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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AI is taking the work around the event. The room is what’s left
Cvent’s own events team broke its job down task by task and concluded that AI can now support about 40 percent of it. In the same…
Ben Costantini
Informa just bought the rooms. Here’s how startups get in
Every week another AI agent promises to book your meetings, score your leads and write your follow-ups. So why did Informa just agree to pay £2.24…
Ben Costantini
Creative tech in Europe runs on grants. San Sebastián’s finalists prove it
Ten startups pitched at the San Sebastián Film Festival on 24 September. I went through every one of them afterward and couldn’t find a single disclosed…
Ben CostantiniThe Selected podcast
Tips & advice
Music startups and their buyers go to different conferences
Music Innovation Consulting (MIC) keeps an agenda of 96 music and tech events for 2026. Fifteen carry its music-tech label, and eight of those are in-person…
Ben Costantini
Pick the LP first, then the 2027 conference
A communications director at a German VC firm sent me a two-line question recently. Her investor relations team wants conferences in 2027 with exposure to LPs,…
Ben Costantini
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 CostantiniSpotlight
Ares Intelligence
A complete intelligence report built from every voice in your organisation
Latest
Easol raises $30M Series A extension for festival AI agents
London-based Easol closed a $30M Series A extension on 28 October 2026, $20M in equity and $10M in Viola Credit debt, to launch Teammates, AI agents for festival and experience…
i23 raises £4.9M seed to put AI agents inside insurance broking
Former UK minister Bim Afolami's insurtech i23 closes an oversubscribed £4.9M seed co-led by Four Cities Capital to build AI agents that take admin off insurance brokers.
ALLOX raises $10.5M seed to map drug pockets on hard-to-target proteins
A Barcelona spin-out of the CRG closes a $10.5M seed led by Asabys, with CDTI and the Institut Català de Finances, to find drug pockets on hard-to-target proteins.
Ravical raises $17M seed for AI that runs across whole accounting firms
Ravical, the Belgian AI platform for accounting and tax firms co-founded by Silverfin's Joris Van Der Gucht, raised a $17 million seed led by MMC Ventures, with Lakestar, Pitchdrive and…
Samplix raises €25M first close led by WLan to scale Xdrop
Danish antibody discovery startup Samplix closes €25M first tranche led by WLan, the vehicle of ex-Evotec CEO Werner Lanthaler, with a €30M target to scale Xdrop.
Latest funding
| Company | Round | Lead | Sector | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ares Intelligence Unclassified · United Kingdom | Seed | Creandum, Lakestar | Unclassified | €2.6M |
| Fractile Defence AI · United Kingdom | Series C | – | Defence AI | €691.9M (£577M) |
| Talky Labs Unclassified · Spain | Pre-seed | Helloworld | Unclassified | €1.5M |
| KineDB Unclassified · Unclassified | Pre-seed | Superhero Capital | Unclassified | €850K |
| FLTRD Unclassified · Netherlands | – | Unclassified | €500K | |
| i23 Unclassified · United Kingdom | Seed | Four Cities Capital | Unclassified | €5.9M (£4.9M) |
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Upcoming events
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Call for startups
ROBOTICS AWARD 2027 (Hannover Messe)
<p>HANNOVER MESSE’s award for robot-based automation and logistics solutions, open to startups, established companies and research institutions from Germany and abroad. Three nominees receive…
Y Combinator Winter 2027
Y Combinator’s three-month programme is based in San Francisco and takes European founders alongside those from elsewhere. The standard deal is USD 500,000: USD…
Startup Wise Guys — The Founders Club 2026
Before its flagship accelerator, Startup Wise Guys runs the Founders Club for people who have neither a team nor an MVP yet. Three months…
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