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💸 Notable and big funding rounds

🇳🇱 NXP Semiconductors secures €1B EIB loan

🇩🇪 Green Flexibility secures €400M from Partners Group for large-scale battery storage systems

🇩🇪 Sunfire receives €200M investment

🇬🇧 Synthesia doubles valuation to $2.1B with $180M funding round, and pledges commitment to UK

🫱🏽‍🫲🏻 Noteworthy acquisitions and mergers​​

🇬🇧 Early crowdfunding investors bag returns as UK startup Freetrade snapped up for £160M

🇬🇧 AccountsIQ acquires ExpenseIn

🇩🇪 Creative Dock Group acquires nFrontier to expand into hardware production

🇩🇪 The Berlin startup charles is taking over the insolvent conversational marketing startup Spectrm

🚀 Interesting moves from investors

💰Webrazzi Startup-1 Venture Capital Investment Fund, which we established with İş Portföy, received CMB approval

🇪🇺 EIT Manufacturing will invest more than €3.7M in projects with Spanish participation to promote a more sustainable industry

🇳🇱 Amsterdam’s Keen Venture Partners is raising Benelux’s first defence tech investment fund

💰 Ares closes sixth European direct lending fund at €17.1bn

🇩🇰 Venture Cup Denmark to shut down after 25 years

🗞️ In other (important) news

🤖 UK unveils £14B AI infrastructure plan

🎓 Peter Sarlin's Foundation PS boosts AI research in Finland with major donation of 13 professorships

🇵🇹 Portugal consolidates its position as a European startup hub, but faces key challenges

🇧🇬“We will be a unicorn today”, says CEO of Bulgaria’s first-ever $1bn startup

📡 Recommended reads and listens

☀️ CUER and ETA Green Power partner to advance solar car development

🎓 Edtech learns new skills in an AI-driven world

☺️ Tired of meditation? Olo's sound holograms offer a scientifically-backed alternative

🎮 Small studio, big impact: how MixRift is redefining MR gaming

💊 From legacy systems to AI-power: How an Icelandic startup is transforming pharmaceutical supply chains

🛰️  constellr's Sky-Bee-1 launches thermal infrared tech for sustainable resource management

🔭 European tech startups to watch 

🇪🇸Xain raises €250,000 in its first round

🇦🇹 Minimist received €350,000 investment

🇧🇪Squire secures Entourage funding to boost AI-powered GP report automation

🇨🇭 Insurteam raises €745,000 seed capital to drive European expansion

🇬🇧Juno raises $1M to streamline loan processing with AI-powered 'employee'

🇺🇦 Disinformation startup raises $1.6M pre-seed

🇬🇷Progressive Robotics secures €1.55M

However, a mixed reality gaming company I met at the last Web Summit might have changed my mind. 

Irish startup MixRift creates Mixed Reality (MR) games for Meta Quest and Apple Vision Pro. Before I dig into the business, I had to give one a whirl.

The joy of quick-play MR games

I sat with Bobby Voicu, MixRift's CEO, in a meeting room in Lisbon, and played Hell Horde: a MR survival game.

A portal opened in front of me, gushing a hoard of monsters that I needed to defend myself again. The controllers became guns, and the more you succeed, the weapons get stronger.  If the monsters touch you, it's game over. The game uses special software tools called Presence Platform SDKs to make the game feel realistic and immersive.

As someone obsessed with horror films, this game was FUN. And as someone with constant blurry vision, I find Mixed Reality a lot easier than other mediums.

If the idea of a horde of monsters is the stuff of nightmares for you, the company has since released the more family friendly Crit Attack, where the monsters are cute and annoying rather than scary.

Both games are classic arcade shooters at heart. They're incredibly easy to jump into: grab a controller, aim your in-game weapons at the invading monsters, and start blasting. Even the "Play" button is interactive – shoot it to begin the mayhem.

A vision for casual gaming

Founded in 2024 by Bobby Voicu, David Pripas and Andrei Vaduva, MixRift is focused on creating casual gaming sessions with a retro bent lasting just 30 minutes or less, making them ideal for quick pick-up-and-play experiences.

MixRift's unique approach is centred on game mechanics, developing and releasing games that resonate with audiences, quickly rather than investing years in a single title.

Bobby Voicu previously co-founded and served as CEO of Mavenhut, a mobile gaming company that was successfully acquired — in 2015, Mavenhut sold a significant portion of its game portfolio to RockYou.  

The MixRift team is composed mainly of former Mavenhut employees, with six out of seven members having prior experience at the company. Voicu mentioned that in late 2023, a former Mavenhut employee suggested he explore wearable devices, particularly the Meta Quest 3. I wasn't interested due to past experiences with VR-induced motion sickness. But I discovered that the hardware has improved drastically."

The opportunity for wearables and MR

Voicu believes that, with wearables that are as much computing devices as they are gaming, mixed reality will appeal to a wider set of users.

The most popular gaming devices worldwide are not dedicated gaming devices. . It's the phone and then the PC. They are computing platforms.

People use them for other things, and then they game on it. And in my opinion, we're at the dawn of the third computing device. Which is mixed reality glasses. The headset is like an intermediate step, but we're going to have mass adoption of these devices when it's in that form.

There's a big opportunity for a gaming company, especially a small and quick indie company, to conquer the space. 

"We're creating games for a software platform at the edge of technology. It changes consistently. If you think of a smartphone, it's like building games for the phones three years before the iPhone.

We're building games for a constantly evolving software platform, akin to developing for smartphones before the iPhone standardised the industry."

However, the rapid pace of technological advancement within this space presents ongoing hurdles. New features and updates are frequent, requiring developers to adjust their approach and address unforeseen issues constantly.

