoid platform and includes the AI model and training devices needed to teach robots on the factory floor.

According to the International Federation of Robotics, there were 5 million industrial robots operating globally in 2025. However, these robots are built to repeat fixed tasks, and are unable to adapt to the high-mix, low-volume production now common in modern manufacturing, so that work still falls to human workers.

Humanoid robots are needed to automate a wider range of complex tasks. While hardware has advanced significantly in recent years, software development has struggled to keep pace, limiting real-world deployment.

Interact Analysis found that of the 20,000-plus humanoids produced last year, only 10% reached real-world applications. Most of these robots today rely on end-to-end models, which learn everything in a single black box and require massive amounts of data to achieve production-ready reliability.

As a result, deployment remains costly and time-consuming for manufacturers, often requiring hundreds of hours of training data, with no guarantee the robot will perform reliably.

Instead of an end-to-end model, Bleu Robotics’ abductive learning model allows the robot to learn a new task from as few as ten operator demonstrations, while keeping the explainability required for industrial safety and the 99%+ accuracy that production lines demand.

The post French startup Bleu Robotics secures €5 million to teach humanoid robots new tasks with fewer demonstrations appeared first on EU-Startups.

London-based startup VitVio is bringing its AI system to every operating room at Hospital Español de Veracruz, a private hospital on Mexico’s Gulf coast. It is the company’s first deal in Latin America. The system, called Vetro, uses cameras and sensors to create a live 3D model of an operating room, showing the people, equipment, […]

San Francisco startup Collective, which handles the finances of one-person businesses, has raised $100M. The money comes in two parts: a $40M Series B and $60M from General Catalyst’s Customer Value Fund. General Catalyst, QED Investors and Gradient Ventures led the Series B, with Intuit Ventures, FT Partners and SemperVirens also investing. The Customer Value Fund […]

The trick at the center of this campaign is not an exploit. It is a feature. Pluto Security’s analysis of a cryptominer operation on the Hugging Face Hub shows that the attacker never needed to break anything. The model-loading library runs the Python that infects a machine exactly as designed. Three doors, one left open […]

Strollme, a German provider of children’s mobility on subscription, has secured €22 million in equity and debt financing to support their growth in its existing markets and lay the foundation for future expansion into other European countries.

Existing investors including Hanse Ventures, HGDF, JOSS and business angel Kristina Schreiner from the better ventures network are participating again, alongside new investor BMH Beteiligungs-Managementgesellschaft Hessen mbH (BMH), investing through its managed fund Hessen Kapital I. The credit facility is provided by Growth Credit Partners (GCP).

Sebastian Reichelt, co-founder and Managing Director of StrollMe, says: “This financing is a milestone for StrollMe. The equity from our existing and new investors and the credit facility from Growth Credit Partners enable us to significantly expand our fleet and offer families even more choice on subscription. We have also laid the foundation to strengthen our position in Europe step by step and in a capital-efficient way.”

StrollMe’s financing comes amid further investment in European subscription and asset-backed business models in 2026.

In the UK, London-based Raylo secured €34.5 million in equity and debt to expand its electronics subscription offering, while GIN e-bikes received €215k in fleet-backed debt to grow its bicycle rental service. In Germany, Berlin-based Everphone obtained €15 million in refinancing for its leased device fleet, while London’s equipal announced €18.84 million in equipment financing and equity.

Together with StrollMe, these announcements represent approximately €90.6 million in combined financing, including debt and refinancing facilities.

Lena Lang, Senior Investment Manager at BMH, adds: “A circular economy needs business models that scale. StrollMe shows that using rather than owning works for children’s products, and we are delighted to continue supporting the growth of the Hesse-based team.”

StrollMe was founded in 2020 by Timon Beutel and Sebastian Reichelt and is headquartered in Frankfurt. The company offers children’s mobility on flexible subscription in Germany, Austria and the Netherlands: kids’ bikes, balance bikes, strollers, car seats and accessories from brands such as Woom, Bugaboo, Doona, Nuna and Thule, matched to the child’s age.

After each subscription, products are professionally refurbished and rented out again; at the end of their rental life, sister brand Kiddly sells them on as refurbished products.

The company’s model is built on circularity, with more than 100,000 rentals completed since its founding.

Luke Wilson, Growth Credit Partners, says: “StrollMe offers families a compelling alternative to buying children’s products outright and has built a strong subscription business around a high-quality fleet. We’re delighted to support Sebastian, Timon and the team as they expand the fleet and grow the business in Germany and across Europe.”

