The AI fintech Vickii has been acquired by the finanzen.net Group, a German financial portal and parent company of the neo-broker finanzen.net ZERO. 

Vickii began as a student project in Münster. At just 20 years old, Jai Bheeman, Lukas Söllner, and Alexander Brils founded the fintech while still at university, with the ambition to rethink investing for a digital generation. From the outset, the idea was clear: investing must be intuitive, easy to understand and personalised – and artificial intelligence is the key to scaling this experience.

Over time, early prototypes evolved into a powerful AI engine that simplifies complex market data and supports better investment decisions. Vickii grew to a high-five-figure user base and raised more than €2 million from investors, laying the foundation for a successful exit.

 With this acquisition, Vickii’s technology and team will scale their impact within a European platform reaching millions of users.

“When we founded Vickii, our mission was to make investing clearer and easier for everyone. With the finanzen.net Group, we can now take this mission onto a much bigger stage,” says Jai Bheeman, CTO of Vickii.

The integration provides an ideal environment to accelerate this vision: access to millions of users, an execution-driven business model rather than subscriptions or advertising, and a flexible setup that enables AI features to be brought to market faster, more data-driven and effectively.

“We never doubted our vision – this acquisition shows that we were right,” adds Alexander Brils, CPO of Vickii. 

“A (neo)broker had long been the logical exit route. That the right opportunity has emerged now was not something we could have predicted. With finanzen.net ZERO, we can realise our ideas faster and at greater scale, in an excellent environment.”

With the acquisition of Vickii, the finanzen.net Group is deliberately strengthening its expertise in user-centric, AI-powered financial content and brokerage.

The existing technologies and competencies will be gradually integrated into the finanzen.net portal and the group’s own broker, finanzen.net ZERO.

The aim is to offer investors clearer support for decision-making throughout the entire user journey – from information and analysis to concrete investment decisions.

“AI, when used pragmatically, can create significant value for users. We want to provide our readers with more clearly structured information and give our investors a better orientation. The Vickii team strengthens us precisely in this user-focused application of artificial intelligence,” says Muhamad Chahrour, CEO of the finanzen.net Group.

The Vickii founders will continue to contribute their expertise to the development and advancement of AI-supported products and content within the finanzen.net Group. 

The parties have agreed not to disclose the financial details of the transaction.

Lead image: Jai Bheeman, Lukas Söllner, Alexander Brils. Photo: uncredited.

Dragonfly AI, a London-based innovator in AI-powered creative testing, has announced a €5.7 million (£5 million) investment to further advance its neuroscience-led technology, which takes a “fundamentally different approach to AI“.

The round was led by 24Haymarket, with participation from Guinness Ventures and Foresight. Dragonfly AI is also appointing Fiona Dent to its board of directors.

Steve King, CEO at Dragonfly AI, says:“This investment in Dragonfly AI is a strong endorsement of our science-led approach and performance-tested technology, already trusted by some of the world’s biggest FMCG brands. We help more than 70 global brands ensure their advertising is noticed and remembered, and this funding allows us to deepen our impact for customers, improve the effectiveness of their spend, and bring our algorithms directly into the tools and workflows they use every day.”

In the context of recent European funding activity in 2025 and 2026, Dragonfly AI’s round sits towards the upper end of disclosed investments in AI-driven creative and adjacent technology tools.

Other UK-based activity in the wider AI applications space includes Dragonfly (not to be confused with today’s Dragonfly AI), a London startup that raised €3 million at pre-Seed stage to develop AI software decision-making tools, and Wonder, which secured €2.6 million to build an AI-powered creative studio focused on generative visual content.

Beyond the UK, Italy-based Covision Media raised €5 million to scale its AI-enabled 3D content and product visualisation technology, illustrating capital flow into adjacent content-technology verticals.

Taken together, these rounds account for approximately €10.6 million in disclosed funding, indicating sustained but measured investment across European AI tools spanning creative testing, content generation and enterprise decision-making.

Within this landscape, Dragonfly AI’s UK-based raise stands out both for its size and its specific focus on neuroscience-led creative effectiveness, reinforcing the UK’s continued prominence in applied AI investment during this period.

Tom Haywood, partner at 24Haymarket, adds: “Dragonfly AI has built an exceptionally easy-to-use, yet highly capable platform, underpinned by a world-class algorithm developed at Queen Mary University of London, and is already trusted by an impressive roster of clients. The business continued to grow materially during our investment process, reinforcing our conviction that Dragonfly AI has the foundations to scale into a category-defining business.”

Founded in 2018, Dragonfly AI is a creative testing solution designed to maximise creative effectiveness. Dragonfly AI reportedly predicts how real people will see, feel, and remember creative content before it goes live. The platform helps brands optimise creative performance across digital, in-store, and omnichannel environments, combining insight across attention, emotion and memory.

By operating without reliance on training data, Dragonfly AI says their technology sidesteps the bias inherent in many generative AI models, offering a comprehensive breakdown of how creative assets will perform in real life.

As a result, the company’s platform has been adopted across multiple sectors by global brands, including Nestlé, PepsiCo, Unilever, Coca-Cola and L’Oréal, while integrating into platforms such as CreativeX.

The biological algorithm that underpins the technology was developed in the neuroscience department at Queen Mary University of London. One of its fellows, Hamit Soyel, continues in the role of chief scientist and inventor at Dragonfly AI.

Today’s investment investment will accelerate Dragonfly AI’s strategic priorities, including the rollout of new Emotion & Memory metrics, expanded video analysis across platforms, growth of Dragonfly Connect for enterprise integrations, expansion of US sales and customer success teams, and continued investment in research and product innovation.

The post Nestlé, PepsiCo and L’Oréal among brands using Dragonfly AI as it raises €5.7 million for predictive AI appeared first on EU-Startups.

Lund-based MedVasc has raised €2.2 million through subscriptions exclusively from existing shareholders, as well as completing production and testing activities for their anesthesia catheter Solutio, advancing toward FDA clearance.

This follows May 2025’s €917k financing round, as covered by EU-Startups.

”The strong participation from current owners demonstrates continued confidence in MedVasc’s strategy, execution capability, and long-term value creation. The board and management view this support as a clear validation of the company’s direction and its ongoing development efforts,” says Cathrin Johansson, CEO of MedVasc.

Analysis of 2025–2026 shows continued funding activity across European MedTech and adjacent HealthTech segments, providing context for MedVasc’s shareholder-backed raise.

Larger later-stage rounds include ProVerum (Ireland), which secured €68.6 million to advance a minimally invasive urology treatment, and SamanTree Medical (Belgium), which received €20 million from the European Investment Bank to support real-time surgical imaging technology.

Mid-range rounds include ShanX Medtech (Netherlands), which raised a combined €24 million to address antimicrobial resistance, and PIUR IMAGING (Austria), which secured €5.6 million to scale its 3D ultrasound imaging platform.

At the earlier stage, Ahead Health (Switzerland) raised €5.1 million for preventive healthcare services, and Doctor.One (Poland) raised €4 million to expand its chronic care model.

Together, these rounds represent approximately €130 million in disclosed funding flowing through European MedTech and HealthTech during this period. Against this backdrop, MedVasc’s financing is modest in size but consistent with early-stage European medical device companies focused on completing production, validation, and regulatory milestones ahead of commercial expansion.

