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
Latest
Bessemer Venture Partners closes $5.75B, mostly for growth
Seven in ten Bessemer deals are seed or early stage, yet 70% of its new $5.75B goes to growth. Legora's climb from Stockholm shows what that money buys in Europe.
Reply Next raises €400K pre-seed to put AI agents on Google Maps
Spain's Reply Next raises a €400K pre-seed led by 4Founders Capital to put AI agents in charge of reviews and messages for multi-location brands across Google Maps and the app…
Duqu raises €1.5M pre-seed to unlock cash stuck in unpaid invoices
Eleven months after founding, Amsterdam's Duqu has €1.5M from Curiosity VC and No Such Ventures to advance cash against unpaid B2B invoices – and a plan to license the underwriting…
Circle Games raises $25M Series A led by Tencent
Tencent leads a $25M Series A for Istanbul's Circle Games, 14 months after seed. Four founders off the Peak-Gram-Dream bench, and the third strategic-led European round this week.
Clastix raises €2.9M seed to run Europe’s Kubernetes at scale
Mistral backs its own supplier: Naples-based Clastix raises €2.9M led by CDP Venture Capital to turn six years of Kubernetes open source into Europe's infrastructure layer.
Latest funding
| Company | Round | Lead | Sector | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Granite Unclassified · Denmark | Bifrost Studios | Unclassified | €4M | |
| Humanos Unclassified · Portugal | Seed | Anthemis | Unclassified | €2.8M |
| Complaion Unclassified · Italy | Eurazeo, Italian Founders Fund (co-leads) | Unclassified | €13.5M | |
| Klang Unclassified · Sweden | Angel | Johan Lenander | Unclassified | €1.4M |
| Circle Games Unclassified · Türkiye | Series A | Tencent | Unclassified | €21.9M |
| Prevision Medicine Unclassified · Switzerland | Seed | ACE Ventures | Unclassified | €4.8M |
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Upcoming events
Call for startups
Ultra Long Duration Energy Storage Project Development Studies (Relaunch) 2026
Innovate UK and UKRI relaunched this grant competition to fund project development studies for ultra long duration electrochemical energy storage – technology built to…
Expo AgriTech — AgriTech Startup Forum 2026
Agrifood-focused founders present at the AgriTech Startup Forum, part of Expo AgriTech in Malaga. It is aimed at startups improving competitiveness in agriculture through…
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