🌟 QUICK INTRO
Hello and welcome back.
In this week’s edition Accel produces a stellar report on Venture and AI, there are four $100m+ funding rounds, and Einride eyes a $2bn SPAC.
On a personal note I am starting to post new content direct to X - if that’s of interest please follow along here.
Harmonic are sponsoring this newsletter - check them out here.
I’m going to be at Slush this week. Reach out if you want to say hi.
💰 BIG ROUNDS
German remote driving startup Vay is set to raise $410m from Singapore's Grab. $60m has already been raised with the rest of the money to be invested if the company hits certain milestones. Read more here.
UK-based Zilch raised $175m in an equity and debt funding round led by KKCG as it eyes acquisition targets. Read more here.
UK-based healthcare provider Manual secured a $120m facility from US VC General Catalyst. The funding happened late last year but was only made public this week. Read more here.
German FMC, the semiconductor pioneer, raised a €100m Series C led by HV Capital and the DeepTech & Climate Fonds (DTCF). Read more here.
Spanish Amenitiz, a hospitality software provider, raised a $45m Series B led by local VC firm Kfund. Read more here.
UK-based T-Therapeutics, a BioTech company developing new ways to treat cancer and autoimmune diseases, expanded its Series A raising an additional $32m taking the total to $91m. Read more here.
French Beside came out of stealth with a $32 million funding round (led by EQT Ventures and Index) and $4m of ARR. The company is developing voice AI for frontline workers. Read more here.
French U-Space, the small satellite manufacturer, raised a €24m Series A to boost its satellite manufacturing capacity and expand its global reach. Read more here.
💸 SMALLER BUT INTERESTING ROUNDS
Swedish Spiich Labs, which uses AI to improve sales productivity, raised €600k in pre-seed funding led by Ampli Ventures. The company attracted high profile founders (Lovable, Tandem Health, Creandum) who also invested. Read more here.
Swiss Forgis, which is building edge software for the automotive and advanced manufacturing sectors, raised $4.5m in pre-seed funding from redalpine. Read more here.
Uk-based Falkin raised $2m pre-seed to stop the rise of AI fraud. I interviewed the founder here.
🇪🇺 THE SCALING EUROPE SHOW
This week I published interviews with the following:
Tobias Bengtsdahl: Partner at Antler in the Nordics here.
Vidya Peters: CEO of DataSnipper - the fastest growing company in the Netherlands. Check it out here.
Andre de Haes: Co-Founder and Partner at Backed VC announcing their new $100m fund. Check it out here.
Milos Rusic: CEO & Cofounder at deepset. Check it out here.
Boaz Falkin: Cofounder and CEO at Falkin on raising $2m to prevent AI Scams. Check it out here.
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📰 STARTUP NEWS
Accel AI Report
The leading VC produced a global report on the state of AI and Venture. It’s an amazing read. Here are the highlights:
European VC is up $8bn compared to last year and there's still time left.
The UK, France and Germany are leading the growth. Interestingly Nordic investment seems to have dropped slightly.
Europe is going big on the application layer proportionately to the rest of world. Gross Margins for these companies range from 8% to 40% but costs are dropping rapidly.
Check out the full report here
Parloa
The German AI startup, which was one of the earliest voice AI companies in the world, has surpassed $50m ARR.
It’s got net revenue retention of over 150% and recently signed a single $5m contract. It’s quickly becoming one of the most exciting companies coming out of Germany at the moment.
It became a unicorn earlier this year and I spoke to the founder at Bits and Pretzels shortly after here.
Lovable
Two bits of news:
Anton Osika announced that the company surpassed 8 million customers. I went viral on X for congratulating them here as people mistook my sarcasm for cynicism.
In the Accel report it was was stated that the company is doing $3.4m ARR per FTE, beating OpenAI and Anthropic.
Read more here.
Einride
Swedish EV startup Einride has signed a contract with US special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Legato and will become a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange next year.
The company, founded in 2016 and based in Stockholm, helps companies move to electric and autonomous vehicles.
It will list on the NYSE in early 2026, and is expected to generate about $219 million in gross proceeds.
Einride is also looking to raise an additional $100 million in private investment in public equity (PIPE) capital.
The company has reported having $45m of ARR and a total contracted base of $65 million ARR from signed customer contracts. Read more here.
💶 FUND NEWS
Backed, the UK-based early stage VC, raised $100m for its third fund after its first two performed very well. I interviewed one of the cofounders of the firm here to talk about it.
Oyster Bay, which is based in Hamburg, closed its second fund at over €100 million, dedicated exclusively to the future food market. Read more here.
Finnish firm Vendep Capital closed €80 million for its fourth fund to support early-stage SaaS founders in the Nordics and Baltics. Read more here.
Nordic impact firm Unconventional Ventures (UV) reached a €50m first close on its second fund, aiming for a total of €80m. Read more here.
Italian Step Fund made an initial close of €30m to invest in Italian tech seed deals. Read more here.
Cocoa, the early stage firm in London, announced its second fund ($23m) here, as well as a hackathon and party to celebrate it.
🔎 IN OTHER NEWS
The proposed exit tax in the UK caused a stir. 1500 founders and investors signed a letter to oppose it. The move has been cancelled but not before some founders left.
The NATO Innovation Fund announced the appointment of Erin Hallock as Partner. Read more here.
THAT’S ALL. Thank you.
Seb