EU has a plan, A16Z has left the English way, and DeepSeek prompted Mistral and OpenAI to act
Mistral and OpenAI have new toys they want to share with you + EUR 800m in new VC rounds + EUR 200m in new VC funds
Dear R/Leader!
This is the fourth edition of the Curator, and keeping up with the speed of recent events has been quite challenging. We’ve been too busy to gather all the memes from the past few days and the tariff issues, so we look forward to our future selves discussing it. On a positive note, we promise not to offer you any unsolicited advice on how to respond to DeepSeek (because we’ve already reported it last week). Besides, everybody and their mothers already know how to handle the Tiananmen Square question.
Suffice to say, we hope that DeepSeek serves as a rallying cry for European founders with limited resources and support to continue their fight. Especially because the European Commission has presented "The Competitiveness Compass," a new framework building on Mario Draghi's recommendations to boost EU's competitive edge. The framework has three core areas:
Innovation:
Focus on creating an environment for innovative startups
Initiatives include 'Apply AI' and 'AI Gigafactories'
New action plans for advanced materials, quantum, biotech, robotics, and space technologies
EU Start-up and Scale-up Strategy development
Decarbonisation and Competitiveness:
Introduction of an Affordable Energy Action Plan
Clean Industrial Deal implementation
Industrial Decarbonisation Accelerator Act for faster permitting
Specific action plans for energy-intensive sectors (steel, metals, chemicals)
Security and Resilience:
Building effective global trade partnerships
Developing Clean Trade and Investment Partnerships
Securing raw materials, clean energy, and sustainable transport fuels
Introducing European preference in public procurement for critical sectors
If you’re wondering what it means it practice, you’re not alone, but we hope to have more to say on the matter in the weeks to come!
This week on the Curator:
the second part of our predictions for 2025,
A16Z closing its London office,
Mistral and OpenAI publishing new models,
a new lithium battery and a massive new lithium deposit in the US,
EUR 800m in new VC rounds (including a massive round by ElevenLabs that everyone is talking about on LinkedIn,
“just” EUR 200 million in new funds.
Let’s go!
VC Central 2025 Partner Announcement
Which emerging trends and opportunities will define European venture capital in 2025?
🇹🇷 Arin Ozkula - General Partner - e2vc
Especially in Emerging Europe, companies with outlier potential are often born from earlier success stories—whether through alumni who have worked at these companies or through connections within the region’s closely-knit ecosystems. As a result, we are optimistic about seeing more high-potential startups emerge from these success stories, such as devtools in Hungary and Croatia or fintech in Lithuania.More broadly, we remain excited about opportunities in vertical AI, agentic AI, and infrastructure solutions.
🇫🇷 Bartosz Jakubowski - Partner - Alven
With the upcoming strong deregulation and stimulus plans in the United States, I expect US VCs to refocus on their local market, leaving more ground for European VCs at the series A and B stages, although I still expect them to preempt top repeat founders early on at the seed stage.
As SaaS multiples (aside from AI) go down and there are more and more questions around market saturation and acquisition costs going up, I expect more generalist VCs dip their toes into deep tech, especially as the sector is proving to be able to build asset value over time.
🇳🇴 Jørn Haanæs - Associate Partner - Climentum Capital
It’s time to MEGA and go build the real world: Europe’s industrial backbone is aging, the workforce is shrinking, supply chains are too fragile. We can’t hire our way out of this, and we definitely can’t regulate our way out. The only real path forward is building industries that scale without being constrained by labor, energy bottlenecks or outdated production models. Tech-enabled growth and new energy systems represent the difference between reindustrialising Europe and watching it fade into an open-air museum. The biggest investment opportunity isn’t in digital widgets; it’s in solving real-world problems at an industrial scale. Make factories, grids, and supply chains faster, smarter, and self-sufficient. Companies facilitating this will define the next era of European industry.
🇹🇷 Mehmet Atici - Managing Partner - Bek Ventures
There are many more European founders, especially from our region, who are choosing to skip scaling in local European markets and go straight to the US. In fact, half of our portfolio is building from the US. Those founders, who have incredible grit, drive, and talent, are building some of the world’s most exciting tech companies. They are looking for investors with a global network, so these kinds of businesses are an incredible opportunity if European VCs know how to find them and back them the right way.