MedVasc AB was founded in 2013 by Michael Åkesson; a senior consultant of interventional radiology with experience of over twenty years with catheter based treatments and diagnosis. Previously he was the Head of the Division of Endovascular Surgery at the Vascular Department, University Hospital SUS Malmö. He now works as a senior consultant at the Scandinavian Venous Centre, Malmö.

He is the main owner of MedVASC AB and the inventor behind Solutio.

The company has developed and patented the medical device Solutio, designed to improve the anaesthetic procedure when treating varicose veins.

Solutio is designed to enable safe and precise local anesthesia during minimally invasive vascular procedures, e.g. varicose veins, (compatible with thermal ablation treatment fibers), offering a new level of control and patient comfort for clinicians treating chronic venous disorders.

It was developed to provide painless and precise local anesthesia during thermal treatment of venous insufficiency. The anesthesia catheter is compatible with so-called gold standard treatment fibers (RF/Laser) worldwide.

With the financing secured, MedVasc is well positioned to accelerate the remaining key activities required for FDA clearance of Solutio for the U.S. market. Preparations are progressing according to plan, and market approval is expected during autumn 2026.

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Green concrete startup Carbonaide has raised €3.7 million to transform the concrete industry through carbon dioxide curing and permanent CO₂ storage. Carbonaide’s technology has been in commercial production since 2024.

In 2025, Carbonaide entered into agreements with two Finnish companies, concrete producer Lakan Betoni and concrete element manufacturer Lipa-Betoni, to install its technology in their factories.  Production with the Carbonaide systems begins in both facilities in early 2026. 

In January 2026, Carbonaide also sold the first certified carbon credits created through its mineralisation.

The round was led by Carbonaide’s existing owners, Vantaan Energia, Redstone, and Ihantola Invest, and joined by a group of private investment companies and investors, including Zero Carbon Future Group, Product Ecology Holding B.V., Helkama Kiinteistöt, and Ikorni Invest.

“With a lifetime focus on decarbonising construction, I am very excited by Carbonaide’s potential. Now that the technology is ready to scale, we are thrilled to support the growth of the company and also to partner with Carbonaide to supply carbon data for low-carbon products,” says Panu Pasanen, CEO of One Click LCA and investor through Zero Carbon Future Group.

The new funding will support Carbonaide’s international expansion and boost R&D activity towards new applications, making carbon-negative concrete profitable.

The funding will be used to drive progress across three core areas:

• Expansion of customer acquisition by strengthening the company’s global sales organisation and marketing efforts.
• Further development of the Carbonaide Service Platform – a cloud-based software platform for managing CO₂ flow, carbon measurements and carbon credit issuance that will serve as the backbone of our solution.
• Accelerated R&D beyond precast concrete – fast-tracking the development of Carbonaide’s roadmap extension, starting with next-generation carbon dioxide curing for concrete element production. This will pave the way for applications in ready-mix and other concrete types.
  

“With this momentum, we are well-positioned to scale our technology, expand our CO₂ partner network, and continue turning concrete factories into carbon sinks,” says Tapio Vehmas, CEO of Carbonaide.

“There is clear demand in the construction industry for solutions that reduce emissions, showing that the industry is turning towards a low-carbon built environment.”

When Europe’s highest-potential startups and largest corporates collaborate, we see innovative technologies fast-tracked into game-changing products and services. 

The European Innovation Council (EIC) is bridging the innovation and collaboration gap between Europe’s cutting-edge startups and established multinational corporations with the Corporate Partnership Programme (CPP). Since 2017, the EIC CPP has organised 91 Corporate and Multi-Corporate Discovery Days, facilitating 100+ successful business deals between startups and corporates like Galp, BMW, L’Oreal, Telefonica, and Procter & Gamble. Their most recent report, “Unlocking Innovation through Corporate-Startup Collaboration” offers a detailed overview of EIC CPP activities and a roadmap for effective corporate-startup partnerships.

In this article, we speak with Lieven Deketele, Director of Open Innovation at Procter & Gamble (P&G), a long-standing partner of the European Innovation Council. P&G has been engaged in the EIC Corporate Partnership Programme since 2018 and 2019, and more recently joined the EIC Multi-Corporate Discovery Day in Brussels in October 2025, alongside other leading corporates, as well as the Impact Circle activity in July 2025. With decades of experience in open innovation through its well-known ‘Connect + Develop’ programme, P&G works closely with external partners to drive sustainable, consumer-focused innovation at scale.

In the interview, Lieven shares why access to EIC-funded innovators matters for large corporates, how the EIC Corporate Partnership Programme format enabled deeper technical conversations, and what concrete outcomes emerged from the activities. He also offers practical advice for other corporates considering joining the next EIC Multi-Corporate Day at Impact Circle 2026.

Welcome, Lieven! Thank you for joining us. Let’s first talk about P&G’s long history of collaborating with startups and innovators. How does this fit into your company’s broader strategy?

Innovation is the lifeblood of Procter & Gamble. For over 180 years, our goal has been to serve consumers around the world with brands, products and services that make their lives a little better every day. To continue achieving this in a rapidly changing world, we recognise that we can’t create all the necessary innovations on our own. This understanding is the foundation of our ‘Connect + Develop’ programme, which is a core pillar of our innovation strategy. We aim to enable value-creation through a broader ecosystem that combines P&G’s deep consumer understanding, global scale, and R&D capabilities with the agility, novel technology, and unique perspectives of our partners. Through collaboration, we create a powerful combination that leverages an innovation ecosystem. By working with startups and innovators, we can accelerate innovation, solve complex consumer challenges in new ways, and access breakthrough technologies that align with our mission of creating irresistibly superior and sustainable products and experiences for our consumers.

From your perspective, what is the biggest benefit when partnering with EU-funded innovators?

The single biggest benefit is accessing a curated and de-risked pipeline of high-potential innovations. The European Innovation Council (EIC) serves as a powerful filter and an incredible catalyst for innovation. The innovators we meet through the EIC do not merely present concepts in slide decks; they are companies that have already undergone a rigorous vetting and selection process. Knowing that an innovator has secured EIC funding gives us confidence in their technological foundation, the capability of their team, and their potential for scaling. The EIC’s diligence saves us valuable time and allows us to focus our efforts on assessing the strategic fit and co-creation potential. 

Furthermore, the EIC’s Business Acceleration Services ensure that these startups are often more ‘collaboration-ready,’ as they understand the dynamics of working with a large corporate partner. It provides a direct and trusted pathway to some of the most promising deep-tech and breakthrough science emerging across Europe. We hope to see more startups that have gone through this process.

You joined the EIC’s Multi-Corporate Day at Impact Circle 2025. What motivated P&G to take part?

Our motivation was threefold. First, the activity was highly strategic and targeted. The EIC worked with us and the other corporates beforehand to understand our specific innovation needs, such as AI-enhanced materials, sustainable packaging solutions, and data-driven consumer insights. This ensured that the startups present were directly relevant to our challenges. 

