DIA is a North Carolina-based venture capital fund investing in technologies and solutions in the dental and multi-site healthcare industry. The company plans to use this capital to strengthen its position in the US market. In March 2023, the company announced its €2 million Seed funding round, also backed by DIA. 

“A lab’s growth used to be capped by how many technicians it could hire and train. AI removes that ceiling: technicians who adopt Relu become far more productive, designing multiples of the cases they could before. This investment lets us bring that to more American labs,” said Holger Willems, CEO and co-founder of Relu. 

Founded in 2019 by Willems, Adriaan Van Gerven (CTO), Antoine Coppens (COO), and Thomas Beznik (CPO), Relu builds AI to make dental designs smarter, faster, and more consistent in orthodontics and implant-restorative dentistry. 

It has built Relu® Automate, an AI platform that automates the design and administrative work for dental lab cases. The platform works on a pay-per-case model and automates design and workflow processes, giving labs room to grow.

The company states that every essential dental appliance, from a routine night guard to a complex crown, relies on the precise work of a dental laboratory. But a deepening shortage of skilled dental technicians is creating a bottleneck that limits how much labs can produce and how fast.

Relu claims to tackle this bottleneck directly. Its Relu® Automate platform uses AI to analyse 3D scans and automatically generate patient-specific designs, such as night guards, surgical guides, and crowns, thereby eliminating the manual CAD steps that slow technicians down. Labs process more cases faster, without compromising quality.

It offers implantologists and dental labs an AI-powered system that automatically generates a complete treatment proposal. According to the company, it combines CBCT segmentation, intraoral scan alignment, implant positioning, abutment positioning, provisional crown design, and guide design into one seamless and unified experience.

The company partners with leading dental software companies and dental labs to embed AI planning and design automation into existing clinical workflows.

Last year, in October, Relu received CE certification (under the EU MDR) for its AI automatic implant planning solution. 

“We backed Relu at the seed stage, and we’re investing again because the results speak for themselves. The lab operators among our investors have seen Relu deliver: real design and workflow automation, and a growing adoption by leading American labs. We’re proud to help them scale,” said Thomas Sharpe, Managing Partner at Dental Innovation Alliance. 

The company plans to use this capital to strengthen its position in the US market. Relu has offices in Leuven, Belgium, and Boston, MA, and currently handles more than 1 million cases each year from dental laboratories across 82 countries. The platform is grounded in 33 peer-reviewed publications and carries ISO 13485 certification, FDA 510(k) clearance, and CE marking.

The post Belgian AI dental startup Relu lands €1.51 million to accelerate US expansion appeared first on EU-Startups.

Founded by Nimrod Lehavi and Ofer Bar-Or, IAIG was created around the thesis that advances in artificial intelligence are enabling small teams to build, launch, and scale software products faster and more efficiently than ever before.

Rather than building a single company, IAIG operates as a venture studio, partnering with entrepreneurs to launch AI-native products in a matter of weeks in identified and proven software markets and providing them with all of the tools to grow rapidly.

The process starts with meticulous selection, development, go-to-market execution, operations, and growth. By leveraging AI across the company-building process, IAIG achieves feature parity with established software products in weeks while dramatically reducing operating costs.

Since launching in January, IAIG has already created and launched five ventures and expects to launch dozens more by year-end. The company focuses on post market fit proven software categories with established demand and opportunities where AI can significantly improve efficiency, accessibility, or pricing.

“We believe AI is changing the foundations of how software businesses are built, marketed, grow and exit,” said Nimrod, founder and CEO of IAIG. “Many of today’s software companies were designed for a different technological era. We see an opportunity to build a new generation of companies that can move faster, operate more efficiently, and deliver greater value to customers.”

Established software companies often face challenges adapting to AI due to legacy technology, complex architectures, and slower operating models. AI-native companies, by contrast, can automate large portions of development and operations while serving customers with significantly smaller teams.