We also see a lot of cybersecurity talent in the region. Many of these companies are blending AI and cybersecurity, and many are skipping Europe markets and selling in the US because the European cybersecurity market is not as sophisticated. Another immediate consequence of growing AI spend is how you secure your AI tooling, so it immediately feeds into more demand for cybersecurity solutions.
🇦🇹 Peter Lasinger - Co-Founder and Partner - 3VC
Shortly said: enabling infrastructure of AI (GPU, data, energy cooling) and industrial applications of AI, including robotics.
The Rabbit Hole: what topics should be discussed more right now but are not?
🇹🇷 Arin Ozkula - General Partner - e2vc
Europe remains a fragmented and heterogeneous market, making it challenging to build large-scale businesses, particularly in novel and highly technical fields. As a result, having a global mindset from day one is essential for founders looking to serve customers eager to test innovative solutions in blue ocean markets.Eastern Europe and the Baltics hold an often-overlooked advantage: their small local markets inherently push founders to think globally from the start. To fully capitalize on this strength, we must establish the right bridges and mechanisms to help Emerging European founders scale internationally—setting a precedent for the rest of Europe.
🇫🇷 Bartosz Jakubowski - Partner - Alven
Business models trying to articulate venture-like scaling and more traditional (rollup, franchised) building strategies, where software and AI can help improve the efficiency and profitability of traditional businesses.
🇳🇴 Jørn Haanæs - Associate Partner - Climentum Capital
Acceleration over caution: We need to win, and we need to WANT to win. 2024 marked the end of green premiums and slow-moving policy bets. If climate tech doesn’t outperform on economics and execution, it won’t fly. The winners will be industrial-scale, capital-efficient, and brutally pragmatic. Europe needs less regulation, more velocity, and a bias for action. We know this, but we don’t talk enough about how we actually get there.
🇹🇷 Mehmet Atici - Managing Partner - Bek Ventures
We’re not talking enough about the level of talent in venture capital in general. Since there was a huge inflow of capital to the asset class around 2021, we’ve seen the level of investors drop. Many founders aren’t aware enough that they are working with green VCs, who haven’t seen exits, IPOs, or tricky situations and aren’t investing in developing their own teams. We are not in 2021 anymore, and if you are a founder, you should be evaluating your investors not just for how much capital they can provide you, but how they can support you through the hard stuff in your journey.
🇦🇹 Peter Lasinger - Co-Founder and Partner - 3VC
No Attainment of AGI: despite all the hype, we don’t expect Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) - machines that think and learn like humans - in 2025. While AI systems are becoming increasingly sophisticated, true AGI remains out of reach, but incremental advancements in AI will continue to revolutionize industries and reshape society.
The creation of a computational fabric that has never before existed: it is both an infrastructure revolution but also has implications (e.g. energy supply, cooling, networking, etc.).
