Google's announcement that its Gemini app now writes music for you isn't just one of those "blowing my mind" product updates. It feels like a symbolic surrender to a long-standing refrain from Big Tech: creative work is now just another checkbox for a machine.  If you don't know what I am talking about, yesterday Google […]

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Plato, a Berlin-based startup, has raised $14.5 million in seed funding to bring generative AI into wholesale distribution, a massive industry that rarely makes tech headlines but quietly moves a significant share of the world's goods. The round was led by Atomico, with Cherry Ventures, Discovery Ventures, and D11Z joining in. Wholesale distribution accounts for […]

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David Silver, a British AI researcher known for his role at Google's DeepMind lab, has helped build some of the most influential AI systems and is now leading his own ambitious start-up. He is in the middle of raising a $1 billion seed round for his new London-based venture, Ineffable Intelligence. If the fundraising will […]

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If you tuned in to China's 2026 CCTV Spring Festival Gala looking for traditional lion dances and nostalgic tunes, you may have done a double-take when what greeted you was a squad of humanoid robots performing kung fu, synchronized moves, and comedy sketches with more precision than most of us manage during family reunions. It […]

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A Paris-based venture firm that has quietly shaped the quantum technology scenery is now making a much louder statement about Europe's role in the future of computing, materials science, and sensing. Quantonation Ventures has today announced the successful close of its second flagship fund at €220 million, more than double the size of its first […]

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When European tech observers talk about AI ambition, the narrative often splits neatly in two: models and infrastructure. On one side are the clever bits of code that can write, reason, and generate text or images. On the other is the gritty reality of making those bits run reliably, at scale, and in production. Today, […]

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Venture capital has long avoided 'hard' sectors such as government, defence, energy, manufacturing, and hardware, viewing them as uninvestable because startups have limited scope to challenge incumbents. Instead, investors have prioritised fast-moving and lightly regulated software markets with lower barriers to entry. End users in these hard industries have paid the price, as a lack […]

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The European Parliament has taken a rare and telling step: it has disabled built-in artificial intelligence features on work devices used by lawmakers and staff, citing unresolved concerns about data security, privacy, and the opaque nature of cloud-based AI processing. The decision, communicated to Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) in an internal memo this […]

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When FOMO ( fear of missing out) first entered popular language, it was about teenagers scrolling through friends' social feeds and worrying they weren't having as much fun. But today, that word has taken on a different meaning in the era of artificial intelligence. The fear now isn't about beach photos or party snapshots. It's […]

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If you checked X today expecting the usual stream of hot takes, memes, and AI spats, you probably saw… nothing. A widespread outage hit the platform today, leaving feeds blank, timelines unresponsive, and users staring at the digital equivalent of an empty room. Outage trackers such as Downdetector logged a dramatic surge in problem reports […]

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I need to say something that might make CS leaders uncomfortable: most of what your team does before a renewal is valuable, but it's listening to only one channel. Your EBRs, your health scores, your stakeholder maps. They capture what your customer is willing to tell you directly. What they don't capture is the conversation […]

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Not long ago, Peter Steinberger was experimenting with a side project that quickly caught fire across the developer world. His open-source AI assistant, OpenClaw, wasn't just another chatbot; it could act on your behalf, from managing emails to integrating with calendars and messaging platforms.  Today, that project has a new chapter: Steinberger is joining OpenAI […]

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The 62nd Munich Security Conference opened on 13 February 2026 in Munich, Germany, and this year's gathering feels different from past editions. For decades, Munich was about jets, troops, and treaties. Today, cyber and AI are no longer peripheral; they are part of the architecture of security itself. Cyber risks, digital infrastructure, and emerging technologies […]

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London-based deep tech startup Stanhope AI has closed a €6.7 million ($8 million) Seed funding round to advance what it calls a new class of adaptive artificial intelligence designed to power autonomous systems in the physical world. The round was led by Frontline Ventures, with participation from Paladin Capital Group, Auxxo Female Catalyst Fund, UCL […]

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Anthropic has just closed a $30 billion Series G funding round, pushing its valuation to $380 billion and catapulting it into the rarefied ranks of the most valuable private tech companies in the world. The financing was led by Singapore's sovereign wealth fund GIC and investment firm Coatue, with backing from a long list of […]

