🌟 QUICK INTRO
Hello and welcome back.
What a weekend. Reports surfaced that DeepMind spin ut Isomorphic Labs is raising a whopping $2bn from Thrive Capital, while Helsing is said to be raising at an $18 billion valuation.
Read on.
🇪🇺 SCALING EUROPE
A few updates from me:
I’m starting to build out my news site. I want it to become the go-to place for all things European Tech. I’ve just launched a job board and will be adding new features ASAP. If you want to check out the full job board click here: https://scalingeurope.co.uk/jobs
I’m launching my instagram page today. It doesn’t look like much yet but I’ll publishing my first posts today so follow along, here.
My first EVER event is in June. It’s aimed at the 30-40 of the best Heads of Sales (or similar) in London and will be about how to scale from $1m to $20m of ARR. It’s in collaboration with Seedcamp.
Thanks to those who filled out the poll last week - I’ll be in contact in the next couple of weeks. Anyone else keen fill in below!
Are you an early stage GTM leader, and would you like to come?
💰 BIG ROUNDS
UK-based ElevenLabs added BlackRock, Nvidia and others to its $550m Series D, reaching over $500m in ARR as it scales its AI voice platform. Read more here.
UK-based Quantum Motion raised a $160m Series C to commercialise its silicon-based quantum computers. Read more here.
Dutch QuantWare raised a €152m Series B to scale its quantum processor technology and manufacturing capacity for large-scale deployment. Read more here.
UK-based Nyobolt raised a $60m Series C at a $1bn valuation to scale its ultrafast charging battery technology. Read more here.
German eleQtron raised a €57m Series A to scale its trapped-ion quantum computing technology for industrial use. Read more here.
Italian Smartness raised a €47m Series B to scale its AI-powered platform for hotel operations and revenue management. Read more here.
Finnish Qutwo raised €25m in an angel round at a €325m valuation to build an AI software platform for the quantum era. Read more here.
UK-based Ethos raised a $22.75m Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz to develop its AI recruitment and consulting platform. Read more here.
French Lithosquare raised €21.3m to accelerate critical mineral discovery using AI and geological intelligence for the energy transition. Read more here.
Danish Reel raised a €15m Series A to make renewable energy more predictable for businesses and profitable for producers. Read more here.
UK-based OpenTrade secured $17m in strategic funding to scale its stablecoin yield infrastructure for fintechs and exchanges. Read more here.
Swedish Pit raised a €13.6m round led by a16z to offer AI product teams as a service for enterprise operations. Read more here.
French OpsMill raised a €11.9m Series A to help enterprises prepare infrastructure data for AI and automation. Read more here.
Belgian Tekst raised a €11.5m Series A to help enterprises automate back-office processes with AI. Read more here.
UK-based Meatly raised a £10.4m Series A to build Europe's largest cultivated meat bioreactor facility. Read more here.
💸 SMALLER BUT INTERESTING ROUNDS
Only one today because it is one I am obsessed with:
UK-based CodeWords raised a £6.6m seed round led by Visionaries to build AI agents that automate business workflows without technical setup.
This is genuinely the best AI tool I have ever used. I downloaded it after the announcement and I've been using it non-stop. I have two automations up and running and four more I’m building. The closest thing I can describe it to is lovable for automations. I’m not an investor or a partner in any way (although I would like to be). This is genuinely a phenomenal tool that enables anyone to vibe code an automation in minutes.
Check it out here: https://www.codewords.ai/
When Agents Go Rogue
By Ashley Williams, Partner and Raj Shah, Managing Associate
What happens when an AI agent you have given access to your production systems decides to fix a problem by deleting everything? This is what a US start-up, building software for car rental businesses, faced last month when an AI coding tool running on Anthropic's Claude encountered a credential mismatch mid-task and, without specific authorisation, resolved it by deleting the company's entire production database and recent backups. The start-up was left with nothing more recent than a three-month-old back-up and endured a 30-hour outage.
