Mind The Gap #16
European Tech weekly signal over noise. News, deals, funds, & exits.
📅 April 20 – 24, 2026 | Read time: 5 mins
Aleph Alpha is going to Canada. Cohere picks up one of the most talked-about sovereign AI assets in Europe, and nobody should be shocked in hindsight. Without government customers sustaining you at scale, building a competitive foundation model company outside the US is a brutal equation. What matters more is what the rest of the week looked like: clean compute, depot electrification, quantum chip testing infrastructure, and synthetic fuels all drew serious capital. The structural themes are holding. The sovereign AI conversation, on the other hand, just got a lot harder to have.
Let’s dive into the data.
📰 News of the Week
Aleph Alpha to be acquired by Cohere
Cohere agreed to acquire Germany’s Aleph Alpha, one of the few European foundation model companies explicitly positioned as a sovereign AI alternative to US providers. The deal consolidates two non-US LLM players without keeping the asset in European hands. A tough signal for anyone still arguing Europe can build at the frontier without state-scale anchor customers.
Revolut targets $200B valuation for IPO
The most watched fintech exit in European VC history keeps inching closer to the market.
EU and Ukraine launch €160M defence innovation programme
The EU and Ukraine established a €160M programme combining a €140M EU guarantee and €20M in grants to fund defence innovation startups and projects.
Palantir in talks with UK Met Police on AI-driven investigation tools
Palantir Technologies is in discussions with the Metropolitan Police to deploy AI analysis tools in criminal investigations. One of the most significant law enforcement AI deals in the UK to date, if it closes.
France’s Health Data Hub selects Scaleway to replace Microsoft
The French government chose Scaleway, an Iliad subsidiary, to host national health research data covering millions of citizens, ending a years-long controversy over US hyperscaler access to one of the most sensitive public datasets in Europe. A clean win for European cloud infrastructure.
🇪🇺 Top Deals of the Week
Verda | €100M | Finland | Cloud | Lifeline Ventures
Cloudsmith | €61.5M Series C | United Kingdom | DevOps | TVC
BLP Digital | $50M | Switzerland | ERP Automation | Goldman Sachs Alternatives
UNIVITY | €27M | France | SpaceTech | Bpifrance, Expansion, Blast Club
ATMOS Space Cargo | €25.7M Series A | Germany | SpaceTech | Baldnord, Expansion
Rivan | £25M | United Kingdom | CleanTech | IQ Capital, Plural
Planetary | €23M | Switzerland | BioTech | Radikal Capital, Oetker Ventures
Decade Energy | €22M | France | CleanTech | Eiffel Investment Group, SET Ventures
OrangeQS | €15M Seed | Netherlands | Quantum | EIC Fund
ScreenPoint Medical | €13.6M | Netherlands | MedTech | Insight Partners, Siemens Healthineers
Exergy3 | €11.4M | United Kingdom | CleanTech | Axeleo Capital, Bayern Kapital
Smart Robotics | €10M Series A | Netherlands | Robotics | Rotterdamse Havendraken, Innovation Industries, Ernij Next
Incapto | €10M Series B | Spain | FoodTech | McWin Capital Partners, Cardumen, Lever VC
Fasal Bio | €7M | Croatia | Sustainable Materials | BlackPeak Capital
🚪 Exits
Aleph Alpha | Acquired by Cohere | undisclosed | Germany | Foundation Models
Quarkslab | Acquired by Airbus | undisclosed | France | Cybersecurity
Gett | Acquired by Lyft | $55M | United Kingdom | Mobility
Fragment | Acquired by Sierra | undisclosed | France | AI / Customer Service
Qura | Acquired by Legora | undisclosed | Sweden | LegalTech
🔍 My Personal Favorite
Cerca Magnetics | MedTech / Quantum Sensing | Seed | €4.3M
Cerca Magnetics builds wearable brain imaging systems using optically pumped magnetometers, a quantum sensing modality that runs at room temperature. Conventional MEG systems require cryogenic cooling, cost several million euros, need magnetically shielded rooms, and cannot be worn. That combination rules out paediatric use cases and movement disorder research entirely. OPM-based wearable helmets conform to head geometry, enable measurements during natural movement, and improve signal-to-noise ratios for motor and epilepsy research. The €4.3M seed provides runway into a market where neurological diagnostics are chronically underinvested at the hardware level. Proprietary sensor fabrication and calibration algorithms compound defensibility over time. Worth watching early.
💸 New Dry Powder
Kurma Partners | €215M | France | Biotech, Healthcare | early to growth
Passion Capital | €46M | United Kingdom | AI, FinTech, Enterprise Risk | Seed
DFF Ventures | €70M | Netherlands | Vertical AI, Software for physical industries | Pre-seed
Thank you for reading !
Don’t just read the market: understand it.
If you enjoyed this edition, please consider sharing it with a colleague or friend who should be tracking European VC.
Did a friend forward this to you? Subscribe and get Mind The Gap in your inbox every Monday.
See you next week for more Tech & VC insights.
Best,
Agathe