In this week’s Tech.eu podcast, three founders discuss their "AI roll-up" strategies, a business model gaining traction in the startup and VC world.

An "AI roll-up" strategy can be defined as a strategy whereby VC-backed startups buy underperforming companies, with the hope of boosting profits of the acquired companies through AI. It is a new play on the private equity model.

The business model has gained traction in the VC world, with General Catalyst, Thrive Capital, Khosla Ventures and Bessemer Venture Partners amongst those funding or exploring "roll-ups".

In this episode, we talk to three founders deploying the strategy, discussing the advantages and challenges of the business model. 

Din Bisevac, founder of property startup Buena; Constantin Schröder, founder of short-term rental startup Arbio; and Dan Lifshits, founder of property management startup Dwelly, discuss the topic.

On why "AI roll-ups" lend themselves well to rental management, Schröder said: "It is a fantastic playing field to inject AI into because we have to communicate with property owners, with guests, a lot that have many questions with service providers. And we see ourselves in the middle, orchestrating the three stakeholders.”

On the challenges of integrating acquired businesses, Bisevac said: “The first couple of times when we acquired businesses, we faced a lot of integration challenges."

These challenges include employee scepticism about new ownership, customers being sceptical about new ownership, and employees being stubborn about learning new AI skills.

Bisevac added: “We have learned that essentially all of that goes away if you do one thing. And that one thing is working on a product that provides a better service to the customers.”

Photo: Pixabay

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Waymo is launching its driverless taxis in London next year, marking its first expansion into Europe.

The Alphabet-owned, California-based firm today confirmed that it will test a small fleet of its vehicles with safety drivers behind the wheel in London in the coming months, ahead of a full rollout in 2026. The autonomous taxis, hailed by an app, are currently available in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Austin, Phoenix as well as Tokyo.

Waymo is partnering with Uber-backed Moove to oversee and manage the fleet, which will likely be available for hire by the general public and tourists.

In a blog post, Waymo said it will “continue to engage with local and national leaders to secure the necessary permissions for our commercial ride-hailing service in London."

Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana, said: “We’re thrilled to bring the reliability, safety and magic of Waymo to Londoners.

“Waymo is making roads safer and transportation more accessible where we operate. We’ve demonstrated how to responsibly scale fully autonomous ride-hailing, and we can’t wait to expand the benefits of our technology to the United Kingdom."

Heidi Alexander, secretary of state for transport, said: “I’m delighted that Waymo intends to bring their services to London next year, under our proposed piloting scheme.

“Boosting the AV sector will increase accessible transport options alongside bringing jobs, investment, and opportunities to the UK. Cutting edge investment like this will help us deliver our mission to be world-leaders in new technology and spearhead national renewal that delivers real change in our communities.”

Waymo has existing UK hubs in London and Oxford and has a partnership with British vehicle brand Jaguar Land Rover.

The introduction of Waymo’s taxis comes as the UK government trials the use of self-driving vehicles next year. These will permit the public to book automated rides using apps.

Photo Credit: Waymo

Vienna-based enspired, an optimiser for battery energy storage systems (BESS), has raised over €40 million in Series B funding. The round adds Future Energy Ventures as a new investor alongside renewed commitments from Zouk Capital, EnBW New Ventures, Banpu NEXT, PUSH VC, and 360 Capital.

Enspired provides simultaneous commercial optimisation of batteries and other power assets across wholesale, control reserve, and ancillary services. Its fully automated, in-house trading platform, built for Europe’s short-term power markets, aims to reduce time to market and help customers monetise flexibility.

As the energy transition accelerates, battery optimisation is becoming critical infrastructure, and the company’s multi-market approach addresses a key bottleneck in integrating renewables.

Enspired is expanding faster than expected, adding new countries to its roadmap while continuing to see opportunities in Europe and assessing growth in Asia and the US.

Within the last 12 months, we entered six new markets and crossed the 1GW mark of BESS under management. We proved our undisputed leadership in commercial optimisation by publishing our actual, certified revenues. We are at our greatest peak, and we won’t stop here,

said CEO and co-founder Jürgen Mayerhofer.

The company views AI as a lever to accelerate the energy transition and will use the new investment to expand into additional regions. The first step in its global expansion is a partnership with Banpu NEXT, a Net Zero solutions provider in Asia-Pacific and an emerging BESS player in Japan.

With the strategic support of Future  Energy Ventures as our new investor, we're perfectly positioned to accelerate our growth and introduce several innovative use cases very soon. Their expertise in the energy sector and  commitment to our vision make them an ideal partner for our next phase of expansion,

Mayerhofer added.

The new capital will enable enspired to advance AI-driven flexibility optimisation and set a higher standard for energy management globally.

London-based cybersecurity startup CybaVerse has secured €5.9 million in Series A funding to accelerate its growth and product development. The round was co-led by Pembroke VCT and Airbridge Equity Partners, with participation from Haatch, and legal support provided by boutique firm Culbert Ellis.

