Startups

Digital commerce in the B2B sector has long laboured under a peculiar inefficiency. Whilst consumer-facing platforms have achieved unprecedented adoption by meeting customers where they already spend time, many B2B ordering solutions have pursued a distinctly different strategy: build a dashboard, populate it with data visualisations, and assume adoption will follow. For retailers and hospitality operators in emerging markets across Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Southeast Asia, this assumption has proven persistently wrong. The reality is measurable and sobering. Industry data consistently shows that traditional B2B SaaS ordering platforms achieve adoption rates of around twelve percent among small and medium-sized retailers and HoReCa operators. These figures have remained stubbornly flat for years, suggesting the problem is not merely one of poor implementation but of fundamental design philosophy. Into this gap steps nFuse, an AI-powered B2B ordering platform that has just secured two million dollars in funding to accelerate its expansion across Europe and beyond. Funding and investor backing The $2 million round was led by Eleven Ventures and LAUNCHub Ventures, two of the most prominent venture capital firms operating across the CESEE region. This funding reflects growing investor confidence in solutions addressing the persistent friction within B2B commerce in emerging markets, a sector where inefficiencies remain both widespread and expensive. The capital will support nFuse’s expansion strategy, with particular focus on accelerating adoption across Europe and preparing for entry into broader EMEA and American markets. nFuse was founded by Stoyan Ivanov, who serves as Chief Executive Officer, and Stefan Radov, Chief Operating Officer. Both bring substantial experience from their previous roles at Coca-Cola. Ivanov spent two decades in corporate business development and was instrumental in building Coca-Cola’s European venturing unit, providing him with deep insight into enterprise operations and scaling challenges. Radov brings expertise in distribution, sales operations, and go-to-market strategy accumulated through years in the beverage and FMCG sector. Their combined background reflects a founding team that understands both the strategic and operational realities of B2B commerce at scale. How nFuse reimagines B2B ordering The platform’s core proposition is elegantly straightforward. Rather than requiring retailers and HoReCa operators to learn yet another software interface, nFuse enables ordering through the messaging applications they already use daily: WhatsApp, Viber, and SMS. Customers can place orders using text, voice messages, or images. The system is powered by AI that processes these inputs and converts them into structured orders, eliminating the need for new applications or significant workflow changes. This approach addresses what has long been a blind spot in the B2B SaaS industry. Radov, reflecting on the problem the company seeks to solve, observes: “We sat in the meetings where adoption targets kept getting missed. They don’t want another app. They want to order the same way they message their family.” This insight emerged from direct experience within large organisations struggling to drive adoption of traditional ordering platforms. Ivanov adds institutional perspective: “The industry built and designed eB2B for headquarters — for the people who wanted dashboards and data.” His observation captures a crucial misalignment between what traditional B2B ordering platforms optimise for and what end users actually need. Whilst logistics managers and purchasing departments may appreciate comprehensive data visualisations, the frontline staff placing orders simply want to communicate their needs through familiar tools. The FMCG B2B sector and messaging-first ordering The FMCG and general B2B ordering sector has undergone gradual but significant transformation over recent years. Messaging-first approaches have gained traction in emerging markets precisely because they reduce friction and align with existing user behaviour. nFuse’s presence across CESEE, Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia reflects the genuinely global nature of this opportunity. In each region, the fundamental problem is identical: conventional B2B ordering applications built around desktop dashboards fail to achieve meaningful adoption among small retailers and informal hospitality operators. Within Europe specifically, B2B SaaS funding has remained robust throughout 2026, with investors recognising both the market opportunity and the durability of solutions that actually solve genuine problems. nFuse’s success in raising capital from prominent regional venture firms suggests that investors see real potential in a messaging-native approach to B2B ordering. Looking ahead As nFuse moves into its expansion phase, the broader implications extend beyond any single company’s trajectory. The B2B ordering platform market may finally be reckoning with a fundamental truth: adoption metrics matter more than feature completeness, and meeting users where they are proves more effective than asking them to change their habits. For retailers and hospitality operators across the CESEE region and beyond, nFuse’s expansion could mean finally having access to a B2B ordering platform that works with their workflow rather than against it. Summary Company: nFuse Founders: Stoyan Ivanov (CEO), Stefan Radov (COO) Round: $2 million Investors: Eleven Ventures, LAUNCHub Ventures Use of Funds: European expansion, broader EMEA and American markets Product: AI-powered B2B ordering via WhatsApp, Viber, and SMS

European defence technology has undergone a marked shift over the past three years. The proliferation of low-cost unmanned systems, exposed starkly by recent conflicts in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, has rendered many legacy air defence systems economically unviable. A single interceptor missile costing hundreds of thousands of euros deployed against a drone worth a few thousand has created a fundamental imbalance in modern warfare economics. This backdrop has catalysed a wave of European defence technology investment, with the sector attracting €2.3 billion in funding last year alone — double the equivalent figure from 2024. Into this landscape steps EGIDE, a Ris-Orangis-based drone defence startup that has secured €8 million in seed funding to accelerate development of electrically propelled interceptor systems and a hardware-agnostic software platform designed to counter unmanned threats at scale. The round was co-led by Expeditions, Eurazeo, and Heartcore Capital, with participation from Galion.exe and Kima Ventures. The company’s funding will be deployed across three primary objectives: accelerating the design and production of its interceptor systems, developing and refining Mystique — its distributed sensor and AI-driven detection platform — and expanding its engineering team across Europe to bolster capabilities in electric propulsion, aerodynamics, warhead design, and software architecture. EGIDE currently operates with a team of six to nine employees and is recruiting to support the expanded roadmap. Who is backing EGIDE The investor syndicate reflects confidence in both the founders and the market timing. Expeditions, which led the round, observed in a statement that “the rapid proliferation of low-cost drones is transforming the character of warfare, exposing critical vulnerabilities in legacy defence systems.” This articulates the core thesis: European defence establishments lack scalable, cost-effective alternatives to traditional air defence frameworks. Eurazeo and Heartcore Capital, as co-leads, bring both financial firepower and sector connectivity. Heartcore Capital has developed particular expertise in applied technology businesses serving the defence sector, whilst Eurazeo’s presence signals institutional-level conviction in the opportunity. The participation of venture funds including Kima Ventures — known for early-stage defence technology bets — reinforces that this is not a one-off outlier but rather part of a structured investment wave in European defence infrastructure. Addressing the drone problem EGIDE’s technical approach centres on two complementary elements. The company develops electrically propelled interceptor systems designed to be orders of magnitude cheaper than conventional air defence missiles whilst retaining sufficient lethality and precision. The economics here matter: if an interceptor costs a fraction of a conventional missile, the cost-exchange ratio becomes defensible across wider operational deployments. The second pillar is Mystique, a software platform that operates independently of specific hardware implementations. The system combines distributed sensors, AI-driven threat detection, and layered interception logic. By decoupling software from hardware, Mystique can theoretically be retrofitted into existing defence infrastructure or paired with EGIDE’s own interceptor hardware, expanding its addressable market. The founding team comprises Simon Calonne, CEO and aerospace engineer specialising in guidance, navigation, and control systems, and Florian Audigier, CTO and pyrotechnical engineer with warhead design expertise. Both are former MBDA engineers — Europe’s largest missile systems manufacturer — which provides meaningful credibility in a sector where technical pedigree and established industry relationships carry substantial weight. Calonne stated: “Low-cost drones are fundamentally transforming modern warfare. We are building a new generation of scalable and affordable defence capabilities designed to meet this challenge.” This framing — scaling and affordability as design principles rather than afterthoughts — differentiates EGIDE from legacy defence contractors and positions it alongside comparable European drone defence startups that have recently secured substantial funding. The broader European defence technology moment EGIDE is not alone in attracting capital to address the anti-drone technology problem. Frankenburg Technologies, based in Tallinn, recently raised €30 million for interceptor missile development. Tytan Technologies, operating from Munich, secured a similar €30 million round for air defence systems. Both companies emerged from comparable tactical observations: European NATO allies require new solutions urgently, and traditional procurement cycles are too slow. The investment velocity in European defence technology reflects genuine urgency at the institutional level. Defence ministries across NATO are recalibrating procurement strategies, venture capital is deploying capital at scale, and technical talent is migrating from civilian tech into defence applications. This represents a structural reorientation, not cyclical enthusiasm. Looking forward EGIDE’s €8 million seed round provides sufficient runway to validate its interceptor platform and establish initial market traction with European defence customers. The real test lies in execution: delivering cost-effective, reliable systems that perform under operational constraints, securing customer validation, and expanding its engineering capacity to support a growth trajectory that will likely require a significantly larger Series A within 18 to 24 months. The European drone defence startup ecosystem is consolidating quickly around teams with credible technical founders, clear technical differentiation, and investor backing that signals market timing. EGIDE fits this template. Whether it becomes a category leader or acquires strategic value for a larger defence prime will depend on how effectively it translates funding into engineered solutions that prove defensible in European procurement environments. Summary Company: EGIDE HQ: Ris-Orangis, France Founded: 2025 Founders: Simon Calonne (CEO), Florian Audigier (CTO) Round: €8 million Seed Lead Investors: Expeditions, Eurazeo, Heartcore Capital Other Investors: Galion.exe, Kima Ventures Total Funding: €8 million Use of Funds: Interceptor development, Mystique platform, engineering team expansion

Data quality has emerged as perhaps the most critical technical constraint on artificial intelligence adoption across European enterprises. As organisations race to implement machine learning systems and AI-powered applications, a fundamental challenge persists: the quality of data flowing into these systems directly determines the quality of outputs. Gartner research identifies data quality as the single biggest obstacle to successful AI implementation, whilst a recent MIT study found that 95 percent of AI projects never reach production, often due to data governance failures. Against this backdrop, Stockholm-based Validio has secured $30 million in Series A funding, a vote of confidence from some of Europe’s most sophisticated investors in the company’s approach to automating data quality and observability across enterprise systems. The funding round, which closed on 5 March 2026, was led by Plural, a venture firm founded by Taavet Hinrikus, the co-founder of Wise, alongside technology investor Ian Hogarth. The round also attracted participation from existing backer Lakestar, as well as J12 and a roster of notable angel investors including Kevin Ryan, the founder of MongoDB; Denise Persson, former Chief Marketing Officer at Snowflake; Emil Eifrem, founder and CEO of Neo4j; and Sven Hagströmer, founder of the Avanza Bank platform. This brings Validio’s total funding to $47 million since its 2019 founding. Understanding the Validio approach Validio’s agentic data management platform automates critical functions that have traditionally consumed enormous engineering resources: data observability, quality monitoring, lineage tracking, and asset cataloguing. The platform combines AI-powered anomaly detection capable of processing billions of records to identify