MHM ... Might Have Missed These
A16Z closes its London office, but increases its scout presence in Europe
Scouts focus on pre-seed and seed deals, with tickets between $10k-25k per deal
Most scouts have six-figure budgets that can be increased if a16z likes their deals
Scouts submit short memos to their "sponsor" at a16z for deal approval
Mistral AI launched Mistral Small 3, a 24B model outperforming larger models while being faster and more cost-efficient
Performing on par with Meta's Llama 3.3 70B model despite being much smaller
Trained on 8 trillion tokens (vs. 15 trillion for comparable models) using improved optimization techniques rather than just raw computing power
Can run on a single GPU and handle 80-90% of typical business use cases, making it ideal for on-premises enterprise deployment
Developed without reinforcement learning or synthetic training data, helping avoid unwanted biases while maintaining competitive performance against larger models from Meta, Google, and OpenAI
OpenAI has released o3-mini, their latest AI reasoning model
24% faster response times than o1-mini, with improved accuracy (users preferred its responses 56% of the time)
39% fewer major errors on complex questions, with better performance in coding and STEM tasks
63% cheaper than o1-mini and 93% cheaper than full o1 model ($1.10/$4.40 per million tokens)
Available to all ChatGPT users (Free, Plus, Team, Pro), with Enterprise and Education access coming next week
Researchers have developed a new lithium metal battery that offers enhanced fire safety and longer lifespan
Self-extinguishing capability in case of fire
Retains 87.9% performance after 1,000 charging cycles (compared to 70-80% in traditional batteries)
A massive lithium deposit containing 40 million metric tons has been found on the Oregon-Nevada border
It's larger than Bolivia's Salar de Uyuni, previously the world's largest known deposit
Could challenge China's dominance (currently controlling 60% of global production)
Will support growing demand for EVs and renewable energy storage
New Funds
🇫🇷 Shift4Good - €220M - Fund Close
Paris and Singapore-based Shift4Good has closed its inaugural fund at €220M to invest in sustainable transport innovation across Europe and Southeast Asia. The Article 9 fund has already backed 13 companies across seven countries and plans to expand to 25-30 portfolio companies with ticket sizes ranging from €4M to €20M. Notable investors include Renault Group, BNP Paribas Group, Bpifrance, European Investment Fund, PSA Ventures, ComfortDelGro, and Capricorn. The fund targets Series A and B startups developing scalable, tech-based solutions for decarbonizing and improving efficiency across rail, road, air, and maritime sectors. Portfolio companies include bike insurer Laka, battery recycler NEU Battery Materials, bike-as-a-service provider Vapaus, and maritime suction sail developer Bound4blue.
New Rounds
🇸🇪 Adsorbi - €1M - Seed
Swedish climate tech startup Adsorbi, a research-based spinout from Chalmers University of Technology, has secured €1M in funding from Metsä Spring, Chalmers Ventures, and Jovitech Invest. The company develops material designed to trap pollution from the air, which can be used in air filters, odor removal products, and museum artifact protection. The funding will be used to construct and operate a pilot plant in Gothenburg, develop new products, and grow their customer base.
🇫🇷 Alice & Bob - $104M - Series B
Paris-based Alice & Bob has secured $104M in Series B funding co-led by Future French Champions, AXA Venture Partners, and Bpifrance. The company pioneers cat qubit quantum architecture, which accepts and works around some errors while correcting others at the hardware level. Named after theoretical physics archetypes and Schrödinger's cat, their approach aims to simplify total machine design by building fault tolerance directly into the hardware. The company plans to deliver its first "useful" quantum computer by 2030.
🇬🇧 Atelerix - £750K - Seed Extension
Newcastle University spin-out Atelerix has raised £750K, totaling £1.25M in funding. Their hypothermic preservation technology stores biosamples such as cells, tissues, viruses, and blood products at 4-25 degrees, preserving over 90% cell viability for 14 days at room temperature. This method cuts shipping costs by 50-80% and eliminates the need for specialized equipment, reducing CO2 emissions by 99.7%. ACF Investors and o2h Ventures participated in this round.
🇬🇧 BOW - £4M - Seed
Sheffield-based BOW has secured £4M in seed funding led by Northern Gritstone, with participation from Finance Yorkshire and Praetura Ventures as part of the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund II. The robotics software company works with robotic hardware manufacturers, OEMs, systems integrators, roboticists, and software developers to create a universal robotics platform that allows generalist software developers to create, manage and deploy complex robotics applications. The company recently appointed Raspberry Pi co-founder Liz Upton as Chair of their board in November 2024.
🇬🇧 C the Signs - $8M - Series A
London-based C the Signs has secured $8M in funding to advance their AI-powered platform that identifies patients at risk of cancer at the earliest and most curable stage. Their explainable AI model analyzes patient electronic health records beyond basic risk indicators like age and gender, examining various personal and environmental data points to precisely assess cancer risk. By personalizing risk profiles, the platform helps physicians identify patients needing targeted testing while ruling out those who don't, reducing burden on primary care physicians.