According to the company, revenue increased by around 70% in 2025, but limited availability of popular models meant the company could not fully meet demand.

The additional funding will therefore support the expansion of the rental fleet, broadening the range and increasing the availability of kids’ bikes, balance bikes, strollers, car seats and accessories, and making high-quality children’s products accessible to even more families.

EU-Startups previously listed StrollMe in its November 2023 funding round-up.

The post StrollMe bags €22 million to put more bikes, strollers and car seats into European homes appeared first on EU-Startups.

Riders of Tesla’s Robotaxi service in Houston are reporting long detours and pickup points the app will not accept, Business Insider reported on Wednesday. The problems come days after Tesla greatly expanded the area the service covers. Tesla announced the larger service area on Monday with a post reading “Houston, we have liftoff.” The new zone, […]

The UK government has put startups and scaleups firmly on its economic agenda, but the bigger question is whether its latest measures can help more British companies stay and scale at home.

As Tech.eu reported yesterday, the Budget introduced a new Founders’ Relief, expanded the Enterprise Management Incentive (EMI) scheme and announced new support for young and female entrepreneurs. It also included further commitments around AI investment, talent and scaleup support.

Chancellor John Healey summed up the problem the government is trying to address:

“Britain does not lack great entrepreneurs. Too often, we invent technologies the world wants here in the UK and see the jobs and profits go somewhere else.”

Europe's funding leader still has a scaleup problem

Britain is hardly starved of venture capital by European standards. The UK remains Europe's biggest destination for startup funding, and Tech.eu's H1 report recorded €14 billion in UK startup equity funding across 423 rounds in H1 2026, up 117.5 per cent year-on-year.

But can British companies access enough patient, later-stage capital to remain independent and scale globally from the UK, rather than eventually looking to US investors, buyers or markets?

Sam Goodsell, Partner and Head of Technology Sector at Menzies LLP, sees the tax change as an incentive for entrepreneurs to keep building rather than accept an early exit, but argues that tax incentives alone will not solve Britain's scaleup problem.

“Becoming a global leader still means raising hundreds of millions of pounds to be noticed,” he said, pointing to the gap between the capital available from many UK investors and the sums deployed by Silicon Valley venture funds.

Owen Ensor, co-founder and CEO of cultivated meat startup Meatly, made a similar distinction:

“The new Founders’ Relief is a welcome announcement and a positive signal that Britain wants to reward entrepreneurs who take risks and build successful companies.

But the bigger opportunity is making Britain the best place in the world not just to start a company, but to scale one.”

Female founders welcome support — but barriers remain

The new programme for female founders adds to existing efforts to tackle the gender gap in venture funding, including the government-backed Women Backing Women initiative, which reached a £130 million first close earlier this year.

Laura Ashforth, co-founder and CEO of Lateral, welcomed the Budget's support but argued that encouraging entrepreneurship requires looking beyond investment incentives.

“We desperately need more people to take on the enormous personal and financial risks required to build the businesses that will drive the UK's future growth.

However, you can’t build a genuinely entrepreneurial economy through investment incentives alone.”

As a female founder with two young children, Ashforth highlighted childcare costs and the £100,000 childcare threshold as examples of policies that can discourage people from taking greater financial risks.

“If we want more people to take entrepreneurial risks, we need to stop making the financially rational choice the least ambitious one.”

The government is also working with its Women in Tech Taskforce to develop two voluntary industry standards. The Inclusive Investment Standard aims to improve transparency in venture capital funding decisions, while the Tech Forward Standard will focus on workplace culture, retention and career progression.

According to WeAreTechWomen's 2025 Lovelace Report, between 40,000 and 60,000 women leave the UK technology sector annually, costing the economy an estimated £2 billion to £3.5 billion.

However, the standards have yet to be finalised, and their voluntary nature raises questions about adoption and accountability. Dr Vanessa Vallely OBE, Founder and CEO of WeAreTechWomen, said:

“The real test will be what happens next. We need to ensure these commitments translate into action, that employers and investors are encouraged to participate, and that progress is measured.”

Taking the startup push beyond London

The UK's funding strength also disguises a longstanding geographic imbalance. While 53 per cent of high-growth businesses are based outside London, they receive only 39 per cent of the funding. As Tech.eu explored in an interview with Jenson Brook, founder of Britain's Got Startups, closing that gap is critical to unlocking the potential of regional startup ecosystems.