data quality issues in minutes rather than at month-end reporting cycles. Early customers report a 95 percent reduction in manual investigation time, whilst one metric stands out particularly: the company reports reducing data lineage configuration from eight months to a single day through automation. These improvements translate directly to business value. Validio’s own growth metrics underscore market appetite: the company has achieved 800 percent annualised revenue growth. Its customer base spans several high-profile European firms including Nordea, Deutsche Glasfaser, Canva, Truecaller, Surfshark, Walden, and AllianceBernstein, many of whom operate mission-critical data infrastructure that feeds downstream analytics and machine learning systems. CEO Patrik Liu Tran, who founded Validio alongside Oliver Molander and Urban Eriksson, articulated the stakes in a recent statement: “In the AI era, everything is magnified: now it’s garbage in, disaster out.” This frames data quality not as a back-office concern but as a direct determinant of whether AI implementations succeed or fail at scale. Why investors are backing this moment The investor composition reflects both the strategic importance of data infrastructure and the timing of this round. Plural’s involvement represents the venture thesis of Hinrikus and Hogarth, who have demonstrated conviction in enterprise software addressing fundamental technical constraints. The participation of product founders — Ryan at MongoDB, Eifrem at Neo4j, and Persson’s experience at Snowflake — indicates that experienced technologists recognise the problem Validio solves. This timing matters. European venture capital continues to flow disproportionately towards AI-backed companies. Across the continent in the first quarter of 2026, startups raised $19.3 billion across 887 funding rounds, with AI-backed ventures capturing approximately 62 percent of available capital. Validio’s focus on a foundational layer of the AI stack — ensuring that the data feeding machine learning systems is reliable — positions it within this broader momentum. A European data infrastructure story Validio represents a growing pattern in European technology: high-value software addressing enterprise operational problems, founded outside the Bay Area yet attracting global investor attention. The company’s Stockholm origins connect to a broader Nordic strength in data-intensive systems, from the fintech infrastructure behind Wise to the customer data platforms built across the region. The deployment of capital from this round reflects ambition to scale internationally. Validio plans to expand its go-to-market operations in the United States, United Kingdom, and Northern Europe, with new offices opening in New York and London. Product development will continue in parallel, ensuring that the platform keeps pace with the expanding complexity of data architectures across industries managing critical information flows. For enterprise technology buyers evaluating data quality tools, Validio’s funding and investor backing signal both validation of the problem and the confidence that the company has developed a credible solution. Whether the platform can maintain its growth trajectory whilst integrating effectively into complex organisational data stacks remains an open question — but the market opportunity that prompted this Validio funding round is unambiguous. Key Details Company: Validio HQ: Stockholm, Sweden Founded: 2019 Founders: Patrik Liu Tran, Oliver Molander, Urban Eriksson Round: $30 million Series A Lead Investor: Plural Other Investors: Lakestar, J12, Kevin Ryan (MongoDB), Denise Persson (Snowflake), Emil Eifrem (Neo4j), Sven Hagströmer (Avanza Bank) Total Funding: $47 million Use of Funds: US, UK, and Northern Europe go-to-market expansion; new offices in New York and London

Growing investment in rehabilitation robotics The funding, which closed in late March 2026, comprises €6 million in equity from a consortium of family offices, entrepreneurs, and private investors, supplemented by €2 million in non-dilutive financing awarded through the France 2030 national investment programme. The blended structure reflects a pattern increasingly common among European medtech startups, where government innovation grants complement private capital to derisk the commercialisation of novel therapeutic devices. Lifebloom’s core product, the Lifebloom One, is a robotic exoskeleton system designed to restore autonomous walking in patients with reduced mobility — conditions stemming from neurological injuries, strokes, spinal cord damage, and age-related mobility decline. Unlike fitness-oriented wearable robotics, the Lifebloom One is a clinical rehabilitation tool, deployed within healthcare facilities under medical supervision as part of structured therapy programmes. Scaling deployment across French healthcare facilities The primary use of funds is the rapid deployment of Lifebloom’s Walking Units, with the company targeting 30 healthcare facilities across France within the coming year. This rollout strategy is critical: exoskeleton rehabilitation technology has shown clinical promise for over a decade, but adoption has been constrained by high unit costs, limited insurance reimbursement pathways, and the need for specialised clinical training. Lifebloom’s approach — providing integrated walking units rather than standalone exoskeletons — is designed to lower the operational barrier for rehabilitation centres, packaging the hardware, software, and clinical support into a deployable system. The company’s longer-term target is ambitious: enabling 1,000 patients to regain autonomous walking by 2028. While the number may appear modest in absolute terms, it represents a significant milestone in a field where each successful rehabilitation outcome requires dozens of supervised therapy sessions and careful patient selection. European medtech finds its stride in rehabilitation robotics Lifebloom’s funding arrives during a period of growing investor interest in rehabilitation and assistive robotics across Europe. The global rehabilitation robotics market, valued at approximately $1.2 billion in 2025, is projected to grow at a compound annual rate exceeding 20 per cent through the end of the decade, driven by ageing populations, rising stroke incidence, and mounting pressure on healthcare systems to deliver cost-effective long-term care. In France specifically, the government’s France 2030 programme has emerged as a significant catalyst for medtech innovation, providing non-dilutive capital to companies developing breakthrough health technologies. The programme’s backing of Lifebloom signals institutional confidence in exoskeleton therapy as a viable component of France’s future rehabilitation infrastructure — a vote of confidence that may help accelerate regulatory and reimbursement pathways for the category. Founded in 2019 and headquartered in Lille, Lifebloom has spent the intervening years