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marginal agents

Euro Intel 17 February 2025

• AI agents as marginal business
• Goldman's London office
• January's top deals

 

 

 

Deals

Highlights

Accounting agents

🇸🇪 ​Bluebook​, building AI agents to streamline repetitive tasks with intelligent workflows designed for accountants, raised a $2.5 million pre-seed deal led by EQT Ventures, joined by Y Combinator and angel investors.

  • founded six months ago, part of the current YC winter program
  • deal led by EQT's partner ​Kaushik Subramanian​ out of London.

🇩🇪 ​Integral​, developing an AI-powered platform designed to simplify tax, accounting, and payroll management for SMEs, raised $6.5 million pre-seed co-led by General Catalyst and Cherry Ventures, joined by Puzzle Ventures and angel investors.

  • traction: MVP out and a paying customer, who is also investor in the company - I guess that's why the deal is more expensive as well.
  • USP: a platform allowing companies to completely outsource their accounting, tax consulting and payroll accounting, with a later-to-be-implemented marketplace directly linking companies and tax advisors on the platform. 
  • founded by a German crew formerly with Penta and Finleap at the end of last year, backed entirely by German investors (GC is American but ​Jeannette zu Fürstenberg​ was the lead of the deal).

Similar yet different Two products solving a similar problem with a somewhat different GTM approach - the Swedes already de-risking rapidly in the US, while the Germans are solely entrenched locally. On a broader level, if the TAM is customers switching from traditional accounting shops, is doing AI agents a compelling enough moat? 

What problem do they really solve? Both startups rely on the hypothesis of local accounting vendors being tech inept in an already hyper competitive space that has high switching costs. I wouldn't bet on slow tech adoption though - fwiw, I am familiar with local accounting shops both in Germany and Sweden that are super tech savvy, using already AI in their workflows. Another fact to consider is that the likes of big four accounting firms i.e. PWC are already re-selling ChatGPT packaged software at scale all over the world. 

The big picture While AI agents startups may have a chance competing at the edges, there's also the TAM extension, yet to emerge, opportunity to be explored as the core market and their product evolves - it's not evident and rather hard to coagulate in an established market such as accounting services due to fragmentation and hyper competitiveness. Please note that I am not doubting the ability of building meaningful business, but rather pondering the opportunity odds of a future defining company to emerge under the circumstances - those odds are heavily impacted by the above.

AI agents are cool but... At core, AI agents are really just an API to databases app occasionally calling a GPT service, the market is flooded by startups iterating on such marginal products with no competitive advantages. Since tech is not a moat, most of them are rather me-too reactions responding to the AI VC appetite, I have landscapes of landscapes for tracking them, space was hot 18 months ago when the likes of ​11x​ emerged etc

 

AI + sports + media

🇫🇷 ​ScorePlay​, developing a SAAS platform helping sports and entertainment brands manage media assets, secured $13 million in a Series A funding round with 20vc, Seven Seven Six, APEX Capital and angel investors.

  • traction: 200 sports organizations, 3X yoy growth, profitable 
  • USP: SAAS used for sport clubs streamline their media highlights and clips using AI
  • French founders, built the MVP in Portugal in 2021, when they raised from Kima and angels, then in 2023 moved the ops in New York and got seeded by ​Seven Seven Six​.

Build where competition is low The French are at an interesting intersection space usually avoided by investors because they don't get both media and sports - alas they're huge industries, hardly altered by the technology use and easier to make a difference with a native tech play. 

Go where the market is On point, the US market is much more advanced in terms of professional sports analytics and this is where the French have found PMF by rightly seeking it in the media Mecca that is NYC. 

Work with the right people Also worth noting the good investors/startup fit - Alexis Ohanian’s Seven Seven Six has a good sports/gaming understanding since he founded Reddit, his wife is former tennis pro Serena Williams, and he's made several investments in the space (​Europe too​). 20VC, on the other hand, is a media gig with a VC model and has strong French connections given the nationality of their newly hired employees. 

 

Enterprise SAAS aggregator 

🇬🇧 ​Plain​, developing a next gen customer support tools platform, raised a $15 million Series A led by Battery Ventures, with participation from previous backers Index Ventures and Connect Ventures.

