🌟 QUICK INTRO
Hello and welcome back.
The continent got two new unicorns this week in STARK - the defence company, and OLIX - the chip company both became unicorns. Legora is also reportedly raising at a $6bn valuation.
Let’s get into it.
On a personal note, follow me on X for thoughts/opinions/news on European Tech here.
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💰 BIG ROUNDS
UK-based AI chip startup Olix raised $220m at a $1bn+ valuation as it builds next-generation processors to compete in the global AI hardware race. Read more here.
French nuclear startup newcleo raised $88m to advance its lead-cooled fast reactor technology. Read more here.
French HealthTech startup DentalMonitoring raised €84m backed by Lazard Elaia Capital and ISALT. Read more here.
Swedish Insurtech Lassie raised a $75m Series C after surpassing $100m ARR. Read more here.
UK-based energy transactions scale-up tem raised a $75m Series B round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners to scale its AI-native infrastructure and build what it calls the “Stripe of energy.” Read more here.
French EventTech startup Naboo raised a $70m Series B round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners a year after closing a €20m Series A. Read more here.
French cybersecurity startup GitGuardian raised $50m in a Series C round led by Insight Partners and Quadrille Capital. Read more here.
German Andercore secured $40m in equity and debt from Atomico, Project A, Inven Capital, Commerzbank and KfW. Read more here.
Norwegian robotics startup Trener Robotics raised €26m in a Series A round co-led by Engine Ventures and IAG Capital Partners. Read more here.
UK-based Electric Twin raised €12m in a round led by Atomico, backed by LocalGlobe, Mercuri and Samos Investments, to scale its synthetic audience platform globally. Read more here.
💸 SMALLER BUT INTERESTING ROUNDS
Hungarian robotics company Allonic raised a $7.2m round in Hungary's largest ever pre-seed to build robotic hands. Read more here.
UK-based Overmind, the AI company founded by an MI5 and GCHQ operative raised £2m to build the supervision layer for AI agents. I interviewed Tyler here.
UK-based xWatts closes £1.6m to expand AI-powered energy management solutions. Read more here.
🇪🇺 THE SCALING EUROPE SHOW
This week I published interviews with:
Matt Miller: Founding Partner of Evantic Capital in his FIRST interview since leaving Sequoia! Check it out here.
Hakob Astabatsya:, Co-Founder and CEO at Synthflow AI: Driving Double-Digit ROI with AI Workflows. Check it out here.
Gui Gomes and Joao Alves: Raising $6m to build a fintech completely on the blockchain. Check it out here.
Ashley Montanaro: Co-founder and CEO at Phasecraft: Turning quantum theory into software. Check it out here.
Lukas Saari, Co-founder and CEO of Tandem Health: Tackling admin in health care. Check it out here.
Tyler Edwards: The former MI5 and GCHQ agent who just raised £2m for his AI systems. Check it out here.
Max Buchan: CEO at Valarian: Building infrastructure to secure critical systems Check it out here.
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📰 BIG NEWS
Legora
Swedish Legora is in talks to raise at an $6bn valuation, just four months after raising at a $1.8bn valuation.
On Monday it was reported by the FT that the company was raising at a $4bn valuation. By Friday Bloomberg reported that the number was actually $6bn.
The company has been on a meteoric rise:
Raised an $80m Series B at a $675m valuation in May last year
Became a unicorn in October at a $1.8bn valuation
Is the fastest YC company ever to become a unicorn
US counterpart Harvey is on a similar trajectory, and last week it was reported that the company is raising at an $11bn valuation.
Read more here.
STARK
German Drone startup STARK has become Europe's newest Unicorn after being valued at $1.2bn.
The company was founded in 2024 by Florian Seibel (also co-founder of Quantum Systems), with support from Johannes Schaback, but is now headed up by Uwe Horstmann.
It has now been reported that the company secured undisclosed funding that valued the company at $1.2bn.
The company is set to sign a contract with the German army in the coming weeks, worth €2.4bn.
I expect we will see an official announcement of both of these shortly.
Read more here.