Oxfordshire's recently launched Equinox 2035 Strategy, for example, aims to create 20 billion-dollar companies, attract more than £1 billion in annual investment and generate 30,000 jobs by 2035. That sits within a broader regional investment push.

The 2026 Budget includes £1 billion over four years for Priority Innovation Clusters, while UKRI's £500 million Local Innovation Partnerships Fund is targeting clusters across the UK. The British Business Bank is also deploying dedicated regional funds, including the £150 million Northern Scaleup Fund, targeting high-growth companies and university spinouts across northern England.

By July 2026, the Bank's Nations and Regions funds had invested more than £465 million into 1,254 businesses, attracting another £417 million in private capital. Government-backed funds can help fill regional investment gaps, but their success should ultimately be measured by whether they attract enough sustained private investment to reduce the need for public intervention.

Beyond funding: helping British startups commercialise and scale

The Budget includes £25 million for a new Venture Doctorates scheme and £16 million in proof-of-concept funding to help turn university research into commercial businesses.

The British Business Bank will receive an additional £5 billion, taking its total capitalisation to £30.6 billion.

Beyond expanding investment in venture capital funds, the Bank plans to introduce a venture debt product, giving growing companies another financing option without requiring them to surrender equity. But access to capital is only part of the challenge. Startups also need customers.

Planned public procurement reforms include a new Innovation Marketplace, launching in spring 2027, to connect innovative businesses with public-sector buyers. As the UK Business Angels Association notes in its Budget analysis, reforms to the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) and Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS) also leave some industry concerns unresolved, including calls to increase the age limit for eligible businesses.

AI puts industrial policy to the test

The government's focus on AI offers a test of whether its investment strategy can translate into industrial growth. The Budget includes an additional £60 million for the Sovereign AI Fund and £80 million to expand early-stage AI procurement, alongside support for the Sovereign AI Unit, AI Security Institute and a new Sovereign AI R&D Procurement Scheme.

Amy Nauiokas, founder and Group CEO of Anthemis and Director of CommonAI, said Britain already has “world-class AI founders, technologists and academics”, but argued that much of that domestic expertise remains untapped. AI companies need compute, energy, customers and procurement opportunities if they are going to become globally competitive businesses.

Peter Griffiths, founder and Executive Chairman of Argyll Data Development, pointed to an even more fundamental constraint:

“The Government has finally recognised that Britain's AI ambitions depend on electricity as much as investment.”

He contends that without compute, power and domestic customers, Britain risks financing the early stages of AI companies whose eventual economic value is captured elsewhere. From starting companies to keeping them

The UK has already shown it can produce promising startups and attract substantial venture investment. The harder task is ensuring those companies can access the capital, infrastructure and customers they need to become global businesses without leaving Britain.

The real measure of these initiatives will not be how many programmes are launched or how much funding is announced, but how many companies build lasting businesses in the UK.

Digital Science, a UK company providing researchers with data, tools and infrastructure, has acquired Jenni AI, an AI-native platform trusted by more than 8 million students and researchers in 189 countries.

Jenni AI helps students and researchers get from a first idea to a finished piece of work. Users can upload papers or import their reference libraries, explore and make sense of their chosen sources, draft and refine their writing, and check citations against the original material. 

Over the coming months, Jenni AI will further enhance its capabilities by incorporating Digital Science’s extensive research data, starting with Dimensions’ 171-million-publication database and leveraging its full-text search capabilities to help researchers discover, understand, and cite scholarly literature more effectively.

According to Stephen Leicht, CEO of Digital Science, researchers already use AI as a matter of routine.

What they can’t get from a general-purpose tool is a citation that has been checked against the actual paper. 

“Jenni AI has built an experience millions of students and researchers choose, often from the very beginning of their careers.

Inside Digital Science, every source it suggests can be verified against Dimensions and its 171 million publications, and that stays true as their work grows from a first thesis chapter to a funded lab. We’re glad to have David, Marc, Shailesh and the team with us.”

Jenni AI joins Overleaf, Papers AI and ReadCube in Digital Science’s portfolio of research tools. It also strengthens Digital Science’s direct relationships with PhD and master’s students at the start of their careers, supporting them as their research grows.

David Park, CEO of Jenni AI, said:

“We started Jenni with the belief that the future is written with AI, not by AI. We built Jenni to empower researchers to explore their curiosity and publish great work.

