Europe’s unicorns have risen to €447.4B in total value, report finds

Aug27
by on August 27, 2024 at 3:00 pm
Posted In: Uncategorized


The cumulative value of Europe’s active unicorns now sits at €447.4bn — 3% higher than in 2023, according to a new report from Pitchbook. The report also found that unicorn deal value continued to show signs of recovery during the second quarter of 2024. Specifically, it jumped from €1bn in Q1 to €2.4bn in Q2. The continuous valuation growth of 2024 implies a 12.3% increase for the full year from 2023. Deal count is following the same upward trend. The first half of the year has already seen 28 unicorn deals compared to 39 for the whole of 2023. The medial…

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New €2M fund launches for Dutch early-stage tech startups

Aug26
by on August 26, 2024 at 2:19 pm
Posted In: Insider


A group of six entrepreneurs and angel investors have announced today the launch of their first fund, aiming to support Dutch early-stage tech startups. Named the Dutch Operator Fund I, it has raised €2mn in capital. The amount is provided by the team itself, as well as a loan from the Seed Business Angel scheme of the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO). Investments will range between €75K and €200K, with the possibility of follow-up funding. The fund targets startups in the (pre-)seed phase. “There is a need for this in our country, because for many institutional investors, investing in this stage…

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Independence Day: how Ukraine’s tech sector is fuelling the fight for freedom

Aug24
by on August 24, 2024 at 7:06 am
Posted In: Uncategorized


What’s your work from home situation like these days? For Andriy Klen, co-founder and CFO of smart device startup Petcube, it is not only email notifications popping up on his laptop screen, but also incoming missile alerts. He pauses our conversation to follow the rocket’s calculated trajectory, before being notified that it has disappeared from the radar. We continue our call, he from Kyiv, and I from our office in Amsterdam, where the biggest conflict of the year broke out a couple of weeks ago over a change in catering. Klen’s laughter at the absurdity of it all as he…

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This autonomous yacht is a mobile green hydrogen factory

Aug23
by on August 23, 2024 at 2:35 pm
Posted In: Insider


In recent years, there have been several attempts at building a hydrogen boat. But UK startup Drift is navigating new territory with a vessel that isn’t hydrogen-powered, but hydrogen-producing.  Drift is developing an autonomous yacht capable of making green hydrogen at sea. It could offer a quicker, more efficient way to produce and transport the fuel, especially in remote regions. “One of our main advantages is that we can service the hard-to-reach places,” Drift’s founder and CEO, Ben Medland, told TNW. “This is a huge benefit when compared to having a fixed installation.” Wind pushes the sailboat, spinning a turbine…

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Meta, Spotify CEOs slap down European officials for ‘stifling’ AI innovation

Aug23
by on August 23, 2024 at 12:01 pm
Posted In: Insider


Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Spotify’s CEO Daniek Ek have taken aim at European lawmakers for enforcing “stifling” and “inconsistent” regulation that hampers the growth of tech companies. “Instead of clear rules that inform and guide how companies do business across the continent, our industry faces overlapping regulations and inconsistent guidance on how to comply with them,” wrote the pair in an op-ed Wednesday. “Without urgent action, Europe will miss this once-in-a-generation opportunity.”    That opportunity, of course, is the rise of artificial intelligence. More specifically, open-source AI — like Meta’s Llama LLM — released publicly under a licence. Europe,…

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