  • USP: API first platform for a single source of truth for customer interactions - i.e. message aggregation of Slack, Microsoft Teams, Discord etc
  • traction: 200 paying customers, on both sides of the ocean - money will be used to open a San Fran office.
  • founded in 2020 by two senior ex-Deliveroo employees, launched product in 2022, when they were also seeded with 6 million by Index and Connect.
  • deal led by Battery's GP ​Neeraj Agrawal​ out of Boston office - fourth European deal ​within a year​ for the Americans.

 

Ghost kitchens are still a thing

🇩🇪 ​Lanch​, running a ghost kitchen operation in Germany, raised $27 million in a Series A funding round co-led by Felix Capital and HV Capital.

  • USP: vertically-integrated ecommerce marketplace using software for matching restaurants and food delivery companies with high profile social media people.
  • traction: 350 ghost kitchens in Germany expected to produce 100 million in sales this year under three brands: Loco Chicken and Happy Slice Pizza (both restaurants), and Happy Chips (packaged food - potato chips). 
  • Felix, which controls 22% of the company, and HV (20%) also co-led the $7 million seed raised by the Germans 18 months ago. 

Money was spent Ghost kitchens have been made a VC trend by Covid in 2021, and lost investors a lot of money - hard business to pull off at scale, given the capex and heavy marketing spend requirements. 

This time is different Lanch emerged late, post hey-days, presumably incorporating some industry learnings as well - I like both the tech and data approach as foundation for building the right assets in the balance sheet *and* the packaged good revenue tangent which can become lucrative at scale. 

Data to ponder In 2023, private label accounted for 19.4% of total FMCG value sales globally, a number that increases to 26% when singling out Western Europe. In fact, Western Europe is leading the the growth of private label in market share, totalling 36%.

 

New category meets situational AI

🇬🇧 ​Latent Labs​, developing foundational models that capture the fundamentals of biology, raised $40 million series Aco-led by Sofinnova Partners and Radical Ventures.

  • founded in 2023 by ​Simon Kohl​, an ex-Deepmind, German living in London guy, who was part of the Nobel Prize-winning team that developed Alphafold2, spun-off in 2021 by Deepmind into Isomorphic Labs, focused on AI small-molecule drug discovery.
  • that's at odds with Latent Labs focus, which is doing protein design used for related drugs discovery research. The money model is to make the technology available to researchers in biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, rather than to pursue drug discovery in-house. 
  • seeded by 8VC, Kindred Capital and Pillar VC and went out of stealth this week, when it announced series A.
  • current deal led by Radical Ventures's partner ​Aaron Rosen​​berg​, who was formerly head of strategy and operations at DeepMind.

 

 

More deals 

Nordics

🇫🇮 ​System 2 AI​, developing digital assistants capable of handling daily tasks, raised a pre-seed funding round led by FOV Ventures, joined by Westcott Investment and angel investors.

🇩🇰 ​Rebloom​, building a platform for secondary investments, raised $400k pre-seed with local angel investors.

🇩🇰 ​Visibuilt​, manufacturer of an alternative asphalt product, raised $1.2 million pre-seed funding round with EMD Fonden and angel investors.

🇸🇪 ​AI Bob​, developing a SAAS for construction compliance reviews platform, raised $2 million seed led by CapitalTalongside Female Founders Fund, NCA and angel investors.

🇪🇪 ​Gridraven​, developing AI solutions for maximizing grid capacity, raised $4.1 million in a seed funding with including 42CAP and Icebreaker VC.

  • pre-seeded by Icebreaker in 2023. 
  • deal led by 42CAP's partner ​Alex Meyer​ - money will be used for relocating the business to the USA (Austin).

🇸🇪 ​ReCarber​, building a marketplace used for commercializing carbon removal projects, raised $5.4 million seed with Luminar Ventures, Spintop Ventures and Course Corrected. 

🇳🇴 ​Kezzler​, developer of serialization technologies eoncompassed within a product rraceability platform designed for industrial scale, raised $26.4 million with existing investors DNV Ventures, Investinor and Tomra.