Second, the efficiency of the format is unparalleled and truly worldclass, banking on the experience and expertise of Tomorrowland and Love Tomorrow. In just a couple of days, we were able to engage in meaningful, deep-dive conversations with a significant number of pre-vetted innovators. This represents a tremendous acceleration compared to other scouting processes. 

Finally, the multi-corporate aspect is a key differentiator. Addressing systemic challenges like sustainability or supply chain resilience is bigger than any single company. Collaborating alongside respected peers like AB INBEV and Coca Cola creates a unique gravity that attracts the highest-quality startups. It fosters a pre-competitive environment where we can collectively advance the innovation ecosystem, which is a win for everyone involved – corporates, startups, and ultimately, European consumers.

How did the Impact Circle format help your team explore new solutions or identify potential collaborations with the startups the EIC brought into the room?

The Impact Circle format was instrumental. It moves beyond the traditional, superficial pitch and allows for genuine, substantive dialogue. The structure of dedicated, focused sessions enabled our cross-functional team comprised of experts from R&D, Packaging, Supply Chain, Engineering and other expert functions to engage directly with the startups’ founders and technical leads. This direct interaction is critical; it allows us to quickly get past the ‘what’ and dive deep into the ‘how.’ Our experts could ask detailed technical questions, explore the scalability of their solutions, and collaboratively brainstorm potential use cases within the P&G environment. For example, in a session with a materials science startup, our packaging scientist and a product formulation expert could simultaneously assess a technology and its integration feasibility. This immediate, multi-faceted feedback loop is incredibly effective for rapidly identifying the most promising opportunities for collaboration.

P&G also participated in the EIC Multi-Corporate Day in Brussels in October 2025 alongside other leading corporates. What were the main takeaways from that activity, and how did the process and results differ from your experience at Impact Circle?

Both events were highly valuable and complementary. Their success was rooted in months of preparation, where we engaged internally to distill our key needs and opportunities, allowing the EIC to curate relevant startups. 

Impact Circle is a unique platform for in-depth conversations among startups, corporates, and academics. Expertly organized in partnership with the EIC, it was designed to address the strategic needs shared by corporates. The effective, multi-day format – combining hotel workshops with matchmaking at the festival site – allowed us to focus on specific challenges while drawing inspiration from new possibilities. This event has already led to the initiation of multiple pilots, which we hope will result in significant breakthroughs.

The Brussels event, in contrast, provided a more focused dynamic. Hosting it at our own facilities, we benefited from having many of our technical experts join directly. This allowed us to conduct detailed technical deep dives to validate specific solutions against our core business needs.

What were the most valuable insights or outcomes from the EIC Corporate Partnership Programme activities, whether in terms of partnerships, discoveries, or internal learnings?

The activity under the EIC Corporate Partnership Programme has been highly productive on all three fronts. In terms of partnerships, we have initiated follow-up conversations with several innovators to explore pilot projects. For example, we are looking at promising technologies to support our sustainability goals, like recyclable packaging solutions or upcycled, multifunctional ingredients. We also see great potential in leveraging AI to enhance manufacturing efficiency.

In terms of discoveries,  the programme provides a fantastic real-time snapshot of the innovation landscape across multiple thematic areas and cohorts. It has been insightful to see the potential of technologies in areas like AI-driven formulation and advanced biodiversity monitoring.

Finally, the EIC Corporate Partnership Programme energises our organisation. It reinforces the value of our open innovation model and exposes our teams to new ways of thinking. Seeing the passion and ingenuity of these entrepreneurs firsthand is incredibly inspiring and serves as a catalyst for our own internal innovation culture.

For other corporates considering joining the next edition of the EIC MCDD at Impact Circle in July 2026, what advice or encouragement would you give?

My advice is simple: do it. The value proposition is exceptionally strong. But to maximise that value, I would offer two pieces of advice. 

First, come prepared and engage early. Be very clear and specific about the business and technology challenges you are trying to solve. The more focused you are in your problem statements, the better the EIC can be at matchmaking, ensuring your time is spent with the most relevant innovator. 

Second, bring the right team. Don’t just send only innovation scouts; bring technical experts, business leaders, and decision-makers who can truly assess the potential of a technology and champion a partnership internally. Their direct participation is key to moving from a conversation to a collaboration.

How does P&G envision deepening its engagement with the EIC Corporate Partnership Programme to drive strategic innovation outcomes over the longer term?

We view this as a continuous opportunity to present our strategic innovation challenges to the EIC, aligned with our mission to deliver irresistibly superior and sustainable products that create value. To accelerate value creation, we aim to establish clearer, faster pathways for our business units to engage directly with innovators, including startups and scaleups. Additionally, we are deepening our collaboration with non-competing corporate peers on shared challenges – whether in consumer understanding, sustainable materials, or automation. By partnering across the entire European innovation ecosystem, we can collectively create greater value for all stakeholders.

For more information, please visit the European Innovation Council Corporate Partnership Programme website and check the open application for corporations.

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The former CEO of bankrupt battery maker Northvolt said it was “emotionally tough" raising funds for his new venture, after the demise  of the Swedish battery maker, which collapsed with debts of $5.8bn.

Peter Carlsson, the co-founder and former CEO of Northvolt, launched a new startup last year that leverages AI to help the manufacturing process just months after Northvolt, which raised billions of dollars in equity and debt, collapsed.

Carlsson's new venture, called Aris Machina, has attracted investment from angels along with investors such as Earlybird and Village Global, according to Aris Machina.

Speaking about the process of raising money after the collapse of Northvolt, Carlsson said: “That was not easy at all. You felt incredibly guilty towards the people who lost a lot of money. It is important to recognise that the Northvolt journey was not a VC journey. We built Northvolt first with industrial investments and then later on with big funds like Goldman Sachs. Emotionally, it was tough.”

Carlsson was speaking at the GoWest VC conference in Gothenburg, along with Siddharth Khullar, who launched Aris Machina with Carlsson and is its CEO. Khullar previously headed up Northvolt's AI offering. Carlsson also said there was a “big curiosity” about Aris Machina, in which he owns a stake of between 25 and 50 per cent in, when he began selling it into the market.

Carlsson said: “Overall, I think there has been a pretty big curiosity and interest in what we are doing.” Carlsson said many potential Aris Machina customers know that AI is going to disrupt the way they are working, but don’t know how.

Khullar said: “In my experience, both the investor conversations and customer conversations have been incredibly toned in the way that ‘tell us everything you learned’.” 

Speaking about Nortvolt, Carlsson said: “It’s been a very tough year, I think incredibly challenging.  As you’ve been 24/7 working on building this company that you dedicated your entire effort.” Carlsson also said that if Norhvolt had been able use the operating system developed by Aris Machina, it would have helped the battery maker.

Also speaking at the conference was Michiel Scheffer, president of the board, European Innovation Council, the EU body for identifying funding, and scaling disruptive tech across the bloc.

Last year, the EU unveiled its €5bn ScaleUp Europe Fund designed to address the long-term issue of the shortage of late-stage growth capital across the EU.

Speaking of the fund, Scheffer said it had €3bn committed from private investors. But he called out the absence of investment from Germany and France. He said: "It’s still very much a Nordic affair, if you take the Netherlands as a Nordic country as well." He said the first investment from the fund should take place in the summer of this year.