By joining Digital Science, we're taking a major step toward a future where every researcher has access to the knowledge, tools, and confidence to push the boundaries of human discovery.”

Jenni AI will continue as a standalone product under its own name, with the same team, pricing and subscription plans.

The Pentagon is investigating whether hackers caused freezers to fail at shops on US military bases in August, after a similar attack hit hundreds of supermarkets in France this month. Four officials told Reuters on Thursday that investigators are treating the US incidents as a suspected cyberattack. One official said they had also spoken to […]

German mixed reality software startup VUSE XR has raised €1.2 million in a pre-seed funding round led by IACD, a Düsseldorf-based business angel network, with participation from additional angel investors.

Founded by Niclas Matthias and Dr Paul Matthias, the company develops the VUSE XR Hub, an enterprise software platform designed to help industrial and life sciences companies create, manage and deploy mixed reality training.

Traditionally, mixed reality training has relied on customised projects, with each training experience developed separately. This approach can make content creation expensive and time-consuming, while limiting the ability to update and scale training across different products and locations.

VUSE XR aims to address these challenges by providing a software-based approach that allows companies to create and adapt training content as products and processes evolve.

The platform uses existing CAD models, engineering data and other technical materials to generate photorealistic 3D models, which can be used to develop interactive training experiences. Companies can create training sequences using AI-assisted tools, text prompts or drag-and-drop functionality, adding explanations and practical tasks. Once completed, the training can be deployed across different locations and accessed through web browsers, mobile devices and XR headsets.

Mixed reality hardware is advancing rapidly, but creating mixed reality training content remains the biggest barrier to broader enterprise adoption. The VUSE XR Hub removes this bottleneck, enabling companies to unlock significant business value from mixed reality,

said Niclas Matthias, co-founder and CEO of VUSE XR.

The company already works with customers including ZEISS, Witron, Hologic and Badenova, which use its platform to explain complex products and processes and provide practical training without requiring physical equipment on site. Its customers operate across several industries, including medical and laboratory technologies, energy and mobility solutions.

VUSE XR operates through a recurring software licensing model, allowing customers to create, manage and deploy mixed reality training content. The company also provides onboarding support and assistance with implementing initial training applications.

Alongside the funding announcement, VUSE XR has expanded its leadership team with the appointments of Jan Hendrik Degner as Chief Commercial Officer and Robert Günther as Vice President of Sales and Service Delivery.

The new funding will be used to further develop the VUSE XR Hub, expand its AI-assisted content creation capabilities and support the company's commercial growth.

Photo credit: VUSE XR GmbH

Biotechnology company ALLOX has raised $10.5 million in a seed funding round to expand its drug discovery platform and advance its internal development programmes. The round was led by Asabys through its Sabadell Asabys II fund, with participation from CDTI through SICC Innvierte and the Institut Català de Finances (ICF).

ALLOX is developing a drug discovery platform that combines high-throughput genetics, experimental biology and artificial intelligence to identify previously unexplored opportunities for developing small-molecule therapeutics.

Drug discovery remains challenging for certain biological targets, particularly protein-protein interactions and transcription factors, which have historically been difficult to address with conventional approaches. ALLOX aims to overcome these limitations by identifying regulatory regions within proteins that could serve as potential targets for new treatments.

The company's platform measures the effects of thousands of genetic mutations in parallel to map regions that influence protein folding and interactions. This approach enables the identification of allosteric, orthosteric and other regulatory sites, including potential binding pockets that could be used to develop targeted small-molecule drugs.

Júlia Domingo, CEO and co-founder of ALLOX, said:

By combining large-scale functional data with predictive AI, we aim to unlock a much broader range of challenging drug targets and accelerate the discovery of truly differentiated small-molecule therapeutics.

Alongside the funding announcement, ALLOX has appointed Morten Graugaard as Independent Chair of its Board of Directors. He brings more than two decades of experience in life sciences investment, R&D and business development, having previously held senior positions at Orbis Medicines, Novo Holdings and Lundbeck.

Commenting on his appointment, Graugaard highlighted ALLOX's approach to drug discovery, which combines experimental biology and computational methods to identify therapeutic opportunities that have traditionally been difficult to address:

Importantly, ALLOX fills a critical data gap, enabling the development of functional molecules rather than simply identifying binders.

The new funding will support the expansion of the platform's capabilities and the development of proprietary AI models designed to predict therapeutic opportunities from large-scale biophysical datasets.