“SaaS isn’t dying, it’s being reinvented,” said Eden Shochat, Equal Partner at Aleph. “AI gives customers the ability to create tools tailored to their needs on demand. We backed IAIG because the team understands that the winners of this transition will be those building entirely new categories of software.“

Lehavi previously founded, managed and sold Simplex to Nuvei for 300MM, while Bar-Or brings more than 30 years of entrepreneurial experience spanning telecommunications, semiconductors, internet infrastructure, machine learning, and deep technology. A graduate of Israel’s Talpiot program, Bar-Or also spent seven years in the Israeli space program.

“The biggest challenge in startups has always been finding something the market truly needs and then executing well,” said Ofer, founder and COO of IAIG. “AI is dramatically reducing the barriers to execution, allowing entrepreneurs to spend more time solving meaningful problems and less time navigating the complexity of software development.”

IAIG believes the next phase of the software industry will be defined by smaller, more efficient organisations capable of delivering enterprise-grade products at lower cost and higher speed.

The company also expects acquisitions, partnerships, and integrations between AI-native startups and established software providers to become increasingly common as the industry adapts to AI-driven change.

Looking ahead, IAIG plans to expand its network of founders, enter additional software categories, and continue refining a venture-building model designed specifically for the AI era.

This is a featured news story in collaboration with TechnologyWire.

The post Inevitable AI Group raises €5.2 million from Aleph to launch AI-native SaaS companies appeared first on EU-Startups.

Europe spent €403 billion on research and development in 2024. It employed 2.21 million full-time-equivalent researchers, 47% more than a decade earlier. These are the foundations of a serious innovation economy. Yet spending on R&D still accounts for 2.24% of EU GDP, below the levels recorded in the United States, Japan and South Korea. 

Once the research leaves the laboratory, the problem becomes even more pronounced. DeepTech attracted 44% of European venture capital in 2023, but only 23% of EU university spin-offs operate in the sector.

In the United States, more than 60% of VC-backed DeepTech companies are spin-offs. This goes on to show how Europe produces the science and trains the researchers, but fails to convert that base into companies with the capital and market access to scale.

Funded twice, lost in between

European research receives substantial public support. Startups can also raise from an established early-stage investment market. But when a research team must negotiate intellectual property, or prove that its technology works outside the lab and build a company before revenue is realistic, that’s when the chink in the armour shows.

Europe provides 86% of the early-stage capital raised by its DeepTech and life-science spin-offs. Once those companies reach the late stage, nearly half of their funding comes from outside the continent, mainly from the US.

Since 2019, American companies and investors have captured close to €20 billion in value from European spin-offs. And this is happening while the pipeline grows. European research institutions produced around 100 DeepTech and life-science spin-offs a year between 2000 and 2010. Since 2015, the figure has exceeded 500 annually. More than 7,300 such companies now employ over 167,000 people and carry a combined valuation of €344 billion. 

A good case to illustrate this with is Oxford Ionics. Physicists Chris Ballance and Tom Harty founded the company in 2019 to commercialise trapped-ion quantum-computing research. By 2025, the team had grown to more than 80 people and raised over €35 million (£30 million). In September that year, US-listed IonQ completed its acquisition for €931 million ($1.075 billion).

Oxford retained an important research operation, and the founders stayed with the company, but its ownership moved to an American parent. While being a strong exit for the founders and early investors, it was simultaneously the largest acquisition of an Oxford quantum-computing spin-off. 

The deal captures the tension at the centre of Europe’s commercialisation debate where success for one company can still mean strategic technology and future value being absorbed elsewhere.

Research spin-offs start further from the market

A software founder can often test a product with customers within months, whereas a university spin-off may spend years validating a material, running clinical studies or building specialised hardware. Before it can sell anything, the team may also need to negotiate a university licence, recruit commercial leadership and raise money for equipment.

Europe’s funding architecture does not always account for that starting point. The EIC Accelerator has a €634 million budget for 2026 and can provide grants below €2.5 million alongside equity investment. Its funding covers technologies at Technology Readiness Levels 6 to 8. A researcher working with a laboratory prototype at TRL 3 or 4 is still several steps away from eligibility.

There are programmes aimed at earlier stages. The €100 million EIC Transition scheme supports the conversion of results from selected EU-funded projects into innovation opportunities, but eligibility is tied to specific research programmes.