Scheffer also said he was surprised by Ursula von der Leyen officially announcing the launch of Eu Inc at Davos last week.

He added: "I was at Davos last week and was surprised Ursula von der Leyen took the most radical position possible on the 28th regime, the 28th regime as a regulation  and not as a directive.”

Photo: Stockholm School of Economics

Sokin, a British business payments company, has secured a €83 million ($100 million) long-term debt facility from Oxford Finance LLC to accelerate their expansion across North America, Asia, the Middle East, and South America, and fast-track the acquisition of further regional licenses, banking partnerships, and global infrastructure scaling.

Additionally, investments will fund the development and launch of new products, including embedded payments capabilities.

“This capital positions us to own embedded payments as the infrastructure layer,” says Vroon Modgill, CEO and founder of Sokin. “Companies need payments integrated into workflows, not merely added on. They seek fewer vendors and fewer bottlenecks. The companies poised for growth are those that offer a full-stack payments and treasury operating system. This is what we’re building, and we’re grateful to have Oxford as a partner to help us realise this vision.”

Across 2025 and early 2026, EU-Startups coverage points to continued but more selective capital allocation into European payments and FinTech infrastructure, providing context for Sokin’s debt facility.

In the B2B payments space, Germany-based Mondu secured a €100 million debt facility from J.P. Morgan Payments to support its European expansion. At an earlier stage, Amsterdam-based Klearly raised €12 million in a Series A round to develop in-person payment infrastructure for restaurants and hospitality operators, while Madrid-based Devengo closed a €2 million pre-Series A to build account-to-account and instant payment infrastructure aligned with the EU’s Instant Payments Regulation.

Taken together, these rounds amount to approximately €114 million in disclosed funding flowing into the European payments and payments-adjacent infrastructure sector in 2025–2026.

The mix of large debt facilities alongside smaller equity rounds reflects a bifurcated market, where capital is concentrated in proven B2B payments platforms while more targeted investments continue to back niche and regulatory-driven payment technologies across Europe.

“This facility strengthens our balance sheet and lowers our borrowing costs, helping ensure we can continue to deliver high-quality, cost-effective solutions to our customers,” adds Tom Steer, CFO at Sokin. “We’re delighted to partner with the Oxford team and look forward to building a long-term strategic partnership.”

Sokin was founded in 2019 with a vision to remove borders, barriers and burdens associated with international payments. Today it enables global businesses to send and exchange more than 70 currencies and hold balances in 26 currencies with its multi-currency IBAN and local currency accounts — all through one platform that streamlines cross-border accounts payable, receivable and treasury operations.

The company offers end-to-end payment solutions directly to business clients and enables other organisations to offer Sokin’s payment infrastructure to their own customers through embedded finance solutions.

Sokin supports businesses across a wide range of verticals, from freight and logistics through to Premier League football clubs.

“Oxford Finance provides structured growth capital to technology companies across growth stages, backing companies with strong market positions and clear paths to value creation,” said Austin Szafranski, Executive Director at Oxford Finance. “Sokin’s platform, leadership team, and international footprint gives us confidence in its ability to execute as demand for integrated payments solutions continues to expand. We’re excited to partner with the Sokin leadership team and support their continued global expansion.”

Today’s deal comes amid a flight to quality in the sector. The number of FinTech deals fell 23% in 2025 as investors concentrated capital on companies with proven business models, according to Crunchbase.

Sokin achieved 100% YoY revenue growth while maintaining profitability.

The additional capital follows shortly on from Sokin’s €42.9 million Series B in December 2025 led by Prysm Capital, and their €14.4 million funding in January 2025.

The post After raising nearly €60 million in 2025, London’s Sokin bags additional €83 million for its payments platform appeared first on EU-Startups.

seed+speed Ventures, the Berlin-based early-stage fund led by Carsten Maschmeyer and Alexander Kölpin, has closed its fundraising at €90 million. 

The original planned target size for this third fund was €30  million. With investor approval, the hard cap was increased twice. 

seed+speed III will invest in European B2B and enterprise software companies at the pre-seed and seed stages, with initial ticket sizes ranging from €500,000 to €1.5 million. For each startup, the fund can provide several million euros in follow-on capital.  With the new fund, seed+speed Ventures aims to focus on the secure rollout and use of AI in everyday business operations — from security, data protection, and governance to quality, cost control, and measurable productivity. 

The investor base includes institutional investors such as banks and foundations, media groups, family offices, industrial holdings,  professionals from the legal and tax sectors, real estate entrepreneurs, and high-net-worth individuals. 

Carsten Maschmeyer, Managing Partner at seed+speed Ventures, contends that “If Europe wants to compete in the global AI race, we urgently need to drive innovation.  We firmly believe in AI from Europe.”

“There are strong, innovative founders here with an inventor’s mindset and world-class technology.

What is often missing, unfortunately, is the power to build large companies from it, and that’s where add value. We’re especially proud that several successful founders from our first two seed+speed funds have since joined us as investors following their exits. That is a strong signal of trust.”

According to Alexander Kölpin, Managing Partner of seed+speed Ventures, the question is no longer whether companies will use AI, but how they use it to remain competitive. 

“We invest in Pre-Seed and Seed teams that build AI as a core technology,  as well as in companies that provide tools to use AI safely and effectively. 

With €90  million, we have created a strong early-stage vehicle for enterprise AI in Europe. We  invest deliberately at the earliest stages and back founders with follow-on fundraising,  go-to-market execution, and sales-led scaling, so European technology becomes solutions that set international standards.” 

Fundraising for seed+speed III began in summer 2024. For the first time, the new fund is open to European startups outside the DACH region. 

Since then, the investment team has already invested in 13 startups, including: 

• Orq.ai, based in Amsterdam (Netherlands), is a Generative AI  collaboration/LLMOps platform that helps teams develop, test, deploy, and monitor AI agents securely in production.

• RIIICO, based in Düsseldorf (Germany), is an AI-based software platform that helps industrial companies create a digital 3D model of their existing factories,  enabling them to plan and execute factory expansions, new production lines,  and other conversion projects four times faster and more flexibly than before.  Customers already include well-known automotive manufacturers.

• Optimuse, based in Vienna (Austria), is an AI platform for building engineering,  retrofit projects, and operations. It shows planners of new and existing buildings early on which technical options reduce costs and emissions the most.

• Eleven Dynamics, based in Solothurn (Switzerland), provides automated inline metrology and quality assurance for manufacturing, helping companies reduce cycle times while improving quality. Customers include BMW, Audi, and Sauber  Motorsport.

Stockholm-based Funnel, the marketing intelligence platform, has secured an $80 million debt facility from HSBC Innovation Banking and Hercules Capital. The financing includes a revolving credit facility from HSBC Innovation Banking and a junior term loan from Hercules Capital, bringing together two lenders focused on supporting growth-stage technology companies.

Founded in 2014 by Fredrik Skantze and Per Made, Funnel provides a marketing intelligence platform used by global brands such as Adidas and Sony, as well as marketing agencies including Publicis and Havas. The platform enables organisations to collect, structure, visualise, and analyse data from more than 600 marketing platforms.

As part of its transition toward an AI-first platform, Funnel is developing advanced agentic measurement capabilities. The company recently launched Data Chat, a conversational analytics feature that allows users to interact with marketing data using natural language.