refining its technology and building clinical evidence. The transition from development to deployment — marked by this funding round — represents the classic inflection point for European medtech companies: the moment when a promising laboratory technology must prove it can scale within the practical constraints of real-world healthcare delivery. For the consortium of family offices and private investors backing the round, the thesis rests on a straightforward demographic reality: Europe’s population is ageing, its healthcare workforce is shrinking, and technologies that can multiply the effectiveness of rehabilitation professionals will command growing value. Lifebloom’s challenge now is execution — placing its Walking Units in clinics, training therapists, and generating the patient outcome data that will underpin broader adoption. Summary Company: Lifebloom HQ: Lille, France Founded: 2019 Round: Seed (equity + France 2030 grant) Amount: €8 million (€6M equity + €2M non-dilutive) Investors: Consortium of family offices, entrepreneurs, and private investors; France 2030 programme Use of funds: Deployment of Walking Units across 30 French healthcare facilities; target of 1,000 patients walking autonomously by 2028

Europe’s building energy efficiency sector is attracting growing investor attention as tightening regulations force property owners to rethink how they manage energy consumption across commercial and residential portfolios. French software group Enersweet has secured €45 million in a funding round that combines equity investment from Ring Capital with debt financing from Zencap Asset Management and Bpifrance, positioning the company to accelerate its acquisition-led consolidation strategy in the building energy transition market. Strategic investors fuel Enersweet’s acquisition-led growth Ring Capital has entered the capital of Enersweet alongside debt financing from Zencap Asset Management and Bpifrance, replacing the group’s previous debt partner Pictet Asset Management. The €45 million round — comprising equity investment from Ring Capital and a unitranche debt facility — gives Enersweet the firepower to pursue two to three acquisitions annually across adjacent segments of the building energy management value chain. Pierre-Alexis de Vauplane of Ring Capital joins Enersweet’s supervisory board as part of the transaction, though the management team, led by founder and chief executive Mickaël Cabrol, retains majority ownership and full operational control of the business. A buy-and-build strategy delivering rapid scale Since its founding in 2022, Enersweet has completed five acquisitions in three years, assembling a portfolio of complementary software businesses that serve real estate diagnosticians, engineering firms, property companies, and large commercial occupants. The group’s subsidiaries — Liciel Environnement, Arobiz, Sogexpert, Quotidiag, and eGreen — collectively provide tools spanning energy performance diagnostics, building technical management, and energy monitoring systems. The acquisition of Liciel Environnement, France’s leading provider of energy performance diagnostic software, gave Enersweet a dominant position in the regulatory compliance segment. The more recent integration of eGreen, a pioneer in energy management systems, extended the group’s capabilities into real-time energy monitoring and building automation — technologies that are becoming essential as French regulations tighten around building energy consumption. This acquisition-driven approach has propelled Enersweet to 85 employees, more than 7,000 clients, and over €10 million in revenue by its second full financial year in 2025 — a trajectory that underlines both the fragmented nature of the market and the demand for integrated software solutions in the building energy sector. Regulatory tailwinds and a €100 million ambition The timing of Enersweet’s funding round reflects a broader wave of investment into building decarbonisation across Europe. In France, the building sector accounts for 43 per cent of national energy consumption and approximately a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions, making it a priority target for policymakers. The tertiary energy decree (Décret Tertiaire), which mandates progressive energy consumption reductions in commercial buildings, and the BACS decree requiring building automation systems, are creating sustained demand for the kind of software infrastructure Enersweet provides. Across Europe, the regulatory push is intensifying. The revised Energy Performance of Buildings Directive sets a pathway toward zero-emission buildings by 2030 for new public buildings, with the broader stock following by 2050. This regulatory framework is channelling significant capital into proptech and energy efficiency solutions, with building energy management emerging as one of the fastest-growing segments of the European climate tech ecosystem. Enersweet’s ambitions match the scale of the opportunity. The group has set a target of deploying €100 million by 2030, with plans to expand beyond its current core of energy diagnostics and monitoring into adjacent verticals including air quality management, waste management, and building maintenance software. The strategy positions Enersweet as a potential one-stop platform for the full spectrum of building sustainability services — a consolidation play in a market where hundreds of small, specialised software providers serve fragmented customer needs. For Ring Capital, which focuses on growth-stage technology investments in France and Southern Europe, the deal represents a bet on the intersection of regulation-driven demand and software-enabled consolidation — two forces that, when combined, tend to produce durable market leaders. Summary Company: Enersweet HQ: Paris, France Founded: 2022 Round: Growth (equity + debt) Amount: €45 million Lead investor: Ring Capital (equity); Zencap Asset Management and Bpifrance (debt) Use of funds: Acquisition strategy (2-3 per year), expansion into air quality, waste management, and building maintenance software Total funding to date: €45 million