ALLOX also plans to strengthen its internal drug discovery team, advance multiple research programmes towards a pipeline of proprietary small-molecule drug candidates and establish research collaborations with pharmaceutical and biotechnology partners.

Chinese robot maker Pudu Robotics has opened its European headquarters in Neuss, near Düsseldorf, as it builds out its business across the region. The Shenzhen-based company announced plans for the German site in September, following a showcase of its robots at the IFA trade fair in Berlin. The headquarters is now fully operational, bringing together […]

Key points:

• Why impact should be treated as a design problem built into a business model from day one, rather than a values commitment bolted on later
• The difference between impact by intention and impact by design – and how founders and investors can tell the difference
• What it takes to prove impact with evidence, and why investors should fund proof rather than claims
• What replaces the ESG scorecard as the scorecard era comes to an end
• A ten-year vision for the European workforce if talent, capital, and opportunity finally connect across borders

In this conversation, recorded ahead of the MeOut Summit in Budapest, we sit down with Jack Mardack, co-founder of Oyster, the global employment platform that became one of only a handful of companies in the world to reach unicorn status while holding B Corp certification.

Jack shares what he learned scaling Oyster, why he believes the perceived trade-off between financial success and impact is a design failure rather than an economic law, and what the role of Chief Impact Officer actually involves day to day.

We also get into the bigger picture: why the ESG debate has become more ideological than useful, why the notable impact investing market suggests investors have already moved past that argument, and what it would mean for European capital allocation if investors started funding evidence of impact instead of claims of impact.

Finally, we look ahead: whether Europe is measuring itself against the US on the wrong dimensions, what the European workforce could look like in ten years if we get better at connecting talent, capital, and opportunity across borders, and why Jack will be sitting down at the MeOut Summit in Budapest with the founder of Hungary’s first B Corp. His book, “Impact Unleashed: Building Businesses That Scale Positive Change“, unpacks many of these ideas in depth.

The post The EU-Startups Podcast | Interview with Jack Mardack, co-founder of Oyster appeared first on EU-Startups.

Seraphim, a global leader in SpaceTech investment, today launched the Seraphim Academy, a selective programme that will invest $150,000 in early-stage companies through two funding stages and provide up to 12 months of tailored support to help founders raise capital, secure customers and scale internationally.

Founded in 2016, UK investor Seraphim Space spans early-stage investment through the Seraphim Academy, venture capital, growth-stage investment and public markets, supporting companies across the SpaceTech lifecycle. Seraphim manages approximately $1 billion in assets across its investment platform.

Across its wider platform, it has backed more than 150 companies in 33 countries, supporting 11 companies that have achieved unicorn status and six through an IPO, while companies supported through its accelerator have collectively raised more than $1.7 billion.

The Academy builds on Seraphim’s experience supporting companies such as Xona Space Systems, which is developing the world’s first commercial low Earth orbit satellite navigation constellation. Xona joined Seraphim’s previous accelerator programme in 2019, after which Seraphim led its early funding rounds and continued to back the company as it scaled. Xona has now raised a $250 million Series D round at a $2.45 billion valuation, just seven months after its $170 million Series C.  

The Academy is designed to find the next Xona and support its journey from inception to global leadership and beyond.  

Early investment. Tailored support. Long-term ambition.  

The Academy builds on Seraphim’s accelerator model, assessing companies on a rolling basis and tailoring support to their commercial priorities, funding plans and international growth ambitions.  

Selected companies will receive $150,000 of investment and complete the core programme within four to six months, with up to 12 months of tailored support:  

• Fundraising: direct support from Seraphim’s specialist team to strengthen investment propositions, prepare professional materials, and reach more than 800 co-investors across early-stage, late-stage, and public markets.
• Commercial growth: sales, business development, and international expansion support, with a particular focus on the Space and defence markets.
• Mentoring: access to experienced SpaceTech entrepreneurs and major industry players through the Prime-in-Residence programme, helping founders understand customer requirements and build commercial relationships.
• Global connections: targeted introductions to investors and corporate partners in the UK, Europe and the US, expert-led sessions and international SpaceTech events.International partnerships: access to Seraphim’s investment-readiness initiatives, including its work with Space Florida and Florida’s aerospace finance and development authority.
• Long-term support: continued access after the formal programme to Seraphim’s mentors and investor, industry and founder networks for future fundraising and commercial development. 

Seraphim’s ambition is for the Academy to support up to 15 companies each year over the next decade and beyond.