But there's a lot of benefit in being an early player in an emerging market.Voicu asserts:

 "While the demand for MR experiences continues to grow, primarily driven by tech giants like Meta and Apple, there's a clear lack of high-quality MR games out there. 

We're in the perfect position to tackle this because we're pushing boundaries to create new kinds of interactive experiences"

An agile approach to prototyping driven by user feedback

MixRift is a small distributed company. To identify promising titles, the company embraces an agile approach. 

It rapidly prototypes game ideas and launches minimal viable products (MVPs) within weeks. This allows it to gather early player feedback and iterate quickly.

Voicu shared: 

For example, we prototyped a simple competitive mechanic and, despite its basic nature (essentially just shooting at things), it attracted thousands of organic users within two months.

This contrasts with the traditional console development cycle, which often involves years of secretive development. We believe in transparency and learning from player feedback early on, enabling us to quickly identify what resonates with players and refine our game designs at speed."

Voicu asserts that gaming is not a zero-sum game. "If somebody plays my game, that doesn't mean they won't play anything else."

Gamers generally have either the time or the money to invest in games. 

"In our game, players can earn in-game currency, often by performing actions like defeating enemies.

While dedicated players can earn these coins through gameplay, others with limited time (e.g., those with busy schedules after work and family commitments) may be more inclined to spend money to progress more quickly."

A conversion rate of 3-5 per cent of users making in-game purchases is considered healthy for most free-to-play games. This demonstrates the significant potential for monetisation, even with a relatively small percentage of players actively spending.

Success stories in indie VR/AR gaming land with acquisition

Large gaming companies traditionally enter mobile gaming cautiously. For example, Ubisoft's 'Assassin's Creed Nexus,' a VR-exclusive title, faced underwhelming success, leading them to announce a hiatus from VR development for the next 3-5 years. This reluctance stems from the perceived small market size, creating a significant opportunity for smaller, more specialised companies like ours.

Instead of investing heavily in internal VR development, historically these giants often prefer to acquire indie game studios instead of developing in house. For example, Activision acquired UK-Stockholm gaming company King, maker of Candy Crush) for $5.9 billion —Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard in October 2023 for $69 billion.

Indie game developers continue to make a place for themselves in the VR/AR space gaining audiences. For example, Gorilla Tag, a multiplayer VR game developed by Another Axiom in 2021 has generated over $100 million in revenue.

In its earliest stages, MixRift raised £1.6 million in August 2024, primarily directed towards accelerating its game development efforts. 

Voicu believes successful VR/AR gaming hinges on experiences that are uniquely possible in immersive and MR environments. 

"For example, games like Gorilla Tag demonstrate this through locomotion, emphasising physical movement and spatial awareness – 'native' mechanics impossible on traditional platforms. He admits. "The first time I tried it I fell on my face."

But beyond that, when it comes to MR, smart glasses have the potential to seamlessly blend the digital and physical worlds, transforming gaming into an immersive and interactive experience that integrates with our reality.

The company's additional games are available on Apple Vision Pro and the Meta Quest. In-app purchases like upgrades and extra 'lives' are available to make the most out of the playing session, but players can also win these by playing the game for longer.

nexos.ai saves tech teams time by allowing enterprises to manage and optimise complex bundles of AI models across their organizations. Its platform will launch in Q1 2025, and is being tested by international companies for use cases such as automated customer support.

nexos.ai was co-founded in late 2024 by Tomas Okmanas and Eimantas Sabaliauskas, the co-founders of Nord Security. Angel investors in the round included Olivier Pomel (CEO of Datadog), Sebastian Siemiatkowski (CEO of Klarna), through Flat Capital, Ilkka Paananen (CEO of Supercell) and Avishai Abrahami (CEO of Wix.com).

The platform provides access to over 200 AI models including OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and Meta. Its capabilities include smart model routing and load balancing to optimize performance and costs, catching repeated queries, analytics and security and compliance controls.

“nexos.ai is a critical solution for any enterprise deploying AI at scale, where managing the inherently complex ecosystem of large language models, AI agents, and applications with varying levels of autonomy becomes essential. The demand for such solutions is expected to grow exponentially in the coming months and years,” said Hannah Seal, Partner at Index Ventures. “Tomas and his team have consistently demonstrated their ability to tackle complex challenges by creating products that deliver elegant, simple solutions — and this one might be their most consequential yet.”

“Companies know that AI is an operational and competitive necessity, but they’re drowning in the challenges of managing multiple models, controlling costs and ensuring accurate and reliable performance,” added Tomas Okmanas, CEO and co-founder. 

“At the same time, AI models are becoming increasingly autonomous and capable of handling complex tasks with minimal human intervention. We’ve built nexos.ai to be the enterprise-grade platform that makes working with AI as intuitive as working with human teams – providing the infrastructure and oversight to make sure these models perform at their best while remaining cost-effective and secure.”

Founded in 2019, NEURA Robotics has quickly become a global leader in cognitive and humanoid robotics, creating robots designed to work seamlessly with humans in industries such as manufacturing, logistics, and healthcare. 

With its unique sensor technology and AI integration, NEURA Robotics has the world’s first cognitive cobot in the market.

In the last year alone the NEURA team doubled its number of employees to over 300 people and achieved a remarkable 10x revenue growth. NEURA Robotics has already secured an impressive €1 billion order book. 

According to David Reger, founder and CEO of NEURA Robotics: 

“Cognitive robotics is expected to become bigger than the smartphone. I am proud that NEURA is the first one to ship a commercially-viable cognitive robot and remains the only humanoid robotics company in Germany.

This investment shows the confidence our investors have in my team and in pioneering advanced robotics in Europe.”