Founded in 2018, CybaVerse has evolved from a boutique consultancy into a growing UK cybersecurity vendor with nearly 40 employees and a rapidly expanding customer base. The company’s mission is to make cybersecurity simpler, more efficient, and more accessible for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) and Managed Service Providers (MSPs).

The new funding will support CybaVerse’s expansion into a scalable SaaS growth model, boosting its sales and marketing efforts, growing the team, and accelerating the development of CybaOps, its proprietary cybersecurity management platform.

CybaOps combines detection, compliance, security, and testing into a single SaaS product designed for SMEs and MSPs. Its white-labelled model enables partners to rebrand and resell the platform efficiently, helping them strengthen defences and automate key security processes at scale.

In the past year, CybaVerse reported 180% revenue growth and 90% customer retention. The Series A follows a €1.3 million round in 2024 and the acquisition of SecureAck, as well as CybaVerse’s shortlisting in the CRN Channel Awards 2025 under the “Rising Star Security Vendor of the Year” category.

Oliver Spence, CEO of CybaVerse, said: “This funding marks an exciting new chapter for CybaVerse. Having such a high calibre of investors on board validates our vision to design and deliver innovative solutions that empower MSPs and SMEs. With this investment, we will accelerate CybaOps development, enhance AI-driven features, and expand our team to bring smarter, more scalable security to MSPs and SMEs, all while staying true to our mission of simplifying cybersecurity for everyone.”

Fred Ursell, Head of Investments at Pembroke Investment Managers, said: “Cybersecurity has become an arms race that most small businesses simply can’t afford to fight. CybaVerse levels the playing field – giving SMEs and their IT partners enterprise-grade protection through automation, not armies of analysts. Ollie’s background in military-grade cyber operations, combined with a clear commercial instinct, has built a platform that turns complex security into something simple, scalable, and effective. It’s a smart UK company solving a global problem, and we’re proud to back their next phase of growth.”

Robin Rensen, Partner at Airbridge Equity Partners, said: “Cyber security is increasingly becoming a board-level priority for the long-tail SME market, yet too many of these businesses remain underserved by legacy solutions. CybaVerse is changing that. Ollie, Gemma and the team have built a product-first company that combines deep technical expertise with a sharp understanding of customer pain points. The result is a very robust company protecting many companies directly, and well prepared to increasingly do so via channel partners. We are thrilled to back CybaVerse alongside Pembroke and Haatch. We look forward to supporting the team as they scale their mission of making robust cybersecurity accessible to all businesses.”

Jonathan Keeling, Partner at Haatch, said: “We first backed CybaVerse in 2024 and have watched the team execute brilliantly, growing revenue, expanding their product, and tripling the company’s share price in just over a year. Ollie and the team are building a category-defining platform in one of the fastest-growing sectors in tech. We’re thrilled to double down on our conviction and join an outstanding group of growth-stage investors as CybaVerse continues to scale.”

With the new investment, CybaVerse plans to strengthen its market position, expand its platform’s AI-driven features, and continue simplifying cybersecurity for smaller organisations.

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London-based CybaVerse, an innovator in the cybersecurity sector, has closed its Series A funding round, securing £5 million in investment. The round was co-led by Pembroke VCT and Airbridge Equity Partners, with participation from Haatch. Culbert Ellis provided the legal support. The Series A round follows a £1.1 million raise in 2024 and its acquisition of SecureAck.

Founded in 2018, CybaVerse is a UK cybersecurity vendor which focuses on making cybersecurity simpler, more efficient, and more accessible for SMEs and managed service providers.

The company’s product, CybaOps, is an all-in-one SaaS platform that unifies detection, compliance, security operations, and testing. Built to be cost-effective, easy to deploy, and partner-friendly, CybaOps offers a white-label model for rapid resale, while automation streamlines complex tasks and strengthens defences against advanced threats, delivering 24/7 protection and clear, actionable insights.

The new funding will accelerate sales and marketing, expand the team, advance CybaOps development, and support a shift from founder-led sales to a scalable SaaS growth model.

If you own a small or midsize business (SMB), chances are, you and your team wear a lot of hats. Time and resources are luxuries you don’t always have, making it hard to feel productive some days. Meet Zoom AI Companion, our generative AI assistant that helps you get time back in your work day without adding to your headcount. No matter if you’re a solopreneur, own a small family company, run a thriving agency, or are the IT manager at a large enterprise organization, we believe everyone should experience the benefits of AI. To help with this, AI Companion is available at no extra cost for paid users on eligible plans and can be used by businesses of all sizes, without a minimum number of licenses.

Grow your business. Shrink your to-do list

Implementing AI tools for your business may sound a little daunting without an IT team to help you out. But the truth is, using AI Companion is as simple as logging in to the tools you already know and love. From summarizing meetings to in-meeting questions to suggesting chat responses and email replies, our AI Companion is natively integrated into the solutions you use for day-to-day business.

Still exploring the benefits of generative AI? Want to know how it could work for a team of two or a 300-person firm? Keep reading to learn how an AI assistant can help you maximize productivity no matter the size of your business.

