🌟 QUICK INTRO
Hello and welcome back.
A huge week. German NEURA Robotics raised up to $1.4bn for physical AI, Finland's ICEYE closed €450m at a €10bn+ valuation with another €600m+ in employee secondaries, and Italy's Bending Spoons filed to go public on Nasdaq at a target $20bn valuation.
Read on (and follow my new instagram page here).
I’ve launched my first ever AI-generated, dynamic, newsletter. It's for job seekers in Europe. Enter in your location and the type of job you are looking for, and every week you will get an email highlighting all the new jobs that fit the bill. Sign up on my job board here.
💰 BIG ROUNDS
Metzingen-based NEURA Robotics secured up to $1.4bn Series C to accelerate its physical AI platform and scale production to millions of robots by 2030. Read more here.
London-based PhysicsX raised a $300m Series C at a $2.4bn valuation to scale its AI models for engineering and hardware manufacturing. Read more here.
Munich-based Isar Aerospace raised a €270m Series D led by Molten Ventures to expand global operations and ramp up serial production of its Spectrum launch vehicle. Read more here.
Barcelona-based THEKER raised a €73m Series A to accelerate deployments of its AI-native robotics platform and deepen its core technology. Read more here.
French Alta Ares raised €50m led by Air Street Capital to scale its AI-powered air defence platform, with a memorable tagline: make air defence cheaper than the attack. Read more here.
Dublin-based CameraMatics secured up to €49m to support international expansion and develop its AI-powered fleet intelligence platform across Europe and the US. Read more here.
UK-based Capsa AI raised a $18m Series A to expand its AI platform for private capital firms and accelerate its push into the US. Read more here.
Birmingham-based Rem3dy Health raised €16m to support growth, international expansion and the development of new personalised health solutions. Read more here.
UK-based NewOrbit raised €16m to build commercial satellites designed for very low Earth orbit and expand its next-generation space infrastructure. Read more here.
London-based 01Health raised a €12.9m Series A to bring specialist care from Harley Street to the high street, scaling its healthcare delivery platform across the UK and US. Read more here.
Berlin-based Galvany raised a €10m Seed to expand its turnkey heat pump operating platform and accelerate installation across Germany. Read more here.
💰 SLIGHTLY SMALLER ROUNDS
Finnish Granarium raised over €1m to commercialise renewable supercapacitors for grid stability. A clean thematic pair with Galvany above as Europe builds out the physical layer of its energy stack. Read more here.
Norwegian Mimir raised a €518k pre-seed to automate e-commerce operations. Profitable Oslo-based AI startup, which is a nice rarity at the pre-seed stage. Read more here.
Finnish Aavuus landed pre-seed funding for its space-safety platform tackling space debris tracking. Nice fit with the Isar Aerospace and NewOrbit rounds above. Read more here.
Games: The Games Industry's Regulatory Reckoning
By Nick Allan, Partner and Siân Harding, Managing Associate, Mishcon de Reya
When you are building in the games industry, compliance requirements are often a distant thought. Two of the most consequential regulatory forces in tech are bearing down on the video games industry at the same time, making foresight and proactiveness key: the rise of generative AI and the hardening of digital consumer protection:
AI is transforming game development at every layer, from world building and NPC dialogue to automated QA testing and player personalisation. AI is creating genuine commercial opportunity; studios using generative tools can iterate faster, serve more personalised player experiences and reduce localisation costs across global markets. However, the increased use of AI brings with it challenges where the legal framework has not yet caught up with the technology; in particular, the copyright position for AI-generated game assets remains unsettled in the UK, and the government's consultation on AI and intellectual property, and the creative industries' coordinated response to it, has in some areas brought games studios into conflict with AI developers. For businesses scaling in this space, getting IP ownership, licensing, and contractor agreements structured correctly from the outset has never mattered more.
In the UK, the CMA now has significant powers to enforce consumer law, and has tightened requirements around subscriptions and pricing practices. Meanwhile, the Online Safety Act has increased compliance obligations and brought age assurance methods to the fore. In Europe, the legislative environment is hardening further. The proposed Digital Fairness Act is likely to impose new restrictions around personalisation and behavioural profiling, addictive design, and subscription practices. The CPC network has, in the meantime, jumped the gun on this potential legislative development and is coordinating cross-border enforcement action targeting dark patterns and the use of virtual currencies. Publishers and developers alike should be reviewing their consumer terms and in-game mechanics with an eye to current developments and potential upcoming legislative changes.
Mishcon vantage point
Every aspect of gaming – from monetisation and live services to industry consultations and user-generated content – is under pressure year-on-year from governments and regulators to comply with ever-changing practices. The studios best placed to scale are those that treat regulatory compliance and legal protection as foundational – not as an afterthought.
