Stéphane Paillard
Covering European fundraising, first-time fund managers, and the founders behind the rounds. Previously built event and community products across the French tech ecosystem; now runs Sesamers and hosts the Sesame Summit.
Latest from Stéphane
314 articlesAltilium Secures £18.5M from DRIVE35 to Build the UK’s First Commercial EV Battery Refinery in Plymouth
Plymouth-based Altilium has secured £18.5 million from the UK government’s DRIVE35 Scale-Up Fund to build Britain’s first commercial refinery recovering lithium, nickel and graphite…
MAECONOMY Raises €1.5M to Turn Building Materials into Tradable Circular Assets
Dutch circular-construction startup MAECONOMY has raised €1.5 million in fresh funding to scale a platform that treats building materials as auditable, financeable and tradable…
Fundraising of the Week (Week 15): European Startups Raise Over €280M Across AI, Defence and Fintech
European venture funding held up decisively this week, with more than €280 million flowing into a mix of AI-native, defence-tech, deeptech and fintech companies.…
Serve First Raises £5M Follow-On to Scale AI-Powered Customer Experience Platform
Milton Keynes-based Serve First has secured £5 million (€5.7 million) in follow-on funding to accelerate the growth of its AI-driven customer experience platform, less…
Golden Owl raises €1.4 million to advance AI-powered OSINT and anticipatory intelligence
As geopolitical instability, hybrid threats, and the proliferation of disinformation reshape the global risk landscape, the demand for sophisticated intelligence tools that can cut…
Sybol raises over €1 million to build Europe’s corporate digital identity wallet
The European Union’s eIDAS2 regulation is reshaping how organisations manage digital identity, creating a new market for enterprise-grade identity wallets that can issue, verify,…
TeiaCare raises €7 million to scale AI-powered care monitoring across Europe
Europe’s ageing population is placing unprecedented strain on residential care infrastructure, with demand for intelligent monitoring solutions accelerating as facilities struggle to balance operational…
AirHub raises €4.4 million Series A to scale drone operations software for European defence and security
Dutch drone operations startup AirHub has raised €4.4 million in Series A funding led by Keen Venture Partners to develop dedicated defence and security…
Trent AI raises $13M to bring agentic AI security to enterprise workflows
The rapid adoption of autonomous AI agents across enterprise environments has created a significant and largely unaddressed cybersecurity gap. According to Deloitte’s 2026 State…
Handhold raises €3M seed to automate B2B software sales with AI agents
The market for AI sales agents targeting B2B software companies is attracting serious capital as investor conviction grows around the displacement of traditional sales…