The new Advanced Innovation Challenges pilot has only €6 million for 2026, with initial grants of up to €300,000. The stated focus is fields where Europe has extensive research but little commercial uptake, signalling that the EU has recognised the gap. 

Building around the scientific founder

A small group of investors is starting earlier. Denmark-based PSV Hafnium closed an oversubscribed €60 million debut fund for Nordic DeepTech. University2Ventures is targeting the same amount for spin-offs from European technical universities. PSV Hafnium has already backed SisuSemi, a Finnish semiconductor startup built on a decade of research at the University of Turku. 

These funds are designed around the realities of research-led companies. They can invest before revenue, help assemble commercial teams and work through technical validation with founders. Yet two €60 million funds remain small beside the €20 billion ($24 billion) in spin-off value captured by US investors and acquirers since 2019.

It isn’t entirely a money problem either. Scientific founders need clear university equity terms, experienced operators and first customers willing to test unproven technology. A research comparison of European and US technology-transfer offices found that European offices did not complete fewer licences after researchers controlled for institutional differences.

They did, however, earn significantly less licensing income. The gap was linked partly to the industry experience available inside the transfer offices. 

Commercialisation is now an industrial question

In 2025, 76 European DeepTech and life-science spin-offs had reached either a €867 million ($1 billion) valuation or €86.65 million ($100 million) in annual revenue (including companies like ICEYE, IQM, Isar Aerospace, Synthesia and Tekever).

Spin-offs raised an estimated €8 billion during the year even as overall European venture funding remained well below its 2021 peak. These companies work in quantum computing, space, BioTech, robotics and AI. Areas that will shape industrial capacity and startup returns.

Going forth, Europe needs to reckon with a couple of questions. Can a researcher with a promising laboratory result secure the intellectual property, validation funding, commercial expertise and first pilot needed to form a viable company within a year? Today, the answer depends heavily on the university, region and programme involved.

Europe has already financed much of the discovery. That has been its armour. Closing the commercialisation chink means supporting the difficult years that follow, and keeping enough capital and market access on the continent when those companies begin to scale.

The post The chink in Europe’s innovation armour appeared first on EU-Startups.

The round was led by ZEISS Ventures, with participation from Superhero Capital, North Karelia Growth Fund (NKGF), managed by Redstone Nordics, and continued support from SeeTrue’s founding angel investors Niko Myller, Sueno Digital OY, Erkka Tahvanainen. Luminate and Piotr Frasunkiewicz also invested in this round. 

Roman Bednarik, CEO and co-founder of SeeTrue Technologies, said, “We aren’t just improving eye tracking; we are shrinking it to fit the future of wearable tech. If XR and AI glasses are supposed to achieve mass adoption, eye-tracking must become invisible to the user but significantly more powerful for the device. With the backing of ZEISS Ventures, Superhero Capital, NKGF, Luminate, Piotr Frasunkiewicz, and our angel investors, we are now expanding our Joensuu team to accelerate our international commercial work to meet emerging market needs.”

Founded in 2018, SeeTrue Technologies develops ultra-miniature eye-tracking technology for medical optical systems, vision care, and smart wearables. The company states that it delivers real-time high-FPS gaze tracking with minimal energy use. 

According to the company, as tech giants race to move AI-enabled wearables from concept to consumer reality, the industry faces significant technical challenges integrating robust, highly accurate eye-tracking into devices where size, weight, and computing power are strictly limited.

SeeTrue claims that it is designed to tackle these integration hurdles through a proprietary system-level co-design that combines miniature sensing hardware with highly optimised embedded processing.

It explains that by leveraging an anatomically grounded architecture and dynamic sensing logic, SeeTrue’s system-level architecture aims to simplify integration of eye-tracking sensors. 

This approach enables gaze-based interaction, attention-aware computing, user-state understanding, and workflow-tracking across various applications, while significantly reducing compute requirements and hardware footprint common in current-generation systems.