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If you opened a tech newsletter or even the internet in early 2026 and thought you'd stepped into a dystopian screenplay, or you are the main character in one of Isaac Asimov's writings, you wouldn't be alone. Headlines trumpet layoffs, companies blame "AI transformation," and somewhere in the background, billionaires cheer hot-off-the-press artificial intelligence strategies. […]

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Have you ever asked Alexa to remind you to send a WhatsApp message at a determined hour? And then you just wonder, 'Why can't Alexa just send the message herself? Or the incredible frustration when you use an app to plan a trip, only to have to jump to your calendar/booking website/tour/bank account instead of […]

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Imagine the moment you bring a new dog or cat into your life. That mix of excitement and responsibility. Vet visits, vaccines, learning what food suits them, managing check-ups, and always wondering how to keep them healthy as they grow. Most pet insurance only steps in after a costly accident or illness. It doesn't help […]

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In a technology M&A deal, whether you are acquiring or selling a tech or software business, valuation rarely hinges on a single dimension. Financial performance, growth efficiency, and cash flow durability remain the backbone of any transaction. In practical terms, this means metrics such as revenue and ARR, retention as a proxy for revenue quality, […]

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For families living with neurodegenerative disease, the hardest part is not always the diagnosis. It is the slow erosion that follows: memory fading, personality shifting, independence shrinking. It unfolds quietly. First, forgotten appointments. Then repeated questions. Then moments when a familiar face no longer feels familiar. The illness does not isolate itself to one body. […]

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We stand at one of history's most exhilarating crossroads. Artificial intelligence is rewriting the rules of work, business, and human potential at breathtaking speed. The very capabilities that make us most human, our creativity, our imagination, our ability to dream up what doesn't yet exist, are becoming our most valuable assets. This is not a […]

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Paris-headquartered Naboo has raised a $70m in Series B as it accelerates its ambition to become the operating layer for how large companies plan, book, and control corporate events. The round is led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, the same investor that backed Mistral AI in 2023, and lands just a year after Naboo closed a […]

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Databricks is having one of those years that most enterprise software companies would quietly envy. The data and AI platform says it has reached a $5.4bn annual revenue run rate, growing 65% year over year, at a time when growth across the sector has cooled noticeably. For a private company, that pace is rare. And […]

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London-based deep tech startup Stanhope AI has closed a €6.7 million ($8 million) Seed funding round to advance what it calls a new class of adaptive artificial intelligence designed to power autonomous systems in the physical world. The round was led by Frontline Ventures, with participation from Paladin Capital Group, Auxxo Female Catalyst Fund, UCL Technology Fund, and MMC Ventures. The company says its approach moves beyond the pattern-matching strengths of large language models, aiming instead for systems that can perceive, reason, and act with a degree of context awareness in uncertain environments. Stanhope is developing what it terms a…

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Anthropic has just closed a $30 billion Series G funding round, pushing its valuation to $380 billion and catapulting it into the rarefied ranks of the most valuable private tech companies in the world. The financing was led by Singapore's sovereign wealth fund GIC and investment firm Coatue, with backing from a long list of global institutions, including D.E. Shaw Ventures, Dragoneer, Founders Fund, ICONIQ, and MGX, alongside strategic participation from existing tech investors. That valuation is roughly double what Anthropic was worth at its last funding round in 2025, when it raised $13 billion at a $183 billion post-money…

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If you opened a tech newsletter or even the internet in early 2026 and thought you'd stepped into a dystopian screenplay, or you are the main character in one of Isaac Asimov's writings, you wouldn't be alone. Headlines trumpet layoffs, companies blame "AI transformation," and somewhere in the background, billionaires cheer hot-off-the-press artificial intelligence strategies. Here's the uncomfortable truth: people are still losing their jobs, while AI gets most of the credit. According to the most recent tracking data, the pace of layoffs in tech remains high in 2026. Outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported that U.S. employers announced…