  • money used for purchasing an American company, as the Norwegians push for growth in the USA.

 

UK

🇬🇧 ​Nodals AI​, developing a media buying platform, raised $2 million pre-seed led by Stride VC. 

  • Fred Destin keeps saying he's off with new investments yet still doing deals - this one was closed in December.

🇬🇧 ​XARlabs​, which does a Mixed Reality tool for surgery practicing, raised $2.3 million seed with Eka Ventures and angel investors.

🇬🇧 ​Mattoboard​, building a digital visual board platform used by interior designers, raised $2 million seed with Acrobator Ventures, Masco Ventures, Home Depot Ventures, Blue Field Capital, SoundBoard Venture Fund.

  • traction: 2000 payers on a freemium platform used by 200k designers.

🇬🇧 ​Renew Risk​, selling risk evaluation solutions for improving the financial lifecycle of large renewable energy assets, raised $6.2 million in a series A funding round led by Molten Ventures, joined by Lloyd’s and Insurtech Gateway.

  • seeded with 2 million by Insurtech Gateway back in 2023.

 

DACH

🇩🇪 ​Claro​, developing an AI tool for ecommerce inventory catalogs, raised a $650k pre-seed funding round with Atlas SGR, Antler, Founders Factory, Fastweb, Plug & Play and D11Z.

🇩🇪 ​Phase​, building a no-code platform that helps UI/UX designers create fully interactive prototypes, raised a $13 million series A round from Gobi Partners, New Economy Ventures, Palm Drive Capital, Shilling VC, SquareOne, WI Harper, 42CAP, and 500 Global.

🇩🇪 ​Accure​, selling access to a battery safety and performance software platform, raised a $16 million Series B round led by Incharge Capital Partners, joined by BlueBear Capital, HSBC, Riverstone Holdings, Capnamic, and 42CAP.

🇨🇭 ​Plasma​, doing blockchain for stablecoin payments, raised $20 million in Series A funding led by Framework Ventures, joined by Bitfinex, Nomura, Flow Traders, Peter Thiel and Paolo Ardoino (Tether CEO). 

 

Spain

🇪🇸 ​Nido​, producer and seller of heat pumps, raised $5 million in seed funding with Iberdrola, Ship2B Ventures, Zubi Labs, Decelera Ventures and Silence VC.

🇪🇸 ​Libeen​, selling homes to millenials using only the monthly rent and a 5% downpayment, raised $26 million in a deal led by Andbank, joined by Cusp Capital and angel investors.

 

Czech Republic

🇨🇿 ​Edmund​, building an AI-enabled predictive maintenance platform for manufacturers, raised $500k seed with Lighthouse Ventures, Czech Founders VC, Borovicka Capital, and Tensor Ventures.

🇨🇿 ​Grid online​, building a B2B logistics platform providing on-demand delivery capacity via API integration, raised $1.6 million in a seed round funded by Reflex Capital, J&T Ventures, and Grid Invest.

 

Other geo

🇳🇱 ​Proba​, selling and issuing tradable carbon certificates, raised $1 million in a seed deal led by Future Food Fund and Yield Lab Europe, joined by Value Factory Ventures.

🇫🇷 ​Speeral​, developing a digital commerce marketplace for second hand products, raised $1.8 million seed backed by Aquiti Gestion and business angels.

🇧🇬 ​Uvionix​, using drones to improve warehouse inventory management and supply chain logistics, raised $3.5 million seed with LAUNCHub Ventures, PortfoLion and angel investors.

🇮🇹 ​Akamas​, developing a cloud platform for optimization of application workloads, secures $10 million in a deal solely covered by United Ventures.

  • product spin-off from a large Italian IT company, which is still the major shareholder - this is first money in to build business in USA.

🇱🇺 ​MarketLeap​, developing a B2B marketplace connecting ecommerce vendors with inventory sourcing demand, raised $8 million series A led by Smedvig Ventures, joined by Expon Capital, Motier Ventures and LBAN.

🇮🇪 ​Tines​, developing an orchestration layer connecting AI models to enterprise systems and data, raised a $125 million Series C with Goldman Sachs, SoftBank, Activant Capital Accel, Felicis, CrowdStrike Falcon Fund, and Addition. 