Lingotto Investment Management led the round, with participation from BlueCrest Capital Management, Volvo Cars Tech Fund, InterAlpen Partners, Vsquared Ventures, HV Capital, Delta Electronics, ​​C4 Ventures, L-Bank, founder David Reger, and others.

Nikhil Srinivasan, Managing Partner of Lingotto Horizon, shared:

 “With phenomenal AI capabilities, an extraordinary growth trajectory, and a billion-dollar order book, NEURA is on track to potentially becoming a multi-billion-dollar company and one of the most prominent robotics companies in the world.”

Looking to the future, NEURA Robotics is not just focused on its own expansion but also on the sustainable long-term growth of the cognitive robotics category from the heart of Europe. The fresh capital will fuel further R&D, supporting the launch of new category-leading global products – all building on NEURA’s own Neuraverse platform.

Lead image: NEURA Robotics. Photo: uncredited. 

The company produces "influencer marketing automation" software, which means it cultivates relationships between brands and audiences by combining influencer marketing with LLMs. 

This round was led by Interactive Venture Partners and backed by the family office of Thomas Peterffy, the Founder and Chairman of Interactive Brokers Group, Inc., with additional support from Euroventures, Oktogon Ventures, and Intercapital. They joined Fil Rouge Capital and BA Dražen Pehar, who invested into Hypefy’s previous rounds.

With this funding, Hypefy will grow its team, accelerate development of its software and expand into the US and other European markets.

The company was founded by a team with backgrounds across marketing, AI and finance. Its software Hypefy analyses past performance data, audience metrics, and market specific factors to optimize influencer marketing campaigns end to end.

Using  machine learning and AI models, Hypefy aims to eliminate "major inefficiencies" in influencer marketing spending for brands and digital marketing agencies. Its aim is to lead the influencer marketing industry with more precise audience targeting, authentic content, and viral performance.

“Demand for authentic content and efficient campaign management is growing fast, fueled by the rise of micro and nano influencers. Hypefy is transforming the influencer marketing industry with cutting-edge AI solutions that simplify and automate the process for our clients”, said Stjepan Zelić, CEO and Co-Founder.

“We empower brands to quickly enter new markets, avoid price haggling with influencers and optimize outcomes of their influencer marketing campaigns.” 

Namirial itself was acquired by the larger Ambienta in May 2020.

The terms of the acquisition are undisclosed and the transaction marks Namirial's sixth acquisition within Europe's digital transaction management market.

Headquartered in Trezzano sul Naviglio, Italy, Digital Technologies enables large corporations across industrial sectors to digitalise and automate finance, legal and supply-chain business processes by automating its documents, facilitatting e-invoicing and adjacent digital trust solutions such as digital signature, digital archiving, and e-payments.

Namirial will benefit from access to Digital Technologies' e-invoicing hub that serves multiple international jurisdictions, effectively all countries that have already integrated e-invoicing across Europe, South America and Asia. In France, Digital Technologies already acts as an established Partner Dematerialisation Platform, which will add to Namirial's e-invoicing capacity.

Digital Technologies serves primarily large multinational clients that require a highly automated, regulation- compliant electronic invoicing platform able to operate globally.

The digital voucher and prepaid card fintech has secured the debt financing through ABN AMRO, which it says it will also use to enter new markets.

As well as eyeing up targets across B2B and B2C in Europe, Recharge says it is looking at possible acquisition targets further afield.

In 2023, Recharge, which employs around 150 staff, acquired Startselect, a Dutch digital gift and gaming cards company.

Now it is on the hunt for more acquisitions, saying it hopes to close two to three deals this year.

Recharge’s CEO, Günther Vogelpoel, said:

“This new facility comes at a pivotal time for Recharge as we embark on the next phase of our journey.

“I am excited to partner with ABN AMRO, whose support enables us to accelerate our growth strategy and reshape the prepaid payments landscape on our terms.”

London-headquartered BeZero Carbon is a global ratings agency for the voluntary carbon market, providing independent assessments of carbon credits' efficacy in achieving CO2 avoidance or removal.

 The company uses a comprehensive analytical framework to evaluate carbon projects across various risk factors, assigning ratings on a seven-point scale from AAA to D. 

The fundraise cements the role of independent, risk-based, project-level ratings as a measure of quality for carbon markets. 

Beyond major corporations, an increasing number of countries, international organisations, such as the European Union and United Nations, and industry initiatives, such as the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA), are looking to carbon markets to reach net zero.

When BeZero first launched its ratings platform in 2022 there was no correlation between the climate impact of a carbon project and the price of a carbon credit. Now, in 2025, every incremental BeZero Carbon Rating notch on BeZero’s 8-point rating scale commands an average 40 per cent price premium.

BeZero has customers in over 30 countries across six continents, with ratings available on over 40 platforms, enabling users to access ratings, data, and scientific analysis for over 480 carbon credit projects, has more than 100 corporate subscribers globally, including UBS, Sumitomo, Emirates NDB, Equinor, Woodside Energy, and ERM.

The company asserts that a  $100 billion carbon market would support 17 million jobs globally, larger than the current oil and gas industry, and channel $700 billion annually into climate action.

BeZero will be investing the new funds in expanding its ratings coverage for these markets,  and continue investing in automation. 

Tommy Ricketts, CEO and co-founder of BeZero Carbon, said:  

“The funds will allow us to sustain our pace of innovation and expand our ratings coverage to compliance carbon markets, such as Article 6 and CORSIA, and the voluntary carbon market.”

Temasek-founded GenZero led the round with additional investment from the Japan Airlines and Translink Innovation Fund. Existing investors EDF Pulse Ventures, Hitachi Ventures, Illuminate Financial, Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), Molten Ventures, Qima, and Quantum Innovation Fund also committed fresh capital.