Zoom AI Companion for the solopreneur

Solopreneurs are no strangers to juggling tasks, but when you’re a party of one, it’s hard to find the time to market your services and still deliver exceptional customer support. If you need another pair of hands but can’t afford to hire extra help, an AI assistant may just be the best friend you never knew you needed. Our AI companion can be your notetaker or help with drafting emails, composing chats, or catching you up on any meetings you may have missed.

AI Companion is available with eligible paid Zoom user accounts at no extra cost,* so small and midsize business owners can take advantage of the increased productivity that AI has to offer. We’ve made it easy to minimize the repetitive tasks and focus more on what matters.

How AI Companion works for small marketing agencies

Small teams do big things, so it’s no wonder we’re constantly impressed by the creativity and impact we see from our customers with as few as 2–10 employees. That’s why we want to help you capture the creative sparks in real-time — without distractions.

Imagine a brainstorming session where AI can prompt new ideas on your virtual whiteboard. It’s like a built-in antidote for writer’s block. Need to send an update to a colleague who couldn’t attend that meeting today? Forward a meeting summary generated by AI Companion so they don’t have to watch a meeting recording and you don’t have to summarize.

Meeting summaries has saved our team a ton of time. We feel that everyone is in the loop without necessarily having to attend every meeting, which results in better collaboration.

Karl Morsgofian, CIO, Gainsight

Explore AI Companion for fast-growing start-ups

Start-ups move at warp speed and don’t have a minute to waste. When you have distributed employees across multiple locations and time zones, effective communication is paramount. A smart AI assistant can help you generate efficiency when you need it most. Short on time? Write emails faster with the help of suggested content. Late to a meeting? Make a query inside the meeting to catch up without having to interrupt a colleague.

As you begin to execute new business strategies like virtual events, AI Companion is your built-in event planner right inside Zoom Events. You can use it to draft your invitation emails, help with attendee registrations, ticketing communications, and more. Why get buried in administrative tasks when you can automate the heavy lifting?

What can an AI assistant do for a 100-person law firm?

We know SMB leaders need to not only collaborate more effectively but also free up more time to focus on decision-making, creative ideation, and activities that move the needle. With 100 employees or more, keeping teams up to date can be challenging. Lean on AI Companion to summarize large chat threads in seconds, or catch you up if you need to join a meeting late or briefly step away.

Zoom’s AI Companion exemplifies our vision for enhanced collaboration and innovation. With automated, detailed meeting summaries, it streamlines information sharing and boosts productivity. This inclusion in our Zoom plan not only improves efficiency but also yields significant cost savings, reflecting our commitment to a smarter, more connected future.

John Georgatos, CIO, Mike Morse Law Firm

Smart AI assistants help uncover new efficiencies in 200+ person businesses

The rise of remote and hybrid work means employees are often distributed across the globe. Communicating with overseas vendors and team members can be challenging in multiple regions, especially as your business grows to 200 employees or more. This makes it more important than ever to have an AI tool that is built for multiple languages and enables communication across geographies.

Luckily, AI Companion already supports in-meeting questions for English and an additional 7 foreign languages in preview.

It will soon support a total of 33 languages for both meeting summaries and in-meeting questions, so your global team can benefit by getting caught up on that crucial meeting. And with Meeting coach’s speech analytic features coming soon, hosts can get feedback on how well they engaged meeting participants with filters, talk speed, talk-listen ratio, and more.

The AI Companion tool that scales as your business grows

The evolution from a small- to medium-sized business can bring lots of excitement and revenue but headaches as well. When you’re in a period of rapid growth, you need a solution that scales with your business. AI Companion is built to support growing businesses and large organizations. It can help teams as small as two or large enterprises keep up with revolving chat messages and missed meetings. You’ll love having more freedom to work on what matters most and spend less time catching up.

Breeze through your workday

Customer loyalty is the backbone of small and medium businesses, as 59% of customers say they’ll switch to a new brand after just one or two bad experiences. We’re here to help your business grow by giving you more time to focus on creating, selling, and marketing your services to better serve your customers. AI Companion isn’t just another tool in your toolbox—it’s a vital part of our all-in-one intelligent collaboration platform. We’re making connecting easier, more immersive, and more dynamic for businesses and individuals. Discover how our smart AI Assistant can help your business grow.

Founded in 2023, Billdin provides a digital platform for project cost management, helping construction companies control budgets, purchases, labour, and expenses from a single tool. Their platform integrates with existing ERP systems and offers real-time tracking, data analytics, and financial control to simplify project monitoring.

Designed to simplify the complexity of construction management, the startup emerged from AT4, a Valencian construction company that, after identifying the need for more efficient digital tools in the industry. Having raised to date €430k, Billdin aims to make construction management more transparent and productive through automation and real-time insights.

Founded in 2021, Colibid is a digital mortgage platform that connects users with banks and brokers through a competitive bidding system. The platform analyses each user’s financial data to match them instantly with the most suitable mortgage offers, allowing them to compare terms and choose the best option. It covers different mortgage types, including fixed, variable, and mixed-rate options, and enables users to manage the entire process online, from initial comparison to final approval.