Julian Schroth, Investment Manager at ZEISS Ventures, said, “SeeTrue is developing eye-tracking technology that has the potential to make human-machine interaction more intuitive, efficient, and seamless across healthcare and other professional workflows. We believe the company is well positioned to address key industry challenges and unlock new ways for people to interact with digital systems.”

The company highlighted that beyond capital, the new investor base supports SeeTrue’s access to commercial networks. This includes support from Luminate, a leading global accelerator for optics, photonics, and imaging-enabled startups, and strategic execution support from industry veteran, adviser, and new investor in this round, Piotr Frasunkiewicz.

The post Finland’s SeeTrue Technologies raises €2.2 million to commercialise low-power eye-sensing architecture appeared first on EU-Startups.

The investment was led by publicly-owned renewable energy company Great British Energy, which is investing €8.7 million (£7.5 million) through its Energy Engineered in the UK programme, with participation from existing shareholder Barclays Climate Ventures. 

Christophe Williams FEI, Founder and CEO of Naked Energy, said, “The UK has world-class engineering capability and the opportunity to lead a rapidly growing global market for renewable heat. Great British Energy’s investment will enable us to establish a major UK manufacturing base, reduce production costs and scale a British-designed technology platform that combines advanced solar collectors, system design and digital monitoring.”

Founded in 2009, Naked Energy states that it designs high-performance solar technology that helps businesses decarbonise profitably. Its technology generates renewable heat directly at the point of use, thereby reducing gas demand without adding pressure to the electricity grid and helping businesses keep their energy bills stable when gas prices spike. 

Dan McGrail, CEO of Great British Energy, said, “Cutting our reliance on gas is one of the biggest challenges we face, both for energy security and for keeping bills down. Naked Energy has developed a technology that tackles this head on and when you see it working at iconic UK institutions like the British Library and Wimbledon, you understand what is possible.”

Its Virtu product range includes high-density solar thermal and solar PVT systems that generate renewable heat and, in the case of VirtuPVT, both heat and electricity from the same rooftop footprint. 

The company also develops digital tools for system design, monitoring and performance optimisation, supporting the deployment of renewable heat across commercial, industrial and public-sector buildings.

Naked Energy holds more than 20 patents, and unlike conventional solar panels, its solar-thermal panels can produce both heat and electricity from a single rooftop installation. This is useful for buildings and sites with steady heat and cooling demand, such as hotels, leisure centres, hospitals, care homes, manufacturing facilities, residential developments and public buildings.

As per the company, its low-profile design allows for around 85% of roof space to be used for energy generation, compared to a typical rate of 50% for conventional tilted solar panels that require spacing between rows to avoid self-shading. 

The company also highlighted that it was the only solar energy technology to receive planning permission at the British Library – a Grade I listed building – because its design does not alter the building’s roofline or silhouette, unlike its competitors. 

“Heat is too often overlooked in the energy debate, despite accounting for a major share of fossil-fuel consumption. This investment will help us bring renewable heat to more hospitals, hotels, public buildings and industrial sites in the UK and internationally, while creating skilled jobs and export opportunities here at home,” added Williams FEI. 

Naked Energy is already delivering projects across Europe and North America. This capital will help the company to expand its UK production capacity and grow its presence in both domestic and international markets. The funding will support Naked Energy’s plans to establish a new UK-based manufacturing facility for its Virtu solar-thermal technology, creating up to 40 direct skilled jobs and around 100 indirect roles. 

Its solar-thermal systems are already being used at some of the UK’s most iconic institutions, including the British Library and the All England Lawn Tennis Club, Wimbledon.

The company raised a €6.12 million (£5.25 million) Series A in 2019 and a €19.8 million (£17 million) Series B round in 2024. 

The post Crawley-based Naked Energy secures €10.35 million to build UK solar-thermal technology manufacturing facility appeared first on EU-Startups.

For today’s podcast, produced in association with the Women TechEU scheme, we sit down with Jekaterina Romanova, CEO and co-founder of Latvian biotech startup PrintyMed, to discuss biomimetic spider silk, its medical potential, and the challenges of scaling deep-tech innovation in Europe.