Frederick Teo, CEO of GenZero, said:

“By leveraging data, internal scientific expertise and methodological insights to analyse carbon projects, BeZero’s work will foster greater confidence in carbon markets, and catalyse more capital and demand. 

Takao Suzuki, Executive Officer, Senior Vice President – Innovation at Japan Airlines, revealed that the company is actively implementing a range of emission reduction strategies, including upgrading to fuel-efficient aircraft, utilising Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF), participating in carbon credit trading, and adopting innovative technologies that contribute to society-wide CO2 reduction. 

“We believe BeZero's carbon ratings enhance the transparency and reliability of the carbon market, attracting greater capital and broader participation while playing a pivotal role in the CORSIA market.

Through our collaboration with BeZero, we aim to foster the development of a robust carbon ecosystem and accelerate our progress toward achieving net-zero CO2 emissions."

The trend of investing in AI companies continued in 2024. As stated in the Tech.eu report “European Tech 2024: The big picture” European AI companies raised nearly €3 billion through 137 deals, which is about 35% more than the year before.

French companies took the top spot in terms of countries, securing over €1.3 billion across 14 deals (almost half of all AI investments in Europe in 2024). German companies followed in second place with €910.3 million raised over 23 deals, while the UK ranked third with €318.1 million raised over 33 deals.

The sector will likely see further innovations and a broader range of AI-driven solutions as regulatory frameworks evolve, fueling even more investments and deals in the coming year.

Here are the 10 biggest deals in European AI companies in 2024.

10. Gcore (Luxembourg)
Amount raised in 2024: $60M

Gcore is a global provider of cloud, edge, and AI solutions, offering a comprehensive suite of services designed to accelerate AI training, enhance content delivery, and protect servers and applications.

With a network spanning over 180 points of presence worldwide, Gcore delivers high-performance infrastructure tailored to meet the diverse needs of businesses across various industries.

By leveraging Gcore's solutions, businesses can achieve enhanced scalability, security, and performance, driving growth and success in the digital era.

In 2024, the company raised $60 million, which will be strategically invested in enhancing Gcore's technology and platform, including the development of AI servers powered by NVIDIA GPUs, to fuel AI-driven innovations.

9. Parloa (Germany)
Amount raised in 2024: €61.7M

Parloa is an AI Agent Management Platform that enhances contact centres by automating customer interactions through advanced AI agents. 

Their platform enables businesses to design, integrate, and manage AI agents capable of engaging in natural, personalized conversations across multiple channels, including phone, chat, and messaging applications. 

Parloa's solutions seamlessly integrate with existing business infrastructures, ensuring scalability and reliability for enterprises seeking to elevate their customer support operations. 

The company secured €61.7 million in Series B funding to scale and enhance its AI-powered customer service platform.

8. Stability AI (UK)
Amount raised in 2024: $80M

Stability AI is open-source generative AI company dedicated to unlocking humanity's potential through advanced artificial intelligence. Their suite of models spans various modalities, including image, video, audio, 3D, and language, making AI accessible to everyone, everywhere.

Their flagship product, Stable Diffusion, is a deep learning, text-to-image model that generates detailed images based on text descriptions. It can also perform tasks such as inpainting, outpainting, and image-to-image translations guided by text prompts. Stable Diffusion is open-source and can run on most consumer hardware equipped with a modest GPU, marking a departure from previous proprietary text-to-image models.

Stability AI's mission is to activate humanity's potential through generative AI, providing open models in every modality for everyone, everywhere.

In June 2024, Stability secured approximately $80 million in funding, delivering a crucial capital boost to the company renowned for its image generation platform, Stable Diffusion.

7. ElevenLabs (UK)
Amount raised in 2024: $80M

ElevenLabs is a pioneering AI audio research and deployment company dedicated to making content universally accessible in any language and voice. With cutting-edge AI models that generate realistic, versatile, and contextually-aware speech and sound across 32 languages, ElevenLabs serves a diverse range of users, from everyday creators to businesses.

Their technology powers various applications, including voicing audiobooks and news articles, animating video game characters, supporting film pre-production, localizing media, and creating dynamic audio for social media and advertising. It also plays a vital role in accessibility, restoring voices to those who have lost them and aiding individuals with specific needs.

Committed to ethical innovation, ElevenLabs ensures its AI tools are developed and deployed with safety at the forefront, fostering positive and creative uses that shape the future of digital interaction.

In 2024, the company secured an $80 million Series B funding round to reinforce its position as a leader in voice AI.

6. Magic.dev (Austria)
Amount raised in 2024: $117M

Magic.dev, a startup with European origins, envisions scaling natural language processing into computer programming environments. Registered as a public benefit corporation, the company harbors even more ambitious long-term goals: the development of a "superhuman" general AI capable of achieving the elusive third phase of automation, where algorithms can grasp and perform virtually any intellectual task.

With the widespread attention generated by OpenAI's ChatGPT and its advancements in generative language models, natural language processing appears to be an ideal foundation for Magic.dev's aspirations.

The company is focusing on engineering, product development, and go-to-market strategies, with the goal of enhancing productivity and efficiency in software development.

In 2024, the company raised $117 million through a Series B funding round to further advance its AI system designed for automating software development.

5. H (France)
Amount raised in 2024: $220M

H Company is an AI startup specializing in developing "agentic" artificial intelligence solutions designed to perform complex tasks autonomously. The company focuses on creating advanced AI agents capable of reasoning, planning, and executing multi-step processes across various applications, including robotic process automation (RPA), quality assurance, and business process outsourcing.

In November 2024, H Company launched its first product, Runner H, an AI web agent that automates web-based tasks through natural language commands, streamlining workflows for developers and businesses. Runner H leverages proprietary compact language models to deliver efficient and cost-effective automation solutions.