By placing borrowers at the centre of the process, Colibid aims to make mortgage acquisition faster, more transparent, and easier to navigate. The platform has already attracted more than 117,000 users and facilitated over €80 million in mortgage financing. Having raised €500k to date, Colibid continues to expand its services to improve access to tailored financial solutions for homebuyers and investors.

Founded in 2021, Depa, previously known as Depasify, is a fintech startup that provides digital asset infrastructure designed for banks, fintechs, and Web3 companies. Its platform enables businesses to integrate stablecoin-powered payments and manage cross-border transactions more efficiently. Depa connects users to a unified ledger system that records fiat and crypto transactions in real time, supporting over 200 countries and more than 14,000 payments per day.

The company offers a single API for launching global payment flows, covering on- and off-ramp services, SEPA transfers, payouts, and compliance monitoring. With $100 million in fiat transactions processed annually, Depa aims to bridge traditional finance and digital assets by providing compliant, scalable, and cost-efficient solutions for international payments. The startup has raised €2.2 million to date.

Founded in 2021, Flipflow is a software company that provides a market intelligence platform for the retail sector. Its technology enables brands and retailers to analyse pricing, stock levels, product availability, and promotional activity in real time across multiple marketplaces and sales channels. The platform also monitors brand visibility, content compliance, and digital shelf performance, allowing businesses to optimise their strategies and maintain consistent positioning across online and offline environments.

Flipflow’s data-driven approach helps companies react quickly to market changes, avoid stock shortages, and strengthen their omnichannel presence. Recognised by Gartner in its Market Guide for Digital Shelf Analytics 2025, the startup supports clients such as Unilever, Nestlé, and Mango in improving competitiveness and retail media performance. Flipflow has raised €900k to date to continue enhancing its analytics capabilities and global reach.

Founded in 2021, Healz is a healthtech startup offering a personalised metabolic health app that combines biomarker-based diagnostics with AI-driven analysis. The platform helps users understand and improve their well-being by monitoring key health factors such as nutrition, stress, and sleep. Through the integration of biosensors and wearables, Healz provides real-time data and personalised insights to support better lifestyle and treatment decisions.

The startup’s approach is centred on precision and prevention, offering tailor-made health plans guided by a team of medical professionals and nutrition experts. Healz reports that most users experience improved energy levels and health markers within the first six months of use. Backed by €850k in funding, the company aims to make advanced diagnostics and personalised health management accessible through technology and continuous monitoring.

Founded in 2021, Kimera Technologies develops AI-based solutions that transform multimedia content into actionable data. Its technology enables eCommerce businesses to improve product discovery and personalisation through advanced visual and conversational search tools. The platform includes features such as image-based search, recommendations, and analytics, helping users find products more efficiently while supporting retailers in boosting conversions.

Kimera offers a conversational search engine that understands customer intent and provides accurate, context-aware results, reducing abandonment rates and improving user experience. Designed for both B2C and B2B eCommerce platforms, the solution integrates easily with systems like Shopify, Magento, and WooCommerce. Having raised €660k to date, Kimera continues to refine its AI tools to help online retailers maximise visibility and customer satisfaction.

Founded in 2021, MasLeads is a SaaS platform that provides AI-powered lead generation and business development solutions for B2B companies. Its technology analyses data from multiple sources to identify and qualify high-quality prospects, allowing sales teams to focus on the most relevant opportunities. The platform includes tools for segmentation, CRM integration, and compliance with GDPR regulations, helping businesses improve efficiency in prospecting and outreach.

MasLeads’ AI Copilot assists sales teams by automating data collection, filtering, and enrichment to deliver actionable insights and verified contacts. With more than 200 clients using its technology, the company reports measurable results, including higher conversion rates and reduced prospecting time. To date, MasLeads has raised €736k to continue advancing its AI capabilities and expanding its reach in the B2B sales market.

Founded in 2023, Matteco develops advanced materials for green hydrogen production through next-generation catalysts and electrodes. Its patented technology is based on non-PGM (non-platinum group metal) materials and innovative nanotechnology designed to improve the efficiency and scalability of alkaline and AEM electrolysis. The company’s solutions aim to make hydrogen production more cost-effective and sustainable by reducing dependence on critical raw materials.

Matteco has raised €16.1 million to expand its R&D and manufacturing capacity, including the development of a 10,000-square-metre facility capable of serving gigawatt-scale demand by 2025. Its work supports the global transition to cleaner energy by addressing key challenges in hydrogen adoption and helping decarbonise sectors such as heavy industry, long-haul transport, and energy storage.

Founded in 2024 by Thomas Hubregtsen and Fran Infante, Voltrac develops autonomous electric vehicles designed for agriculture and frontline logistics. Backed by Foodlabs and Antler, the company focuses on improving efficiency, reducing labour shortages, and cutting operational costs in demanding environments. Its flagship product, THOR, is an automated electric tractor built for reliability, modularity, and round-the-clock operation in challenging terrains.

