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Agenda – next 30 days
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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 Costantini
Best Startup Events in the Second Half of 2026: The Complete Calendar
The second half of 2026 is packed. Between July and December, there are more than 30 confirmed events worth your time across Europe, the US, and…
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
Limetax
AI-powered platform consolidating Germany's tax and accounting advisory firms
Latest
Mistral AI raises €3B Series D led by Samsung at a €21B+ valuation
Samsung Electronics leads a €3 billion Series D in Mistral AI at a €21B+ valuation – a European equity record that puts sovereign AI on a real balance sheet.
Tickets for Good raises £3.9M to take fair ticket access global
Sheffield's Tickets for Good raised £3.9M led by NPIF II – Mercia Equity Finance to take discounted live event tickets for key workers international, after doubling revenue in 2025.
Fluencify raises $4.3M pre-seed to automate creator marketing
Six months after launch, Stockholm's Fluencify has $2M ARR, 13,000 creators and a $4.3M pre-seed led by byFounders to automate creator marketing and land in New York.
Jaipur Robotics raises €4.3M seed to give Europe’s waste plants eyes
A 40-person team in Manno taught machines to read 5 million tonnes of waste a year. EquityPitcher and HTGF just co-led a €4.3M seed to take that operating system to…
Cato raises €6M seed to bring AI to Europe’s public tenders
Keen Venture Partners leads a €6M seed for Milan's Cato, whose AI reads 27,000 tender sources and pre-fills bids. Twelve months in, Italy's founder flywheel is doing exactly what it…
Latest funding
| Company | Round | Lead | Sector | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Limetax Accounting Automation · Germany | Pre-seed | Motive Partners | Accounting Automation | €6M |
| Tellia Agritech · France | Pre-seed | Revent | Agritech | €4.3M |
| Olenbee Embedded Finance · France | Seed | Go Capital | Embedded Finance | €6.5M |
| Outline AI · France | Seed | Founders Future | AI | €2.6M |
| sci2sci AI · Germany | Pre-seed | Heliad, IBB Ventures | AI | €1.2M |
| Ground A Counter-UAS · Germany | Pre-seed | Vsquared Ventures | Counter-UAS | €9.1M |
Browse the ecosystem
Call for startups
MEDICA Start-up Competition 2026
Medical technology teams pitch on the MEDICA trade fair stage in Dusseldorf, across tracks covering AI in medicine, robotics, laboratory diagnostics, and cybersecurity and…
How to Web Spotlight 2026
Held alongside the How to Web conference in Bucharest, Spotlight is Central and Eastern Europe’s early-stage pitch competition. Entrants must be under five years…
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