• largest A round for Spain
• push for growth deals
• Euro early stage zeitgeist via YC startups

 

---

 

Deals

Nordics

🇩🇰 ​Gavmild​, developing a data-based insurance product, was pre-seeded by angel investors in Denmark.

🇸🇪 ​AirDodge​, developing SAAS used for air traffic control for drones, secured $500k in pre-seed funding with Nordic Makers and Antler.

🇸🇪 ​Phenaros​, using AI for building a drug discovery platform, raised $1 million pre-seed with Nordic Science Investments, Almi Invest, Monesi, and Länsförsäkringar.

🇳🇴 ​Receipts​, developing a digital receipts SAAS technology, raised $1.8 million with DNB, Obos, SMN Invest andAntler.

• pre-product startup at a second raise within less than a year - deal values it at $8.8 million

🇳🇴 ​Avisomo​, manufacturer of modular vertical farming systems, raised a $3.5 million bridge with local investors in Norway.

 

UK

🇬🇧 ​Origami Agents​, developing an AI sales agent, raised $2 million seed with angel investors from USA.

• technically it's an American startup with one of the co founders and CTO being British - he quit his London job last fall in order to join YC with Origami.
• competes directly with ​11x ai​, producing some $50k MRR while still in beta, eight weeks after launch.

🇬🇧 ​C the Signs​, building an AI-based cancer prediction system, raised a $8 million seed round led by Khosla Ventures, joined by MMC, Ataraxia and Acequia Capital.

• USP: fast cancer identifier that recommends the most appropriate test or specialist to diagnose a specific cancer.
• traction: product already in use within the NHS in the UK
• pre-seeded with 6 million back in 2022.

🇬🇧 ​Gaia​, selling insurance products to people seeking fertility treatments, raised $14 million in series A extension led by Valar Ventures, joined by Kindred Capital VC, Atomico, Seedcamp, Heliad AG, Optum Ventures.

• traction: usage within 23 clinics groups with 57 locations.
• USP: product uses personal and fertility clinic data to estimate someone's probability of treatment success, with pay tied to milestones - i.e. customers pay the full treatment cost if they achieve specific outcomes.
• market data: the average cost of an IVF treatment cycle ranges from $15,000 to $25,000, with a success rate of 25% to 40%.
• initial series A was led by Atomico, closed at $20 million in 2022.
• current deal led by Valar's principal out of London ​Elina Rayberg​ - money should be good for reaching the next fundraising milestone within 18 months, when Gaia expects to fundraise again.

🇬🇧 ​Formance​, building an open-source infrastructure for financial ledgers, secured $21 million in Series A funding, co-led by PayPal Ventures and Portage, joined by Y Combinator, Hoxton Ventures, and Axeleo Capital. 

• USP: a programmable ledger - namely, a transactional database that provides detailed visibility into every transaction, and streamline reconciliation, with any type of financial partner.
• traction: 10X revenues per 2024.
• deal led by Paypal's ​Ashish Aggarwal​ out of NYC. 
• went to YC in the summer of 2021, post which was seeded with $3.1 million by Hoxton and Frst.

 

DACH

🇩🇪 ​Ocell​, doing AI analytics based on interpreting aerial imagery for various use cases in forest management, raised $10.4 million in Series A funding led by Capnamic, joined by Bayern Kapital AENU and Summiteer.

🇨🇭 ​Oxyle​, producer of cleantech tech used to degrade hazardous micropollutants from wastewater, raised $15.7 millionin a seed funding round led by 360 Capital, joined by Axeleo Capital, Founderful, and SOSV.

• pre-seeded in two tranches totalling some 6 million in 2021-2022

🇨🇭 ​Meteomatics​, seller of weather data powered by drone operations, raised $22 million series C led by Armira.

🇩🇪 ​Variolytics​, selling sensor technology used for detecting gas emissions in the wastewater sector, raised a growthfinancing round, led by Nordic Alpha Partners, joined by EIC, HTGF, and Fraunhofer Techno.

 

France

🇫🇷 ​Beans​, building a B2B2C groceries marketplace, raised $1.5 million in seed funding with Norrsken, Maze Impact, Waterlemon Ventures, FoodTech Founders.

🇫🇷 ​GetVocal​, doing conversational AI agents used to automate customer service processes, raised a $3 million seedround with Speedinvest and Elaia.

🇫🇷 ​Zaion​, developing conversational voice AI for the banking and insurance sector, raised a $11.4 million series A extension deal led by 115K, joined by Fortino Capital and Truffle Capital.

• the captable is entirely French - initial series A was resumed at 11 million back in 2021.
• 115K is the investment arm of La Banque Postale, which is a key customer of the company.