Voltrac has raised €2 million to advance the development and field testing of its vehicle platform, which is currently being trialled across vineyards and mountainous areas near Valencia. The startup aims to deliver its first customer units by early 2026, contributing to a more sustainable and automated future for agricultural and industrial logistics.

Founded in 2021, Ziknes specialises in large-format 3D printing technology for industrial applications. The company offers an integrated system combining hardware, software, and control tools to enable efficient additive manufacturing with polymers. Its Laminar software manages slicing, trajectory generation, and process control in real time, ensuring precision and adaptability throughout production.

The Ziknes system includes configurable industrial robots, high-flow extruders, and automated material loading, allowing users to produce functional parts directly from CAD designs. By reducing material waste and production time, Ziknes provides a cost-effective and flexible alternative to traditional manufacturing. The startup has raised €1.2 million to date to continue advancing its technology and expanding its presence in industrial-scale 3D printing.

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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Milan-based fintech Finanz has raised €700,000 in an all-equity pre-seed round, backed by leading business angels and senior executives from the financial industry, including investors from Amazon, Amundi, Rothschild & Co, and Fundsgate.

Finanz helps people start investing with a personalised, five-minute-a-day guided journey. Built on the belief that financial education is a right, not a privilege, it began as a mission to make finance understandable, even in high school classrooms, before becoming an app.

Research indicates that roughly €10 trillion sits idle in current accounts, and 335 million Europeans aren’t investing due to limited financial knowledge.

Finanz aims to turn this gap into an opportunity by combining technology and cultural impact to help people manage savings and invest with confidence.

We started by bringing financial education into Italian schools, organising over 100 assemblies for students and teachers. Today, we want to directly address a problem that affects millions of Europeans, not just the younger generations, by helping everyone learn how to save and invest, one step at a time,

says Lorenzo Perotta, CEO of Finanz.

Launched in November 2024 by founders Lorenzo Perotta (CEO), Andrea Pasini (CTO), Matteo Spreafico (COO), and Matteo Longoni (CMO), Finanz has a young team with an average age of 23 and plans to hire across technology, product, and design as it develops a leading European platform for financial education and management.

The new capital will support growth in Italy, expansion beyond 100,000 users, and accelerated product development.

Prague-based energy scaleup Delta Green has secured €2 million in fresh funding from Credo Ventures, Tilia Impact Ventures, and Purple Ventures to accelerate its pan-European expansion. 

Delta Green aims to turn ordinary European homes into a powerful force on the energy market. The company's platform connects ordinary homes into a virtual power battery, enabling households to shift consumption, discharge batteries, and export rooftop solar at times of peak demand. Every kilowatt activated at the right moment lowers bills, supports renewables, and reduces fossil fuel reliance.

Delta Green is co-owned by four engineers and developers, David Brozik, Prokop Cech, Lukas Benes and Jan Hicl. I spoke to Delta Green co-founder Jan Hicl to learn more.

Delta Green was originally called Nano Green and has been around for about 13 years. 

Why the energy industry's conservatism is creating opportunity

According to Hicl, "We acquired and rebranded it three years ago to focus on what we do now."

"Our background is in building software startups, so we've turned Delta Green into a software-first company for the energy sector — which is traditionally quite conservative and slow to change."

According to Hicl, a good example of that conservatism is the growing number of negative price hours on the spot market.  "Everyone knows how to fix it — by shifting when electricity is produced and consumed — but very few are acting fast enough.  The fact that those hours are still increasing shows just how rigid the industry remains."

Hicl shared that this is why "flexibility' has become such an energy buzzword: everyone recognises it's critical for the transition, but real-world implementation is still limited."

We've already seen small blackouts in the Czech Republic, Spain, and Portugal. However, without flexibility to stabilise the network, especially at the low-voltage level — the local networks closest to households. 

Hicl contends that most investment goes into high-voltage transmission networks and utility-scale batteries, "but the real fragility is in local distribution systems."

"These networks were built decades ago for completely different consumption patterns.

If five EVs on one street start charging simultaneously, you can overload the grid.  That's where residential flexibility — our speciality — becomes essential.

Our platform can coordinate devices, telling some to wait and others to charge, so the network doesn't collapse."

How ending subsidies is actually helping Delta Green grow

Greentech is a tough sector for many startups at the whim of European policy priorities, especially in areas like EV-subsidies and ESG. But interestingly, Hicl asserts that the fact that many countries are ending net-metering schemes—where households could feed excess solar power into the grid in summer and draw it back in winter, is helping the company. 

He admits, "That was effectively a form of subsidy, and now it's disappearing."

However, the end of subsidies is actually prompting both consumers and retailers to consider energy management more seriously. 

"As a result, consumers are starting to ask new questions: When should I consume energy? How can I use what I produce more intelligently? 

Retailers, too, have lost many of their government incentives, so they're looking for new ways to stay competitive. Our technology gives them that edge.