Strategic health investors back digital therapeutics for cognitive decline Europe’s digital health sector is witnessing a quiet but significant shift in investor appetite, with growing capital flows towards therapeutic applications that address chronic neurological conditions — an area historically underserved by both pharmaceutical innovation and venture funding. As populations across the continent age and healthcare systems strain under the weight of dementia-related costs, digital therapeutics platforms that can deliver clinically validated interventions at scale are attracting attention from a new class of strategic health investors. Five Lives, the Franco-British healthtech startup developing digital therapies for dementia prevention and cognitive decline, has raised €1.7 million from strategic investors Open CNP (the investment arm of French insurance group CNP Assurances), 50 Partners, and Family Ventures. The company is supplementing the round with a crowdfunding campaign on Sowefund, targeting an additional €300,000 to €500,000. Combined with previous rounds totalling over €3 million from investors including Headline, Speedinvest, and Boost Capital, Five Lives has now secured approximately €5 million in total funding. From prevention to treatment: a dual-product strategy Founded in 2019 by CEO Xavier Louis, Five Lives has evolved from a consumer-facing brain health app into a clinically validated digital therapeutics platform operating across two distinct product lines. The original Five Lives Mental Health Prevention app targets at-risk individuals without a clinical diagnosis, offering personalised lifestyle guidance across five evidence-based pillars: physical exercise, cognitive stimulation, nutrition, sleep, and social engagement. In January 2026, the company launched Five Lives Care, a prescription-grade therapeutic application designed specifically for patients with mild cognitive impairment — the clinical stage that often precedes Alzheimer’s disease. The app includes over 500 adapted exercise videos, memory and attention training games, and AI-powered personalised treatment sessions. Within its first two months, Five Lives Care has enrolled 5,000 patients, demonstrating strong early adoption in a market where treatment options for early-stage cognitive decline remain severely limited. “When diagnosed with Alzheimer today, patients go home with no meaningful medical perspective,” Xavier Louis has noted, highlighting the therapeutic gap that Five Lives aims to address. The company’s approach draws on accumulating clinical evidence that lifestyle interventions can meaningfully slow cognitive decline when delivered early and consistently. Clinical validation underpins reimbursement strategy The strength of Five Lives’ positioning lies in its clinical evidence base. A randomised controlled trial conducted across seven hospitals — five in the United Kingdom and two in France (Broca Hospital in Paris and La Timone in Marseille) — involving 180 patients demonstrated significant improvements in executive function and quality of life within three months of using the platform. The new funding will partially finance a second clinical trial, designed to strengthen the company’s case for healthcare reimbursement — a critical milestone that would unlock substantially larger market access. The reimbursement pathway is central to Five Lives’ revenue model. While the consumer app operates on a subscription basis at approximately €30 per month, the clinical product commands a reimbursement rate of €135 per month. Securing formal reimbursement approval, which the company is targeting for 2027, would transform its unit economics and addressable market. Five Lives projects revenues of €1 million in 2026, rising to €5 to €10 million in 2027 if reimbursement is achieved, with a longer-term ambition of reaching €100 million in annual revenue and 500,000 patients by 2030. A growing European digital therapeutics market The investment by Open CNP is strategically significant. As the investment vehicle of CNP Assurances, one of France’s largest insurance groups, its participation signals that major health insurers are beginning to view digital therapeutics as a viable complement to traditional care pathways — and a potential tool for reducing the long-term costs associated with dementia, which currently represent one of the largest financial burdens on European healthcare systems. Five Lives’ commercial expansion is focused on three markets: France, the United Kingdom, and the United States, with the new capital supporting customer acquisition and AI integration to further personalise treatment protocols. With over 200,000 cumulative app downloads and a growing clinical evidence base, the company is building the foundation for a platform that could scale across Europe’s fragmented but increasingly receptive digital health landscape. Summary Company: Five Lives HQ: France / United Kingdom Founded: 2019 Round: Funding round Amount: €1.7 million (+ up to €500k crowdfunding) Investors: Open CNP (CNP Assurances), 50 Partners, Family Ventures Use of Funds: Commercial expansion (France, UK, US), second clinical trial, AI integration for personalised treatment

General Catalyst leads seed round as enterprise AI agent adoption accelerates The enterprise AI landscape is evolving rapidly from experimental chatbot deployments towards autonomous agents capable of executing complete business workflows. As organisations across Europe grapple with the practical challenge of moving AI from proof-of-concept to production-ready systems, a new generation of platforms is emerging to bridge the gap between AI capability and enterprise-grade deployment — particularly for non-technical teams that lack dedicated engineering resources. Nexus, the Brussels-founded agentic AI platform backed by Y Combinator, has raised $4.3 million in a seed round led by General Catalyst. Additional investors include Transpose Platform, Twenty Two Ventures, Phosphor Capital, and prominent angel investors Gokul Rajaram, Raphael Schaad, and Jake Mintz. The funding will support the company’s expansion into enterprise markets across Europe and the United States. Enabling non-technical teams to deploy AI agents Founded in 2024 by former McKinsey consultant Assem Chammah and AI engineer Shady Al Shoha, Nexus has developed a platform that enables non-technical business teams to build and deploy production-ready AI agents without writing code. The platform integrates across more than 4,000 enterprise systems — spanning CRM, ERP, Slack, Microsoft Teams, and other core business tools — allowing agents to execute complete workflows end-to-end rather than simply answering queries or generating content. What distinguishes Nexus from the crowded field of AI agent builders is its embedded governance and compliance layer. Enterprise deployment of autonomous agents raises significant questions around data handling, audit trails, and regulatory compliance, particularly in heavily regulated European industries. Nexus addresses this by building governance controls directly into the agent deployment process, enabling organisations to maintain oversight while benefiting from automation. Early traction with major European enterprises Despite its early stage, Nexus has already secured notable enterprise clients, including Orange Group, the global telecommunications operator with operations across Europe and Africa. Orange deployed a customer onboarding agent using the Nexus platform in just four weeks, reportedly achieving a 50 per cent increase in conversion rates and generating more than €5 million in annual lifetime value from a single agent deployment — a striking demonstration of the platform’s potential return on investment. Belgian telecommunications company Proximus Global is another