Commenting on the funding, Funnel CEO Fredrik Skantze said the facility reflects the company’s financial maturity and will help accelerate AI development and expand analytics capabilities for marketers.

The new facility refinances a previous $58 million debt arrangement and provides additional capital to support product development, international expansion, and progress toward profitability, as well as operational efficiency improvements as the platform scales.

Nomagic, a Warsaw-based warehouse robotics company that applies general-purpose Physical AI to optimise warehouse operations, today announced an €8.3 million ($10 million) Series B extension to accelerate its commercial operations in the U.S.

The round round led by Cogito Capital Partners. With the newly added funding, Nomagic’s total funding now exceeds €70 million ($84 million).

Kacper Nowicki, CEO and Co-Founder of Nomagic says: “Cogito Capital’s investment is a strong validation of our vision at Nomagic to bring Physical AI into the heart of warehouse and logistics operations, where intelligent, autonomous systems can finally bridge the gap between digital optimisation and real‑world execution.”

In the broader European warehouse robotics and automation funding landscape of 2025, Nomagic’s Series B extension sits alongside several rounds in closely related segments.

Earlier in 2025, Nomagic itself raised €41.5 million to scale AI-driven robotic deployments across Europe. In adjacent infrastructure, Neuracore secured €2.5 million to develop unified robot-learning infrastructure aimed at standardising data and training pipelines for robotics teams.

Meanwhile, at the hardware and warehouse-automation layer, Filics raised €13.5 million to expand its omnidirectional pallet-handling robot platform and prepare for wider European rollout.

Taken together, these EU-Startups-reported rounds represent approximately €65–70 million of disclosed funding flowing into European robotics, physical AI, and warehouse automation during 2025.

“We’re thrilled to have a partner who not only believes in the transformative potential of our technology, but also trusts our team to shape the future of automated logistics. Their confidence empowers us to accelerate our mission and deliver scalable automation that redefines what efficiency means for the industry,” adds Kacper.

Founded in 2017, Nomagic’s deployed robots learn from a massive scale of real operational data, built over millions of tasks in 24/7 environments, that trains an adaptable Physical AI platform handling a variety of warehouse tasks.

Nomagic’s next generation VLA (visual language action) models integrate automatically into the fleet of AI powered robots, allegedly accelerating autonomy, improving efficiency, while setting the industry standard for the lowest deployment time.

Sylwester Janik, Managing Partner at Cogito Capital Partners, adds: “Nomagic is redefining what automation can achieve in warehouse and logistics environments. Their approach to Physical AI – bringing intelligence, adaptability, and real‑world autonomy into everyday operations – addresses one of the most urgent transformation needs in the industry.

“Our investment reflects the strong conviction we have in both the transformative technology and the exceptional leadership driving it. We see Nomagic not just as a category leader, but as a company poised to redefine global standards and shape the future of intelligent automation.”

The company believes that physical AI solutions are the next evolutionary step in the evolving sphere of AI, combining the computing power of AI with systems like robots and other machines to solve physical problems. A concrete example being the difficult object manipulation in warehouses.

Physical AI opens up whole new ways of using tools more efficiently, scalable and beyond what was previously possible.

With this recent investment, Nomagic will further leverage its commercial traction and technical breakthroughs achieved in 2025. This includes an acceleration of its commercial operations in the USA as well as additional resources for continuous development of VLA (visual language action) models in 2026.

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For years, Europe’s energy debate has focused on increased supply — more renewables, more grid capacity, more infrastructure. But as electrification accelerates, from heat pumps to EVs, the real challenge is shifting from how we generate power to how we use it.

Peaks and troughs in demand still force the system to overbuild, waste clean energy, and rely on fossil backup, even when renewable generation is abundant. At the same time, the technologies meant to make homes “smart” remain fragmented with lower adoption than in other parts of the world. This leaves millions of connected devices in our homes, yet very little real, automated control over when and how energy is actually consumed.

Tewke is a London-based climate-tech and smart-home company whose flagship product, Tap, replaces the traditional light switch with an AI-enhanced interface for lighting control, energy management, and environmental sensing.  Through the Tewke app, you can control lighting and connected devices remotely and set up automation based on routines or sensor triggers.

Built-in sensors and software analyse energy usage and offer recommendations to reduce waste and save on costs. Tap can also track home environmental factors like air quality, humidity and CO₂, helping you understand and improve your home health.

Tewke is led by serial entrepreneurs Piers Daniell and Rowan Dixon.  

Piers Daniell founded Fluidata (now FluidOne) in his bedroom in 2006, growing it to over 150 employees before exiting in 2019. Sir James Wates is Chairman of Tewke and former Chairman of the Wates Group, one of the largest family-owned construction, development, and property services companies in the UK.

As his company grew, Daniell shared, “We operated out of 18 data centres, and at certain times of day, the national grid would actually pay those data centres to go offline. That’s when the idea of demand-side control really landed for me: if you could change demand in millions of homes, you could have a massive impact on energy consumption.”

When he eventually exited that business, he realised that no one had truly solved demand-side control at a granular, home level. “

You had companies like Octopus playing around the edges, but not really controlling demand in detail.”

The nuclear-scale prize of shifting household demand

The potential impact for demand control is enormous, according to Daniell:

“If everyone ran their washing machines or dishwashers at three in the morning, we could use all that excess energy and flatten peak demand,”

Daniell said. “I once read an estimate that Europe could save the equivalent output of around 200 nuclear power stations just through better demand management.”

At the same time, Daniell‘s personal experience with home automation exposed a different but related problem: usability.

“I was living in a home with a high-end automation system, Control4. It was powerful but incredibly hard to use,” he said.

“My in-laws once babysat and sat in the dark all night because they turned the system off and couldn’t work out how to turn it back on. Everyone has similar stories — people unplug smart plugs, forget passwords, get logged out of apps.”

 — This is also my experience. Whenever we get a cat sitter, we come home to find every smart device unplugged from the wall, despite how simple we make Google Home instructions.

Daniell realised that if home technology was going to scale, it had to be “usable by absolutely everyone, not just tech enthusiasts,” he said.

“So those two worlds came together: intelligent energy control and genuinely usable home technology. But I needed serious technical firepower to build it — that’s where Rowan came in.”

Dixon was studying Design Engineering at Imperial Collegeand working in Microsoft R&D when Piers approached him.  

He shared: 

“At that stage, it was basically a napkin sketch, but the ambition was very clear. The goal wasn’t just to build a ‘smart home’ — it was to remove human error from energy use.”

Why the light switch is the most powerful interface in the home

The team opted for the light switch because, according to Daniell, it's the most universal interface in the home.

“A three-year-old can use it. A grandparent can use it. Babysitters, builders, visitors — everyone understands it,” Daniell said.

Dixon added:

“We realised that if you control the light switch and the socket, you essentially control all the energy in the home.”

They also insisted on physical buttons. This means that if the internet goes down or software fails, the lights still have to work.

Re-engineering the wall: power, sensors, and a modular brain

The Tewke product has three layers:

• The frame for aesthetic customisation, 
• The wired core that replaces the switch, and,
• A magnetically attached display module that contains the sensors and compute.