While first movers benefit most from the shift, it's more difficult in markets where there aren't enough EVs, heat pumps, or residential batteries—" assets we can control.

But overall, the shift away from subsidies is creating stronger demand for what we do."

Further, household flexibility is no longer in a pilot phase — "our business growth proves it works across thousands of households," says Hicl.

"We're now accelerating our plans as market demand is clear, with major retailers across Europe approaching us to deploy our solution."

From test lab to pan-European platform

In the Czech Republic, Delta Green is a small energy supplier, serving about 7,000 customers. 

"That's our test lab, where we can develop and refine our technology before scaling it," shared Hicl.

"Then we license our platform to large utilities. They use it to manage flexibility across their customer base."

Delta Green runs a lean ship, which Hicl admits is partly out of necessity.:

"Margins in the energy sector are extremely thin — around 1 per cent. When we entered the industry, we were shocked to find that no one accepted credit card payments.

Then we discovered that card processing fees are about 1.5 per cent, which would instantly wipe out profits! We've managed to stay profitable because we utilise our proprietary technology to operate efficiently.  We make money from our customer portfolio and from selling the platform to other suppliers.

We're sustainable, even if we're not the fastest-growing company out there — and that's okay. A lot of hyper-growth players in our space have already burned out."

Hicl asserts that for decades, we've been accustomed to having electricity available whenever we want it, at a constant price. That era is ending.

"In the future, prices will vary hour by hour depending on supply and demand. Sometimes electricity will even be free, or have negative prices.

For households, that means comfort will come at a cost. If you insist on consuming energy during peak times, you'll pay more. But if you're flexible — if you shift your consumption, like charging your EV or heating water when solar or wind generation is high — you'll save money and help stabilise the grid."

E.ON partnership sparks snowball effect across Europe

By the end of this year, Delta Green platform will manage tens of thousands of households, putting it on track to become Europe's largest household-based virtual power plant. 

"We just closed first deals in Romania, Italy, Hungary and Slovakia, and we are in advanced discussions with several major international energy suppliers about adopting our technology," shared Hicl. 

Since its last funding update in 2024, Delta Green has made significant strides. It has become the first company in CEE to successfully involve households directly in grid balancing. 

In the Czech Republic, one of country's top three energy providers E.ON has integrated Delta Green's flexibility service into its operations and plans to scale it to thousands of customers within the next 18 months. Thanks to this collaboration, E.ON customers can earn up to €200 per year by monetising their household energy flexibility. 

Hicl admits that the momentum has created a snowball effect — "everyone realised they needed something similar to stay competitive. That's when we knew we were ready to expand internationally."

"Now we're active in Austria, Romania, and Hungary, and preparing to launch in other European countries."

From here on, Delta Green is expanding the types of assets it can control.

"Right now, we mainly manage EVs, but we're adding heat pumps and residential batteries to the platform."

"We are really happy to see that Delta Green's timing for their flexibility aggregation solution was perfect. Just as the market realised the importance of this kind of solution for energy transformation towards greater sustainability, the company already had a real solution in place that the energy companies can instantly use, because it's been tested on Delta Green's own retail customers," says Tilia Impact Ventures partner, Pavel Petřek. 

Delta Green's mission is clear — to place households at the very centre of Europe's energy transition and build the continent's largest network of flexible homes.

Munich, a city known for its role in technology and innovation, recently hosted Photonica 2025 – the final event of the PhotonHub Europe project. Taking place on 25 June at automatica’s Start-up Arena, happening alongside Laser World of Photonics at Messe München, the half-day gathering served as an important platform to connect promising startups with investors, industry leaders, and potential partners

Photonica was designed as an “Investors Day” under PhotonHub’s mandate to accelerate the commercialisation of photonic technologies across Europe. With over 47,000 visitors attending the surrounding trade fairs, the event benefited from strong visibility within one of the world’s largest innovation showcases for photonics, smart automation, and robotics.

Highlights from the agenda

The event opened with a keynote by Mehrnaz Heidari, Strategic Partnership Manager at Tyndall National Institute – member of PhotonHub Europe’s consortium – and Coordinator of Photonics Ireland, who highlighted the strategic role of photonics in Europe’s future competitiveness. This was followed by a panel discussion on emerging trends and disruptive technologies, with perspectives from academia, research, and venture capital.

At the heart of Photonica was the startup pitching competition, where eight startups, most of them being beneficiaries of PhotonHub Investment Readiness Coaching Program led by FundingBox Accelerator, presented their solutions to a jury of experts and investors. Participants included Lumos Laser, Meet Optics, Photin, Blue Tube, Alcyon Photonics, Quantum Brand Protection, and Hypermemo Oy. Each company was tasked with outlining its innovation, business model, and go-to-market strategy before a jury of investors and experts.

The pitching session was followed by a fireside chat titled The Art of the Deal, where Tomasz Mazuryk, Co-CEO of FundingBox and Martyna Waliszewska, Investment Manager from Invest in Odense, explored agreement structures for European startups and investors, such as equity transfers, convertible notes and SAFE agreements available in the US, currently being developed by the EU under the EUSAFE project.