  • USP: no-code workflow automation platform designed especially for security teams.
  • traction: 100% revenue growth 2023, 200% in 2022. 
  • valuation: $1.125 billion, post money

 

Kind reminder: the above is just a curation of what we see interesting every week. For a comprehensive look, we encourage you to dig through ​our data​, this year alone we've tracked some 500 VC transactions done in Europe. 

NB. We collect intel by using our own means and not as an API re-packaging of what you can find on Crunchbase, Dealroom and the likes. We think the effort makes the difference. 

 

 

 

January recap

Quick overview of the top deals announced last month

(Pre)seed 🇫🇷 ​Hexana​ 15.7M seed 🇨🇭 ​Oxyle​ 15M seed 🇬🇧 ​Model ML​ 12M seed 🇬🇧 ​RocketPhone​ 10.5M pre-seed 🇩🇪 ​hallo theo​ 10.3M seed 🇬🇧 ​Prior Labs​ 9.3M pre-seed 🇬🇧 ​C the signs​ 8M seed 🇩🇪 ​Akribion​ 8M seed 🇩🇪 ​Enapi​ 7.9M seedSeries A 🇪🇸 ​Quibim​ 50M 🇫🇷 ​Bioptimus​ 41M 🇩🇪 ​Avelios Medical​ 31M 🇬🇧 ​Salience Labs​ 30M 🇫🇷 ​Robeauté​ 28M 🇫🇷 ​Maki People​ 26.2M 🇩🇪 ​Sereact​ 26.2M

Later stage 🇸🇪 ​Neko​ 260M B 🇬🇧 ​Synthesia​ 180M D 🇵🇱 ​ElevenLabs​ 180M C 🇩🇪 ​Neura Robotics​ 126M B 🇫🇷 ​Alice &Bob​ 105M B

 

 

Investors

Highlight

Goldman Sachs leading the Tines deal above, is (yet another) signal that hopefully 2025 is the year the frozen liquidity markets will start melting away.

 

On the move

🇬🇧 ​Guillaume Bayol​ joined Trilantic Europe as a partner and head of the firm's energy transition fund, after sixteen years with Oaktree in London. 

🇬🇧 ​Leah Morris​ joined Pillar VC to manage a new AI fellowship program in London, relocating from Toronto where she spent four years with Radical Ventures. 

🇬🇧 ​Sam Eshrati​ joined identity vc as a venture partner - he's previously done marketing for TechBBQ and scouting for Ada Ventures.

🇸🇪 ​Nelson Casata​ was hired by Creandum to manage the French dealflow out of the London office, after he had spent two years with Headline.

🇪🇸 ​Yahel Halamish​ and ​Sebastian Anastassiou​ were each promoted to partners by Nina Capital - both based in Barcelona.

🇩🇪 ​Julius de Gruyter​ joined Cherry Ventures full time in the Berlin office, after having been an intern with the company last summer.

 

Powder 

🇧🇪 Junction Growth Investors kicked off its first fund with a ​€115 million​ close, targeting energy transition startups from across Europe.

🇸🇬 Antler closed its second Nordic Fund at ​$100 million​. 

🇪🇸 Banco Sabadell and Antai Ventures launched ​Necta Ventures​, a VC fund of funds with a target of €100 million.

🇪🇸 Nina Capital did a first ​€50 million​ close for a third fund to back 25 pre-seed to Series A healthtech startups.

🇧🇪 Newschool VC is a newly launched solo-GP vehicle by ​Christophe Morbee​ in Belgium, doing pre-seed rounds of scalable startups disrupting old school industries.

 

Europeans abroad

🇵🇹 Bright Pixel Capital footed the bill for a ​$5 million​ series A extension with Keychain, a NY-based startup building a marketplace connecting CPG manufacturers to retailers - the Portuguese join Lightspeed, Box Group and SV Angel in the captable.

🇳🇱 Merck and 🇫🇷 Partech Ventures invested in a ​$7.6 million​ seed round raised by HD, a Thai health-care services marketplace operator.