Each device contains nine sensors: Doppler radar for presence detection, a microphone, temperature, humidity, air pressure, ambient light, volatile organic compounds, CO₂, and voltage and current sensing.  Together, they give a real-time picture of environmental conditions and occupancy.

Historically, IoT has been fragmented: one device for air quality, another for temperature, another for motion, each with its own apps and ecosystems. Tewke provides a single, integrated platform that could actually reason about what’s happening in a space.  If you ever need to upgrade the intelligence, you don’t need to rewire the wall — you just replace the module.

One of the hardest technical challenges is that a light switch is in series with the load: when the light is off, the power is off. Yet you want sensors, processors, radios and a screen to remain powered. 

“We developed and patented a way to do this with and without a neutral wire, explained Dixon.

This is critical in Europe, where many homes don’t have neutrals at the switch.

Turning lighting control into energy intelligence

More than just a great smart lighting solution, Tap provides real-time energy cost tracking to empower users to make efficient energy use choices, helping them to shift the use of energy-heavy appliances, like the dishwasher, washing machine, tumble dryer or EV charger, to much lower cost times of the day. Paired with a variable energy Tariff, Tap helps users to make informed decisions that could save them considerable money on their energy bills. 

The sensors feed into on-device AI that learns behavioural patterns rather than relying on fixed schedules. It understands when rooms are used, how air quality changes, and how people move through the space, and it automatically adapts lighting, heating, and ventilation.

Adding a natural language layer to the wall

While the physical light switch remains the most universal interface in the home, Tewke includes TewkeAI, a built-in voice interface that allows residents to control lighting, energy use and home settings through natural language, without relying on external assistants or cloud-only processing.

Unlike traditional smart speakers that act as a separate layer in the room, TewkeAI is embedded directly into the wall switch itself, combining microphones, on-device AI and contextual awareness from Tap’s sensor stack.

For Daniell, this is about removing yet another source of friction.

“If a three-year-old, a grandparent and a visitor can all use a light switch, voice should work the same way,” he said. “You shouldn’t have to remember commands or wake words. You should just be able to say what you want to happen in the room.”

Because Tap already understands occupancy, light levels, air quality and routines, voice becomes contextual rather than generic. A request like “make it cosy in here” can translate into a specific lighting scene, temperature adjustment and ventilation change, while “I’m going to sleep” can trigger an energy-optimised night mode across the home.

Privacy first from the get-go

According to Daniell, “being invited into someone’s home is a privilege."

"We keep as much processing on-device as possible. When data leaves the device, it’s anonymised. We don’t know whose home it is or where it is — only that “a room like this” has certain characteristics.

That still allows us to train models and improve performance, without compromising personal privacy. We’re European, and we take European privacy values seriously.”

In turn, TewkeAI processes voice locally wherever possible, keeping raw audio in the home and using anonymised data only to improve models.

Future features will allow users to manage activities such as home security, media and thermostat control, all of which will be activated in the background, without the need for further hardware or configuration.

From electricians to landlords, social housing, and hotels

Tewke’s initial customers are homeowners via electricians and installers. After appearing on Grand Designs, (a UK architecture TV show) the team saw a big spike in consumer interest, which helped build its partner network. 

Dixon explained:

“Our model is that you buy through an electrician — they source it, install it, and become an extended sales and education channel.”

Tewke is also seeing strong interest from landlords, social housing providers, student accommodation operators, and hotels. The same hardware works across residential and commercial use cases, which is important for scale. Presence detection alone is hugely valuable: turning heating and lighting off automatically when rooms are empty, pre-heating before check-in, monitoring air quality, and even detecting vaping or unusual activity in hotel rooms.

“Like building six companies at once”

In explaining why the company chose to manufacture in the UK despite the added complexity, Daniell points to the strategic value of control.

“We’re full-stack: electronics, mechanical engineering, industrial design, software, AI — all in-house,” he said.

“It’s like building six companies at once, but it gives us total control over quality and roadmap.”

The company employs around 16 full-time people and has grown largely through bootstrapping, supplemented by a small group of angel investors. According to Daniell, that constraint has shaped not just the pace of growth but also the company’s culture.

“It forces discipline,” he said. “If we’d raised €10 million on day one, we’d have spent it — and probably built something worse.

Tewke’s long-term vision is to position the home within the smart grid. 

Think white goods, heating systems, EV chargers — coordinated automatically so demand shifts to the cheapest and greenest times. Your washing machine runs when renewable generation is high. Your heating pre-warms your home when energy is abundant.

Piers Daniell contends that in this case, “Instead of everyone having to invest in huge capex like batteries and solar, we optimise what already exists. Shift demand, don’t just add supply. If we can flatten peak load, we reduce the need for massive new power stations.”

In the long run, while we start with hardware, we expect to be seen as a software and energy-intelligence company. The light switch is just the gateway — but it’s the most familiar gateway in the world.”

The UK’s sustainable grocery delivery service, Modern Milkman, has raised £10 million in a funding round led by Salica Investments, bringing its total funding to more than £60 million.

Founded in 2019 by Simon Mellin, Modern Milkman began as a local milk delivery service and has since expanded into a national operation. The company operates an optimized supply chain, sourcing fresh produce from independent British suppliers.

Its app-based platform supports automated routing and order processing to align deliveries with demand and reduce waste. Groceries and breakfast items are delivered up to three times per week in reusable glass bottles and returnable containers, supporting a closed-loop system that reduces single-use packaging.

Mellin said Modern Milkman offers a distinctive and convenient service for households across the UK, adding that the new investment will support the development of more integrated doorstep services. He noted that the company’s growth and customer satisfaction reflect strong demand for sustainable alternatives, positioning the business to scale while helping households reduce their environmental impact.

Modern Milkman now serves more than 100,000 households across the UK and expanded into the US in January 2024 through a strategic acquisition.

The investment will support the continued development of Modern Milkman’s doorstep delivery model and logistics platform, with plans to introduce additional integrated services aimed at making sustainable choices more accessible and convenient for customers.

Founded three years ago by Winfried Vogt and Christina Paap, the Innovation Award was created with a clear objective: to give innovative founders access to what often makes the decisive difference for early-stage success. Visibility, recognition, and entry into strong professional networks remain out of reach for many startups, particularly in highly regulated sectors such as insurance and financial services. The Innovation Award aims to change that.

Drawing on decades of experience in the insurance and financial markets, the founders actively open doors that typically remain closed to young companies. Their approach goes beyond sponsorship or mentoring. It is based on hands-on support and a deliberate sharing of expertise with entrepreneurs prepared to rethink established models and help shape the future!

More than a competition

The Innovation Award 2026 positions itself as more than a traditional startup competition. It serves as a platform for visionaries, doers, and pioneers working on creative, environmentally friendly, and sustainable innovations. The focus is on ideas that address real challenges and have the potential to create long-term impact.

Participants gain access to an ecosystem that brings together founders, investors, experts, corporates, and decision-makers. This environment is designed to help startups move from concept to market readiness while building the relationships required for sustainable growth.