Despite early challenges, including the departure of three co-founders in August 2024, H Company has continued to innovate and expand its offerings in the AI sector. The company secured a significant seed funding round of $220 million, reflecting strong investor confidence in its vision and technological capabilities. 

4. DeepL (Germany)
Amount raised in 2024: $300M

DeepL is a leading AI company specializing in neural machine translation. 

Founded in 2017, DeepL has developed the DeepL Translator, a service renowned for its high-quality translations across multiple languages. Utilizing advanced neural networks, DeepL's technology delivers nuanced and accurate translations, often surpassing competitors in both quality and speed. 

The company offers a range of products, including DeepL Pro for professional use, which provides API access and enhanced features for businesses and developers. DeepL is committed to continuous innovation in the field of AI language processing, aiming to break down language barriers and facilitate global communication. 

After securing a unicorn status in 2023, DeepL received $300 million investment at a $2 billion valuation in 2024. Additionally, in October last year, the company announced its continued momentum and investment in the US with the opening of its first US Tech Hub in New York City.

3. Poolside (France)
Amount raised in 2024: $400M

Poolside AI is a Paris-based company specializing in advanced artificial intelligence solutions for software engineering. The company focuses on developing foundation models tailored to the complexities of modern software development, enabling businesses to fine-tune these models with their codebases, documentation, and knowledge bases. This approach results in proprietary AI models that continuously learn and adapt to specific development practices, enhancing efficiency and productivity.

The company's solutions are deployable within a client's infrastructure, ensuring that data and code remain within secure boundaries—a crucial feature for industries with stringent security requirements, such as financial services, defence, and technology sectors.

In June 2024, the company closed $400 million investment round which was jointly led by Bain Capital Ventures and DST.

2. Helsing (Germany)
Amount raised in 2024: €450M

Helsing AI is a European defence technology company specializing in artificial intelligence solutions to enhance the capabilities of democratic nations' defence systems. The company focuses on integrating advanced AI into existing and new hardware platforms across sea, air, and land domains.

The company's mission is to achieve technological leadership that enables democratic societies to make sovereign decisions while upholding ethical standards. Helsing emphasizes the thoughtful and ethical development of AI technologies to strengthen defence capabilities, ensuring that democracies can deter and protect against external threats.

The company is committed to maintaining high ethical standards in AI development, focusing on serving democratic societies and ensuring that the deployment of its technologies aligns with democratic values. Helsing actively engages in public debates and contributes to international guidelines on ethical AI in defence.

The company has secured significant funding to support its growth and innovation in the defence AI sector.

After €209 million raise in 2023, the company secured an additional €450 million Series C in July 2024, which brought the company’s funding to over $760 million.

1. Mistral AI (France)
Amount raised in 2024: €600M

Mistral AI  is a leading artificial intelligence company specializing in open and portable generative AI solutions for developers and businesses. Founded in April 2023, the company focuses on creating open-weight large language models (LLMs) that users can customize and deploy across various environments.

The company's mission is to make frontier AI ubiquitous by providing tailor-made AI solutions to builders. This commitment to open, portable, and customizable solutions drives Mistral AI to deliver advanced technology efficiently.

In a short period, Mistral AI has achieved significant milestones, including raising substantial funding and releasing several AI language models. Their flagship model, Mistral Large, offers top-tier reasoning capabilities in multiple languages, delivering exceptional value and low latency.

After €490 million raised in 2023, the company continued its expansion in 2024. In march, Databricks invests in Mistral AI, integrating Mistral AI’s models into its platform. A couple of months later, the company raised a €600 million round for its bid to rival industry leader OpenAI.

Squire has developed an AI solution to automate general practitioners' (GPs) consultation reports, reducing time spent on admin.

For every consultation, Flemish GPs must write a SOEP (Subjective, Objective, Evaluation and Plan) report on the patient and the diagnosis. In this report, they also consider medical codings which help classify medical patient data and clinical activities and display them in electronic patient records in a consistent and computer-processable way. 

“Considering that a GP completes an average of 20 to 30 consultations a day, you can imagine that preparing these reports takes up a huge amount of time,” says Stan Callewaert, CEO and co-founder of Squire. 

Callewaert asserts that GPs spend almost a third of their time on administration with more than half of all GP practices in Belgium implementing a (partial) patient stop. 

“The aging population is driving the demand for care to unseen heights, but at the same time, a healthy work-life balance is becoming a priority for more and more and especially younger doctors.“

Squire’s software creates a draft of such a report after each consultation, based on the conversation between GP and patient, which the GP can later modify or finalise. The software also immediately applies medical coding automatically, ensuring that the report is soundly structured.

“With Squire and recent developments in AI, we can help halve the time GPs spend on administration. In this way, we create much-needed space for physician expertise and personalised patient care,” says Ignace Maes, CTO and co-founder of Squire. 

Squire's software is now used in several GP practices, district health centres, and GP out-of-hours surgeries in Flanders, and it is currently available in a trial version for free to all Flemish doctors. According to Bâlâ Kirimli, a GP in Ghent:

“The software supports me in preparing consultation reports. The platform is constantly being developed based on feedback from doctors like me, which only enhances efficiency in my practice.”

Pieterjan Bouten asserts:

“Today, doctors spend a significant portion of their time on administrative tasks, and we have rarely seen such rapid technological adoption in healthcare as AI copilots. 

The US has seen tremendous growth in this sector over the past year and we expect a similar trend in Europe. Squire is excellently positioned to become a category-defining player in the European healthtech sector.”

