Insights
Every story from the Sesamers desk — funding rounds, data, interviews and opinion across European tech.
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 one booth. The show…
10 things founders can do during the summer event break
The event calendar goes quiet in July and August. Deadlines don’t. This article assumes you’re an early stage founder, pre-seed or seed at most, without a marketing team. You are…
Stéphane Paillard
5 min
How Re.Snack Turns Trade Shows Into Revenue
The founders behind NUAGE, the sugar-free cotton candy rated Nutri-Score A, share their playbook for event strategy, budget, and pipeline ROI. If you’ve walked the aisles of a French food…
Ben Costantini
7 min
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 the comments asked how…
Best Startup Events in the Second Half of 2026: The Complete Calendar
The second half of 2026 is packed. Between July and December, there are more than 30 confirmed events worth your time across Europe, the US, and the Middle East, covering…
Belfast’s Cloudsmith Raises $72M Series C to Secure the AI-Era Software Supply Chain
Belfast’s Cloudsmith has raised $72M Series C led by TCV, with Insight Partners participating, to expand its artifact management platform and secure the AI-era software supply chain.
Berlin’s VREY Raises €3.3M Seed to Unlock Rooftop Solar for Multi-Family Buildings
Berlin’s VREY has raised €3.3M seed led by Rubio Impact Ventures to roll out rooftop solar software for Germany’s multi-family buildings.
TheStorage raises €3.6M seed to scale sand-based thermal energy storage
Finland's TheStorage has raised a €3.6M seed round led by Voima Ventures, with Superhero Capital, 2C Ventures and Momentum Partners, to commercialise its sand-in-motion thermal energy storage for industrial heat.…
Decade Energy Secures €22M to Electrify European Logistics Depots at Scale
Paris-based Decade Energy has secured €22 million - including €16M in project finance from Eiffel Investment Group and venture equity from SET Ventures - to deploy 100MW of BESS infrastructure…
UNIVITY Closes €27M Series A to Build Sovereign VLEO Space Connectivity for Telecom Operators
Paris-based spacetech startup UNIVITY has closed a €27 million Series A led by Blast and backed by Bpifrance to fund its VLEO 5G satellite demonstrators and build sovereign European space…