What participants gain

The Innovation Award 2026 offers a combination of financial support, expertise, and exposure. Selected startups benefit from:

• €15,000 in prize money for the most convincing innovation concept
• Up to €75,000 in additional support to help make ideas market-ready
• An exclusive founder support programme led by experienced experts
• High visibility within a well-connected innovation ecosystem
• Direct access to investors, partners, and potential customers

For startups looking to scale responsibly and position themselves for long-term success, the award provides both credibility and practical resources.

The Entrepreneurs.Club: Beyond the award

Alongside the Innovation Award, the Entrepreneurs.Club plays a central role in the broader ecosystem. Participation in the award is not a prerequisite to join. The club is designed as a permanent meeting point for the startup community, where founders present ideas, investors identify opportunities, experts share insights, and corporates and sponsors engage with innovation.

Members of the Entrepreneurs.Club gain access to capital, new customer contacts, and ongoing support on their path towards sustainable entrepreneurial success. The aim is to create an environment where ideas meet the right partners, whether for funding, market access, strategic guidance, or long-term cooperation.

How to apply

The Innovation Award 2026 and the Entrepreneurs.Club are aimed at startups seeking greater visibility, stronger networks, and meaningful growth opportunities.

The application deadline is 15 July 2026.

Further information is available at www.vogtandpaap.com
Contact: world@vogtandpaap.com
Phone: +49 160 4101085 (Christina Paap)

For founders ready to take the next step, the Innovation Award 2026 offers a structured route to visibility, collaboration, and sustainable growth!

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b2venture has closed its Fund V at €150 million, reaching the hard cap and marking the firm’s largest early-stage fund to date. The fund is supported by a mix of long-standing and new limited partners, including family offices, institutional investors, and high-net-worth individuals. Several investors have committed across multiple fund generations, reflecting continued support for b2venture’s investment approach.

New institutional investors include asset manager Flexstone and Swiss pension fund Stiftung Abendrot, alongside portfolio entrepreneurs, operators, and long-standing angel investors such as Thomas Hagemann (SevenSenders) and Joachim Schoss.

Supporting Europe’s next generation of technology companies

Fund V will invest in around 35 early-stage startups across Europe, following an industry-agnostic strategy with a focus on scalable, defensible technologies. The fund has already made several investments, including Nautica Technologies, Hive Robotics, Augmented Industries, and Assemblean. These investments reflect b2venture’s focus on deep technology, AI, robotics, manufacturing, automation, and infrastructure companies shaping Europe’s future.

b2venture’s investment approach is centred on long-term collaboration with founders. Fund V continues the firm’s intergenerational model, in which founders may become investors after exiting their companies and contribute experience, networks, and capital to subsequent generations of entrepreneurs. The firm’s continuity across five fund generations reflects the durability of this long-term, community-based approach.

Jan-Hendrik Bürk, Partner at b2venture, explained that venture capital is fundamentally a people-driven business, highlighting the firm’s angel network as a key differentiator in sourcing, selecting, and supporting founders building category-defining companies.

With Fund V, we are strengthening this model to support the next generation of European tech champions with true domain knowledge, not just capital,

Bürk said.

Over the past two decades, b2venture has supported a range of European technology companies, including DeepL, 1KOMMA5°, Raisin, SumUp, Nelly, and Urban Sports Club. The firm has backed at least one unicorn in each fund generation and has been involved in 11 IPOs and more than 30 trade sales. In 2025, b2venture recorded one IPO with Navan and completed several portfolio exits, including Araris Biotech, Beekeeper, and Neptunes, which was acquired by OpenAI.

A community-driven investment model and generational transition

b2venture integrates a network of more than 350 experienced angel investors who contribute both capital and operational expertise alongside the firm’s institutional approach.

In 2024, b2venture strengthened its team by appointing Mathias Ockenfels as Partner, while long-standing Partner Jochen Gutbrod transitioned into the firm’s Super Angels network.

b2venture has operated across multiple market cycles, from the early internet era to the current expansion of AI. Throughout this period, the firm has maintained a consistent focus on long-term relationships, continuity, and disciplined investing. Fund V continues this approach, emphasising sustained partnerships based on trust and a long-term perspective.

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Carbonaide, a Finnish startup with a mission to turn building materials from a large emission source into a carbon sink, has raised €3.7 million in its latest funding round to scale its operations and accelerate key strategic initiatives.

The combined investment consisted of equity and supporting financial instruments. The round was led by Carbonaide’s existing owners, Vantaan Energia, Redstone, and Ihantola Invest, with participation from a group of private investment companies and investors, including Zero Carbon Future Group, Helkama Kiinteistöt, and Ikorni Invest.

“With this momentum, we are well-positioned to scale our technology, expand our CO₂ partner network, and continue turning concrete factories into carbon sinks. There is clear demand in the construction industry for solutions that reduce emissions, showing that the industry is turning towards a low-carbon built environment,” said Tapio Vehmas, CEO of Carbonaide.

Carbonaide is a spin-out company from VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and was founded in 2022. It has developed a technology for mineralising CO2 and sinking it permanently into concrete, making carbon-negative concrete profitable.

The company offers three key solutions: Carbonaide CO₂ curing system offers complete CO₂ curing solutions for concrete producers, from design and setup to integration with new or existing facilities. Carbonaide Service Platform is a cloud-based software platform for managing CO₂ flow, carbon measurements and carbon credit issuance. And lastly, Carbonaide Care offers life cycle support for all Carbonaide systems, from setup to ongoing maintenance.

The startup plans to use the newly raised capital to expand customer acquisition by strengthening its global sales organisation and marketing activities. It also intends to further develop its Carbonaide Service Platform and accelerate research and development beyond precast concrete, beginning with next-generation carbon dioxide curing for concrete element production. According to the company, this is expected to enable future applications in ready-mix and other concrete types.

“With a lifetime focus on decarbonising construction, I am very excited by Carbonaide’s potential. Now that the technology is ready to scale, we are thrilled to support the growth of the company and also to partner with Carbonaide to supply carbon data for low-carbon products,” said Panu Pasanen, CEO of One Click LCA and investor through the Zero Carbon Future Group.

Today, another startup focused on decarbonising the construction industry announced the closing of its Seed financing round. Düsseldorf-based Co-reactive secured €6.5 million to scale its CO₂ mineralisation technology, which utilises CO₂ and binds it permanently in high-performance construction materials. 

Carbonaide’s technology has been in commercial production since 2024. During 2025, Carbonaide entered into agreements with two Finnish companies, concrete producer Lakan Betoni and concrete element manufacturer Lipa-Betoni, for installing its technology in their factories. Production using the Carbonaide systems begins in both facilities in early 2026. 

In January 2026, Carbonaide also sold the first certified carbon credits created through its mineralisation technology to a Finnish law firm.

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London-based Pallma AI, the security layer for agentic enterprise systems, has completed a $1.6 million pre-seed round led by Marathon Venture Capital, with participation from technology leaders from AWS, Meta, Google, and others.

Enterprise adoption of AI is accelerating as large language models and autonomous AI agents move from pilot programs into core operational roles. Many organisations are expected to deploy agentic applications in the near term, increasing reliance on systems that can operate with limited human supervision.

