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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
Creem
Financial infrastructure for AI-native software companies: billing, payments, tax compliance and revenue management
Latest
Veridion raises $20M Series A to map every business in real time
Bucharest-born Veridion has raised a $20M Series A led by Hoxton Ventures. All five existing backers returned to scale its live map of 642 million companies.
Exein raises $270M to secure the machines AI now lives in
Rome's Exein becomes Italy's newest unicorn: $270M led by Headline at a $1.7B valuation, with ARR up 4x and 2 billion devices running its embedded security.
EUCLYD raises €200M+ Series A to break the AI efficiency wall
Samsung, Somerset Capital Partners, EQT's Scaleup Europe Fund and Innovation Industries co-lead one of Europe's largest Series A rounds, with ex-ASML chief Peter Wennink taking the chair.
Greencovery raises €1M to turn cocoa waste back into food
Wageningen's Greencovery has raised €1M led by ROM InWest to move cocoa upcycling into industrial production in Zaandam, with a further €3M round already closing.
Ferm Labs raises €3M to scale fermentation-made cheese flavour
A Zug HQ, a Bolzano fermenter and a €3M round led by CDP Venture Capital: Ferm Labs turns liquid whey into aged-cheese flavour and just signed up a wafer dynasty…
Latest funding
| Company | Round | Lead | Sector | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Creem Fintech · Estonia | Seed | Inovo VC | Fintech | €5M |
| MicroLub Foodtech · United Kingdom | Series B | Northern Gritstone | Foodtech | €8.8M |
| EnduroSat Deep tech · Bulgaria | Series D+ | Riot Ventures, Atreides Management | Deep tech | €178.9M |
| Integral AI · Germany | Series A | Mosaic Ventures, Reid Hoffman | AI | €18M |
| IRISgo Consumer tech · Switzerland | Angel | Andreas W. Herb | Consumer tech | €500K |
| Expanse AI · United Kingdom | Seed | Crane Venture Partners | AI | €4.5M |
Browse the ecosystem
Call for startups
BioFIT — Start-up Slams 2026
Start-up Slams gives life sciences founders a five-minute pitch at BioFIT in Marseille, judged by public bodies, industry and investors. It suits early-stage or…
Oslo Innovation Week — 100 Pitches 2026
During Oslo Innovation Week, 100 Pitches puts founders on stage in front of investors in the Norwegian capital. It is a pitch competition rather…
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