early adopter, further validating the platform’s applicability in large, complex enterprise environments. These reference customers provide Nexus with a powerful narrative for its sales pipeline as it scales beyond its initial Belgian market. The European agentic AI market matures Nexus’s raise arrives at a pivotal moment for the European AI ecosystem. According to recent market data, AI-backed startups now attract 62 per cent of all venture capital funding in Europe, with enterprise AI solutions commanding an increasingly significant share. The shift from generative AI tools towards agentic AI — where software autonomously completes multi-step business processes — represents what many investors view as the next major value-creation wave in enterprise technology. General Catalyst’s decision to lead the round is noteworthy. The firm has been one of the most active global investors in enterprise AI infrastructure, and its backing signals confidence in Nexus’s approach to a market that remains highly competitive. Y Combinator’s continued involvement, following its initial support through its accelerator programme, adds further validation. For the Brussels-based startup, the seed funding provides the runway to expand its engineering team, deepen platform capabilities, and pursue the enterprise sales cycles that typically define growth in this segment. With AI agent deployment emerging as a strategic priority for large European organisations, Nexus is positioning itself at the intersection of two powerful trends: the democratisation of AI development and the enterprise demand for measurable automation outcomes. Summary Company: Nexus HQ: Brussels, Belgium Founded: 2024 Round: Seed Amount: $4.3 million (€3.7 million) Lead Investor: General Catalyst Use of Funds: Engineering team expansion, platform development, enterprise sales across Europe and the US

Strategic investors fuel Europe’s space-based solar ambitions The global race to secure clean, uninterrupted energy sources is intensifying, and a growing number of investors are turning their attention to one of the most ambitious frontiers in renewable technology: space-based solar power. Long confined to the realm of theoretical physics and government-funded research programmes, the concept of capturing solar energy in orbit and transmitting it wirelessly to Earth is now attracting serious venture capital — a signal that the technology may be closer to commercial viability than many assumed. Luxembourg-based startup TerraSpark has raised over €5 million in a pre-seed round to advance its space-based solar power technology, marking one of the earliest significant private investments in the sector. The round was led by Paris-based venture capital firm Daphni, with participation from Sake Bosch, better ventures, Hans(wo)men Group, the Luxembourg Business Angel Network, and Karaoke Club. From ESA research to commercial venture Founded in 2025, TerraSpark brings together a team with deep roots in European space research. Co-founder Dr Sanjay Vijendran was one of the principal leaders of the European Space Agency’s Solaris initiative, a three-year research and development programme launched in 2022 to evaluate the feasibility of space-based solar power for Europe. When ESA concluded in August 2024 that the technology was not yet mature enough to proceed to a full demonstration mission, Vijendran left to co-found TerraSpark alongside serial entrepreneur Jasper Deprez, who previously built HRTech platform Tradler into a global operation, and Matthias Laug, who serves as chief operating officer. Rather than attempting to deploy orbital infrastructure immediately, TerraSpark is pursuing a phased commercialisation strategy that begins on the ground. The company’s core technology centres on radio frequency-based wireless energy transmission, which it plans to demonstrate first in controlled terrestrial environments before scaling the system into orbit. This approach allows TerraSpark to validate critical parameters — alignment accuracy, energy density, and atmospheric tolerance — while simultaneously building a commercial pipeline for industrial wireless power applications. An ambitious roadmap to orbit TerraSpark’s development timeline is structured around a series of escalating milestones. In 2026, the company plans to demonstrate wireless power transmission over controlled distances on Earth. By 2027, it intends to launch an orbital technology demonstrator, and by 2028, it aims to achieve the first space-to-Earth power transmission — beaming solar energy from a satellite prototype to a ground receiver. Full commercial deployment, with a constellation capable of delivering continuous, weather-independent energy worldwide, is targeted for 2030 and beyond. The company has already secured a partnership with Dcubed to test its solar array technology on a SpaceX mission scheduled for 2027, providing an early orbital validation opportunity that could prove pivotal for subsequent fundraising rounds. European space-based solar power gains momentum TerraSpark’s raise reflects a broader shift in European energy and deep-tech investment. France’s national quantum and space strategies have allocated billions in public funding, while the European Space Agency continues to explore power-from-space concepts through its broader technology programmes. The European Commission’s long-term energy strategy has also identified space-based solar power as a potential contributor to the continent’s net-zero targets, lending policy-level credibility to the sector. The wireless energy transmission market itself remains nascent, but the convergence of improved satellite launch economics — driven by companies such as SpaceX — with advances in photovoltaic efficiency and power beaming technology is creating conditions for the first generation of commercial space solar ventures to emerge. TerraSpark’s decision to base itself in Luxembourg, a country that has actively positioned itself as a European hub for space commerce through its SpaceResources.lu initiative and favourable regulatory environment, adds a further strategic dimension to its positioning. For European deep-tech investors, TerraSpark represents a high-conviction bet on a technology that, if proven at scale, could fundamentally alter the global energy landscape. The pre-seed round provides the capital to reach the critical terrestrial demonstration milestones that will determine whether the company can attract the substantially larger investment required for its orbital phases. Summary Company: TerraSpark HQ: Luxembourg Founded: 2025 Round: Pre-Seed Amount: €5 million+ Lead Investor: Daphni Use of Funds: Terrestrial wireless power transmission demonstration, orbital technology development, team expansion marking one of the earliest significant private i— alignment accuracy, energy density, and atmospheric tolerance — while simultaneously building a commercial pipeline for industrial wireless power applications.

