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
Finmid
Embedded finance and asset-finance infrastructure for platforms, with expansion into mobility and e-commerce
Latest
Hadrian raises $40M Series B for agentic offensive security
Forgepoint Capital International and SmartFin co-lead a $40M Series B for Amsterdam's Hadrian, whose AI agents emulate attackers around the clock, taking total funding to $65M.
Procuros raises €20M Series A for autonomous B2B trade
Hamburg's Procuros moves more than €3bn in annualised order volume for 300+ retailers and suppliers. Its €20M Series A, led by XAnge, bets that AI agents need trade rails before…
Spiko raises $90M Series B led by NEA for tokenised cash funds
NEA leads a $90M Series B into Paris-based Spiko, whose regulated tokenised cash funds passed $2.7bn in under two years. Europe's largest tokenised fund platform now heads for five new…
Pandektes raises €13.5M Series A for legal data infrastructure
Two years after launch, Copenhagen's Pandektes counts 500+ legal customers across three countries. Alstin Capital just led a €13.5M Series A to turn its database into Europe's legal data layer.
Fleuret AI raises €4M pre-seed to automate penetration testing
Fleuret AI raised a €4M pre-seed led by RAISE Ventures, with Stoïk, GitGuardian, Vade and Almond founders aboard, to sell continuous AI pentests at a fraction of the audit price.
Latest funding
| Company | Round | Lead | Sector | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Finmid Unclassified · Unclassified | Series A | Big Pi Ventures | Unclassified | €17M |
| Finches Unclassified · Unclassified | Pre-seed | Bayern Kapital | Unclassified | €2M |
| Sensible Biotechnologies Unclassified · United Kingdom | Series A | Oxford Science Enterprises | Unclassified | €41.9M |
| Vocca Unclassified · Unclassified | Series A | Norrsken VC | Unclassified | €17.8M |
| Cleavr Unclassified · Unclassified | Seed | Kima Ventures | Unclassified | €8M |
| Nettle Unclassified · Unclassified | Seed | Sure Valley Ventures | Unclassified | €4.3M |
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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