With Entourage's backing, Squire aims to accelerate its growth. Immediate priorities include enhancing the product's functionality and integrating it seamlessly with existing GP software. Beyond Belgium, founders Stan Callewaert and Ignace Maes envision international expansion and plan to adapt the platform to automate administrative tasks for other healthcare professionals, such as nurses and specialists."

Lead image: Squire. Photo: uncredited. 

Freetrade, founded in 2016, is one of several mobile trading apps, along with Robinhood, which have become popular with millennials in recent times.

The newer entrants, offering mobile-friendly technology and commission-free trading, have looked to wrest market share from traditional investment companies like Hargreaves Lansdown.

FTSE-250 listed IG Group said Freetrade would strengthen its UK trading and investment offering and open it up to new customers while Freetrade said the deal would speed up its growth.

Freetrade, which boasts 720,000 customers and £2.5bn in assets, will continue to operate as a standalone brand following the deal, which is expected to be completed by mid-2025.

The UK startup has been heavily invested in through crowdfunding raises, raising nearly £30m through crowdfunding platform Crowdcube. While early crowdfunding investors will see gains, those who invested later will be hit with losses.

In comments reported by The Times, Freetrade CEO and co-founder Viktor Nebehaj said: “I appreciate that for many of you who backed us after our Series B this means that your investment is being realised at a loss. This was front of mind as our board considered Freetrade’s options.”

He added Freetrade had “considered alternative paths like a capital raise, which would have resulted in heavy dilution for ordinary shareholders, or carrying on reinvesting in our business, that probably would not have resulted in the growth that we need”.

According to fintech analyst Seb Johnson, Freetrade A Ordinary share and B Investment shareholders will receive £1.19 per share; Series B1 shareholders will receive £2.08 per share; and Series B3 shareholders will receive £2.60 per share.

Freetrade’s valuation rose to £650m in 2021 during the pandemic but was slashed by 65 per cent to £225m in a 2023 crowdfunding round.

The startup reported its first-ever half-year profit in 2024, with adjusted operating profit of £91,000.

Breon Corcoran, CEO of IG, said:

"This is a rare opportunity to strengthen IG's UK trading and investments offering and broaden our target addressable market.

"Freetrade is one of the most successful emerging players in the UK direct-to-customer investment market, with a strong brand, highly scalable technology and delivering rapid growth. I am delighted that Viktor and his team will join IG and continue to lead Freetrade."

Nebehaj said:

"This is an exciting opportunity to accelerate our growth and delivery of new products and features on our award-winning platform.

"IG's vision for Freetrade is closely aligned with our own and its backing will be of huge benefit as we continue to scale the business."

"We are delighted to have provided the opportunity to investors to back Freetrade right from the very start of the business in 2016. At Crowdcube, we have always been driven to give retail investors the chance to invest in and back companies that excite them, even in their very earliest days.

 

"More than eight years on from our first Freetrade investment opportunity, we are now equally delighted to provide positive cash returns to many thousands of investors, particularly to those who backed the business at the start of its journey, some of whom will receive returns of up to 15x their original investment."

Progressive Robotics’ technology assists robotic arm deployment by enabling operators to configure and reprogram robots. Its software means that technical expertise is not needed. The company has already implemented its solutions in multiple industries, including food production and logistics.

One of the company's flagship products is its mixed-case palletizer, which optimises space utilization and ensures stability and safety in industries fulfillment centers.

“Our vision is to empower businesses, large and small, by removing the barriers to robotic adoption,” said Fotis Dimeas, CEO of Progressive Robotics. “This funding will enable us to scale our technology, expand globally, and bring Amazon-like robotics capabilities to SMEs.”

“Progressive Robotics is breaking down the technical and financial barriers that have traditionally limited automation for small businesses,” said Panos Papadopoulos, Partner at Marathon Venture Capital. “We are thrilled to support their vision of making advanced robotics an attainable reality for SMEs worldwide.”

The funds will be used to enhance product development, scale operations, and accelerate international growth. Progressive Robotics has also partnered with robotic OEMs including ABB Robotics, Elite Robots, and Schmalz, ensuring seamless hardware integration.

The expansion of renewable energies and the decline in conventional base-load power plants in Germany are leading to fluctuations in electricity generation, thereby increasing price fluctuations and grid instability.

Battery storage systems (BESS) store excess energy when generation is high and release it when needed to stabilise the grid, reduce curtailments and smooth energy prices for consumers and companies.

green flexibility specialises in the development and long-term operation of large-scale battery storage systems that serve as the backbone of a modern, flexible energy infrastructure in Europe. It builds and operates large battery storage facilities across Europe, managing every step, from identifying suitable sites to marketing the storage systems.

green flexibility’s founders developed the first virtual power plant in Europe 10 years ago, brought it to market and set standards in the industry. Experience shows that flexibility in the power grid is the key to stability and sustainability.

The company also relies on close cooperation with other project developers, also acting as an industry pioneer by working with grid operators to specifically integrate local grid requirements into project implementation.

According to Christoph Ostermann, CEO of green flexibility, Partners Group is the ideal partner to scale our business and realise our vision of a sustainable and, above all, reliable energy future.

“In the battery storage market, there can be no compromises regarding quality and safety. It is our responsibility to provide our partners with the best solutions and protect them from the risks of a young and dynamic market.

Long-term reliability, the highest safety standards, and the best technology are critical—because the energy transition needs stability and dependability. And for this, we have assembled the most experienced team in the market."

David Daum, Partner, Head of Infrastructure Europe at Partners Group, shared: 

green flexibility represents an exciting opportunity to partner with a highly experienced, proven management team to build a battery storage platform in the largest power and electricity market in Europe.”

Lead image: green flexibility. Photo: uncredited. 