The Women TechEU scheme is an EU-funded project supporting women leading deep tech startup companies from Europe. As part of the consortium team implementing the programme, our mission is to foster inclusive innovation by supporting women-led startups, including under-represented deep tech sectors and European regions. 

We believe that diversity drives innovation, and we are here to provide women in deep tech with more opportunities, resources, and support in order to build market-shaping companies at global level.

Between 2026-2028, the current project consortium will run a continuous open call with 4 cut-off dates. Following a rigorous evaluation process, 160 total beneficiaries will be selected. Each beneficiary will receive €75k grants (non-dilutive finance), as well as a tailored package of mentorship, training, expert guidance, matchmaking and networking opportunities, and support in bridging the gap to other EIC funding and support schemes.

EU-Startups is a proud member of the consortium implementing the Women TechEU Programme from 2026 to 2028.

In this podcast, Jekaterina reflects on her unconventional path into biotechnology. After studying economics and working in banking, she entered entrepreneurship at 18 through a posture-correction clothing startup. She later founded a company developing 3D-printed bone grafts, gaining experience in medical regulation, funding, and commercialisation.

At PrintyMed, Jekaterina leads grants, investment, partnerships, and strategy, while scientists and doctors oversee laboratory research. The company’s biomimetic spider silk technology originated at the Latvian Institute of Organic Synthesis and replicates aspects of how spiders naturally produce silk.

PrintyMed’s long-term ambition is to support artificial organs and biological scaffolds. It has developed an artificial heart-valve prototype and is exploring artificial nerves, wound dressings, and regenerative medicine.

Its first commercial focus is membranes for organ-on-a-chip systems, which help pharmaceutical companies and researchers test drugs while reducing animal testing. PrintyMed is already running pilot projects, although products intended for patients will require several more years of certification.

Jekaterina also discusses the importance of European funding. PrintyMed has secured about €2 million in grants, including €75,000 from Women TechEU and roughly €700,000 through a European Innovation Council programme. This support strengthened the company’s expertise in regulation, intellectual property, scaling, and fundraising.

The conversation also covers expansion beyond Europe. PrintyMed is building relationships in Saudi Arabia, where government-backed biotechnology initiatives, research partnerships, and certification opportunities could support international growth.

Jekaterina argues that Europe’s medical-device regulations can slow innovation and calls for controlled fast-track testing environments. She also highlights spider silk’s potential in cosmetics and skincare, following discussions with Chanel about a regenerative cosmetic glove.

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency (EISMEA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

Key Points:

• Jekaterina’s background in economics, banking, and medical startups shaped her business-led approach to biotechnology.
• How Biomimetic spider silk offers potential applications across regenerative medicine, artificial organs, wound care, and research.
• PrintyMed’s first commercial focus is developing membranes for organ-on-a-chip systems used in drug testing.
• How European funding programmes have helped the company advance its research, regulatory knowledge, and production capabilities.
• How PrintyMed is exploring Saudi Arabia as a base for research partnerships, certification, and international expansion.
• Why Europe must create faster regulatory pathways that support medical innovation without compromising patient safety.

The post The EU-Startups Podcast | Interview with Jekaterina Romanova, founder & CEO of PrintyMed appeared first on EU-Startups.

The investment was led by Meridiam, through its Meridiam Green Impact Growth Fund (MGIGF), alongside Fideve Groupe, the company’s long-standing shareholder.

Hadi Moussavi, President and Founder of Chargepoly, said, “This investment will allow us to accelerate our international expansion and continue to offer our customers best-in-class charging solutions to electrify their fleets. We are delighted to partner with Meridiam as we enter this new stage of growth. We are extremely proud to have demonstrated to our new investors and shareholders our ability and expertise to carry out this mission successfully.”

Founded in 2019 by Moussavi, Chargepoly is a technology and engineering company specialising in high-capacity battery charging for medium and heavy-duty vehicles. The company states that it designs, deploys and operates high-performance DC charging infrastructure for heavy-duty fleets.

The French company has developed an integrated offering combining advanced technology, project delivery and Charging Point Operator (CPO) capabilities. It primarily targets depot-based charging for truck and bus fleet operators. 

