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Fundraising intelligence, founder interviews and the events that actually move the ecosystem.
Agenda – next 30 days
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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 Costantini
Composites Are About High Performance. So Are Events.
A startup event strategy needs the same discipline. Spend enough time around (deep-tech) startups and you start noticing a familiar pattern. The same founders appear at…
The 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
Wealthcome
Technology at the service of wealth advisory professionals
Latest
Benford raises €5M pre-seed to run audits, not sell audit software
Three Palantir, Goldman Sachs and One Peak alumni raised €5M from firstminute capital and fintech's best-known founders to run statutory audits end-to-end, not sell software to auditors.
StandardX raises £10M seed to build a London isotope refinery
Two nuclear engineers are building a refinery for the isotopes cancer care and fusion cannot buy today. StandardX raised £10M from Vsquared, East X and firstminute to start in London.
50skills raises €5.3M to put AI agents to work in HR
Four co-leads back Reykjavík's 50skills with €5.3M to scale an operating system where AI agents run HR workflows for Icelandair, Domino's and the City of Reykjavík.
Basecamp Research raises $140M Series C for AI-designed medicines
S32 leads a $140M Series C in London's Basecamp Research, with Nvidia and Anthropic's fund aboard, to turn a 30-country biodiversity data network into AI-designed medicines.
Tekever raises $580M Series D at a $6.4B valuation
UC Investments and Baillie Gifford co-lead a $580M first close valuing Tekever at $6.4B. The Lisbon drone maker proved its model over Ukraine; now pension capital goes direct into European…
Latest funding
| Company | Round | Lead | Sector | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wealthcome Fintech · France | Series B | Breega | Fintech | €15M |
| Reecall Unclassified · France | Founders Future | Unclassified | €3.5M | |
| Reply Next Unclassified · Spain | Pre-seed | 4Founders Capital | Unclassified | €400K |
| OWOW Venture Studio Unclassified · Netherlands | Undisclosed family offices and angel investors (eight backers, none named) | Unclassified | €2.7M | |
| Clastix Unclassified · Italy | Seed | CDP Venture Capital | Unclassified | €2.9M |
| Duqu Unclassified · Netherlands | Pre-seed | Curiosity VC | Unclassified | €1.5M |
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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…
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