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
ANote Music
Marketplace for investing in music royalty catalogues
Latest
DOD Solution raises $2.1M pre-seed for GPS-free drone autonomy
Estonian-Ukrainian DOD Solution raised a $2.1M pre-seed from nine backers including Draganfly to scale AURA, its combat-deployed onboard AI for drones flying under GPS jamming.
Aptadir raises €40M seed to switch silenced genes back on
Milan's Aptadir raised a €40M seed led by 4BIO Capital – among the largest European biotech seeds we track – to push CAP1-FMR1, an RNA drug built to switch the…
Rayon raises €10M Series A to bring 3D and AI to interior design
Partech leads a €10 million Series A in Paris-based Rayon, the browser drawing tool for interior designers that has logged four million drawings. Version 4 brings 3D and agentic AI…
IPercept raises $16.5M Series A to give CNC machines a health check
A KTH spinout that clamps a sensor onto any CNC machine has raised $16.5M from Isogon Ventures and 2150 – and its customer list already reads Airbus, Bosch, Volvo. Next…
bilt.me raises $700K pre-seed to turn prompts into mobile apps
Six engineers in Tallinn hit six-figure ARR in a year, then raised $700K from Superhero Capital and the founders of Bolt and Lightyear to turn plain-language prompts into native mobile…
Latest funding
| Company | Round | Lead | Sector | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ANote Music Capital Markets Tech · Luxembourg | Seventure Partners | Capital Markets Tech | €2M | |
| Cotierra Unclassified · Switzerland | PINC (Paulig's venture arm), Carbon Removal Partners | Unclassified | €2.6M | |
| Spotable Unclassified · Belgium | Seed | – | Unclassified | €4M |
| Kyndred Unclassified · Romania | Pre-seed | Early Game Ventures | Unclassified | €500K |
| Marble Unclassified · France | Series A | Smartfin | Unclassified | €6.5M |
| Reverion Unclassified · Germany | Series B | Kembara (Mundi Ventures) | Unclassified | €154.2M |
Browse the ecosystem
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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