📅 Aug 31 – Sep 4, 2026 | Read time: 5 mins
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Mistral closes €3B at a €20B valuation led by Samsung, with Nvidia, ASML, and the EU’s own Scaleup Fund all in the cap table. Isar Aerospace puts a rocket into orbit from European soil for the first time. Pasqal hits Nasdaq with $360M in cash. Nscale adds another $3B in debt to bankroll GPU campuses in Texas and North Carolina.
Let’s dive into the data.
📰 News of the Week
Pasqal lists on Nasdaq via SPAC
The Paris-based neutral-atom quantum computing company completed its business combination with Bleichroeder Acquisition Corp. II and began trading under PSQL with $360M in cash at closing, at a $2B pre-money valuation. Seven QPUs are deployed across more than 25 commercial and research applications, with a dual-listing on Euronext Paris planned.
Isar Aerospace reaches orbit from European soil
The German launch startup’s second test flight from Andøya in Norway became the first privately-developed rocket to reach orbit from European soil. As SpaceX is progressively restricting launch access, Isar provides a European answer.
Mistral said to have closed €3B Series D at a €20B valuation
Samsung, Nvidia, and ASML all wrote checks, three of the most strategically important companies in the global AI hardware supply chain, each with a different reason to want a competitive European model to exist. EQT’s Scaleup Europe Fund also participated.
🇪🇺 Top Deals of the Week
Mistral | €3B Series D | France | AI | €20B EV | Samsung, Nvidia, ASML, EQT Scaleup Europe Fund
Nscale | $3B Debt | United Kingdom | AI Infrastructure | JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs
Cloover | $100M Debt facility | Germany | CleanTech| European Investment Fund
Wonderful | $550M Series C | Netherlands | Enterprise AI | $5B EV | Insight Partners
FNZ | $450M | United Kingdom | FinTech | La Caisse, CPP Investments, Generation Investment Management, Motive Partners
iPronics | €108M Series B | Spain | DeepTech | Maverick Silicon, Light Street Capital
Elekta | €100M EIB Loan | Sweden | MedTech | European Investment Bank
PLD Space | €108M Series C extension (total €288M) | Spain | SpaceTech | Mitsubishi Electric, COFIDES, Endeavor Catalyst, SOPEF
HyImpulse | €50M Series A extension | Germany | SpaceTech | JOIN Capital, Ace Capital Partners
Conveo | $50M Series A | Belgium | SalesTech | DST Global
🔍 My Personal Favorites
Zeit AI | AI Seed | $5M | Y Combinator, Sequoia Scout Fund
Munich-based startup plugging AI agents directly into factory data streams to automate inventory optimization, anomaly detection, and procurement cost reduction for industrial manufacturers.
YC + Sequoia Scout Fund backing at seed
Proprietary industrial semantic data models trained on factory-floor data
Already deploying across manufacturing hubs in Central Europe
S-Transistors | DeepTech | Pre-Seed | €2.6M | Lifeline Ventures
Finnish VTT spinout building superconducting transistors that operate inside cryogenic quantum computers, reducing wiring and power demands that are currently the main barrier to scaling beyond a few thousand qubits.
VTT spinout with wafer-scale production already demonstrated
First product: a multiplexer that ships to early customers within year one
Lifeline Ventures led, the most active Nordic deeptech seed investor
Holifya | HealthTech| Pre-Seed | €2M | CDP Venture Capital, Zooga VC
Italian digital clinic combining AI diagnostics with multidisciplinary clinical care for GLP-1 therapy, achieving weight loss twice the drug-only average and three times higher adherence.
First-mover in Italian pharmacologic obesity care
11M eligible GLP-1 patients in Italy, less than 1% currently treated
CDP Venture Capital backed via Next Age programme
🚪 Exits
Pasqal | Nasdaq IPO via SPAC | €1.7B pre-money valuation | France | Quantum Computing | Ticker: PSQL
Pirkx | Acquired by Pri0r1ty Intelligence | £58k | United Kingdom | Employee Benefits / HR Tech
Quell | Acquired by HITAI | undisclosed | United Kingdom | Fitness Gaming / Motion Tracking
Nilum | Acquired by eComID | undisclosed | Europe | Recommerce / Sustainability
💸 New Dry Powder
Uplift Ventures | €100M | Germany | DeepTech at late Seed and Series A | Physical AI, energy, enterprise AI, logistics
Zinc Science-for-Impact Fund | £46M (incl. £34M from British Business Bank) | United Kingdom | Turning UK lab science into deeptech startups
WAD Capital Fund I | €67.5M first close (target €130M) | Belgium | Buyouts of European SMEs facing succession
UK Government | £100M competition | United Kingdom | AI companies building solutions for UK public services
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