As AI agents take on greater responsibility, this shift also introduces new security and risk considerations. Existing security tools were not designed to manage the probabilistic and adaptive behavior of autonomous systems, which can be vulnerable to prompt manipulation, unintended data exposure, or excessive autonomy. When these systems process sensitive data or are authorised to take actions, errors or misuse can lead to significant operational and security impacts.

Pallma AI addresses these challenges by providing a centralised layer of security, visibility, and control for AI agents. Pavlos Mitsoulis, co-founder and CEO of Pallma AI, explains that the company is building an AI-native security platform designed to protect AI-powered applications by identifying threats in real time and continuously strengthening the security of autonomous systems.

The platform integrates with existing enterprise technology stacks, collects application and system data, and uses AI models to monitor, detect, and mitigate risks such as prompt injection, unintended data exposure, and unsafe agent behaviour in real time. Co-founder and CTO Dionysis Varelas added that the platform combines real-time threat detection with actionable guidance and automated response capabilities, extending beyond a purely passive security approach.

We develop advanced AI models to identify vulnerabilities before malicious actors can exploit them and recommend necessary fixes, ensuring AI applications remain continuously hardened against emerging threats,

Varelas said.

With the new funding, Pallma AI plans to expand its team, accelerate product development, and support growing demand for its AI-powered enterprise security platform.

German climatetech startup Co-reactive has completed a €6.5 million seed financing round led by HTGF, with participation from NRW.Bank, HBG Ventures, AFI Ventures, Evercurious VC, and a group of experienced climate-tech business angels. Additional support is provided through public funding programs, including the Federal Funding for Industry and Climate (BIK) from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy.

Founded in 2024, Co-reactive develops a continuous CO₂ mineralisation process that converts captured CO₂ and natural minerals, such as olivine or metallurgical slags (EAF & BOF), into CO₂-negative supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs). These materials enable a reduction in clinker content and associated emissions while maintaining or improving compressive strength and durability. The technology is designed as a drop-in solution that can be integrated into existing cement and construction material production processes.

The company collaborates across the value chain with CO₂ and raw material suppliers, cement and concrete producers, and certification bodies to support the transition from pilot facilities to industrial-scale plants in the 100–300 kiloton range.

Through this approach, Co-reactive addresses key challenges in the cement industry, including the high emissions intensity of cement production (responsible for around eight percent of global CO₂ emissions), and the increasing scarcity of conventional cement substitutes due to the coal phase-out and structural changes in the steel industry.

With the seed financing, Co-reactive plans to scale its laboratory and pilot activities to a continuous demonstration plant with a capacity of approximately 1,000 tons per year by Q2 2026.

In parallel, the company is working with industrial partners to prepare first-of-a-kind plants at the tens-of-thousands-of-tons scale, which from 2027 onward are intended to mineralise biogenic or process-related CO₂ streams directly at cement and steel production sites.

London-based GoCanopy has raised €2.1 million in seed funding to support the development of its AI-powered operating system for institutional real estate investors. The round was led by ISAI, with participation from BNP Paribas Développement, Yellow, and a group of angel investors.

Institutional real estate investors manage large volumes of deals, tenant, and financial data that are often fragmented across emails, documents, spreadsheets, and teams. This fragmentation can limit the creation of a unified system of record and reduce the ability to systematically leverage historical information for investment and asset management decisions.

GoCanopy addresses this challenge through a centralised, AI-driven platform that extracts and structures data from internal documents such as offering memoranda, rent rolls, and asset management reports. Using human-in-the-loop AI workflows, the platform consolidates unstructured information into a shared institutional knowledge base that evolves as new data is added.

Founded in 2023 by William He and Yash Pabbisetti, GoCanopy develops institutional-grade AI tools for real estate investment teams. The platform supports core investment workflows, including deal screening, underwriting, and investment committee preparation, while also enabling asset management functions such as lease expiry monitoring, rent review tracking, and identification of leasing opportunities. All insights remain traceable to source documents to support transparency and governance requirements.

WilliamHe, Co-founder and CEO of GoCanopy, said his experience in real estate investing showed how fragmented data limits value creation, and that advances in AI now make it possible to consolidate institutional intelligence and unlock additional revenue opportunities.

The new funding will be used to further develop the enterprise platform and support international expansion, including opening an office in London alongside Paris and growing the company’s commercial and engineering teams.

Düsseldorf-based Co-reactive, a ClimateTech startup focused on decarbonising the construction industry at scale, has closed a Seed financing round totalling €6.5 million to scale its CO₂ mineralisation technology. 

The round was led by HTGF, with participation from NRW.Bank, HBG Ventures, AFI Ventures (the early-stage impact arm of Ventech), Evercurious VC and a network of experienced climate tech business angels. 

It has also received support through grants such as the Federal Funding for Industry and Climate (BIK) from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWE).

Dr.-Ing. Andreas Bremen, co-founder and CEO of Co-reactive, commented, “With the right co-founders and an interdisciplinary team, we are taking CO₂ mineralisation from the lab into continuous industrial operation. The support of our financing partners, with the HTGF as lead investor, gives us the strength to deliver proof of performance with a 1,000-ton demonstration plant and to prepare large-scale deployment together with industry. We are building a solution that is urgently needed today so that it can create impact at industrial scale tomorrow.”

Co-reactive was founded in 2024 as a spin-off from RWTH Aachen University. After completing his PhD, Dr.-Ing. Bremen teamed up with his fellow student, Orlando Kleineberg and Willi Peter to establish Co-reactive. 

The cement industry is one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the world. According to Co-reactive, the cement production process releases substantial CO₂ from limestone, underscoring the need for solutions that can capture and utilise the resulting CO2.

This is where Co-reactive comes in. The company has developed a continuous process that converts CO₂, together with magnesium- or calcium-containing silicate minerals such as olivine or metallurgical slags (EAF & BOF), into performance-enhancing, CO₂-negative supplementary cementitious materials (CO-SCMs).

The German startup claims that the CO-SCMs have a negative CO₂ footprint and enable a significant reduction of the clinker content in cement and construction materials without compromising performance. The solution can be integrated into existing production processes as it’s designed as a drop-in technology. 

“The construction industry is at a turning point: Conventional supplementary cementitious materials such as ground granulated blast furnace slag and fly ash are becoming scarce and expensive as decarbonisation progresses – prices for fly ash have in some cases quadrupled over the past two years. Co-reactive offers a scalable alternative that is not only CO₂-negative, but can also be integrated into existing processes as a drop-in solution. With strong unit economics and an experienced team of mineralisation and plant engineering experts, Co-reactive has the potential to transform the industry in a lasting way,” said Anna Stetter, Investment Manager, HTGF. 

The company aims to use this fresh capital to scale its current lab and pilot operations in Q2 2026 to a continuous demonstration plant with a capacity of around 1,000 tons per year. 

It is also working with industrial partners to prepare “first-of-a-kind” plants at the “tens-of-thousands-of-tons” scale. From 2027 onward, these facilities are intended to mineralise biogenic or process-related CO₂ streams directly on site at cement and steel plants.

Co-reactive collaborates across the value chain with CO₂ and raw material suppliers, cement and concrete producers, and certification bodies to scale from pilot plants to large industrial units in the 100- to 300-kilotons range. Its team has expertise in CO₂ mineralisation, plant engineering, commercialisation, and scaling sustainable tech.

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