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Have you ever asked Alexa to remind you to send a WhatsApp message at a determined hour? And then you just wonder, 'Why can't Alexa just send the message herself? Or the incredible frustration when you use an app to plan a trip, only to have to jump to your calendar/booking website/tour/bank account instead of your AI assistant doing it all? Well, exactly this gap between AI automation and human action is what the agent-to-agent (A2A) protocol aims to address. With the introduction of AI Agents, the next step of evolution seemed to be communication. But when communication between machines…

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Imagine the moment you bring a new dog or cat into your life. That mix of excitement and responsibility. Vet visits, vaccines, learning what food suits them, managing check-ups, and always wondering how to keep them healthy as they grow. Most pet insurance only steps in after a costly accident or illness. It doesn't help you avoid the situation in the first place. Lassie's product is built around a different insight: giving owners the tools to look after their pets every day, not just when something goes wrong. Now, Stockholm-based insurtech Lassie has secured $75 million in a Series C…

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In a technology M&A deal, whether you are acquiring or selling a tech or software business, valuation rarely hinges on a single dimension. Financial performance, growth efficiency, and cash flow durability remain the backbone of any transaction. In practical terms, this means metrics such as revenue and ARR, retention as a proxy for revenue quality, margin structure, and capital intensity continue to anchor how buyers price risk. However, alongside these tangible indicators sits another layer of value, one that does not always surface cleanly in financial statements and may even remain invisible if it is not properly understood or articulated:…

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For families living with neurodegenerative disease, the hardest part is not always the diagnosis. It is the slow erosion that follows: memory fading, personality shifting, independence shrinking. It unfolds quietly. First, forgotten appointments. Then repeated questions. Then moments when a familiar face no longer feels familiar. The illness does not isolate itself to one body. It rearranges the lives around it. Partners become caregivers. Children become decision-makers. Conversations grow shorter. Patience grows thinner. Guilt creeps in, for being tired, for wishing things were easier, for missing the person who is still physically there. Neurodegeneration is rarely a single patient story.…

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We stand at one of history's most exhilarating crossroads. Artificial intelligence is rewriting the rules of work, business, and human potential at breathtaking speed. The very capabilities that make us most human, our creativity, our imagination, our ability to dream up what doesn't yet exist, are becoming our most valuable assets. This is not a story about humans versus machines. It's a story about human potential unleashed. It's about a future where technology handles the tedious so we can focus on the transcendent. Where the dreamers, the questioners, the bold thinkers who color outside the lines are not just welcomed,…

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Paris-headquartered Naboo has raised a $70m in Series B as it accelerates its ambition to become the operating layer for how large companies plan, book, and control corporate events. The round is led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, the same investor that backed Mistral AI in 2023, and lands just a year after Naboo closed a €20m Series A. Naboo positions itself as an AI-powered procurement platform for corporate events, covering everything from venue booking and travel to supplier coordination and budget control. Founded in 2022, Naboo built its name on simplifying how companies organise and run corporate events,  from booking…

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Databricks is having one of those years that most enterprise software companies would quietly envy. The data and AI platform says it has reached a $5.4bn annual revenue run rate, growing 65% year over year, at a time when growth across the sector has cooled noticeably. For a private company, that pace is rare. And it helps explain why investors have continued to pour money into Databricks, even as funding has become more selective. The company says it has now raised more than $7bn in total capital, including recent equity funding that values the business at $134bn, alongside a large…

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Budapest-based robotics company Allonic has raised $7.2 million in a pre-seed round, marking what investors are calling the largest pre-seed funding round in Hungarian startup history. The raise was led by Visionaries Club with participation from Day One Capital, Prototype, SDAC Ventures, TinyVC, and more than a dozen angels from organisations including OpenAI and Hugging Face. Allonic's $7.2m pre-seed matters because it breaks a quiet rule in Europe: that truly hard hardware problems are supposed to wait until later rounds, or later continents. This is early money going into the physical layer of robotics, not the AI wrapper around it,…

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London-based energy software company Tem has closed a $75 million Series B round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with additional funding from AlbionVC, Atomico, Hitachi Ventures, Schroders Capital, Voyager Ventures, Allianz, and others. The round reportedly values the company at more than $300 million and will fund its expansion into the United States and Australia. Tem builds an AI-native energy platform designed to automate the pricing, matching, and execution of electricity transactions, a market that has long relied on manual processes and legacy infrastructure. Its core system uses machine learning to forecast supply and demand, match buyers with suppliers, and…

