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Scaling Europe retweeted
A UK startup has just announced plans to build 40 edge data centres in the UK to power sovereign AI compute.
The UK has got some of the most phenomenal AI researchers and AI companies in the world.
One of the issues that we really have is a complete lack of compute both in the UK and across Europe.
@CivoCloud, the UK cloud provider, has announced plans to roll out 40 edge data centres in the UK to fix this.
The first site is in Hertfordshire and has already been announced. Five more sites have been secured, and will rise to 40 in total.
The sites will deliver a combined one gigawatt of capacity across the country, aimed at inference at the edge rather than training.
This fantastic news. The UK needs a lot more of this.
NICE @markboost
Rotterdam-based @GraduateVenture has launched a €125 million second seed fund.
The fund is 2.5 times the size of its first one and well above the €80 million target it announced in May.
Graduate Ventures was founded in 2021 by Frans van Houten, Menno Antal, Sandro van Hellenberg Hubar and Gert Jan van der Hoeven.
The Graduate Ventures funds focus on investments in artificial intelligence, deep tech, healthcare and climate.
It works with eight Dutch universities and three university medical centres to back startups in AI, deep tech, healthcare and climate.
Paris and London-based @Spiko_finance has raised $90 million Series B.
The investment was led by @NEA, with other investors including former Bundesbank president Axel Weber also joining.
According to Spiko, around $50 trillion sits in cash and deposits across Europe and the US, and most of it earns little or nothing.
Founded in 2023 by former French Treasury official Paul-Adrien Hyppolite and Antoine Michon, Spiko lets businesses and individuals earn interest on idle cash through regulated money market funds issued on a blockchain.
It now manages $2.7 billion for more than 10,000 users, up more than fivefold in a year.
The new money will go towards launching new funds, entering new markets and growing the team.
Munich-based @Robco_Robotics has become a unicorn after its valuation doubled in nine months.
The deal combined new investment with a sale of employee shares. Existing investors such as @sequoia and @lightspeedvp took part alongside new backers including @CherryVentures.
RobCo offers its robots as a service with no upfront cost, so industrial companies can automate manual work like machine tending, palletising, dispensing and welding.
The company expanded into the US in 2025 and already has customers in more than a dozen states there.
The US is now its fastest-growing market, and CEO Roman Hölzl has moved there to lead the expansion himself.
Zurich-based @namespacelabs has raised €37 million Series B, only seven months after its Series A.
The investment was led by @scalevp, with other investors including Datadog CEO @Olivier Pomel also joining.
Founded in 2022 by former Google engineer @20thr, Namespace gives developers fast environments to code, build and test software on Mac, Windows and Linux.
Demand for its platform is surging, with revenue up 8x over the past 12 months.
The new money will go towards developing its product and expanding its data centres.
Munich-based ARX Robotics has formed a strategic partnership with Ukrainian defence company Roboneers to work together on unmanned ground vehicles.
Both parties signed a corresponding agreement in Kyiv over the weekend, in the presence of Chancellor Friedrich Merz and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The two companies will integrate their systems and develop new ones together. In June they set up a joint venture, ARX Industries, to produce Roboneers' Rys Pro ground vehicle in Ukraine and Germany.
ARX CEO Marc Wietfeld says the lessons learnt on the battlefield will also feed into how other Western armies develop their land systems.
The Ukrainian government estimates it will need 50,000 unmanned ground vehicles this year.
Stockholm-based @Trustly has secured more than $40 million in equity commitments.
The equity is being provided by its main shareholder Nordic Capital and another key shareholder Alfvén & Didrikson, and the company will use it to build new products using AI.
Just weeks earlier, it was revealed that Trustly was cutting around 200 jobs, about a quarter of its staff, after its revenue fell by more than $50 million last year.
Trustly is an open banking platform that lets customers pay directly from their bank accounts as an alternative to cards.
Denmark-based Breye Therapeutics has raised €67.5 million Series A.
The investment was co-led by new investor Mission BioCapital and existing backer Novo Holdings.
Founded by Ulrik Mouritzen, Breye is developing tablets for retinal diseases as an alternative to eye injections, starting with diabetic retinopathy, which affects around 130 million people worldwide.
The new money will take its lead treatment for diabetic retinopathy into Phase 2 trials, set to start in 2027.
Morphotonics recently raised €40m to build the technology behind AI smart glasses and data center optics.
CEO Hugo da Silva joined @SebJohnsonUK on the Scaling Europe show to discuss the raise and the future of compute.
Catch the highlights here, full interview available wherever you get your podcasts.
Stockholm-based @voitechnology has secured a €150 million credit facility.
The facility is provided by Nordic banks Danske Bank, Swedbank and DNB, and the company will use it to pay off its outstanding bonds and grow its fleet.
It follows years of strong cash flow, with Voi's revenue over the past twelve months passing €200 million for the first time.
Voi was founded in 2018 by @FredrikHjelm, @mradamjafer, FilipLindvall and Douglas Stark.
It now runs more than 200,000 shared e-scooters and e-bikes in over 130 cities across 13 countries.
Milan-based Aptadir Therapeutics has raised a €40 million seed round.
Led by 4BIO Capital, it's one of the largest biotech seed investments in Europe.
Aptadir was founded by Annalisa Di Ruscio, Vittorio De Franciscis, Daniel Tenen and Marcin Kortylewski, and it develops RNA drugs that switch back on genes that have been wrongly switched off, which can cause genetic conditions and some cancers.
The new funding will go towards its treatments, starting with one for Fragile X syndrome, a genetic condition that causes intellectual disability and developmental delays.
Germany's Reverion has raised €154.2 million Series B.
The round was led by Kembara and Mundi Ventures, with backing from new and existing investors.
Reverion was founded in 2022 by Stephan Herrmann, Felix Fischer, Maximilian Hauck, Jeremias Weinrich and Luis Poblotzki.
It builds power plants that turn biogas, natural gas or hydrogen into electricity without burning it, and the same units can run in reverse to store extra power as gas.
Seven of its plants are already running at customer sites, and it's now going after data centres that are stuck waiting for grid connections.
The new funding will go towards a new factory in Germany that will increase its production tenfold.
Reykjavík-based @50skillsHR has raised $6 million in funding.
The round was co-led by @frumtak and Swiss Post Ventures, with other investors also joining.
50skills was founded by @Kristjanfreyr, Andri Janusson, Bjarki Atlason, Siggi Helgason and Georg Olafsson.
It automates HR work like onboarding, contracts and employee requests, while leaving the judgement calls to people.
Its customers include Icelandair, Blue Lagoon, Domino's and the City of Reykjavík, and more than 4 million tasks ran through the platform in the past year.
The new funding will go towards growing its sales and marketing teams and expanding across the Nordics and the UK.
Cologne-based METYCLE has secured a €131.7 million credit line.
The credit facility was provided by Rivonia Road Capital and follows the €14 million Series A the company raised last year.
METYCLE was founded in 2022 by Rafael Suchan and Sebastian Brenner.
It buys scrap copper, aluminium and other metals, sorts and upgrades them, and sells them on to industrial customers across 15 countries.
Over the past year it traded €103 million worth of recycled metals, up 150% on the year before.
The new money will let it take on bigger deals and supply more recycled metal to manufacturers and smelters.