🇫🇷 ​Cryptio​, building a platform for portfolio analytics and automatic tax report for cryptocurrency investors, raised a $15 million series A extension led by Alven, joined by 1kx, Ledger, Cathay, BitGo Ventures, Point Nine Capital and BlueYard Capital.

• traction: 400 customers
• the initial series A was led by Point Nine Capital at 10 million back in 2022.

🇫🇷 ​Naboo​, operating a marketplace for on-demand event spaces, raised $20 million series A led by Notion Capital, joined by ISAI, Ternel and angel investors in France.

• traction: €60 million booked volumes in 2024, 4X yoy, producing net revenue of €10 million in 2024. 
• business model: an average take-rate of 17% from both marketplace sides - 10-12% cut from providers and another 5-6% from clients.
• seeded by ISAI, Kima et al with 8 million last winter.
• ICYMI, Notion Capital has turned into a series A investor out of their €300 million fifth investment fund closed in 2023, though they still venture in the non-traction startup space occasionally, which ​last year​ constituted some 30% of the new portfolio companies.

🇫🇷 ​Swan​, doing embedded finance SAAS, raised a $44 million series B extension led by Eight Road Ventures, joined by Lakestar, Accel, Creandum, Hexa, and Bpifrance.

• traction: handles €1.5 billion in monthly transactions for 150 customers.
• USP: white label for corporate virtual cards, with spending limits, and authorized merchants. 
• initial series B was closed at $40 million in September 2023, with Lakestar in the lead.

🇫🇷 ​Alice & Bob​, manufacturers of quantum computers, raised a $100 million Series B led by Future French Champions, Axa VP and Bpifrance.

• money is on top of roughly 150 million raised since kicking off ops five years ago.
• still a pre-product deal, as the French expect to ship a first universal, fault-tolerant quantum computer by 2030.
• follows the likes of IQM (Finland) and PsiQuantum (UK, now moved to US) also building quantum computers out of Europe.
• ICYMI, Future French Champions is an investment joint venture between Qatar Investment Authority and BPIfrance doing late stage deals in Europe.

 

Spain

🇪🇸 ​iPronics​, manufacturer of general-purpose integrated programmable photonic systems, raised $20 million series A led by Triatomic Capital, joined by Fine Structure Ventures, Bosch, Amadeus Capital, and Criteria Venture Tech.

🇪🇸 ​Quibim​, developer of an AI-powered radiology diagnostics platform, raised $50 million in Series A funding co-led by Asabys and Buenavista, joined by UI Investissement, GoHub, Amadeus Capital, APEX Ventures, Partech, Adara Ventures and Leadwind.

• traction: 170 installations from customers in US and Europe
• USP: native foundational AI models applied to imaging that extract actionable insights from MRI, CT, and PET scans - segmented on neurology, prostate cancer and liver focused products
• one of the larger series A to date coming out of Spain. 
• seeded with 8 million back in 2020 by Amadeus and Adara, extended with an additional 5 million the following year. 

🇪🇸 ​TravelPerk​, operator of an end-to-end business travel platform, raised $200 million Series E round led by Atomico, joined by EQT, Noteus Partners, Kinnevik, and General Catalyst.

• traction: about €190 million a year, +60% yoy, EBITDA profitable as for 2024.
• $2.7 billion valuation, up from $1.4 billion at its previous fundraise last year.
• also notably: the startup announced acquiring ​Yokoy​ from Switzerland for an undisclosed amount. 
  • Yokoy's captable includes Sequoia, Left Lane Capital, Balderton, Speedinvest and Visionaries Club and last raised $80 million series B in 2022 (Sequoia led).

Belgium

🇧🇪 ​Nobi​, building an op selling a smart lamp that focuses on fall detection and prevention in the elderly, raised a $36.2 million Series B financing round led by Angelini Ventures and Nexus NeuroTech Ventures, joined by 15th Rock, EQTand PMV.

• USP: a practical ceiling-mounted lamp with smart motion sensors and infrared detection able to detect irregular motions in the user, as well as falls. If the user does the latter, the on-board speaker will ask, “did you fall.” If the answer is “no,” nothing happens. If the answer is anything else, it will send a notification to a caregiver.
• GTM: sold B2B via healthcare partners, available across multiple British care homes in Lancashire and South Cumbria and in the US via a pilot project.

 

 

---

 

 

Investors

On the move

🇫🇷 ​David Dana​ is leaving his VC lead position at EIF - he's been with the fund since 2010 and had worked as a PWC consultant prior to that.

🇫🇷 ​David Thévenon​ also announced moving on from Balderton Capital, where he spent five years as GP. 

🇪🇸 ​Jaime Sendagorta​ was appointed by GP Bullhound to lead the restructuring of its Spanish operations.

🇬🇧 ​Pieter Staelens​ was promoted to a partner position at CVC Partners, after having spent four years with the company in London.