🇩🇰 Commit Biologics - €5.5M - Seed Extension
Aarhus-based Commit Biologics has secured €5.5M in seed extension funding to advance its technology, which specializes in activating the complement system to treat cancer and autoimmune diseases. Their BiCE platform is a modular system that arms antibodies to direct the complement system in a highly targeted way to selectively kill tumor cells or cells implicated in autoimmune disease.
🇫🇷 Clovis - €2M - Seed
Paris-based Clovis has secured €2M in funding from Tomcat and WeLoveFounders, which includes former founders of Letsbuild. The company develops a construction site digitization app that enables real-time project monitoring, reducing errors and boosting productivity while lowering paper use, travel, and carbon footprint. Already expanding internationally with customers in Portugal, Belgium, Switzerland, and Luxembourg, the company plans to use the funding to conquer new markets, notably in the United States.
🇬🇧 / 🇵🇱 ElevenLabs - $180M - Series C
London-based ElevenLabs has secured $180M in Series C funding led by Andreessen Horowitz and ICONIQ Growth, with participation from NEA, World Innovation Lab, Valor, Endeavor Catalyst Fund, and Lunate. Existing investors Sequoia Capital, Salesforce Ventures, Smash Capital, SV Angel, NFDG, and BroadLight Capital also joined the round. The company develops AI technology that converts text into natural-sounding human voices.
The round values the company at $3.3B, tripling its previous valuation from 2024. Founded in 2022, ElevenLabs has raised a total of $281M across four rounds. The remote-first company maintains hubs in London (European HQ), New York, and Warsaw.
The funding will support research into more expressive and controllable voice AI, expanding tools for developers and businesses scaling globally, and strengthening AI safety. In the last 12 months, ElevenLabs has expanded its product lineup to include speech generation, voice design, sound effects, and AI-powered dubbing in 32 languages.
🇫🇷 Formance - $21M - Series A
Paris-based Formance has secured $21M in Series A funding co-led by PayPal Ventures and Portage, with participation from existing investors Y Combinator, Hoxton Ventures, and Axeleo. The company provides an open-source, programmable financial ledger platform that helps fintech companies manage assets, along with additional modules for reconciliation, payment orchestration, and connectivity. The startup currently has around 20 customers, including Booksy, Doctolib, Liberis, and Shares, with 40% of revenue coming from two U.S. clients. The funding will support opening a New York office and growing headcount from 20 to 50 employees by end of 2025.
🇫🇷 GetVocal AI - €2.7M - Pre-Seed
Paris-based GetVocal AI has secured €2.7M in pre-seed funding led by Speedinvest and Elaia. The 14-person remote-first startup develops AI agents for businesses using large language models and proprietary "conversational map graph-based technology" to handle various customer journey stages from onboarding to retention. The company has also announced a strategic partnership with outsourcing giant Capita.
🇩🇰 Hybird Energy - €2.4M - Seed
Danish startup Hybird Energy has secured €2.4M in funding from Capmont and existing investor Earlybird-X. The company develops AI-driven electrical panels that enable semi-autonomous management of electricity, water and heating in buildings. Their software analyzes electricity data to enable automated power management, including remote on/off scheduling and predictive maintenance through machine pattern analysis.
🇬🇧 iplicit - £25M
London-based iplicit has secured £25M in funding from One Peak. The cloud accounting software platform provides a solution that helps businesses automate their financial processes and manage accounts. Launched in 2019, the company is now serving over 2,000 organizations and supporting more than 38,000 daily users.
🇪🇸 iPronics - €20M - Series A
Valencia-based iPronics has secured €20M in Series A funding led by Bosch Ventures, with participation from Criteria Venture Tech, Amadeus Capital Partners, Triatomic Capital, Fine Structure Ventures, and others. The company specializes in software-defined photonic engines, developing their 'ONE' technology that offers an optically switched fabric for AI architectures, enabling on-the-fly topology adaptation and extending programmability to physical layer connections.
🇩🇪 Irreducible - $24M - Series A
Berlin-based Irreducible has secured $24M in Series A funding co-led by Paradigm and Bain Capital Crypto. The crypto startup provides zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) generation services powered by FPGA chips through their own data centers, differentiating from competitors who rely on standard CPUs and GPUs via cloud providers. Founded in 2022, the company has developed Binius, a ZKP system leveraging "binary field towers" for more hardware-efficient operations. The round follows their $15M seed round from early 2023 when they were valued at $55M.
