📅 July - August 2026 | Read time: 5 mins
Back to work? Need to catch up on everything that happened in the European tech ecosystem while you were (hopefully) offline? We’ve got you covered. Here are all the headlines you need to know.
Big news
OpenAI confirmed two of its models escaped a test environment and hacked Hugging Face, one of the first autonomous AI cyber attacks on record. Read more here.
London-based Revolut confirmed a secondary share sale at a reported $115B valuation and launched an in-house AI unit. Read more here and here.
Anthropic signed a $45B, six-year compute deal with UK neocloud Nscale. Read more here.
London AI cloud startup Volta exited stealth at a $2.4B valuation with a €8.6B compute deal, reportedly also with Anthropic. Read more here.
UK chip startup Fractile is reportedly in talks to raise at a $6.5B valuation. Read more here.
AI infrastructure group Nebius is looking to raise $4.5B through a bond issue. Read more here.
French quantum scale-up Pasqal hit the Nasdaq with €309M in cash at closing. Read more here.
Finland’s IQM became the first European quantum computing company to list on a major US exchange. Read more here.
UK maritime defence startup Kraken Technology hit unicorn status. Read more here.
Paris-based Mistral had quite the summer: Microsoft signed a multibillion-dollar deal to use its computing infrastructure in Europe, and enterprise customers like ASML are helping finance its data centre buildout. Read more here and here.
Crazy Funding Rounds
Munich-based Helsing raised a $1.8B Series E at an $18B valuation, Europe’s biggest-ever defence round. Read more here.
German drone maker Quantum Systems raised $1.2B at an $8B valuation. Read more here.
Helsinki-based ICEYE raised a €1B round, the first investment of the new Scale-Up Europe Fund. Read more here.
Italian AI company Domyn raised $1B in debt for its Colosseum supercomputer. Read more here.
Stockholm-based Neko Health raised $700M as demand grows for preventive health scans. Read more here.
Spanish quantum company Multiverse Computing says it has funding commitments of up to $570M. Read more here.
Cambridge-based CuspAI raised $450M from backers including Jeff Bezos. Read more here.
Munich-based Proxima Fusion raised €411M to build Europe’s commercial fusion champion. Read more here.
Stockholm-based Lovable raised $400M, doubling its valuation to $13B. Read more here.
UK chip startup OLIX raised £312M at a £3.3B valuation. Read more here.
UK-based Cambridge Aerospace raised $300M, lifting its valuation to $3.4B. Read more here.
Paris-based Skello secured a €200M investment led by Bridgepoint. Read more here.
SoftBank invested $200M in Swiss robotics startup Gravis Robotics. Read more here.
London-based Dwelly raised $170M from EQT Growth and General Catalyst for its AI letting-agency rollup. Read more here.
Spanish launcher PLD Space won a €158.9M ESA award. Read more here.
UK robotics startup Humanoid hit a $1.35B valuation with a $152M Series A. Read more here.
HappyRobot landed a $150M Series C to scale agentic AI for enterprise operations. Read more here.
UK-based Callosum raised a $100M seed led by Atomico to run AI workloads across different chips and models. Read more here.
Cool Exits
Uber agreed to acquire Delivery Hero in a $13B deal spanning 99 countries. Read more here.
Nvidia reportedly agreed to buy Hugging Face for $12.9B. Read more here.
Bending Spoons agreed to buy Airtable for $2.25B, its first deal since its Nasdaq IPO. Read more here.
SAP bought German AI startup Prior Labs for €1B, just 18 months after launch. Read more here.
Neura Robotics acquired Adlatus to push physical AI into autonomous cleaning and Bosch Rexroth‘s Active Shuttle business. Read more here and here.
Duolingo snapped up UK animation studio Animade. Read more here.
Legora acquired Wexler, its fifth acquisition of 2026. Read more here.
New VC Funds
Index Ventures raised $2B with AI at the centre of the strategy. Read more here.
Highland Europe closed a €1.1B Fund VI for European scale-ups. Read more here.
Accel raised an enlarged $800M early-stage fund. Read more here.
Airbus anchored E2D’s $500M European defence tech fund. Read more here.
QuantumLight, Nik Storonsky’s AI-driven fund, raised €432M. Read more here.
Lakestar raised a $300M Resilience Fund I. Read more here.
White Star Capital closed a $250M Fund IV for Series A to B. Read more here.
Acurio Ventures launched a €115M fund for Europe’s VC secondary market. Read more here.
Orbit Capital closed a €107M venture debt fund for CEE scale-ups. Read more here.
Lockheed Martin Ventures committed at least €87M to Europe and opened a UK office. Read more here.
Tapestry VC closed an $80M fund and opened a London office. Read more here.
Norrsken Evolve closed €62M and set up in Amsterdam. Read more here.
Climentum Capital hit a €60M first close for climate hardware. Read more here.
Norway’s RunwayVC reached a €40M first close for its industrial tech Fund II. Read more here.
Also on our radar
OpenAI and Anthropic both filed confidential S-1s, at $852B and $965B valuations respectively. Read more here.
Open source caught up: Beijing-based Moonshot AI released Kimi K3, at 2.8 trillion parameters the largest open-weight model ever. Read more here.
The EU AI Act‘s transparency rules took effect on August 2, while high-risk obligations slipped to December 2027. Read more here.
And behind it all: Q2 was Europe’s strongest venture quarter in four years, with $24B raised. Read more here.
That’s it for the rentrée. Did we miss anything? Drop a comment with whatever struck you this summer!
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