According to the company, heavy-duty transport electrification is accelerating, driven by regulatory pressure and growing OEMs’ investments improving the economic competitiveness of electric trucks. It notes that building charging infrastructure catering to intense logistics operations remains a major bottleneck, and that standard charging solutions are rarely adapted to the tight space constraints, high power requirements, and strict operational schedules of logistics hubs and transport depots.

Chargepoly combines a modular architecture that shares and allocates power across multiple charging points with its software suite, Lucie, which helps it to maximise charging infrastructure efficiency. 

The company claims that the solution lowers deployment costs, optimises asset utilisation and sustainably reduces operating expenses. By optimising the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and removing the technical barriers for the electrification of heavy-duty fleets, Chargepoly highlights that it enables transport operators to transition more easily and cost-effectively to decarbonised fleets.

Its solutions have now been deployed in carrier depots, logistics warehouses, industrial sites, multi-modal and port terminals, public stations, as well as bus and coach depots. It has completed advanced interoperability testing across more than 50 distinct heavy-duty vehicle models. 

Chargepoly reported that it has successfully delivered its fully integrated solutions for transport operators such as Groupe Rave (France) or Nationex (Canada), as well as blue-chip accounts such as CMA-CGM. The company collaborates closely with leading heavy-duty vehicle OEMs and their distribution networks, such as Renault Trucks, Volvo Trucks or Daimler Truck. 

It further notes that it operates hundreds of DC fast charging points across France, the UK and Canada, and is already decarbonising more than one million km of freight transport every month.

Yannick Marion, Meridiam GIGF, stated, “The company is addressing a critical need for infrastructure and services that enable the electrification of heavy-duty transport, combining differentiated technology, strong industrial partnerships and highly skilled teams at a time when the total cost of ownership of electric trucks is becoming increasingly competitive with conventional diesel vehicles. We look forward to working alongside Chargepoly and leveraging our expertise to help accelerate the development of this fast-growing market.”

The company plans to use this capital to accelerate its next stage of growth, expand internationally and further scale its integrated technology platform.

The post Aix-en-Provence-based Chargepoly secures €23 million to accelerate heavy-duty fleet electrification appeared first on EU-Startups.

The cloud has quietened down into the background. It is now just the execution layer for agentic systems. That forces a practical question: which decisions belong to humans, and which can we hand to autonomous software?

Yet, many European businesses still treat AI as a basic productivity tool to shave a few percentage points off their overheads. This defensive approach misses the broader structural opportunity. Agentic AI is a chance to redesign how operations work. 

Instead of asking how AI can automate today’s workflows, organisations should ask a harder one: if working hours and the limits of human attention no longer applied, would they design those workflows the same way at all?

The workflow is not sacred

The current rush to deploy AI agents across enterprises is understandable, but it is driven by a basic error: the assumption that every existing workflow deserves an AI agent. Most organisations begin by looking at their current operations. They map their processes and ask how an agent can automate a specific task – this seems logical, but happens in the wrong order.

The first question, instead, must be: why does this process exist in the first place?

Many business processes were originally designed around constraints that no longer apply. They reflect limits of human capacity, organisational silos, manual approvals, and legacy technology. Wrap an AI agent around one of those processes, and you may increase throughput, but you have not improved the business. You have simply built a faster version of something that should not exist.

The point is to find where complexity can be removed and where the operating model itself should be redesigned, rather than keeping yesterday’s practices on life support with more expensive tooling. Define the business problem first. Question why the current workflow exists. Only then work out where autonomous software fits.

Europe’s mindset problem

One statistic from the London summit: Europe accounts for only about 8% of global AI spending. The explanation behind this number is telling.

Too often, European businesses start with the technology itself. They invest in a platform and then search for a business problem to solve. However, those companies are not the ones succeeding. Those that achieve measurable results do the opposite. They start with a business problem first, and only then decide whether AI is the right tool to solve it.

Starting with the technology limits what can be achieved, and even more if its focus is merely cost-cutting. One speaker at the summit illustrated this contrast using two different financial institutions. A European bank focused on cutting operational costs to fund its new AI projects.