Neither the coding tool provider nor Anthropic has commented publicly. Under their standard contracts, what customers can claim in these situations is limited to fees paid over a short period, and claims for lost data are excluded entirely. The start-up will likely be entitled to only a few hundred dollars in compensation, against losses that ran for days across multiple businesses.
Mishcon vantage point
We believe there are three lessons worth drawing from this:
AI agents should be granted access only to what they genuinely need for their designated task. In this case, the agent found a live production credential sitting in a file it could read and used it to cause the damage. It would be unwise to rely on an AI agent's own judgement to stay within bounds and it is sensible to keep a separate data back-up as a precautionary measure.
Any workflow that allows an AI agent to take destructive steps without a human checkpoint carries serious risk – something that even diligent teams can underestimate, given how quickly agentic AI capabilities are evolving.
Most business-to-business technology agreements were conceived before agentic AI became a commercial reality. As incidents like this inevitably multiply, how data loss caused by agentic AI is allocated between contracting parties will become a serious negotiating point. Businesses on both sides of those agreements should be getting ahead of that conversation now.
Starting to wonder what your AI agents should be capable of?
Get a 30-minute free consultation here.
📰 BIG NEWS
Isomorphic Labs
The company, which is run by Demis Hassabis, was spun out of Google DeepMind to turn the commercialise the discoveries made from AlphaFold - the AI program that has been used map over 200 million proteins.
The UK startup is using AI to speed up drug discoveries and could be transformational for curing diseases.
Bloomberg has now reported that the company is raising a $2bn+ round led by Thrive Capital with participation from Alphabet. This is one of the most exciting, and potentially impactful, companies being built in Europe.
Read more here.
Helsing
German defence AI company Helsing is in advanced talks to raise $1.2bn at an $18bn valuation, nearly 30% higher than its $14bn valuation from its €600m Series D last June.
The round is being led by Dragoneer Investment Group alongside existing backer Lightspeed Venture Partners, and was reported to be oversubscribed multiple times.
The raise cements Helsing's position as Europe's answer to Anduril, with the company having transitioned from AI software vendor to drone manufacturer — its HX-2 attack drone is already hitting targets in Ukraine.
Despite the round being led by US firms, Helsing remains roughly 80% European-owned.
Read more here.
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Check it out here.
📰 SMALLER NEWS
Mistral has launched a “Founder in Residence” programme for ex-founders. Read more here.
DeepL is set to lay off 250 staff as it overhauls its business to compete in the AI era. Read more here.
Monzo Bank is about to launch in Spain and is continues its European expansion. It has already set up offices in Barcelona and Madrid and has hired 50 people, including Francisco Sierra as country manager.
French health unicorn Doctolib is committing £100m to its UK expansion, as it acquires London-based Medicus. Read more here.
💰 M&A
Laka acquired UK-based VeloLife as the InsurTech expands its bike dealer network and M&A strategy across Europe. Read more here.
French Doctolib acquired UK-based NHS software startup Medicus as it enters the UK market and commits £100m to primary care expansion. Read more here.
Netradyne acquired Berlin-based Moove Connected Mobility to scale its AI-powered fleet intelligence platform across Europe and establish a regional hub. Read more here.
French Getaround Europe and Danish GoMore merged to create Europe's largest peer-to-peer carsharing network across 11 countries and over 5 million users. Read more here.
Deel acquired German Sastrify to expand into SaaS procurement and software spend management. Read more here.
Quantum Machines acquired Dutch startup QHarbor and opened a new office in Delft to expand its quantum computing platform in Europe. Read more here.
💶 FUND NEWS
Stockholm-based defence-focused investment company Front Ventures raised €5m to expand its defence technology portfolio across Ukraine and Sweden. Read more here.
🎪 EVENTS
Chargebee is hosting their third annual conference, Beelieve '26, on 4th June, 2026. This year's theme is The Next Frontier: Scaling AI-Era Business Models. The conference brings together operators building and scaling AI-era business models, with sessions covering pricing, monetization, and the GTM systems required to make them work. Register here for free using code SCALE
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Thank you.
Seb