🇬🇧 Juno Technologies - $1M - Pre-Seed
London-based Juno Technologies has secured $1M in funding led by Fuel Ventures, with participation from Zinc and angel investors. The generative AI-powered fintech startup develops technology to automate loan origination and packaging processes. Their first product, a loan packaging AI agent named Juno, guides small business customers through loan applications, collects necessary information, enriches profiles with third-party data, and ensures data completeness and accuracy for lenders.
🇫🇷 Keey Aerogel - €18M - Series A
Paris-based Keey Aerogel has secured €18M in Series A funding led by Bpifrance's SPI 2 fund under the France 2030 plan and WIND, with participation from Capital Grand Est and newcomer NCITY. The company produces silica aerogel from construction waste using carbon dioxide and ethanol recycled in a closed-loop process, making it Europe's first "green" aerogel. Their technology has applications in EV battery safety, where it can delay thermal runaway fires by 5-10 minutes, giving passengers time to evacuate safely.
🇭🇺 Kodesage - €2.3M - Pre-Seed
Budapest-based Kodesage has secured €2.3M in pre-seed funding led by PortfoLion Capital Partners, with participation from former UiPath senior executives and enterprise software veterans as angel investors. The company develops an AI-powered platform for modernizing legacy software systems, enabling businesses to enhance and evolve existing systems without complete replacements. Their solution is model agnostic, allowing clients to choose preferred models.
🇨🇭 Meteomatics - $22M - Series C
St. Gallen-based Meteomatics has secured $22M in Series C funding led by Armira Growth, with participation from Klima, the Alantra Energy Transition fund, and Fortyone. The weather intelligence and technology company enables precision forecasts of weather's impact on businesses through their technology platform. Their autonomous Meteodrone, paired with high-resolution weather models, provides granular visibility down to a single square kilometer for weather phenomena that traditional sensing technology cannot accurately observe.
🇮🇪 Mobility Mojo - €4.25M - Series A
Dublin-based Mobility Mojo has secured €4.25M in funding from Gresham House Ventures. The company provides a self-assessment tool that helps organizations improve building and hotel accessibility through a SaaS platform. Founded by certified access consultants Stephen Cluskey and Noelle Daly (both wheelchair users) and ex-Rothco CEO Patrick Hickey, the platform creates standardized audits and improves accessibility based on regulations and global standards.
🇫🇷 Naboo - $21M - Series A
Paris-based Naboo has secured $21M in Series A funding from Notion Capital to advance its corporate event booking marketplace and SaaS platform. Their solution bundles accommodation, catering, activities, and transport for corporate retreats while providing procurement policy management and billing tools for enterprises. The company quadrupled booking volumes to €60M in 2024 (from €15M in 2023), with an average 17% take rate. Already serving 10% of French CAC40 companies including Google, Société Générale, Veolia, Arkema, Thales, and Qonto, Naboo will use the funding to automate manual tasks and expand to the UK, where they already generate 10% of revenue.
🇧🇪 Nobi - €35M - Series B
Antwerpen-based Nobi has secured €35M in Series B funding co-led by Angelini Ventures and Nexus NeuroTech Ventures. The AgeTech company develops AI-powered smart lighting solutions that enable seniors to stay at home longer and support them in professional care environments. Their technology processes data locally in real-time to ensure privacy and reliability, with their AI model trained over six years on more than 250,000 real-life situations. The company operates in Belgium, the US, and UK, with solutions available in over 22 countries.
🇩🇪 OCELL - €10M - Series A
Munich-based OCELL has secured €10M in Series A funding led by Capnamic, with participation from Bayern Kapital and existing investors AENU, Summiteer, and business angel Max Viessmann. The company uses AI to create digital twins of forests by processing aerial imagery, LiDAR, and terrestrial forestry data. Their technology provides insights into forest growth and carbon storage capacity, with precision exceeding satellite and drone-based solutions. The funding will support technology advancement, growth, and expansion of climate projects across Europe, particularly in the Nordics and Baltics. The forests currently managed with OCELL's software cover over 810,000 hectares with potential to store an additional 1.62 million tons of CO2e annually.