London fintech Outpost raises $17.5M Series A led by Ribbit Capital to scale its AI-powered merchant-of-record platform, simplifying cross-border payments, tax, and compliance for global merchants.

The European fintech sector continues to attract early-stage capital, with AI-powered financial modelling emerging as a particularly active frontier for investor interest. As finance teams across high-growth organisations grapple with the limitations of static spreadsheets and fragmented planning tools, a new generation of startups is building intelligent infrastructure to replace legacy workflows. Stockholm-based Galdera Labs has now entered this space with a €1.5 million pre-seed round to develop an AI-native financial modelling platform designed for growth-stage finance teams. The funding will support platform development, reasoning infrastructure buildout, and an initial customer rollout targeting fast-growing companies with complex financial operations. Galdera’s platform combines a high-performance calculation engine with a semantic memory layer that links financial data directly to underlying business context, assumptions, and strategic decisions — enabling finance teams to query models in natural language and simulate complex scenarios in minutes rather than weeks. Klarna Veterans Back AI Financial Modelling Vision The pre-seed round was led by J12 Ventures, with participation from Antler and a roster of angel investors drawn from notable European technology companies including Klarna, DeepL, Stripe, and Plata. The investor composition reflects strong confidence in the founding team’s pedigree and the market opportunity for intelligent financial planning infrastructure. Galdera’s three co-founders — Evan Rumpza (CEO), Mattia Scolari (CFO), and Giovanni Casula (CTO) — met at Klarna during the fintech giant’s most intensive growth phase. Responsible for financial planning across 26 markets, the team experienced first-hand how manual processes and fragmented Excel models struggled to keep pace as business conditions shifted faster than traditional models could be rebuilt. To manage the complexity, they built an internal system at Klarna that replaced the static planning cycle with a continuously updated model — enabling what previously required large analyst teams to be handled by just three people, supporting the company through both capital raises and IPO preparations. The lessons learned from that experience became the foundation for Galdera Labs. “We’ve personally sat with 50 spreadsheets at two in the morning using tools that were supposed to solve the problem but didn’t. That is the infrastructure we are building with Galdera,” said Evan Rumpza, CEO and co-founder of Galdera Labs. Building AI Finance Tools for the Next Generation of CFOs The market for AI finance tools and financial modelling software is evolving rapidly as organisations demand more dynamic planning capabilities. Traditional spreadsheet-based approaches, while flexible, often create fragmented workflows where assumptions become outdated and institutional knowledge is lost between budget cycles. Galdera’s platform addresses this gap with a two-layer architecture: a powerful calculation engine capable of handling large data volumes, paired with a semantic memory layer that preserves the reasoning behind financial decisions over time. The platform is designed to function as an always-on financial forecast that automatically updates as business conditions change. Users configure scenarios once, and the model recalculates impacts across revenue, costs, margins, and other key metrics in real time. This approach positions Galdera within a growing wave of European fintech startups applying artificial intelligence not merely as an overlay on existing tools, but as a foundational redesign of how financial planning operates. With the launch, Galdera is opening its platform to its first customers: fast-growing companies and organisations with complex operations where the pace of decision-making has outgrown the tools finance teams traditionally rely on. Early adopters already include companies such as DeasyLabs, Unify, and Counsel. The pre-seed round positions Galdera Labs at an early but promising stage in a sector where demand for intelligent, context-aware financial infrastructure is accelerating across European markets. As AI continues to reshape enterprise workflows, the intersection of financial modelling and machine reasoning represents a significant opportunity for startups capable of delivering genuine operational value to scaling businesses. Summary

The sustainable consumer goods sector is witnessing growing investor appetite as environmentally conscious brands prove they can combine purpose with profitability. East London-based Allday Goods, the cult kitchen knife brand that transforms plastic waste into chef-quality blades, has raised £765,000 in a seed round led by FIGR Ventures to scale its operations from artisan favourite to mainstream kitchen staple. Founded in 2021 by ex-chef Hugo Worsley, Allday Goods manufactures kitchen knives with handles crafted entirely from recycled plastic waste — sourced from Maldon Salt buckets, milk bottle handles, discarded plant containers, and fishing nets washed up on British shores. The brand, which started in Worsley’s parents’ shed using a repurposed toastie maker, has already achieved profitability with minimal external investment. Products consistently sell out within minutes during online drops, and queues have formed at London pop-ups, reflecting a level of consumer demand that few sustainable brands can match at this stage. FIGR Ventures Leads Seed Round with Sustainability-Focused Backers The £765,000 round was led by FIGR Ventures, with participation from Anotherway Ventures, Machroes Holdings — the family office of Lord Mervyn Davies — and angel investor Tom Gozney, founder of the premium pizza oven brand Gozney. The investor mix signals confidence in Allday Goods’ ability to bridge the gap between sustainable manufacturing and scalable consumer product design. Allday Goods’ knives pair handles made from 100% recycled food-grade polypropylene with British and Japanese steel blades. The company collects, cleans, shreds, and remoulds plastic waste into distinctive, colourful handles that carry visible