European startup news, funding rounds and events
Fundraising intelligence, founder interviews and the events that actually move the ecosystem.
Agenda – next 30 days
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Creative tech in Europe runs on grants. San Sebastián’s finalists prove it
Ten startups pitched at the San Sebastián Film Festival on 24 September. I went through every one of them afterward and couldn’t find a single disclosed…
Ben Costantini
AI replaced 3D printing in composites pitches
In 2019, 3D printing was the loudest thing in composites. Across that year’s JEC Composites Startup Booster applications it ran at 24.7 mentions per 10,000 words…
Ben Costantini
IFA 2026: the twenty startups who pitched, and the one who won
A company that prints implantable human tissue won a pitch competition at a consumer electronics fair. Cellbricks Therapeutics took the IFA Pitch Battle 2026 on the…
Ben CostantiniThe Selected podcast
Tips & advice
The empty startup area: why tradeshows fail at startup sales
Picture this. A strategy director at a major exhibition calls with six weeks to go before the show. The brand new startup area has sold exactly…
Ben Costantini
Why events are lying about their metrics
This week I read about a hackathon claiming 6,000 attendees over a single weekend. The venues hosting it can’t accommodate more than 1,000 people. Nobody in…
Ben Costantini
The hidden costs of events: Why founders get the math wrong
Most startup founders treat events like they’re going travelling: count the days, block the calendar, done. But event tickets don’t come cheap, and the actual affair…
Ben CostantiniSpotlight
OllyGarden
Helps teams find and fix bad telemetry before it reaches their observability platform.
Latest
Finmid raises €17M to take embedded lending into vehicles
finmid adds €17M from Big Pi Ventures and Mainset and takes embedded lending beyond cash advances: vehicle finance for Bolt fleets, balance-sheet loans for Skroutz merchants.
Noah raises $38M seed to move cross-border payments onto stablecoins
London's Noah closed its seed at $38M from Endeit, FJ Labs, LocalGlobe and Felix Capital. Revenue is up 538% this year; the bet is enterprises settling cross-border payments on stablecoin…
Wiremind raises €35M in a first round after 12 years bootstrapped
Twelve profitable years with no outside money, then €35M in one round: Wiremind of Paris opens its capital to IronWave, Bpifrance and Seaya to go global on AI pricing.
RougeTx raises $58M Series A for first HHT treatment
A Leiden University Medical Center spin-off lands one of the season's biggest European biotech launches: $58M from a Dutch, Italian and French syndicate to give HHT patients a first approved…
Vocca raises $20M Series A for its AI medical receptionist
Fourteen months in, Vocca's AI receptionist answers a million patient calls a month across 1,500 practices. Norrsken VC just led a $20M Series A to take it deeper into the…
Latest funding
| Company | Round | Lead | Sector | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| OllyGarden Unclassified · Germany | Next Frontier Capital, Grand Ventures, ACTAI Ventures | Unclassified | €3.6M | |
| IMMIX Unclassified · United Kingdom | – | Unclassified | €3.1M | |
| NeoFleet Capital Unclassified · Cyprus | Pre-seed | Mark Loughran and other private investors | Unclassified | €3.5M |
| Verso Unclassified · France | Seed | Angular Ventures | Unclassified | €5.4M |
| Golbriak Space Unclassified · Estonia | Seed | Join Capital, PhotonVentures | Unclassified | €4M |
| TODAY Unclassified · Denmark | Seed | High-Tech Gründerfonds, Insurtech Gateway | Unclassified | €2.8M |
Browse the ecosystem
Call for startups
Startup Nights — Pitching Competition 2026
Swiss-headquartered companies founded in 2018 or later, with a minimum viable product and initial funding already secured, can apply to pitch at Startup Nights…
Pharmapack Awards 2027
Pharma packaging and drug-delivery teams are the audience for this award, judged and showcased at Pharmapack Europe in Paris. A Rising Star category exists…
Global Industrie — Concours des Startups 2027
Global Industrie’s startup competition in Lyon looks for mature, deployable industrial solutions across performance, digitalisation, decarbonisation and the energy transition, which rules out concept-stage…
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