🇪🇸 Oncomatryx - €25M
Zamudio-based Oncomatryx has secured €25M in funding led by existing investors, including a €10M strategic investment from Centro para el Desarrollo Tecnológico y la Innovación (CDTI). The biopharmaceutical company develops antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) platform targeting the tumor microenvironment in metastatic solid tumors, with their platform developed in collaboration with universities, hospitals, and research centers across the USA and Europe.
🇳🇱 OneThird - €3.5M - Series A
Netherlands-based OneThird has secured €3.5M in Series A funding to advance its AI-powered near-infrared technology. This technology helps farmers, distributors, and grocery retailers reduce waste by accurately predicting shelf life and optimizing decision-making. The company expanded in 2024 with a retail store fruit scanner, which allows consumers to make smarter purchasing decisions, particularly for products like avocados. The technology currently supports various produce, including avocados, blueberries, strawberries, and tomatoes.
🇮🇪 Output Sports - €4.6M - Pre-Series A
Dublin's Output Sports has raised €4.6M in pre-Series A funding for its sports science analytics platform. A University College Dublin spinout, it serves over 800 sports organizations, including more than half of English Premier League clubs, allowing coaches and sports scientists to make data-driven decisions via their wearable sensor system. Investors included athlete-led Apex Capital, Uni.Fund, Dopamine Sports, and existing backers Elkstone, Atlantic Bridge, and Enterprise Ireland.
🇨🇭 Oxyle - $15.7M - Series A
Zurich's Oxyle has raised $15.7M led by 360 Capital, with Axeleo Capital and returning investors Founderful and SOSV, to enhance their solution for eliminating PFAS from wastewater. Their system achieves over 99% elimination rates and uses 15x less energy than alternatives through a unique three-stage process of foam fractionation, catalytic destruction, and ML-powered monitoring. Unlike traditional methods that filter or concentrate these chemicals, Oxyle's technology completely destroys PFAS molecules. This funding follows a $3M pre-seed round from 2022.
🇱🇺 Passbolt - $8M - Seed
Luxembourg-based Passbolt has secured $8M in seed funding led by Airbridge Equity Partners, with participation from Expon Capital's Digital Tech Fund, ScaleFund, Seeder, Dedicated, Bondi Capital, Carricha Capital, LBAN, and angel investors. The open-source password manager for teams reached profitability in the summer of 2024, with 38,000 teams using the free version and 2,000 paying customers.
🇬🇧 Prosper - £4M - Series A
London-based Prosper has secured £4M in funding led by Fuel Ventures (£2M), with participation from existing shareholders. The wealth management platform aims to modernize the industry by replacing "painful PDFs and old-fashioned technology" with their digital solution.
🇪🇸 Quibim - $50M - Series A
Spanish healthtech Quibim has secured $50M in Series A funding co-led by Asabys and Buenavista Equity Partners, with participation from UI Investissements, GoHub Ventures, and existing investors including Amadeus Capital Partners, APEX Ventures, Partech, Adara Ventures, Leadwind, Tony Fadell's Build Collective, and Dr. Jonathan Milner. The company specializes in AI-powered imaging biomarkers for precision medicine, creating human digital twins through their technology that analyzes MRI, CT, and PET scans. With over 170 installations worldwide and partnerships with Mass General Brigham, Stanford, and Philips, the funding will support product expansion and strengthen US presence.
🇫🇮 RELEX Solutions - €10M - Debt
Helsinki-based RELEX Solutions has secured a €10M green revolving credit facility from Nordea Bank Abp. The company helps retailers, manufacturers, and consumer goods companies like ADUSA, AutoZone, Coles, Dollar Tree and Family Dollar, M&S Food, PetSmart, and The Home Depot drive profitable growth across sales and distribution channels.
