European startup news, funding rounds and events
Fundraising intelligence, founder interviews and the events that actually move the ecosystem.
Agenda – next 30 days
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IFA 2026: the twenty startups who pitched, and the one who won
A company that prints implantable human tissue won a pitch competition at a consumer electronics fair. Cellbricks Therapeutics took the IFA Pitch Battle 2026 on the…
Ben Costantini
Composites Are About High Performance. So Are Events.
A startup event strategy needs the same discipline. Spend enough time around (deep-tech) startups and you start noticing a familiar pattern. The same founders appear at…
The most digital companies in the world are opening coffee shops
The AI industry runs on GPUs, APIs and Discord servers. So why is an AI insurance startup valued at $4 billion signing a lease for a…
Ben CostantiniThe Selected podcast
Tips & advice
The empty startup area: why tradeshows fail at startup sales
Picture this. A strategy director at a major exhibition calls with six weeks to go before the show. The brand new startup area has sold exactly…
Ben Costantini
Why events are lying about their metrics
This week I read about a hackathon claiming 6,000 attendees over a single weekend. The venues hosting it can’t accommodate more than 1,000 people. Nobody in…
Ben Costantini
The hidden costs of events: Why founders get the math wrong
Most startup founders treat events like they’re going travelling: count the days, block the calendar, done. But event tickets don’t come cheap, and the actual affair…
Ben CostantiniSpotlight
Big Picture Bio
Multi-agent AI to unpick the complexity of disease at the systems level
Latest
Fever raises $250M to take live experiences beyond 55 countries
Madrid-founded Fever lands a record $250M led by EQT, the largest round live entertainment tech has seen, at a valuation Music Business Worldwide puts near $5.2bn.
Laki Power raises €6M Series A to guard Europe’s power grid
The NATO Innovation Fund's first Icelandic investment goes to a nine-person Reykjavik team whose devices draw 300 watts straight from live power lines to watch the grid.
Bravi raises $1.8M seed to put an AI product expert in every field rep’s pocket
Bravi, founded in Cholet in 2025 and a Y Combinator F25 alum, has raised a first round of $1.8M from US and French funds, European and American angels and YC,…
Ryft raises £20M Series B to take marketplace payments beyond the UK
Gresham House Ventures leads a £20M Series B into Manchester payments platform Ryft, which serves 6,500+ businesses and tripled processing volume in a year.
Magentic raises $18M Series A for AI agents in procurement
Fourteen months after founding, London's Magentic lands an $18M Series A from Felicis and Sequoia to send AI agents into the buy side of global manufacturing.
Latest funding
| Company | Round | Lead | Sector | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Big Picture Bio Biotech · United Kingdom | Pre-seed | Kadmos Capital, Exceptional Ventures | Biotech | €1.8M |
| Aday Systems SaaS · Sweden | Pre-seed | Almi Invest | SaaS | €220K |
| Phosphoenix Health · Netherlands | Bridge | ROM InWest | Health | €1.3M |
| TUSK IC Space tech · Belgium | Series A | Matterwave Ventures, Forward.one, Flanders Future Tech Fund | Space tech | €15M |
| Arcos Defence · Germany | Seed | HTGF | Defence | €5.5M |
| Aitiologic Health · Austria | Seed | Heal Capital | Health | €6.4M |
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Call for startups
Expo AgriTech — AgriTech Startup Forum 2026
Agrifood-focused founders present at the AgriTech Startup Forum, part of Expo AgriTech in Malaga. It is aimed at startups improving competitiveness in agriculture through…
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