Alexander Holt, Managing Director at Seraphim Space, said:  

“Technologies once considered decades away are becoming commercial realities.

Through the Academy, we want to help early-stage founders turn that technical potential into businesses with customers and international reach. Our ambition is to build relationships that last well beyond the programme.”  

Applications are now open to pre-seed and seed-stage SpaceTech companies developing differentiated technologies for global markets.  

A former UK government minister has launched an AI insurance startup, his co-founder has confirmed, which has reportedly raised nearly £5m in seed funding.

Bim Afolami, who served as the UK’s economic secretary to the treasury between 2023 and 2024 under former prime minister Rishi Sunak, has launched the startup, called i23 along with Anand Sambasivan, one of the co-founders of PrimaryBid, the UK fintech that provides retail investors with access to public company capital raises.

Sambasivan said: “We are building an AI-native insurance broker. Sprinting fast and it feels so great.”

He added: “It’s great to see such a vibrant early-stage ecosystem for UK startups. A lot different to ten years ago. London is very much thriving."

The startup has raised £4.9m in seed funding, according to Sky News, which first reported the news. Investors include Four Cities Capital, which jointly led the round, along with Outward VC, Seedcamp and Insiders Ventures.

The startup is targeting the insurance broker market.

According to the report, i23 is developing an AI operating model which will carry out insurance brokers’ routine administrative work.

The UK insurance broker market is worth up to £22bn a year, according to market data, but it is highly fragmented.

Former PrimaryBid COO Mike Coombes and Salman Valibeik, the co-founder of Opriva, the marketing startup, are also part of the founding team. PrimaryBid was acquired by US fintech giant SoFi last year.

IMAGE: Pixabay

Hamburg-based deeptech company MuRay has raised €7.1 million in funding to further develop its Active Muon Imaging technology and bring it to industrial customers.

The financing includes a €3.5 million private investment round led by First Momentum Ventures and co-led by Caelora, a wholly owned subsidiary of Marvel Fusion. Other participants include Superangel, Mätch VC, Arcas VC and Tiny VC, alongside existing investor Nordic Science Investments. The company also received €3.6 million in non-dilutive public funding, including a grant from the EU's Horizon Europe programme.

Founded by Dr Andi Hektor and Dr Kristjan Põder, who serve as co-CEOs, MuRay is developing imaging technology that uses controlled muon beams to examine the internal structure of dense materials and components.

Quality assurance is the company’s initial focus, particularly for complex, safety-critical components such as 3D-printed rocket engines and gas turbine parts, where detecting internal defects remains a challenge.

Conventional X-rays struggle to penetrate dense materials, while MuRay's technology uses muons to produce high-resolution 3D images of components made from metals, ceramics and composites. The system can identify differences in material composition and density, enabling inspections within minutes rather than hours.

According to the company, the technology could allow manufacturers to detect defects directly on production lines while operating at a significantly lower radiation dose than conventional X-ray methods.

Dr Andi Hektor, co-founder and co-CEO of MuRay, said:

X-rays reach their limit at a few centimetres of steel, yet much of modern industry, from reusable rockets to gas turbines, is built from metal far thicker than that. Active muon imaging lets manufacturers see inside those large, dense components.

Beyond manufacturing quality assurance, MuRay is exploring applications across the space, aerospace, defence and energy industries, where more detailed inspections could help shorten maintenance cycles for components such as reusable rocket engines and jet engines.

In collaboration with the German Space Agency at DLR, MuRay has modelled the inspection of a rocket engine and plans its first real-world assessment in 2027. The project aims to demonstrate the technology's ability to detect internal defects in safety-critical components.

Dr Kristjan Põder, co-founder and co-CEO, added:

Defects that manufacturers can't see keep parts out of service for longer than they should be. Our technology helps them find those defects and get components back into service faster.

MuRay is also exploring applications in cargo and border security, where its technology could detect nuclear materials such as uranium within dense cargo. Longer-term possibilities include radioactive waste monitoring, the inspection of large structures such as bridges and buildings, and clinical diagnostics.

The new funding will support further technology development and MuRay's commercialisation plans, including a mobile imaging system approximately the size of a shipping container, designed to enable inspections directly at industrial sites.

The company plans to launch its first imaging service for industrial customers in 2027, combining DESY's existing electron beam in Hamburg with its own imaging system, followed by its first full-scale system incorporating a laser-driven accelerator in 2029.