🇬🇧 20vc contributed to a ​$11 million​ Series A round raised by Beam, American startup operating a platform designed to help construction businesses manage sales, finances, and operations.

🇬🇧 20vc also chipped in to a ​$41 million​ series B raised by Voyantis, an Israel-based provider of an AI-driven growth platform for customer acquisition and lifecycle optimization.

🇬🇧 Index Ventures was the lead investor in a ​$50.4 million​ combining seed and Series A rounds raised by Dorsia, an American startup operating a membership-based reservations platform for high-end restaurants and venues.

🇬🇧 Vitruvian Partners led a ​$100 million​ fundraising deal with China-based Klook, which manages a travel platform focused on Asia Pacific region.

 

Elsewhere

  • Oaktree Capital raised ​$16 billion​ for its 12th flagship fund.
  • PSG Equity announced the closing of two new funds, raising a total of ​$8 billion​.
  • Founders Fund to conclude fundraising for a third growth fund at ​$3 billion​.
  • Coatue raised ​$249 million​ for its second climate tech VC fund, which has an evergreen structure.
  • Slow Ventures closed a new ​$60 million​ fund targeting YouTube creators who've become authorities on niche areas - ICYMI, Slow is co-founded by ​Sam Lessin​, who is also husband of ​Jessica Lessin​, founder of The Information.

 

  • ​Brett McGurk​ joined Lux Capital as a venture partner, after having worked for the Biden administration. 
  • ​Lance Co Ting Keh​ was promoted to partner at Bessemer, after a one year advisory role - he's previously worked for Alphabet as head of early stage AI projects.

 

  • USV invested in a ​seed deal​ raised by Humane Genomics, a NYC company developing synthetic viruses as a way of reprogramming cells - done by a ​Dutch serial founder​.
  • General Catalyst and A* co-led a ​$8.25 million​ seed round raised by Fifteenth, American startup doing AI complex tax for tech professionals and investors.
  • Redpoint, First Round Capital, Conviction, and YC invested in a ​$30 million​ seed raised by Collate, which does an AI-powered platform that automates the creation and management of documentation for companies developing medical devices, diagnostics, and pharmaceuticals.

 

  • SignalFire led a ​$45 million​ Series A funding raised by Justpoint, Americans working to identify dangerous drugs for the sake of litigation.
  • General Catalyst led a ​$105 million​ series A raised by Eudia, US-based startup building what they call an Augmented Intelligence platform for Fortune 500 legal teams.
  • Google, SoftBank and Valor Equity Partners contributed to a ​$230 million​ series A deal raised by QuEra Computing, US-based producer of neutral-atom quantum computers.

 

  • Notable Capital, a16z, Bessemer, Kindred Ventures, and First Round Capital contributed to a ​$49 million​series B raised by Fal, Turkish startup operated from US and running a gen AI media creation platform for devs.
  • Lightspeed Venture Partners and Altimeter Capital co-led, and were joined by insiders Alpine Space Venturesand First Round Capital, a ​$110 million​ Series B deal closed by K2 Space, Americans operating a satellite platform.

 

  • Tabby, which is a Saudi BNPL company, raised ​$160 million​ in Series E funding at a $3.3 billion valuation as it prepares for a local IPO next year - the captable includes GFC, PeakXV, Paypal and Wellington Investments. 
  • Mercury, an SF-based digital banking startup, is in talks to raise funding from investors led by Sequoia Capital at a valuation north of ​$3 billion​ -> Mercury's at ~$500M revenue and ~$200M EBITDA and captable includes Andreessen Horowitz, Coatue and CRV.
  • xAI, the AI company spun off of Twitter by Elon Musk, is out raising ​$10 billion​ at a $75 billion valuation from a syndicate including existing backers Sequoia Capital, a16z, and Valor Equity Partners.

 

 

 

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Data-based intel from the European startup ecosystem written professionally in an easy to understand format - tactical bits and industry-wide trends, curated deals, active investors and relevant early stage transactions.

Published every Monday morning and emailed to the Nordic 9 customers - investors, founders and decision makers willing to stay updated with the strategic moves from Europe.

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