🌟 QUICK INTRO
Hello and welcome back.
In this week’s edition Wayve and Revolut are both raising billions, OURA becomes a decacorn and the German Chancellor calls for a single European stock exchange.
On a personal note I am starting to post new content direct to X - if that’s of interest please follow along here.
Last week on the The Scaling Europe Show I spoke to:
Rory O'Neill - CMO at Checkout.com
Taos Edmondson, CFA - Partner at dmg ventures and cofounder at Onstage
Tom Pope - Co-founder & CEO at Adfin
Mark Fairless - CEO at ClearBank
Nicolò Frisiani - Co-Founder & CEO @ Lupa
I also did an ah-hoc interview with Matthew Wilson who announced a $20m Seed for his new company Jack and Jill round led by Creandum.
I also have my first sponsor for this newsletter - check them out here.
💰 BIG ROUNDS
Finnish Oura officially closed its $900m round which valued the business at around $11bn. The round was led by Fidelity Management & Research Company with participation from ICONIQ. Read more here.
German biotech Tubulis raised a record-breaking €308m Series C (largest Biotech C round in Europe ever) led by Venrock Healthcare Capital Partners. Read more here.
Dutch energy innovator Return raised €300m in growth capital to scale battery storage capacity, led by APG. Read more here.
UK-based AI robotics startup Dexory raised $165m as it looks to ramp up commercialisation of its autonomous robots and warehouse intelligence platform in the US. It was led by Eurazeo. Read more here.
German space tech HyImpulse raised €45m for its first orbital launch. It was a combination of equity (led by Campus Founders Ventures) and public funds. Read more here.
German PropTech startup Arbio raised €31m to build Europe’s first AI-native platform for holiday rentals, led by Eurazeo. Read more here.
UK-based Jack and Jill raised a $20m seed round led by Creandum. I interviewed the Founder and CEO about the round here.
French Probabl, which operates one of the most popular toolkits worldwide to build machine learning models, raised a €13m equity seed round co-led by French VC Serena and hedge fund Capital Fund Management. Read more here.
UK-based ClaimSorted, raised one of ever largest insurtech seed rounds ever - $13m led by Atomico. The company, is building an augmented TPA. Read more here.
UK-based Clove raised a $14m pre-seed led by Accel to make financial advice accessible, affordable and personal. Read more here.
💸 SMALLER BUT INTERESTING ROUNDS
Swedish Strawberry, which has built an agentic browser, raised $6m from General Catalyst and Anton from Lovable. Read more here.
Spanish Omnia raised €3.5m led by Visionaries Club to boost brand visibility within LLMs. Read more here.
UK-based Nila raised a $2.4m pre-seed led by LocalGlobe to make it easier for immigrants to care for elderly family back home. Read more here.
Dutch Northsea raised a €660k pre-seed to reinvent customer research with AI. Read more here.
This edition is brought to you by Harmonic — the startup discovery platform
Harmonic now automatically prioritises search results.
You describe what you’re looking for in natural language. Scout — the AI agent made for VCs, then finds the startups that best fit your thesis and ranks them.
More needles, less hay.
Harmonic is the discovery engine trusted by thousands of investors from firms like Abstract and 20VC.
📰 STARTUP NEWS
Revolut
There's been four big bits of news relating to Revolut this week:
The company is about to close a $3bn funding round at a $75bn valuation. The round was oversubscribed. Read more here.
Swifty: Revolut has acquired Swifty, a travel agent startup based in Germany as it seeks to "strengthen [their] position at the intersection of finance, AI and lifestyle". Read more here.
Share buyback: There has been no official announcement, nor anything in mainstream media about this, but according to documents on Companies House the UK Fintech has purchased 212,578 of its own shares, rumoured to be at a valuation of $45bn.
UK banking licence: It's been revealed that the company's licence is being held up by regulators concerned by the Fintech's risk controls. The Bank of England's Prudential Regulation Authority is unhappy with Revolut's ability to manage its risks around money laundering controls, IT systems and how much capital they have. Read more here.
Wayve
The company, founded in 2017, has quickly become one of the UK's (and Europe's) most exciting AI startups.
It's been reported that Wayve is now in talks with Microsoft and SoftBank to raise up to $2bn of new funding at an $8bn valuation. Read more here.
It came the same week as US-based Waymo (valued at $30bn+) announced it’s launching in the UK in early 2026.
A Single European Stock Exchange
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has called for a single European Stock exchange saying:
“We need a kind of European stock exchange so that successful companies such as biotech firms from Germany do not have to go to the New York Stock Exchange"
The chancellor also outlined a plan for:
Greater EU integration
Less regulation
And the implementation of recommendations made by Draghi
This marks a big turnaround for Germany, which had so far been reluctant to centralise the supervision of local capital markets to the European Securities and Markets Authority.
Unfortunately it comes the same week it was leaked that the “28th regime” (EU-INC’s attempt to create a new pan-European legal entity framework) will be a Directive not a Regulation, meaning it’s up to individual member states to interpret and implement.
Read more here.
Nscale
UK data centre startup Nscale is eyeing an IPO in 2026 after signing a $14bn deal to supply Microsoft with Nvidia chips.
Founded less than two years ago, Nscale raised $1.5bn in funding last month and then announced partnerships with OpenAI and Nvidia.
The company has now signed a $14bn deal with Microsoft and is eyeing up a 2026 IPO. Read more here.
💶 FUND NEWS
Odyssey Ventures has come out of stealth with its $75m fund, pledging to support “Europe’s most ambitious founders with US-style venture capital, hands-on operational support, and seamless access to US markets”. It’s founded by Ali Mitchell and Michelle Robson, former leaders at EQT Ventures and AP Ventures. Read more here.
Italy-based Maia Ventures, an early-stage agrifood tech fund, has launched its first fund valued at €55 million to back 20–25 companies, with initial tickets ranging from €0.5 million to €1.5 million. Read more here.
🔎 IN OTHER NEWS
German drone maker Stark has hired its investor and Project A general partner Uwe Horstmann as CEO, shortly after the firm invested in Stark’s latest $62m fundraise. Read more here.
OPUS launched a brand new award for entrepreneurs with a $50k total cash pot - The Easies, or The Investec Early-Stage Entrepreneur of the Year Awards. Check it out here.
THAT’S ALL. Thank you.
Seb