Mistral
The French LLM provider announced this week that:
It has 20x’ed revenue in the last year and surpassed $400m of revenue run rate
It’s on track to surpass $1bn of revenue run rate this year.
It will invest €1.2bn to build out new AI data centres in Sweden.
There’s been a lot of talk about European Sovereignty in the past 6 months which has benefited Europe’s only LLM provider.
A lot of people had written off the company last year but it’s going from strength to strength which is great news for Europe.
Read more here.
Nscale
Data centre builder Nscale has secured a $1.4bn loan to fund the purchase of GPUs. The financing comes from lenders including Blue Owl Capital, Pacific Investment Management and Luminarx Capital Management.
Read more here.
OLIX
A 25 year-old from the UK raised $220m to build AI chips that are faster and cheaper than NVIDIA’s.
OLIX become The UK's newest unicorn after raising $220m from Hummingbird Ventures.
It's founded by James Dacombe (who also founded CoMind), a 25 year-old Brit and Thiel fellow.
It's taking a different approach to NVIDIA by designing a “new class of accelerator” designed for high performance that is “free from the architectural and supply chain constraints”.
Other backers include Plural, Vertex Ventures, LocalGlobe and Entrepreneurs First.
Read more here.
Evantic Capital
Matt Miller left Sequoia and raised $400m to invest in global AI companies from London.
They've just published their website which reveals the full suite of their investments as well as some members of the Legends community.
To date the investments have been:
ElevenLabs, from Mati Staniszewski and Piotr Dabkowski
Fireworks AI, from Lin Qiao, Chenyu Zhao, Dmytro Dzhulgakov,
Harvey, from Gabe Pereyra and Winston Weinberg
Lovable, from Anton Osika and Fabian Hedin
Listen Labs, from Florian Juengermann and Alfred Wahlforss
n8n, from Jan Oberhauser
nexos.ai, from Tomas Okmanas and Eimantas S.
Profound, from James Cadwallader and Dylan Babbs]
Serval, from Jake Stauch and Alex McLeod
Synthesia, from Victor Riparbelli and Steffen Tjerrild
💰 M&A
💶 FUND NEWS
French firm Elaia reached a €120m first close for its fifth Digital Venture Fund (DV5), targeting up to €300m to back European B2B tech startups from pre-Seed to Series B with tickets between €1m and €15m. Read more here.
Romanian ADR Vest launched a $44m venture capital fund focused on backing startups in Western Romania and the wider CEE region. Read more here.
Lucid Capital closed an oversubscribed €36m Fund I to back AI founders from inception stage across Europe. Read more here.
🔎 IN OTHER NEWS
Matt Miller, the Ex-Sequoia Partner who led the firm’s European charge, hosted The Legends Gala, where he brought Europe’s brightest and best together for one night in London. I interviewed him here.
Bending Spoons announced a Fellowship for “Europe's most outstanding computer science students”. Ten students can receive €50k each for up to three years. Check it out here.
Peter Steinberger, the Austrian creator of OpenClaw, has joined OpenAI to develop personal agents!
Deel has launched The Pitch, a global startup competition offering up to $1m in investment. Founders submit a 2-minute pitch for a chance to win funding, exposure, and access to exclusive perks. Apply here.
In a new white paper, EQT's Victor Englesson, Ted Persson, Robert Sternberg and Sandra Malmberg argue that Europe can build the next generation of global tech champions. Check it out here.
Spotify recorded €4.5bn in quarterly revenue and €1.2bn in quarterly profit as it looks set to become a $100bn company again.
Quantum Systems secured a €150m financing package backed by the European Investment Bank to support industrial scaling and expansion across Europe. Read more here.
🎪 EVENTS
Andre Retterath’s (aka the Data Driven VC) is hosting the Virtual DDVC Summit! Join 500+ investors and learn from 30+ expert speakers how leading VC, PE, and LP firms transform their operations with alternative data, AI, and automation. Get your SUPER EARLY BIRD ticket here.
EU Startups Summit: Join Europe’s top startups, investors, and innovators for 2 days of networking, inspiration, and learning. The next edition will take place on May 7-8, 2026 in sunny Malta. Sign up with the code SCALING20 to get 20% off.
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Thank you.
Seb