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Agenda – next 30 days
See the full agenda →From the backstage
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 most digital companies in the world are opening coffee shops
The AI industry runs on GPUs, APIs and Discord servers. So why is an AI insurance startup valued at $4 billion signing a lease for a…
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
Limetax
AI-powered platform consolidating Germany's tax and accounting advisory firms
Latest
Veridue raises $4M pre-seed for energy deal due diligence
Episode 1 Ventures leads a $4M pre-seed into Veridue, whose AI platform compresses due diligence on renewable energy and data centre deals from weeks to hours.
Hope Care raises €6M Series A to scale remote patient monitoring
Iberis Capital leads a €6M Series A into Hope Care, the Portuguese platform already monitoring patients across 45% of the SNS – next stops Germany and Romania.
Mistral AI raises €3B Series D led by Samsung at a €21B+ valuation
Samsung Electronics leads a €3 billion Series D in Mistral AI at a €21B+ valuation – a European equity record that puts sovereign AI on a real balance sheet.
Tickets for Good raises £3.9M to take fair ticket access global
Sheffield's Tickets for Good raised £3.9M led by NPIF II – Mercia Equity Finance to take discounted live event tickets for key workers international, after doubling revenue in 2025.
Fluencify raises $4.3M pre-seed to automate creator marketing
Six months after launch, Stockholm's Fluencify has $2M ARR, 13,000 creators and a $4.3M pre-seed led by byFounders to automate creator marketing and land in New York.
Latest funding
| Company | Round | Lead | Sector | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Limetax Accounting Automation · Germany | Pre-seed | Motive Partners | Accounting Automation | €6M |
| Tellia Agritech · France | Pre-seed | Revent | Agritech | €4.3M |
| Olenbee Embedded Finance · France | Seed | Go Capital | Embedded Finance | €6.5M |
| Outline AI · France | Seed | Founders Future | AI | €2.6M |
| sci2sci AI · Germany | Pre-seed | Heliad, IBB Ventures | AI | €1.2M |
| Ground A Counter-UAS · Germany | Pre-seed | Vsquared Ventures | Counter-UAS | €9.1M |
Browse the ecosystem
Call for startups
How to Web Spotlight 2026
Held alongside the How to Web conference in Bucharest, Spotlight is Central and Eastern Europe’s early-stage pitch competition. Entrants must be under five years…
Sirha Innovation Awards 2027
Sirha’s award recognises foodservice and hospitality innovation, judged at the show in Lyon. Laureates receive the award itself, a listing among the winners and…
EIC Transition Open 2026
Aimed at deep-tech teams in the EU, Transition Open funds the step between a validated research result and a market-ready product. Only entities that…
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