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Earned media has always been hailed as the holy grail of PR due to its unparalleled ability to build trust. Most recent surveys state that 40%-60% of the population still trusts organic content the most, depending on the country. However, I see significant business risks in relying on organic PR only, especially now that various AI systems are on the rise. Robots don't distinguish between earned and paid content when using it to generate answers. And that's a wake-up call for us all to revise our PR strategies. The potential dangers of earned-only PR strategies The primary advantage of earned media,…

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The European Union has formally inaugurated NanoIC, a semiconductor pilot line backed by a €700 million investment under the European Chips Act. The facility aims to accelerate the development of advanced chip technologies and strengthen Europe's position in the global semiconductor landscape. Situated at the research hub imec in Leuven, NanoIC is designed as an open pilot line where companies, research institutes, and startups can prototype and test cutting-edge components before commercial deployment. Unlike traditional closed fabs, the facility offers access to beyond-2-nanometre system-on-chip (SoC) technologies, early-stage process design kits, and advanced toolsets that bridge the gap between laboratory research…

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Everyone knows Super Bowl commercials are expensive, bombastic, and designed to be talked about. What we didn'texpect was an AI startup using the biggest ad stage of the year to throw shade at a rival's advertising strategy. That's exactly what Anthropic has done. The company bought Super Bowl airtime to broadcast a simple message: "Ads are coming to AI, but not to Claude." Its ads depict a chatbot spitting product pitches mid-conversation, ending with a clear contrast to its own ad-free promise. Even ads these days aren't what they used to be. Video: Can I get a six pack quickly?, uploaded…

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UiPath, the Romanian unicorn, has agreed to buy WorkFusion, bringing a specialist in AI agents for financial-crime compliance into its fold as part of a broader push into agentic automation for the banking sector. The deal closed in UiPath's first quarter of fiscal 2027; financial terms were not disclosed. WorkFusion's software focuses on repetitive and resource-intensive parts of compliance work, from customer screening and anti-money-laundering (AML) checks to know-your-customer (KYC) investigations. "Financial institutions need intelligent solutions to combat sophisticated financial crimes and navigate evolving compliance requirements," said Daniel Dines, CEO of UiPath. Those capabilities now sit alongside UiPath's existing automation…

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It is just the beginning of 2026, and things are happening even faster than last year. Not only in technology, but also in regulations, laws, and in how we deal with all the information around us. As a person born in the 90s, social media was once an unknown land for me, a place that felt genuine in the beginning. It still had dangers, but it seemed less risky, or maybe our parents' rules were stricter. I don't want to go down the psychological path here, but I want to look at where we are headed with so much risk,…

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London, TechEx Global 2026, one of Europe's biggest enterprise technology conferences, brought thousands of technology professionals together at Olympia London on 4 and 5 February. The event went beyond buzzwords, focusing on how emerging technologies, especially AI, are being applied in real business contexts.  TechEx Global combines several co-located expos, including AI & Big Data, Cyber Security & Cloud, IoT Tech, Intelligent Automation, and Digital Transformation. Over 200 expert speakers and 150 exhibitors offered insights into how organisations are using digital tools to solve real problems and make decisions, not just generate answers.  From talk to execution One recurring theme…

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QT Sense, a deep-tech biotech startup building tools to study living cells, announced it has secured €4 million in funding to accelerate its Quantum Nuova platform, a technology that lets scientists observe cellular processes in real time and reveal biochemical activity linked to disease.  The funding includes a €3 million seed investment led by Cottonwood Technology Fund, with follow-on backing from existing investor QDNL Participations and an angel investor. In addition, the company received €600,000 from the ONCO-Q programme to support cancer research and €400,000 through the Quantum Forward Challenge for collaborative deployments with research partners. Most traditional lab methods…