 

 

Powder 

🇳🇱 Colesco did a first ​€800 million​ close for a direct lending fund targeted at European mid-market sustainable businesses.

🇫🇷 iXO Private Equity made a final close of a ​€220 million​ fund, dubbed IXO 5 and aimed to do LBO deals in the South of France.

🇫🇷 Shift4Good closed a ​€220 million​ fund dedicated to sustainable transportation and decarbonization, that will fund Series A and B rounds (€3M-€20M) in startups across rail, road, air, and maritime sectors.

🇫🇷 BNP Paribas raised a ​€172 million​ impact fund to be spent on 15 startups tackling ecological transition in energy, agriculture, circular economy, and more.

🇸🇪 Fåhraeus Startup & Growth announced a final close at ​$76 million​ for a second fund with significant EU commitments and aiming at early stage Nordic startups in life science and technology sectors.

 

---

 

Highlight

The Y Combinator's winter program is open and we've tracked fifteen startups from Europe which already have gotten in.

🇨🇭 ​Browser Use​ - web interface for LLMs. 🇬🇧 ​Exin Therapeutics​ - precision genetic therapy platform that targets neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders from a circuit-level perspective. 🇬🇧 ​finbar​ - AI platform for financial data & analysis 🇬🇧 ​Karoo​ - neobank 🇩🇪 ​Leaping AI​ - platform used to deploy voice AI agents, automating complex use cases and high call volume.

🇳🇱 ​Macadamia​ - autonomous AI agents that take over the role of mechanical engineers in running simulations with advanced physics-based solvers. 🇬🇧 ​Mecha Health​ - SAAS platform for radiology report generation through advanced AI. 🇳🇱 ​ReJot​ - synchronization engine to modernize sharing data between backend services within larger organizations. 🇲🇹 ​Roark​ - real-time analytics & testing product for voice AI agents 🇧🇪 ​Spott​ - next gen ATS & CRM product for executive search firms.

🇩🇪 ​Superglue​ - open-source tool that sits as a proxy in front of API calls, automatically transforming data using LLM-generated mappings. 🇸🇪 ​Vantel​ - AI platform for commercial insurance brokers. 🇸🇪 ​Vetnio​ - AI tool used by veterinary professionals for note-taking during patient meetings 🇪🇸 ​Tieki​ - mobile app helping avoid fraud and reducing errors for restaurant deliveries. 🇪🇸 ​YouShift​ - intelligent scheduling platform designed to streamline shift management for healthcare professionals.

 

Also notable

🇳🇴 1X, manufacturer of general-purpose humanoid robots, ​acquired​ an American competitor.

• the Norwegians raised series B last winter in a 100 million deal that included secondaries, led by EQT Ventures.

 

Elsewhere

• Lightspeed Venture Partners hired ​Brenton Fargnoli​ as a partner and co-lead of the firm's health practice out of NYC.
• Ex-Sequoia's ​Mike Vernal​ joined Conviction Partners, a solo VC op run by ex-Greylock's Sarah Guo.
• Felicis hired ​Peter Deng​ as GP, as he jumped ship from OpenAI where he was VP of consumer product - he will focus in part on startups launched by former OpenAI colleagues. Felicis deploys from a $825 million fund raised in 2023, seed to the Series A in both consumer and enterprise AI apps. 

 

• 8VC, managed by Palantir founder Joe Lonsdale, is targeting nearly ​$1 billion​ for a sixth fund.
• The Saudi's Public Investment Fund is looking to reduce its holdings of foreign investments by ​a third​, and it wants the money it invested abroad to return back to the kingdom. 

 

• SoftBank to put ​$40 billion​ at 300b post into OpenAI.
• Also SoftBank is said to lead a a ​$500 million​ investment at a $4 billion valuation in Skild AI, Americans developing a scalable gen purpose foundation model for robotics.
• Lightspeed Venture Partners and SoftBank co-led a ​$425 million​ series F raised by Helion, American company developing a fusion energy generator designed to produce electricity through nuclear fusion.
• Benchmark, General Catalyst and the likes of Peter Thiel, Jack Dorsey, and Larry Summers, invested in a ​$75 million​ round at a $2 billion, closed by Mercor, an American startup that connects experts in fields like law, medicine, and chemistry with contract positions to assist in developing AI models.
• Reid Hoffman, General Catalyst, and Greylock invested in a ​$24.6 million​ seed funding raised by Manai AI, an American AI-powered drug discovery startup.
• SignalFire led, and was joined by Lightspeed Venture Partners, a ​$20 million​ Series A raised by Clutch Security, an Israeli non-human identity security startup. 
• 776 and Founders Fund co-led a ​$14 million​ series A deal closed by Nucleus, a US-based DTC genome testing and analysis startup

 

---

 

Did you find this useful? 🤔

Great    •    Good   •    Meh

 

---

 

Questions or comments? Let us know!