traces of their former lives — a design choice that has become central to the brand’s identity. Each knife effectively diverts plastic from landfill whilst delivering professional-grade performance. Worsley commented on the raise, noting that the team had built the brand slowly and intentionally, and that securing backing from investors they genuinely admire represents a significant milestone for the next chapter of growth. From Cult Following to Mainstream Market Opportunity Allday Goods has already demonstrated significant commercial traction without substantial marketing spend. The brand’s high-profile collaborations with Ottolenghi, Soho House, Maldon Salt, Kerrygold, and Paul Smith have positioned it at the intersection of culinary craftsmanship and design culture. Features in The World of Interiors and Esquire have further cemented its reputation among discerning consumers who value both aesthetics and environmental responsibility. The fresh capital will be deployed to scale production capacity, expand the product range, and accelerate the transition from limited-edition drops to consistent retail availability. The challenge for Allday Goods will be maintaining the artisan quality and brand mystique that fuelled its cult status whilst meeting the demands of a broader consumer base — a tension that many direct-to-consumer brands have struggled to navigate. The broader sustainable kitchenware market continues to attract both consumer interest and investor capital across Europe. As regulatory pressure on single-use plastics intensifies and consumers increasingly seek products that align with their environmental values, brands like Allday Goods that demonstrate genuine circularity in their manufacturing processes are well-positioned to capture meaningful market share. Summary Company: Allday GoodsHeadquarters: East London, United KingdomFounded: 2021Founder: Hugo WorsleyRound: SeedAmount: £765,000Lead Investor: FIGR VenturesOther Investors: Anotherway Ventures, Machroes Holdings, Tom GozneyUse of Funds: Scale production, expand product range, transition to mainstream retail availability

Europe’s space technology sector is experiencing a strategic shift as the continent moves to reduce its dependence on toxic propellants and build sovereign capabilities in satellite operations. Amid tightening EU regulations on hydrazine-based systems and growing demand for sustainable orbital infrastructure, a new generation of deeptech startups is emerging to fill critical gaps in the European space supply chain. Arkadia Space, the Castellón-based propulsion startup, has secured €14.5 million through the European Innovation Council (EIC) Accelerator — one of the EU’s most competitive deeptech funding instruments. The package comprises a €2.5 million grant, €6 million in equity from the EIC Fund, and €6 million in private investment. Arkadia is the first Spanish space company to access EIC Accelerator funding, selected from 923 applications as one of just 61 startups in this round. EIC Accelerator backs hydrogen peroxide propulsion The funding signals the European Commission’s recognition of hydrogen peroxide propulsion as a strategically important technology. Arkadia’s flagship product, the DARK propulsion system, is a hypergolic bipropellant engine that combines high-concentration hydrogen peroxide with a proprietary green fuel. The system ignites spontaneously upon propellant contact, eliminating the need for complex ignition hardware and reducing operational and refuelling costs by more than 60 per cent compared with conventional hydrazine-based solutions. Founded in 2020 by Francho García (CEO) and Ismael Gutierrez (CTO), the company has spent five years developing alternatives to the toxic propellants that have long dominated satellite manoeuvring. The cost differential is striking: filling a satellite tank with hydrazine typically costs around €2 million, whereas Arkadia’s hydrogen peroxide-based operations run under €50,000 — including all ground equipment. Arkadia achieved a critical milestone in March 2025 when its DARK system became the first hydrogen peroxide-based propulsion technology to fly in orbit from Europe. Launched aboard a D-Orbit ION Satellite Carrier on SpaceX’s Transporter-13 mission from Vandenberg Space Force Base, the system successfully completed in-orbit test firings that matched ground test data, confirming its viability for commercial satellite operations. “This recognition confirms that we are on the right path and gives us a tremendous boost to commercialise the technology as early as next year,” said Francho García, co-founder and CEO of Arkadia Space. European spacetech builds momentum with strategic partnerships The EIC backing comes as Arkadia deepens its ties with the European space establishment. The company holds four contracts with the European Space Agency (ESA), including work under the Future Launchers Preparatory Programme. Perhaps most notably, Arkadia has secured a supply agreement with MaiaSpace, the ArianeGroup-backed reusable launch vehicle programme, to provide 250-newton reaction control thrusters — a contract that positions the startup within Europe’s next-generation launch architecture. The company has also developed ARIEL, a 250-newton monopropellant thruster that reached technology readiness level 6 within two years, further demonstrating the versatility of its hydrogen peroxide platform across both satellite and launcher applications. Arkadia previously raised a €2.8 million seed round in October 2023, led by Draper B1 with participation from Expansion Ventures. The latest EIC funding brings total capital raised to approximately €17.3 million, providing a substantial runway to move from demonstration to commercialisation. The company plans to expand its testing infrastructure at Castellón Airport and targets production of 300 to 400 propulsion systems annually, with a view to becoming a vertically integrated European supplier of green propulsion technology. Summary Company: Arkadia SpaceHeadquarters: Castellón, SpainFounded: 2020Round: EIC Accelerator (grant + equity + private)Amount: €14.5 millionLead: European Innovation CouncilPrevious funding: €2.8M seed (Draper B1, 2023)Use of funds: Commercialisation of green propulsion, R&D expansion, testing infrastructure, scaling operations