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 Europe's largest dedicated deep tech growth fund has taken a major step forward after closing the first tranche of its fundraising effort at €750 million. The fund, known as Kembara Fund I and managed by Spain-based Mundi Ventures, is aiming for a €1 billion target. It will invest in European companies developing breakthrough technologies in areas such as clean energy, AI, quantum computing, advanced materials, robotics, and space tech. A cornerstone of the fundraising so far is a €350 million commitment from the European Investment Fund, part of the EU's attempt to strengthen local growth capital. Additional backing comes from…

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If cinema has taught us anything about interacting with our own creations, it's this: androids chatting among themselves seldom end with humans clapping politely. In 2001: A Space Odyssey, HAL 9000 quietly decides it knows better than the astronauts. In Westworld, lifelike hosts improvise rebellion when their scripts stop making sense. Those stories dramatize a core fear we keep returning to as AI grows more capable: what happens when systems we design start behaving on their own terms? You might have heard the internet is worried about Moltbook, a social network made exclusively for AI agents. It's an audacious claim:…

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Snowflake and OpenAI have struck a multi-year, $200 million partnership to bring OpenAI's advanced models, including GPT-5.2, directly into Snowflake's enterprise data platform. The collaboration is designed to let Snowflake's large customer base, more than 12,000 organisations, build AI agents and semantic analytics tools that operate on their own data without moving it outside Snowflake's governed environment. Under the agreement, OpenAI models will be natively embedded in Snowflake Cortex AI and Snowflake Intelligence, making it possible to run queries, derive insights, and deploy AI-powered workflows using natural language interfaces and context-aware agents. Customers can analyse structured and unstructured data, automate…

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If you look at the press releases and breathless commentary around the recent acquisition of xAI by SpaceX, you might think we're witnessing a tectonic shift in technological destiny.  A $1.25 trillion "mega-company" is born, poised to reshape artificial intelligence, space infrastructure, satellite internet, and possibly the fate of humanity itself. That narrative, enthusiastically repeated across headlines, serves a purpose: it frames a somewhat messy corporate consolidation as inevitable progress.  But let's take a closer look and separate actual substance from Silicon Valley myth-making. A mega-deal that's really an identity crisis At its core, this acquisition solves one problem: xAI needed…

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Or just read more coverage about: SpaceX

OpenAI has given software developers a new desktop toy, and judging by the early reactions, it might feel like someone finally handed coders the Swiss Army knife they've been dreaming about or the kind of gadget that makes them wonder if they're working with a robot coworker now.  The company rolled out the Codex app for macOS, a focused interface for managing AI coding agents, designed to let developers do more than just "generate a few lines of code." Instead, Codex can juggle multiple tasks in parallel, run background workflows, and act on instructions that span hours or even days. …

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Every January, millions take on Dry January, a ritual of restraint and resetting after the holiday season. If that's the benchmark for kicking off the year with moderation, Europe's startup ecosystem clearly didn't get the memo.  In the opening weeks of 2026, the region saw five startups join the unicorn club, crossing the $1 billion valuation mark across sectors as varied as cybersecurity, cloud optimisation, defence tech, ESG software, and education technology.  January was anything but dry for European companies. This burst of activity signals more than a funding spike; it invites a deeper look at what Europe's innovation identity…

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G2 acquires Capterra, Software Advice, and GetApp from Gartner G2 has completed a major acquisition by purchasing three of the world's most influential software discovery platforms from Gartner. The move significantly reshapes the global B2B software reviews market and strengthens G2's position in how companies evaluate and buy software. Noora Saksaa appointed CEO of Slush Slush, one of Europe's most influential tech and startup events, has named Noora Saksa as its new CEO. The leadership change signals a strategic shift toward expanding Slush beyond its annual event and building a year-round global founder platform. France moves public sector away from…

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The software industry is increasingly questioning the growing influence of G2 following its agreement to acquire Capterra, Software Advice, and GetApp from Gartner. The deal, announced in late January and expected to close in Q1 2026, consolidates several of the most influential B2B software discovery platforms under a single owner . How big is G2's footprint after the acquisition? According to G2's own disclosures, the combined group will host around 6 million verified software reviews and reach more than 200 million software buyers annually across thousands of categories. Individually, the platforms already commanded significant scale: G2 reports over 3 million…

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