🌟 QUICK INTRO
Hello and welcome back.
I’m at Bits & Pretzels today - if you’re around and want to say hi let me know!
In this week’s edition Europe’s AI data centre nScale received $1bn, Oura became the continent’s latest Decacorn and Revolut is teasing a London-New York dual listing.
Last week on The Scaling Europe Show I spoke to:
Tim Rea, Investor at BGF
Dom Hallas, Executive Director at the Startup Coalition
Jan Philipp Haas, CEO & Co-Founder @ Conduct
Hedda Båverud Olsson, CEO & co-founder at Lassie
I’d be very grateful if you could check out my referral scheme (see below). Share this newsletter and get a free Scaling Europe hat (+ my undying gratitude).
💰 BIG ROUNDS
UK-based nScale raised $1.1bn at a $3bn+ valuation for its AI data centre expansion, led by Aker. Read more here.
UK-based Signal AI raised $165m led by Battery Ventures to continue to roll out its risk and reputation intelligence platform. Read more here.
Swiss Auterion, which develops autonomous defence systems, raised $130m from Bessemer Venture Partners. Read more here.
UK-based Tide became a unicorn after raising £120m from TPG. Read more here.
French WAAT raised €100m to accelerate EV charging rollout across Europe, led by DWS. Read more here.
Dutch WeTravel raised a €78m Series C funding round led by Sapphire Ventures. Read more here.
Danish Light raised a $30m Series A for its AI native finance platform, led by Balderton Capital. Read more here.
UK-based Mimica raised a $26m Series B led by Paladin Capital Group. Read more here.
Swiss chip-cooling company Corintis raised a $24m Series A led by BlueYard Capital. Read more here.
💸 SMALLER BUT INTERESTING ROUNDS
Spanish HR Tech Orbio AI raised $7.5m from Visionaries Club to build an AI-native HR system. Read more here.
French Requesty raised a $3m round led by 20VC after hitting $1.5m ARR in just 4 months. It’s building a new infrastructure company helping developers build on top of multiple LLMs. Read more here.
Belgian Belfort raised a $6m seed investment from Vsquared Ventures to build the world’s first chip for fully encrypted data processing. Read more here.
UK-based Veridox, the AI-powered platform for detecting document and image manipulation in insurance claims, raised £1m led by Outward VC. Read more here.
📰 STARTUP NEWS
Checkout.com
The UK Fintech announced some big news this week:
A new $12bn valuation in an employee share buyback which will give 2000 employees the chance to cash out some of their holdings
The company has recorded 30% net revenue growth in 2025
It’s track to have its first full year of profitability this year
The $12bn valuation is a mark up from its latest $9bn in 2023, but still some way from the $40bn price tag it had in 2022.
The company is also on track to process $300bn in total eCommerce payment volume in 2025. Read more here.
OURA
ŌURA, the maker of the Oura health and fitness ring, is rumoured to become Europe's latest Decacorn after supposedly raising $875m at an $11bn valuation.
This is double the company’s $5 billion valuation from its Series D round announced last December, and is the result of ballooning sales in the last 12 months:
5.5m rings sold to date
3m rings sold in the last year
On track to do $1bn of revenue in 2025
The money raised will be used to scale production, expand internationally, and invest in product development. Read more here.
Revolut
Three major bits of news relating to Revolut:
The UK Fintech opened its new HQ in Canary Wharf last week. As part of the opening it announced a £3bn investment package into the UK which will create over 1000 jobs. This would almost double the current UK headcount of 1300.
It’s hired a new executive in Turkey and is said to be looking to acquire a local bank to get a banking licence.
The company is considering a dual listing in both New York and London. The CEO had previously said it "wouldn't be rational" to list in London, however The Times is now reporting that a dual listing for Revolut is being "widely discussed" in financial circles. Read more here.
Black Forest Labs
The secretive German AI startup which is developing its own AI models (one of Europe’s only companies developing its own) is in talks to raise $200m - $300m at a valuation of $4bn.
The company is developing a model for image generation and raised an undisclosed round at a $1bn valuation last September, led by Andreessen.
The company is only 13 months old and has fewer than 50 employees. Read more here.
Flo / Google
Google and Flo Health have offered to pay a $56m settlement for their privacy lawsuit.
The popular period tracking app, and Europe’s first femtech unicorn, had been accused of unlawfully shared users’ personal data with digital advertising companies, including Google and Meta, for targeted advertising.
As part of the proposed settlement, Flo and Google would not admit any wrongdoing.
Read more here.
European Institute of Innovation and Technology
The EU institution which had €3bn allocated to it under the current EU 2021-2027 budget
According to Sifted it is one of Europe’s most successful investors having backed unicorns such as Swiss Climeworks, French health tech Owkin and French battery startup Verkor.
Closure of EIT would be controversial, the person said, as it is one of only two institutions which sit in EU member state Hungary. Read more here.
💶 FUND NEWS
French firm Ventech closed its €175m Fund VI to back 35 European companies at Seed and Series A. Read more here.
French firm C4 Ventures announced the launch of its third fund, targeting €100m to invest in AI and deep tech startups across Europe. Read more here.
Greek Big Pi Ventures raised €130m in a first close for its growth fund focused on backing Greek founders and diaspora with over €5m of revenue. The firm is targeting a final close of €200m in the next 12 months. Read more here.
THAT’S ALL. Thank you.
Seb