TalentMapper allows HR teams to analyse capabilities and potential of the workforce - reducing the cost of recruitment and training - and helps to ensure equal access to career opportunities. For employees, it acts as a ‘satnav’ for career development, guiding them through each stage and linking them to learning management systems to help them achieve their full potential. The company claims that businesses using the platform have shown a two-fold improvement in gender diversity in new appointments and a four-fold improvement in ethnic diversity.

Talentmapper is more applicable to companies with over 250 employees. TalentMapper's clients include Dunelm, Danone, Mountain Warehouse and has recorded annual recurring revenue of over £700,000. The funding will enable the company to develop the platform, expand its team and continue to grow. Its technology incorporates AI and machine learning trained on 675 million career histories to date.

Martin Mason, founder and CEO, said: “We wanted to make it easier for companies to manage global talent and ensure they have the right people in the right place at the right time. By putting the emphasis on skills, TalentMapper also helps ensure employees are promoted for their capabilities. I have seen so many talented people overlooked for promotion because they weren’t a replica of their boss.

“The funding will enable us to build our team to cope with growing demand, add new features to enhance the platform and scale for growth by targeting other sectors including financial and professional services.”

 Stephen Windsor, Investment Director with Mercia Ventures, added: “The need to optimise the skills of the workforce has never been more important. Employee turnover has risen sharply since the pandemic and companies are having to try harder to retain staff.

At the same time they are trying to accommodate a new, and more digitally savvy, generation into the workplace while also planning to reskill their workforce to meet the changes that AI will bring. TalentMapper is a forerunner in the emerging field of SkillTech which aims to address these challenges. It has achieved remarkable growth in a short space of time which demonstrates the demand within the market and the value it provides to employers. We are pleased to help Martin and Carl as they scale the business and roll it out to a wider audience.”

Lupa will use the new funding to accelerate product development and commercial expansion.

Lupa's platform is predicated on the claim that vets spend 10-20 hours per week on administrative tasks that could be automated. Its team includes engineers from Google, Amazon and Palantir. The platform provides diagnostic suggestions, operational insights, and automated client communications in order to free up veterinarians' time. It also offers an AI-powered scribe that automates clinical documentation and portals to streamline booking, payment, and communication.

Nicolò Frisiani, co-founder and CEO at Lupa, said: "The veterinary industry desperately needs modern software solutions that can help practices handle growing demand while reducing administrative burden on overworked staff. We've built Lupa from the ground up to be AI-native, making it dramatically more efficient and easier to use than legacy systems that are holding practices back. Our early results show that practices can save significant time on administration while providing better care."

The platform does not make the overall decision on treatment, which will always ultimately lie with the qualified veterinarian.

The company has already onboarded multiple clinics and secured an exclusive partnership agreement with Vetsure, the UK's largest vet buying group with over 1,200 member clinics. 

Sam Endacott, Partner at Firstminute Capital, said: "Lupa’s vision of unifying veterinary workflows into a single, powerful platform addresses a critical industry need. With pet ownership at record highs and a growing vet shortage, the timing couldn't be better for a modern, AI-native solution. We're thrilled to be backing this exceptional team on their journey to transform veterinary care." 

Hyperline's billing platform attempts to tackle service bundling by delivering pricing, workflows, automation, and an ecosystem of integrations. With the funding - which expands on its previous seed round - Hyperline will scale distribution to millions more businesses to help them manage the revenue process on its automated platform.

This helps with the management of established models while adopting major trends such as AI features, usage-based models and outcome-based pricing. Hyperline is known for its quick onboarding process.

The subscription economy has evolved significantly over the past decade as businesses adopted hybrid revenue models to create diversified income. The trend towards more bespoke, flexible pricing models clashed with the status quo in billing software, when consistency is required to streamline the flow of data.

Commenting on how the investment will be used, Lucas Bédout, CEO of Hyperline, said: “The market is crying out for a new kind of monetization platform. Our team and product are in place and the feedback from customers is beyond expectations, so we’re excited to scale our distribution engine and extend our reach beyond the early adopters. Demand for a more flexible, automated revenue management solution is growing fast - especially as people realize the gains of our platform within just a few weeks.”

This raise brings Hyperline’s total seed funding led by Index Ventures, followed by Adelie Capital, to over $14M. The startup received its first tranche of seed investment ($4.4M), in June 2023. Clients now include Infinit, Veesion, Gladia, Qobra, Ocus, and ScorePlay.

Julia Andre, Partner at Index Ventures, said: “Lucas is a special founder who is building Hyperline with an infectious sense of urgency and ambition. Together with Clément, he has formed a world-class team of fintech specialists whose combined track record of building products for small and medium businesses speaks for itself. This team is moving fast and responding to a real pain point faced everyday by these businesses. We’re excited to support them as they dig deeper into the market opportunity where the transaction volumes are in the trillions and growing.” 

Sky-Bee-1 launched successfully on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, entering a sun-synchronous orbit 510 km above the Earth. The satellite is expected to deliver its first images within a few weeks.  

The launch helps constellr service its private and public sector contracts across a range of industries, including agriculture, infrastructure and urban development. 

The satellite enables timely insights at single field- and building-level precision by capturing high-resolution thermal data at 30m spatial resolution sharpened to 10m and with temperatures accurate to 1-2 Kelvin. It is equipped with two multispectral payloads, delivering continuous land surface temperature data for customers. A real-time global thermal atlas — a digital twin of Earth — uses land surface temperature data to uncover the realities of our planet’s health.

The launch is the first step in constellr’s planned High-precision Versatile Ecosphere (HiVE)  satellite constellation, a network of thermal monitoring satellites. 

According to Dr Max Gulde, CEO of constellr, the launch of constellr’s first commercial satellite signals a new era in thermal intelligence.:

"Gone are the expensive, inconvenient thermal images of the past, requiring expert knowledge to make use of low-resolution, high-latency data.  It’s time for an overhaul of the EO industry.

