Pathfounders Newsletter: Wall St. Bloodbath; VC round parties; UK Budget hangovers

Big Tech plummeted nearly $900bn as Wall Street questioned the price of the AI build-out, with Alphabet losing around $500bn in its worst day ever. Meanwhile private markets carried on partying: Kalshi nearly doubled to $40bn, Fractile in the UK raised £540m, and Nevis, Machenta and Easol all landed big rounds. Anthropic’s IPO filing has loomed over everything. And the UK Budget made a big deal about “Founders’ Relief”, right before everyone realised the details made it absolutely sh*t, as in reality this would apply to very few founders. We’re also dealing with drastically watered-down “EU Inc.” legislation in the EU, which means the “Delaware Corp.” for Europe may never be built. You can thank well-entrenched lobbying from Notaries and trade unions for that.

• Public jitters, private exuberance. Big Tech’s losses coincided with some of the year’s largest private rounds.
• Capital is concentrating. Late-stage averages in Europe have more than doubled in 2026.
• Agentic AI goes vertical. Nous, Nevis, Ravical, Vera Health, Easol and Strawberry all apply agents to a workflow, and all face the risk of frontier labs moving in on their turf. Does that mean Agentic AIs become this era’s ‘apps’?
• Physical AI, deeptech and defence. Machenta, Helsing, NestAI and Atlas Bio show Europe is killing it (cough) on Defence tech), with defence tech funding at a record $7.4bn.
• Policy and sovereignty. The UK Budget, EU Inc. and Polymarket’s lobbying show that government and regulation still play a big part.

Fractile raised a £540m Series C, according to filings
This was a big round by European standards, and it surfaced in a week of public-market jitters over AI spending.
Why it matters: It shows Fractile is on its way to designing an inference chip of some significance. Look out Nvidia!
Read more: Thursday’s Tech & Venture Briefing

Nevis raises a $70m Series B led by EQT Ventures, with QuantumLight
The London and New York-based Revolut-alumni startup, which builds an AI operating system for wealth managers, raised €62m ($70m), taking total funding to about €98m ($110m) in two years.
Why it matters: It was one of the week’s largest European rounds, but was also deeply ironic: Revolut’s Nik Storonsky was all over the podcasts/socials saying “VCs are dangerous” and he would methodically remove them from his board. Let’s see if  QuantumLight gets thrown out of Nevis.
Read more: Monday’s Tech & Venture Briefing  ·  Tuesday’s Tech & Venture Briefing

• Anthropic. It has filed for what could be the biggest IPO ever, with a Founder LLC of seven co-founders holding 50.1% of votes and about $800bn of data-centre commitments. It says it may occasionally compete with application-layer startups. It sits outside the top 3 because it is a floated company in waiting.

• UK Budget. A new Founders’ Relief could mean 10% CGT on up to £10m of exit gains, and the EMI scheme is expanded, ut the devil is in the detail, A lot of UK founders are starting to say it’s not a good a billed. The consultation period is their chance to right the boat. 

• EU Inc. The Council kept 48-hour incorporation for €100 and the EU-ESO, but dropped a central company register and a common tax regime. So unless anything changes between now and December the main thrust of the EU Inc project is dead in the water. 

• Depledge. Alexandra Depledge left her UK Treasury role, telling The Times the government treats startups as a “sideshow”. Some may agree…

Sources:
·  Pathfounders Nous exclusive interview  

·  Monday’s Tech & Venture Briefing  

·  Tuesday’s Tech & Venture Briefing  

·  Wednesday’s Tech & Venture Briefing  

·  Pathfounders UK Budget Coverage

·  Thursday’s Tech & Venture Briefing  

·  Friday’s Tech & Venture Briefing

• Machenta: $40m record seed, co-led by Creandum and USV, for a robotics model that teaches robots physical jobs fast.

• Lovable: $80m employee cash-out at a $13.3bn valuation, which should feed the angel ecosystem, especially in Sweden. Plus, they launched a London office.

• Nous: $17m Series A led by Heartcore, with Monzo’s Tom Blomfield, for a household AI agent used by nearly 250,000 UK families.

• Easol: €26.78m ($30m) Series A extension led by Y Combinator, with Tiger Global and Foundation Capital, plus agentic product Teammates.

• Helsing: Launched Contra, an AI-controlled air defence system, plus two interceptor missiles. Helsing keeps moving from software into hardware.

• Funds: Entourage closed a €100m Fund II, Auriga €80m for cybersecurity and BY Venture Partners $60m.

Cyber @ Slush Networking Breakfast | 19th November
​Networking Breakfast & Discussion: ​A curated gathering of the cybersecurity and secure AI ecosystem at Slush 2026. ​Convening a group of specialists to provide both investors and founders with the opportunity for focused, relevant discussion and networking.
​Hosted by: ​Paladin Capital Group, ​HSBC Innovation Banking
​Supported by: ​Amadeus Capital Partners, Plexal, ​Pathfounders

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