Funding

VC funding in the AI sector started strong in 2025, carrying forward impressive momentum from 2024. During the first three months of the year, AI companies and startups raised tens of billions of dollars in funding rounds, proving investor confidence in the sector remains strong.

Innovate UK has awarded TreQ and a consortium of partners including Rigetti, Oxford Ionics, Q-CTRL, and Qruise, £1.65 million to develop an Open Architecture Quantum (OAQ) Testbed.

TDK Corporation has announced that its corporate venture-capital subsidiary TDK Ventures has launched Fund 3, a $150 million commitment to catalysing the next generation of iconic deeptech startups.

WSense – the Italian ocean tech company enabling the Internet of Underwater Things (IoUT) through its proprietary “subsea wifi” systems – has successfully closed a €7.2 million pre-Series B Round.

The 2024 EIB Investment Survey reinforces market trends supporting a shift in Europe’s current investment landscape. Economic changes and geopolitical uncertainty are placing more significant stress on business owners. Where some industries struggle to adapt, digital innovation is seeing a renaissance through private equity (PE) support.

viAct, an AI-powered impact monitoring platform, has successfully closed a $7.3 million Series A funding round.

Nyobolt has raised $30 million in funding, led by IQ Capital and Latitude, the sister fund of LocalGlobe, with strategic partners including Scania Invest and Takasago Industry.

Inephany, an AI optimisation startup, has announced the close of a $2.2 million pre-seed funding round to accelerate the development of its AI-powered optimisation platform, which promises to revolutionise how neural networks – including Large Language Models (LLMs) – are trained and fine-tuned.

Aviva Investors, the global asset management business of Aviva, has announced it has made an €11.4 million investment with Lakestar, a European venture & growth capital firm specialising in technology.

Global marketplace and destination for branded pre-loved fashion, eBay, is investing $300,000 into Refiberd in its ongoing efforts to support fashion startups to scale circular solutions through its global Circular Fashion Fund programme.

KÄÄPÄ Biotech, a biotechnology company that researches, innovates, and develops functional mushroom products, has announced it has closed a €900,000 strategic investment from PeakBridge, a pioneering global fund manager in agri-food and a member of the Edmond de Rothschild Private Equity partnership.

Mindset AI, an embedded AI agent platform, has raised £4.3 million in funding to expand its operations in the UK and open an office in Chicago, US.

UK fintech, Marshmallow, announces that it has raised $90 million worth of funding from Portage, BlackRock, and Columbia Lake Partners. The raise comes three years after the business’ Series B, in which time, it has almost doubled its valuation to just over $2 billion.

The UK Government is investing £121 million in quantum technology, a novel technology with huge potential, to tackle crime, fraud and money laundering, bolstering the UK’s world-leading research programmes.

Tracxn has released its Q1 2025 UK FinTech Funding Report, capturing the funding dynamics in the country’s financial technology space. The UK fintech ecosystem emerged as the second highest funded fintech ecosystem globally after the US in Q1 2025. Despite this ranking, the sector experienced a significant contraction in overall funding compared to previous quarters and the same period last year.

Wonder, an AI-native creative studio, has raised $3 million in pre-seed funding to produce world-class original and interactive content.

Over the past 18 months, Treble Peak has secured partnerships with leading private equity managers, including Passion Capital, Headway Capital, DN Capital, Episode 1, Seraphim Ventures, and Hanover Investors.

Tracxn just released its Q1 2025 United Kingdom Tech Funding Report, revealing that the country ranked as the 2nd highest funded globally in the quarter, behind the United States and ahead of India and Germany.

Ecocem as part of a consortium of Europe’s leading academic and industrial leaders, has announced it has been awarded €4 million in research funding the European Innovation Council (EIC)’s.

Ryft announced a successful £5.7 million Series A round to fund the development of technology that will empower acquiring banks, like Clearhaus, to compete with Stripe Connect, Adyen, and similar payment providers in the market.