Our customers will eventually be able to access on-demand, affordable data for their specific needs, absolutely transformative for resource and climate management and the future of water and food security.”

Giuseppe Borghi, Head of Φ-lab Division at the European Space Agency, commented:

 “The European Space Agency’s InCubed’s mission is to push the boundaries of Earth observation exploration and technological development, bringing the likes of constellr’s novel thermal  intelligence data to market.” 

constellr’s next satellite is expected to launch later this year, with additional launches planned from 2026 onwards. 

Other new investors are RockCreek, Fortescue Ventures, Verve Ventures, with existing investors Energy Impact Partners (EIP) and Contrarian Ventures also participating. Metafuels - alongside the PSI Institute - has recently secured a $5 million grant from the Swiss Government’s Federal Office of Energy.

This takes the total Metafuels has raised to $22 million in just over two years, making it one of Europe’s best funded sustainable aviation fuel startups. The round follows several technological breakthroughs in 2023 and 2024, which herald the next phase of Metafuels development cycle - moving from lab research to demonstration and production scale-up. In May this year, Metafuels announced that it has signed an agreement with European Energy to set up a synthetic sustainable aviation fuel (e-SAF) facility in Denmark. The facility will produce approximately 12,000 litres of e-SAF daily.

Chairman Leigh Hackett commented: “The buyers alliance is something that we’re actively considering in support of our plans for e-SAF capacity build-out as we scale-up and industrialise our technology. By coming alongside us, participants will have privileged insights into technology developments, play an important role in bringing this much needed technology to market, all while securing increasing volumes of e-SAF to meet their decarbonisation obligations.”

Saurabh Kapoor, CEO and co-founder of Metafuels, added: “We are thrilled to have Celsius, RockCreek, Fortescue and Verve onboard as new strategic partners. We have now raised $22 million since launching, which is going to allow us to complete the demonstration programme and focus on industrialisation, and the commercial rollout for our e-SAF offering. We will be looking at implementing a number of new sustainable aviation fuel production sites and are already engaging with various stakeholders as potential investors or e-SAF off-takers.”

Michele Tarawneh, Managing Partner at Celsius Industries, said: “We have been tracking methanol-to-SAF as a key pathway to decarbonize aviation for the past 18 months, and Metafuels stands out as the most compelling player in the space: an experienced team, with a unique technology insight, and a tangible path to establish production capacity in the near-term. We are thrilled to work with Saurabh, Leigh and the team, to help them accelerate their path to industrialization and first-of-a-kind (FOAK) project finance, enabling the roll-out of mission critical infrastructure for green fuels." 

The deal includes an option for Aonic to acquire the entire share capital of Mega Fortuna for a valuation of up to $70 million.

Founded in early 2023, Mega Fortuna is best known for its flagship platform Richie Games, which allows mobile gamers to earn real-world gift cards as they discover new games.

The company was established by seasoned entrepreneurs Şeyhmus Ölker and Burak Göncü, who previously co-founded and led companies including App Samurai and POW Games. Mega Fortuna now employs 34 people, with a focus on technical expertise to power its unique rewards mechanism.

The deal comes hot on the heels of a total €152 million growth investment in Aonic from Metric Capital Partners and Active Ownership, one of Europe’s largest minority growth equity transactions in 2024. 

Since its formation in 2021, Aonic has grown to 12 companies operating globally in game development, publishing and related services. These include Exmox, one of the fastest-growing mobile user acquisition platforms, OtherSide Entertainment, and Megabit Publishing. The group’s mobile tech businesses performed strongly in 2024 and helped power Aonic to an overall revenue increase of 73 per cent. 

"This milestone is a testament to the exceptional talent, dedication, and innovation of the entire Mega Fortuna team,” reflects Mega Fortuna CEO and co-founder Şeyhmus Ölker.

“In just two years, we've built Richie Games into a platform transforming how players engage with mobile gaming. None of this would have been possible without the incredible teamwork and passion of our people."

Paul Schempp, CEO of Aonic, adds:

"Mega Fortuna is transforming how players interact with mobile gaming by seamlessly blending discovery and rewards. 

In just two years, they have built an incredible platform that resonates with millions of players worldwide. This investment perfectly fits into our Aonic group."

RWA tokenization is one of the fastest-growing fields in the blockchain space. The company will use the funding to expand internationally and advance solutions such as API integrations, implementation of AI agents, whitelabel options, and user management tools tailored for corporations and institutional players. 

Investors included Psalion and Ergodic from America, SNZ Capital and Blue Bay Ventures from Asia, Mocha and Hodl Ventures from Europe. Since launching its Token Suite in March 2023, the company has tokenized over $250 million in assets across 14 countries and attained EBITDA-positive status.

These investors will also be involved at the strategic advisory level. The company plans to expand into North America and Asia, regions where the regulatory frameworks and market dynamics differ significantly.

Brickken has also established strategic partnerships to further enhance its platform and services, such as with BNB Chain, the Chainlink BUILD program, and Circle's Alliance Program.

"Our continued success reflects the growing demand for efficient, compliant, and user-friendly tokenization solutions," said Edwin Mata, CEO and Co-Founder of Brickken. “The confidence shown by our investors and the strong performance of our platform position us to continue leading the transformation of asset management through blockchain technology.” 

“Without a doubt, the most impressive attribute of Edwin and the Brickken team is their exceptional execution capability — a critical factor for any emerging company. The progress they have made in such a short period of time is truly remarkable, and the impact they’ve achieved speaks volumes about their talent and vision,” said Timothy Enneking, Managing Partner at Psalion.