Funding

Arago, a Paris and Silicon Valley-based deeptech startup pioneering a new class of energy-efficient AI chips powered by light, has raised $26 million in seed funding to accelerate the commercialisation of its photonic processor, codenamed “JEF”.

Norrsken VC has invested €5 million in Barcelona-based healthtech startup Biorce, revolutionising clinical trials with AI to bring treatments to patients sooner. The funding comes just seven months after Biorce’s €3.5 million first round in November 2024, led by healthtech specialist YZR Capital and Mustard Seed Maze.

The AI startup ecosystem is growing, in part helped by the technology maturing and the models improving, contributing to an explosion in funding.

upLYFT, a startup in the smart technology sector, is excited to announce the successful completion of a £500,000 investment through the Deepbridge Capital UK Innovation Seed Fund, alongside TIME Interconnect (HK) Limited.

At Zubr Capital, a growth-stage investment fund focused on supporting ambitious tech companies, we typically back three to five companies each year during the Series A or Series B stages. That doesn’t mean there aren’t hundreds of impressive founders with compelling ideas out there – only that few truly align with the investment approach and long-term partnership model we’ve developed.

London-based Zango has raised $4.8 million in a round led by Nexus Venture Partners. Other participants in the round include South Park Commons, Richard Davies, CEO of Allica Bank, Alan Morgan, former head of Financial Services at McKinsey (EMEA), Mark Ransford, Notion Capital, No Label Ventures, and Start Ventures.

Laverock Therapeutics, a gene control company powering the development of disease-responsive advanced therapies, announces the expansion of its seed funding round, taking the total raised to more than £20 million.

Flowstep, the designtech startup building an AI-native canvas for product design teams, has secured a $2.6 million seed round led by London based Supernode Global with a list of supporting investors.

German rocket startup Isar Aerospace joined Europe’s unicorn ranks, reaching a valuation of more than $1 billion following a €150 million (£128 million) funding round led by Eldridge Industries – a US firm chaired by billionaire and Chelsea FC co-owner, Todd Boehly.

Zama, the open-source cryptography company building Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) solutions for Blockchain, announced a $57 million Series B funding round co-led by two US-based investment firms Blockchange Ventures and Pantera Capital, bringing Zama’s total funding to over $150 million, and its valuation to north of a billion USD.

Antler Bio, an AgriTech company transforming dairy farming with gene expression technology, has announced a $4.3 million investment to scale its world-first EpiHerd system.

There is just one week left for founders to submit their applications to be considered for Bits & Pretzels European Pitch Contest where they can put their business in the spotlight in front of 1,500 potential investors from across Europe at the annual Bits & Pretzels festival that takes place in Munich in September.

Czech company Filuta AI, which develops tools based on artificial intelligence (AI), has raised $4.2 million (approximately CZK 90 million) in a seed funding round.

Project A, one of Europe’s technology venture capital firms, announces the successful close of its oversubscribed £278 million Fund V, increasing its total assets under management to €1.2 billion ($1.4 billion).

OutSee, a genomics and drug discovery company pioneering a unique AI-based predictive genomics approach to target discovery, announced it has secured £1.8 million in seed funding, led by Ahren Innovation Capital and with additional investment from Kadmos Capital, Empirical Ventures, and Panacea Ventures.

Cellugy, a Danish industrial biotechnology startup developing innovative, biobased solutions to replace fossil-based materials in the personal care sector, has secured €8.1 million to support scaling up the production of its biofabricated cellulose-based rheology modifier material, EcoFLEXY.

Tadaweb has secured $20 million to scale its Small Data Operating System for publicly available information (PAI) and open-source intelligence (OSINT). The software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform is used by defence, national security, public safety, cyber threat intelligence, and corporate security organisations across Europe and the US to boost the efficiency of analysts and investigators by reducing time to insight from days to minutes.

Ahead of Armed Forces Day, Start Up Loans and X-Forces Enterprise announce over £4 million worth of loans has been delivered to members of the Armed Forces community since July 2024.

biotope by VIB has secured €5 million in the first close of its second fund, marking a major step toward its €9 million target over the next 18 months. The fund will enable biotope to invest €250,000 in up to 30 international early-stage biotech startups.

UK Finance has released a new report on the progress made by banks following the introduction of the Disability Finance Code for Entrepreneurship (DFCE) in December 2024, which aims to improve the entrepreneurial landscape for disabled individuals.