🇬🇧 Sightline - $5.5M - Seed Round
London-based Sightline has secured $5.5M in seed funding, led by Molten Ventures. The company's platform organizes the climate ecosystem, offering tactical research and insights for navigating climate transitions. Sightline has over 70 international clients, including HSBC, Southern Company, BHP, Galvanize Climate Solutions, and the U.S. Department of Energy.
🇬🇧 Smartify - £1.5M - Series A
London-based Smartify has secured £1.5M in funding to enhance their museum and cultural institution digital platform. Founded in 2015, the "Shazam for art" app partners with over 700 organizations worldwide, including the National Gallery, Acropolis Museum, and Tower of London, providing audio and visual guides to enhance visitor experiences. The platform saw 68% year-on-year usage growth, with over 2 million active users accessing 14.3 million audio tracks and exploring 1.7 million objects. The round was led by Metavallon VC, with participation from Pembroke VCT, and advised by Mountside Ventures.
🇬🇧 Sokin - $15M - Debt
London-based Sokin has secured $15M in debt financing from BlackRock. The payments firm processes over $4.5B in transactional payment volume annually, serving businesses in various sectors, from freight and logistics to Premier League football clubs. The funding follows a recent $31M strategic investment from Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital.
🇬🇧 StormHarvester - €9.7M - Series A
Belfast-based StormHarvester has secured €9.7M in funding led by YFM Equity Partners, with participation from Emerald Technology Ventures. The SaaS company uses machine learning and analytics to help wastewater utilities optimize sewer network operations and reduce pollution. 75% of UK water utility companies have adopted the company's technology.
🇫🇷 Swan - €42M - Series B Extension
Paris-based Swan has secured €42M in Series B extension funding led by Eight Roads Ventures, with participation from existing investors Lakestar, Accel, Creandum, Hexa, and BPI France. The embedded finance platform enables companies to offer financial services without becoming regulated themselves, serving clients like accounting software provider Pennylane and freelancer platform Indy.
🇪🇸 Sycai Medical - €3M - Seed
Barcelona-based Sycai Medical has secured €3M in funding from LUMO Labs, Ship2B Ventures, Athos Capital, and Namarel Ventures. The medtech startup develops an AI assistant that detects pre-cancerous lesions while they're still benign, helping radiologists monitor lesions by characterizing them and comparing images with previous scans to track evolution. The system analyzes CT scans for incidental findings without manual triggers, fully integrated into radiologists' workflow.
🇪🇸 TravelPerk - $200M - Series E
Barcelona-based TravelPerk has secured $200M in Series E funding led by Atomico, with participation from EQT Growth, Noteus Partners, Kinnevik, General Catalyst and other existing investors. The business travel management platform's valuation nearly doubles to $2.7B. Their platform enables businesses to book, manage and report domestic and international travel, with recent integration improvements in HR and expenses. The company is also acquiring Yokoy, an AI-enabled spend management platform, in a nine-figure deal to enhance their travel and expense offering.
🇪🇸 Weecover - €4.2M - Seed Extension
Barcelona-based Weecover has secured €4.2M in funding led by Swanlaab Venture Factory and Nauta Capital, with participation from La Roca Capital, Bankinter, Prosegur, Íope Ventures (investment arm of Telefónica Seguros and Wayra), and others. Founded in 2019, the embedded insurance platform provides solutions for retail companies and e-commerce platforms, having sold over 100k policies last year. The company integrates with ~15 insurance companies and offers ~50 insurance products through their platform.
🇬🇧 Yavrio - $2.4M - Seed
London-based Yavrio has secured $2.4M in seed funding led by Fuel Ventures, with participation from Sajid Javid (former UK Chancellor), Dan Cobley (co-founder of ClearScore and Salary Finance), and Garth Ritchie (former Deutsche Bank president). The open banking fintech leverages open banking to help customers get data from banks into ERP systems and send payments from ERPs to banks, eliminating error-prone CSV file imports. The company plans to use the funds for infrastructure and geographical expansion.
🇬🇧 Zelt - $6M - Series A
London-based Zelt has secured $6M in funding led by Nauta Capital, with participation from Venrex and Episode 1. The HR operations platform provides software that centralizes data and enables clients to stack various modules together to automate manual processes like employee onboarding and payroll.