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London-based startup Lighthouse just raised a hefty $370mn from American investment giant KKR at a valuation of over $1bn, making it Europe’s latest unicorn tech company. The funding will supercharge the company’s ambitions to shake up the $15bn travel tech market. What’s on the to-do list? Refining its AI tools, expanding globally, and snapping up […]
Two years ago, the minds behind Testing for All — a Covid-era at-home testing service — launched a new startup. But instead of those dreaded antigen tests that make you feel like you’re trying to tickle your brain with a cotton swab, the company delivers something much more comforting: a trained nurse or doctor. The […]
London-based startup Gendo has secured €5.1mn amid booming demand for its generative AI software built for architects. British architectural designer George Proud and software engineer Will Jones founded Gendo in 2022. The platform transforms simple inputs like sketches, 2D drawings, or text descriptions into hypereal building designs. It works a bit like Midjourney or DALL-E, […]
Zurich-based venture capital firm Founderful has raised $140mn in its second fund — $20mn more than its target and a strong sign of investor confidence in Switzerland’s flourishing tech ecosystem. First announced back in February, the fund has already invested in 15 early-stage startups. These include Chiral Nano, which develops nanomaterials for silicon chips, and […]
Amsterdam-based startup Sympower has secured €21mn as it looks to scale its grid-balancing technology. Sympower partners with businesses that use a large amount of electricity. It gains access to some of their energy assets and can turn them on and off when the grid requires balancing — a process called demand response. Sympower’s software platform […]
About one in every 10 European startups that have raised VC investment are also backed by an EU grant of equity financing, according to a research project conducted by Dealroom and Dealflow.eu. While the full report is expected to be published later this year, the authors presented a few preliminary numbers in Warsaw last week. […]
In a simulation of Mars, a space rover is testing a control system with an unusual inspiration: insect brains. The software was created by Opteran, a startup based in the UK. But the idea originated from research on bugs. Scientists at the University of Sheffield had been studying the brains of insects. They discovered remarkable neurological efficiency. […]
German startup Marvel Fusion and Colorado State University have broken ground on a $150M laser facility in a bid to commercialise fusion energy. Dubbed ATLAS, the facility will use three ultra-high intensity lasers to fire 7 petawatts of power — over 5,000 times the electrical generation capacity of the US — at a target roughly […]
Dutch startup Skytree has opened a new HQ in Toronto, Canada and a new office in Nashville, Tennessee, as it looks to cash-in on attractive government incentives for direct carbon capture (DAC) technologies. Engineer-turned-entrepreneur Max Beaumont founded Skytree in 2014, following his work on DAC for the European Space Agency. Skytree’s technology is based on […]
A warming world will — and is already having — a profound impact on the things we all depend on: shelter, food, water, energy, medicine. Most nations have committed to drastic cuts in greenhouse gas emissions to dial back the planet’s thermostat. But true sustainability is not just about emissions. We will need to transform […]