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 launch, Cvent published a Forrester study in which 70 percent of 459 marketing and…
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 billion for a company whose product is a hall, a badge and a few…
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 venture round. The biggest cheque on the day was the festival’s own: €30,000 for…
Ben CostantiniThe Selected podcast
André Loesekrug-Pietri
What if Europe had its own DARPA? André Loesekrug-Pietri, co-founder of JEDI, explains how a privately funded agency runs moonshots on rare-earth refining, laser communication and antibiotics, who pays for them, and why he thinks Europe keeps funding projects instead of winners.
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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 events in Europe. Only one of the eight, Music Frontiers in Hamburg, belongs to…
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, other GPs and good sponsors. Is there a list? Not a good one. So…
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 one booth. The show runs on a multi-year cycle, so a failed launch means…
Ben CostantiniSpotlight
Anorak
Making any pursuit playable: interactive generative video and a platform for communities to create games around their interests.
Latest
Light Frame raises $5.1M seed to rebuild core banking for private banks
Lausanne-based Light Frame raised a $5.1M seed led by Fortino Ventures to sell cloud-native core banking and portfolio management software to private banks and wealth managers, starting in EMEA.
Stéphane Paillard
triPica raises €12.4M from TiLT for energy and telecom billing
Ten years after its founding in Paris, triPica brings in TiLT Capital Partners to carry its billing platform for energy suppliers and telecom operators into Germany and Italy.
Stéphane Paillard
Sumary raises $25M seed to take AI accounting across Europe
Sumary's USD 25M seed, led by Singular, funds a Benelux push and a London commercial hub for its AI platform that prepares monthly closes and VAT returns for accounting firms.
Stéphane Paillard
Ancep raises $8.5M to automate commercial insurance placement
Creandum leads an $8.5M round in London's Ancep, whose AI agents prepare submissions and chase insurers for brokers. It is the fifth broker automation round we have logged since October…
Stéphane Paillard
Crowd Threat raises £1M to pay local contributors for threat intelligence
Newcastle's Crowd Threat has raised £1M from two Northern funds to grow a network of paid local contributors who report security incidents. The money goes to new regions, a second…
Stéphane PaillardLatest funding
| Company | Round | Lead | Sector | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|---|
AnorakUnclassified | Pre-seed | Play Ventures, Backed VC | Unclassified | €4.5M ($5M) |
Tendrils ComputeUnited Kingdom | — | Benchmark | Unclassified | €27.1M ($30M) |
sennderGermany | — | Scania, Poste Italiane | Unclassified | €73M |
Oyster TherapeuticsUnited Kingdom | Series A | 4BIO Capital | Unclassified | €54.1M ($60M) |
PORTUnclassified | — | EBRD, Balnord | Unclassified | €14.5M |
Light FrameUnclassified | Seed | Fortino Ventures | Unclassified | €4.6M ($5.1M) |
€56.1B across 1,838 rounds tracked · Sesamers round tracker · Methodology
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Investor corner
Call for startups
Occitanie EMERGENCE 2026
Occitanie’s regional call funds public research and higher-education bodies maturing early deep-tech results towards application. It covers half of eligible project costs up to a ceiling of EUR 100,000, and the money is a grant with no equity attached. Applicants…
EIT Urban Mobility Financial Support to Startups (2026)
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