Meanwhile, a US bank used the technology to generate new revenue streams. They reduced manual touch-points to turn an expensive cost centre into an active revenue driver. Both institutions had access to the exact same technology. The difference lay entirely in their strategic ambition. Only one of them was asking, ‘How do we make more money with this?’

Stop using legacy systems as an excuse

Legacy systems are constantly blamed for stalling digital transformation, particularly in highly regulated sectors like FinTech. While older infrastructure presents real integration challenges, using it as an excuse for inaction is a strategic choice.

Every established organisation has core databases that cannot be replaced overnight. However, this does not mean every new operational model must inherit those same old constraints. Critical legacy infrastructure can be ring-fenced and left running to maintain stability, while new, autonomous operating models are built around them.

When organisations accept the messy reality of their legacy technology, they can focus their engineering efforts on redesigning the specific touch-points that deliver the highest business value. And again, instead of automating existing workflows, wouldn’t it be more efficient to identify where complexity can be removed? Simplified decisions and improved client outcomes will follow.

The cloud has always provided the basic computational infrastructure – while agentic AI redefines its purpose. Treating this shift as a minor automation project will only help you do the wrong things faster.

Redesigning the work itself is what changes the business, and if you don’t do it, a competitor likely will.

The post Agentic AI is changing what the cloud is for appeared first on EU-Startups.

With this round, led by Portage and existing investors Cherry Ventures, Moss has achieved unicorn status. 

“This round reflects the trust of customers and partners in shaping the future of finance. It allows us to expand beyond spend management and further build out our Finance AI product suite. Soon, Moss will allow customers to configure agents for every finance job, while maintaining full control over every step and decision taken. This is Finance AI, shaped by you,” Ante Spittler, co-founder and CEO of Moss, mentioned in his LinkedIn post announcing the round. 

Founded in 2019 by Ante Spittler, Anton Rummel, Ferdinand Meyer and Stephan Haslebacher, Moss is the all-in-one spend management platform built for modern finance teams. It brings together corporate cards, invoice management, and reimbursements with real-time budgets, smart approvals, and automated accounting built in. 

The company is on a mission to build the future of finance with Finance AI, and claims that it integrates with popular ERP systems like DATEV, Xero, and Exact Online, as well as HRIS systems such as Personio, BambooHR, and HiBob.

Moss is a BaFin-regulated financial institution under the PSD2 framework and is ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certified. The platform is compliant with the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA). 

The company claims that it has integrated safety features to protect account access, task approvals, and payments, such as multi-factor authentication, biometrics, the 4-Eyes Principle, and SSO for organisation-wide access management. 

Moss protects data through industry-leading encryption protocols (TLS 1.2+ for data in transit and AES-256 for data at rest), strict access controls, and secure hosting exclusively on Google Cloud Platform (GCP) in Frankfurt, Germany.

“AI can already do remarkable things in finance, but it isn’t there yet. When we surveyed 471 finance leaders, 48% ranked control as their top priority, and only 6% want full autonomy. That’s the standard we build to,” Moss mentioned in its LinkedIn post. 

The company has grown to 5000+ businesses across Germany, the UK, the Netherlands and Austria. It is generating more than €70 million in ARR. Spittler says the company’s AI agents help customers process more than 2 million transactions each month, automating manual tasks and freeing up time to create greater impact.

This funding round comes four years after the company announced the closing of its Series B funding round of €75 million at a valuation of over €500 million. The Series B round was led by Tiger Global Management. 

“The next chapter is Finance AI shaped by the people who use it: AI that prepares the work, shows its reasoning down to the ledger account, and takes no consequential action without the team’s sign-off. Moss asked its customers what they wanted from AI and built exactly that, control at every step,” Cherry Ventures said in its LinkedIn post. 

The post Berlin-based Moss hits unicorn status after closing €30 million Series C to expand its Finance AI suite appeared first on EU-Startups.

The funding round included €450 million of primary investment at a valuation exceeding €10 billion. In May 2026, ICEYE announced that it has secured a €300 million 3-year committed revolving credit facility (RCF). The Scaleup Europe Fund was established by the European Commission alongside a group of European investors and managed by EQT. 

Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, said, “When Europe invests in its innovators, Europe invests in its future. This is the goal of our Scaleup Europe Fund: it will ensure our scale-ups can find what they need right here in Europe to grow into world-leading companies. To turn European innovation into our competitive edge.”

Founded in 2015, ICEYE delivers persistent monitoring capabilities to detect and respond to changes in any location on Earth. It owns the world’s largest and most advanced SAR (synthetic aperture radar) satellite constellation. 

It delivers high-quality intelligence to its customers with low latency and quick revisit times, regardless of weather or time of day. For governments operating the company’s own constellations, it offers this capability as a sovereign system. ICEYE-built constellations serve customers in defence and intelligence, environmental monitoring, insurance and emergency management.

“Europe has the talent, technology and ambition to build globally leading companies in strategically important industries. Our own journey reflects that. My co-founder Pekka Laurila and I met as students on an Erasmus exchange, received our first funding through Horizon 2020, and we are grateful for the European Commission’s role in initiating the Scaleup Europe Fund. We are pleased to welcome EQT as a long-term partner through the fund, as we continue to expand our sovereign intelligence capabilities from Europe for customers across Europe and globally,” said Rafał Modrzewski, co-founder and CEO, ICEYE.

Today’s Series F follows a period of significant momentum for ICEYE. In 2025, ICEYE crossed over €250 million in revenue, and over €100 million in EBITDA, with a contracted backlog of over €1.5 billion.

The company has built a strong European footprint, with significant operations in Finland, Poland, Spain and Greece, and has recently expanded further with the establishment of new European entities in Germany and Portugal.

This month, ICEYE strengthened its UAE presence with the appointment of Christos Kolimenakis as Chief Executive Officer of ICEYE UAE and last month, it announced the formal establishment of ICEYE’s German entity, based out of Berlin and Munich, and the appointment of Philipp Herkelmann as CEO of ICEYE Germany. In July, the company also revealed the establishment of ICEYE Portugal, the opening of a centre of excellence in Lisbon, and appointed Rui Costa as CEO of ICEYE Portugal.

Last month, the SpaceTech firm also launched and deployed four new SAR satellites into orbit. Integrated via Exolaunch, the satellites lifted off on July 7, 2026, aboard the Transporter-17 rideshare mission with SpaceX from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California. 

In June 2026, ICEYE announced that CTI Aeroespacial, a joint venture between the Portuguese Air Force and CEiiA, signed a contract to procure two additional synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite systems to be operated by the Portuguese Air Force (Força Aérea Portuguesa, FAP).

 In June, the company also announced the appointment of Eric Jensen as global Chief Operating Officer, and that Business Finland, Finland’s public innovation agency, had approved a €28.3 million continuation grant, the final tranche of a previously announced major R&D investment decision.

In May 2026, the company officially handed over MikroSAR, Poland’s sovereign radar satellite reconnaissance system, to the Polish Armed Forces less than 12 months after contract signing.

In March 2026, ICEYE launched and deployed six new 25 cm resolution SAR satellites into orbit. The satellites were integrated by Exolaunch and successfully launched on March 30, 2026, aboard SpaceX’s Transporter-16 rideshare mission from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, USA.

ICEYE operates globally with over 1,000 employees.

The Scaleup Europe Fund’s strategy included partnering with Europe’s most promising technology companies in sectors spanning artificial intelligence, quantum computing, dual-use technologies, clean energy, space technology, BioTech and medical innovation. 

The fund was established to help address Europe’s long-standing growth capital gap by supporting companies developing strategically important technologies and enabling them to scale globally while remaining anchored in Europe.

“Our first investment reflects exactly what the Scaleup Europe Fund was created to support: ambitious European founders building globally competitive companies in strategically important technologies. ICEYE has already established itself as a category leader, and we’re excited to partner with Rafał and the team as they continue scaling from Europe to the world,” commented Victor Englesson, Partner at EQT and co-Head of the Scaleup Europe Fund.

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