Latest from Mike Butcher
Fundraising
AI business agent startup Bardeen pulls in strategic investment from Dropbox and HubSpot
Bardeen has raised $3M to build its platform that uses a natural language interface to automate repetitive knowledge work.
Europe is routinely castigated by tech industry observers for having too few “growth capital” funds, and, compared to the U.S., that’s true. That said, it is nowhere near nonexistent on…
We’ve been covering U.S.-based insurtech startup Faye way back since 2022 with its seed round, and the Series A round in 2023, and it seems they continue to be on…
With the CrowdStrike update continuing to cause havoc across the planet, a startup has raised $13.5 million to at least improve some level of security for the kinds of devices…
Public market investors have a large variety of infrastructure and software that helps them keep track of, analyze and manage their investments, but that’s not the case for investors in…
Exoticca’s platform connects flights, hotels, meals, transfers, transportation and more, plus the local companies at the destinations.
HERO Software has closed a €40 million Series B financing round, and plans to expand across Europe.
The capital will be used to expand in Europe, the U.S. and Asia.
AI
Defense AI startup Helsing raises $487M Series C, plans Baltic expansion to combat Russian threat
Helsing has created a new entity in Estonia and plans to spend €70 million on Baltic defense projects over the next three years.
After announcing a whopping $20 million seed last year, Unlikely AI founder William Tunstall-Pedoe has kept the budding U.K. foundation model maker’s approach under lock and key. Until now: TechCrunch…
Quantum Rise, a Chicago-based startup that does AI-driven automation for companies like dunnhumby (a retail analytics platform for the grocery industry), has raised a $15 million seed round from Erie…
Venture
Spain’s exposure to climate change helps Madrid-based VC Seaya close €300M climate tech fund
According to a recent Dealroom report on the Spanish tech ecosystem, the combined enterprise value of Spanish startups surpassed €100 billion in 2023. In the latest confirmation of this upward trend, Madrid-based…
Forestay, an emerging VC based out of Geneva, Switzerland, has been busy. This week it closed its second fund, Forestay Capital II, at a hard cap of $220 million. The…
Hardware
Vaire Computing raises $4.5M for ‘reversible computing’ moonshot which could drastically reduce energy needs
Vaire Computing, based in London and Seattle, is betting that chips that can do reversible computing are going to be the way forward for the world.
While startup valuations have plummeted since the bull run of 2021-2022, a factor that’s hit the European startup ecosystem particularly hard, there’s one region of Europe where the correction has…
AI
EasyTranslate thinks augmenting LLMs with humans will give it an edge over pure AI translation services
EasyTranslate is headed in a new direction with a new, generative AI-driven platform that it calls HumanAI.
Climate
Climate X’s founders mortgaged their house to stay afloat — now they’ve raised an $18M Series A
U.K. startup Climate X has raised $18M to help financial services providers assess the impact of climate change on their physical assets.
The company says its platform functions like a search engine for materials, enabling the fast evaluation of a “vast number of novel structures.”
Former Autonomy chief executive Mike Lynch issued a statement Thursday following his acquittal of criminal charges, ending a 13-year legal battle with Hewlett Packard that became one of Silicon Valley’s…
While the transport industry does use legacy software, many of these platforms are from an earlier era. Qargo hopes its newer technologies can help it leapfrog the competition.
Neural Concept lets designers model how components will perform before they can be manufactured.
FintechOS competes with other companies such as Ncino, Meridian Link, Abrigo and Backbase.
Exactly.ai says it uses generative AI to help artists retain legal ownership of their art while being able to reproduce their designs faster and at scale.
Ifeel is being offered as part of an employer’s or insurance provider’s healthcare coverage.
Featured Article
Signal’s Meredith Whittaker on the Telegram security clash and the ‘edgelords’ at OpenAI
Among other things, Whittaker is concerned about the concentration of power in the five main social media platforms.
Startups
Autonomous shipping startup Orca AI tops up with $23M led by OCV Partners and MizMaa Ventures
If you thought autonomous driving was just for cars, think again. The “autonomous navigation” market — where ships steer themselves guided by AI, resulting in fuel and time savings —…
Praktika has secured a $35.5M Series A round to apply AI-powered avatars to language-learning apps.
Venture firm Shilling has launched a €50M fund to support growth-stage startups in its own portfolio and to invest in startups everywhere else.
Trawa simplifies energy purchasing and management for SMEs by leveraging an AI-powered platform and downstream data from customers.
Cargo ships docking at a commercial port incur costs called “disbursements” and “port call expenses.” These might include port dues, towage, and pilotage fees. It’s a complex patchwork and all…
