Mind The Gap #W22
European Tech & VC: weekly signal over noise. News, deals, funds, & exits.
📅 May 22 – 26, 2026 | Read time: 5 mins
📸 Mind The Gap is now on Instagram: @mindthegap_tech - daily European tech news, see you there.
Europe’s tech scene appears to be spending more time asking who owns the compute, the energy, and the infrastructure.
From defence to AI, some of this week’s biggest stories point in the same direction: strategic technologies are no longer a niche corner of venture capital. They’re increasingly becoming the main event.
Let’s dive into the data.
📰 News of the Week
Oura launches Ring 5 and moves closer to IPO
The Finnish company unveiled Ring 5, its smallest smart ring yet at 40% lighter than its predecessor, as it advances its confidential NYSE filing. Samsung already has a ring. Apple is rumoured to be building one. Oura is racing to the public markets before the category gets crowded.
Stark seeks €300M at €2.5B valuation
The German defence unicorn is raising fresh capital with Peter Thiel reportedly doubling down on his position. Stark builds autonomous drone systems and is one of the most visible bets on Europe’s accelerating drone arms race.
Mistral signs industrial AI deals with BMW and Airbus
On its third anniversary, the French AI scaleup launched “Mistral for Industrial Engineering” and signed partnerships with BMW and Airbus. The move targets design, engineering, and manufacturing and puts Mistral directly up against US incumbents on European industrial territory.
Anthropic raises $65B at a $965B valuation and opens its sixth European office
Claude maker closed one of the largest private funding rounds in tech history, led by Altimeter, Dragoneer, Greenoaks, and Sequoia, with run-rate revenue crossing $47B earlier this month. It also opened a Milan office, its sixth European city in under a year. At $965B, Anthropic now eclipses OpenAI as the most valuable private AI company in the world.
🇪🇺 Top Deals of the Week
Pure DC | $2.7B | United Kingdom | Data Centers | Debt financing | New Amsterdam facility already leased to Microsoft
Focused Energy | $240M | Germany | EnergyTech | RWE
Fonoa | $110M | Ireland | AI TaxTech | Series C | Headline | Also acquired PwC’s Indirect Tax Edge platform
WeRoad | $58M | Italy | TravelTech | | Airbnb
Inherent | $50M | United Kingdom | Deeptech | Index Ventures
Orbital Industries | $50M | United Kingdom | IndustrialTech | Series B | Plural
D-CRBN | €17.5M | Belgium | CleanTech | Series A | Astaia
Lucis | $20M | France | Health AI | Singular
MokN | $15M | France | Cybersecurity | GV
RevEng.AI | $15M | United Kingdom | Cybersecurity | Series A | NATO Innovation Fund
🚪 Exits
In3 | Acquired by TrueLayer | Netherlands | FinTech
Bosque Foods | Acquired by InfiniteRoots | Spain | FoodTech
Visiopharm | Acquired by Grundium | Denmark | HealthTech
Uptmz | Acquired by Aizy | Denmark | MarketingTech
🔍 My Personal Favorite
Stellar Alpina | Switzerland |SpaceTech | Pre-Seed | €3.8M
Getting a satellite into orbit is the easy part now. Moving it once it’s there, raising orbits, avoiding collisions, extending operational life, is where the economics quietly break down. Current in-space propulsion is fuel-heavy, which means more mass at launch, higher costs, and shorter useful lifespans. Rotating detonation engines fix this by replacing subsonic combustion with supersonic detonation, extracting significantly more thrust per unit of propellant. If the efficiency gains hold at scale, the economics of in-orbit transfer and constellation management change meaningfully. The four ARIS alumni who founded Stellar Alpina built Europe’s first student RDRE in 2024 and completed eight detonative hotfires just 82 days after incorporating. RDRE is hard to control beyond lab conditions and performance at altitude remains to be proved, but few teams arrive at pre-seed with this many hours on the hardware. Founderful led, LP&E participated.
💸 New Dry Powder
byFounders Fund III | €130M | Denmark | Pre-seed and seed, €500K to €4M tickets, 8-15 investments per year, New Nordics and beyond
Longwall Venture Partners Fund II | £100M | United Kingdom | Deep tech spinouts
Marvelous Scito Fund | Marvelous / Joachim Herz Foundation | €20M | Germany | Advanced materials, waste valorisation, robotics
Transition Ventures | $150M | Europe | Deeptech / frontier tech
Goalhanger Ventures | undisclosed | United Kingdom | Creator-led media businesses
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