And the winner is ….. 

The jury selected Alcyon Photonics as the winner of the pitching competition. Specialising in high-performance integrated photonic circuits (PICs), the startup impressed with its clear market strategy and strong scalability potential. Its proprietary subwavelength grating (SWG) technology enables advanced polarisation management and broad bandwidth, offering applications across telecommunications, sensing, quantum technologies, and data communications.

Jimena García-Romeu, CEO at Alcyon Photonics, said: “We first heard about PhotonHub Europe and the Photonica competition through our network in the European photonics ecosystem, where PhotonHub is widely recognised as a key initiative supporting innovation and startups. We saw it as a unique opportunity to showcase our vision, connect with leading experts and investors, and highlight how our silicon photonics IP can bring real impact to strategic industries in Europe and beyond.”

She then continued: “Winning Photonica is both an honour and a milestone. It validates the relevance of our technology, boosts our confidence as we scale, and gives us stronger momentum in attracting partners and customers. At this stage of our journey, it represents recognition that we are on the right path to make a real impact.”

As a prize, Alcyon Photonics received one-on-one consultation sessions with each jury member, providing valuable access to investor expertise.

A catalyst for visibility and collaboration

Photonica not only highlighted the entrepreneurial talent within Europe’s photonics sector but also provided concrete opportunities for networking and collaboration. A dedicated lunch session encouraged startups, investors, and industry representatives to explore collaborations and new business leads. Early feedback from beneficiaries indicated that even brief interactions had already resulted in promising contacts.

The event also served to showcase the impact of public investment in innovation. By presenting startups supported through an EU-funded initiative, Photonica underlined how public resources are being channelled into fostering entrepreneurship and deep tech development, while providing transparency and accountability in the use of public funding.

Looking ahead

Since 2021, PhotonHub Europe has supported over 100 companies, helping generate more than €750 million in revenues, create 1,000 jobs, and raise €250 million in venture capital. With new investment from the European Commission, its activities will continue under the PhotonHub PHACTORY, providing access to Europe’s leading laboratories, technical expertise, and training.

Photonica 2025 marked the conclusion of PhotonHub Europe’s current programme, reinforcing the project’s role in bridging the gap between deep tech innovation and market deployment. By integrating with major industry fairs and focusing on investor-startup connections, the event set a benchmark for how European photonics can thrive within the global innovation ecosystem.

The project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement n°101016665, in public-private partnership with Photonics21. To learn more, visit Photonhub’s website.

The post Photonica 2025: Showcasing Europe’s brightest photonics startups in Munich (Sponsored) appeared first on EU-Startups.

London-based Orbiri has raised £320,000 in an oversubscribed angel round with 14 individual investors, following an initial £45,000 in seed funding. The company is preparing to launch a community-wide solution that aligns children, parents, and schools around shared digital limits (shifting peer pressure from a barrier to a support) instead of relying on parents to police screen time individually or enforce blanket smartphone bans.

Orbiri provides a community-powered platform with preset, considered screen-time boundaries for children. Its collective-action approach aligns children, parents, and schools around shared boundaries to eliminate daily device battles and protect the conditions necessary for healthy childhood development. Rather than leaving schools and families to act alone, it enables coordinated limits within a single framework, aiming to make healthy digital habits the norm.

Amid growing concern about children’s unrestricted smartphone use, with schools in England adopting phone bans and ministers considering Australia-style limits on under-16s’ social media, Orbiri contends that durable progress depends on bottom-up community coordination rather than top-down restrictions.

Set to roll out next year, Orbiri will complete product development, secure compliance certifications, and run trials with early-adopter schools while expanding its core and product teams.

The goal is to demonstrate that shared community boundaries can replace daily device conflicts with a more natural shift toward healthier technology use, addressing shortcomings of school bans and individual parental controls.

The funding will support upcoming trial phases ahead of a broader launch, aligning with a growing view that approaches such as school phone bans and individual parental controls are insufficient and difficult to implement at scale.

SLNG.ai, a speech infrastructure startup out of Barcelona building the first radically global platform for voice AI, today announced it has raised €3.3 million in pre-Seed funding to challenge the US-centric voice technology ecosystem that “has left billions of users worldwide in digital silence.“

The round, led by Earlybird VC, will accelerate SLNG’s plan to provide developers, startups, and enterprises with a unified platform that integrates multiple speech models, supports true global deployment with regional compliance, and eliminates the barriers that have kept voice technology concentrated in a handful of languages and markets.

According to Luke Miller, CEO and Co-founder of SLNG: “We’re not just building another voice AI platform, we are rethinking the entire ecosystem to be developer first, truly global and compliant.“

The pre-Seed round raised by SLNG reflects growing investor attention in Europe’s voice and speech technology sector during 2025.

The landscape includes funding rounds such as Vox AI’s €7.5 million Seed to expand multilingual voice assistants for quick-service restaurants, Synthflow AI’s €17.2 million Series A for enterprise-grade voice agents, and Solda.AI’s €3.5 million Seed for telesales automation.