We proactively monitor all of these developments to help clients anticipate and react to issues as they arise. From traditional publishing deals to navigating the latest AI and UGC trends, we combine deep sector knowledge with a passion for games to serve as a trusted advisor to clients navigating the opportunities and challenges in one of the world’s most exciting and fast-evolving industries. For those leveraging AI in their products, we help you design the necessary governance frameworks through our AI Compliance by Design workshops (learn more here).
Whether you’re building a metaverse or growing an indie studio, we’re here to support your legal strategy.
Get a 30-minute complimentary initial consultation here.
📰 BIG NEWS
Europe 2031
Judith Dada, as well as Europe's top minds in AI, have just released Europe 2031 to fix Europe's AI strategy.
The document reads like a short story and outlines how, over the next five years, Europe slides into irrelevance due to fundamental mistakes made in AI.
She has written it alongside some of the greatest researchers and scientists in Europe who argue radical change needs to happen now to course correct.
This was released the day before international access to Fable was limited and so has made a huge impact in the ecosystem.
Check it out here.
Mistral
The French AI company is reportedly raising €3bn at a €20bn valuation. This is a significant increase from the €11.7bn valuation it achieved in September last year.
The company is on track to surpass €1bn of ARR this year.
It also raised $830m in debt funding earlier this year to build data centres, with the company aiming to build up to 1 gigawatt of capacity in Europe by 2030.
Read more here.
Bending Spoons
Italy's Bending Spoons, the app studio that bought and re-engineered Evernote, Vimeo, WeTransfer, AOL and Eventbrite, has filed to list on the Nasdaq under the ticker BSP. It's targeting around a $20bn valuation and a $1.5bn capital raise.
The company ended 2025 with $1.31bn in revenue, generated $601m in Q1 alone (up 132% year on year), and pulls 84% of its revenue from subscriptions. The company last raised at an $11bn valuation in 2025, up from $2.8bn in 2024.
It’s now targeting a US IPO.
Read more here.
ICEYE
Espoo-based ICEYE raised a €450m Series F at a €10bn+ valuation, with the total round exceeding €1bn once secondary share sales to existing employees and investors are included. It is the largest landmark round Europe's dual-use spacetech sector has ever seen.
ICEYE operates the world's largest constellation of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellites, which can image the Earth through clouds and at night. The capability has made it one of the go-to providers of sovereign space intelligence for European governments, NATO members and insurance markets.
Read more here.
📰 SMALLER NEWS
Keir Starmer unveiled a £400m chip plan as part of a wider £1.1bn AI Hardware strategy at London Tech Week, with £150m allocated to next-generation inference chips, £250m for more specialised chips, £750m for a national AI supercomputer due in 2030 and £120m for an AI Hardware Innovation Programme. Read more here.
Deliverance AI exited stealth to build sovereign enterprise AI infrastructure for European customers, joining a thickening cluster of European sovereign-AI plays. Read more here.
Swedish legal-AI scale-up Legora is opening offices in Paris, Milan and Madrid plus a London engineering hub. Read more here.
UK frontier-AI startup Cosine secured industry backing for what it pitches as Britain's first sovereign frontier model. Read more here.
Copenhagen-based Pleo laid off around 50 staff in a fresh round of cuts, the latest in a string of European fintechs trimming headcount this year. Read more here.
💰 M&A
Austrian longevity company MoleQlar is acquiring biotech and skincare company Tomorrowlabs. Read more here.
Swiss banking software giant Temenos acquired additiv to strengthen its wealth proposition. Read more here.
UK bank Barclays is acquiring GoHenry to expand its youth financial education offering in the UK. Read more here.
💶 FUND NEWS
Antwerp-based Pitchdrive closed a €60m Fund IV to back AI-native early-stage startups across Europe through its founder-led Co-founder Capital model. Read more here.
Kensington-based Creator Fund closed $56m to invest in scientific founders across AI, deeptech and biotech before pitch-deck stage. Read more here.
Hamburg-based Generation Tech Partners closed a €50m fund to acquire German SME service providers and transform them using AI. Read more here.
London-based THENA Capital closed its inaugural £45m Fund I to back seed-stage digital health and medtech companies, becoming the first all-female GP-led fund to receive backing from the British Business Bank's Enterprise Capital Funds programme. Read more here.
Berlin-based Angel Invest closed a €40m Fund III to continue investing at the angel, pre-Seed and Seed stages. Read more here.
Munich-based deeptech VC Vsquared Ventures opened a London office, bringing Germany's first dedicated deeptech fund closer to the UK market. Read more here.
If you’ve got this far you should DEFINITELY subscribe to my daily newsletter here.
Thank you.
Seb