Other adjacent raises include Augmented Hearing’s €3 million Seed for speech enhancement and MEGA’s €1.7 million pre-Seed to build compliant AI voice agents.

Against this backdrop, SLNG’s Barcelona base makes it one of the few Spanish entrants in the voice infrastructure field, contrasting with Northern European dominance in voice agents.

Unlike peers that build application-level conversational systems, SLNG focuses on model-agnostic voice infrastructure, offering developer tools to integrate multiple speech models and maintain regional compliance. The raise positions SLNG as an early mover in the foundational layer of Europe’s speech ecosystem – complementary to, rather than competing directly with, voice agent startups driving the broader 2025 funding trend.

“What excites us about SLNG is the audacity of their mission: to make voice AI universal, compliant, and developer-first from day one. Luke and the team are not just building a product – they’re building the missing infrastructure for a truly global voice ecosystem. We believe SLNG can define the next era of speech technology,“ added Akash Bajwa, Principal at Earlybird VC.

SLNG was founded in 2025 by Ismael Ordaz and Luke Miller. Ordaz leads product and engineering, while Miller scales GTM like he did at companies like npm and Vercel. Having seen speech AI break beyond US borders: models failing on dialects, compliance blocking markets and costs spiraling out of control, they built SLNG to “unmute the world”.

The startup was founded to address repeated patterns that companies continuously struggle with:

1. Lack of regional compute
2. Missing industry-specific models
3. Compliance barriers
4. Latency issues

According to SLNG, most platforms optimise primarily for premium languages like English, Spanish, and French, leaving other languages/dialects as afterthoughts. High latency and data residency issues entangle deployment in many non-US centric regions.

Developers are forced into single-provider ecosystems with limited flexibility in terms of cost and model testing. Lastly, regulated industries can’t deploy voice AI products due to data sovereignty requirements that existing platforms simply can’t meet.

Unlike traditional speech AI providers, SLNG offers a model-agnostic platform where developers integrate any speech-to-text, text-to-speech, or voice cloning model through a single API.

The company’s open ecosystem approach lets developers combine open-source and proprietary models without vendor lock-in, while developer-first design delivers SDKs and APIs built for rapid integration. This avoids months-long implementations, giving developers unprecedented flexibility in building voice-enabled applications.

The platform already supports deployment across over 20 regions, enabling companies in regulated industries, like healthcare, finance, and government, to finally deploy voice AI while meeting strict data residency requirements.

The post “Unmuting the world”: Spain’s SLNG raises €3.3 million to challenge US-centric speech AI infrastructure appeared first on EU-Startups.

SLNG.ai, the speech infrastructure startup building the first radically global platform for voice AI, today announced it has raised €3.3 million in Pre-Seed funding to challenge the US-centric voice technology ecosystem that has left billions of users worldwide in digital silence.

The round, led by Earlybird VC, will accelerate SLNG's mission to restore the universal power of voice by providing developers, startups, and enterprises with a unified platform that integrates multiple speech models, supports true global deployment with regional compliance, and eliminates the barriers that have kept voice technology concentrated in a handful of languages and markets.

Spain-based SLNG was founded by Ismael Ordaz and Luke Miller after spotting the same pattern globally: companies struggling with 1) lack of regional compute, 2) missing industry-specific models, 3) compliance barriers, and 4) latency issues. SLNG solves all four.  According to Luke Miller, CEO and co-founder of SLNG:

“We're not just building another voice AI platform, we are rethinking the entire ecosystem to be developer first, truly global and compliant."

SLNG aims to solve fundamental limitations of the current voice AI infrastructure. Most platforms optimise primarily for premium languages like English, Spanish, and French, leaving other languages/dialects as afterthoughts.

High latency and data residency issues entangle deployment in many non-US-centric regions. Developers are forced into single-provider ecosystems with limited flexibility in terms of cost and model testing. Lastly, regulated industries can't deploy voice AI products due to data sovereignty requirements that existing platforms simply can't meet.

Unlike traditional speech AI providers, SLNG offers a model-agnostic platform where developers integrate any speech-to-text, text-to-speech, or voice cloning model through a single API. This fuels a truly global deployment through regional infrastructure and ensures low latency and compliance worldwide.

The company's open ecosystem approach lets developers combine open-source and proprietary models without vendor lock-in, while developer-first design delivers SDKs and APIs built for rapid integration. This avoids months-long implementations, giving developers unprecedented flexibility in building voice-enabled applications.

The platform already supports deployment across over 20 regions, enabling companies in regulated industries, like healthcare, finance, and government, to finally deploy voice AI while meeting strict data residency requirements.

“What excites us about SLNG is the audacity of their mission: to make voice AI universal, compliant, and developer-first from day one. Luke and the team are not just building a product - they’re building the missing infrastructure for a truly global voice ecosystem. We believe SLNG can define the next era of speech technology, “ added Akash Bajwa, Principal at Earlybird VC.