The TLDR
European Defence Week opened in Paris with defence tech dominating the day’s funding news. British-German missile startup Hypersonica raised €100m from Lightspeed, General Catalyst and Plural after going from concept to a Mach 6 test flight in nine months; Paris-based Gallium Defense emerged from stealth with €7.1m for low-cost drone-detection radar; and Pelagon came out of stealth to protect undersea infrastructure. Yet again, US investors are leading Europe’s largest defence rounds.
Creandum, an early backer of Lovable, Klarna and Spotify, closed its largest-ever fund at $750m (€668m) and is expanding in San Francisco, while British workplace pension money made its first investments into UK deeptech. Last week Europe recorded more than €1.3bn across 60+ deals, with the UK taking €1bn of it.
AI agents continue to dominate the news: Marble Cognition raised a pre-seed for AI coworkers that learn by watching; Roleo raised €2.9m for a personal career agent; and Square8 launched “AI workers” that companies can hire like staff. Alongside the funding, a second wave of cyberattacks warmed supermarket freezers across Europe, hackers sent false nuclear alerts in Ukraine and Russia, and Binance users pulled $3.6bn after last week’s record hack.
THE TOP 6 STORIES
1. Hypersonica raises €100m Series B from Lightspeed and General Catalyst to build Europe’s hypersonic missiles
Hypersonica, a British-German defence startup based near Munich, has raised a €100m ($111m) Series B co-led by Lightspeed and General Catalyst, with existing investors including Plural and 201 Ventures taking part again. The company says it went from concept to a Mach 6 test flight in nine months. The money will accelerate development of its deep-strike system, fund more test flights and expand operations and manufacturing in Europe.
Resilience Media notes that long-range, high-speed but accurate hypersonic missiles are not yet part of any NATO power’s arsenal, though many nations are racing to get there.
Why it matters: This is the largest round of the day and another example of US venture firms leading Europe’s biggest defence deals, which raises the same sovereignty questions as last week’s data that US investors now account for nearly half of European defence-tech investment.
Sources: Tech Funding News · Tech.eu · Sifted · EU-Startups · Startup.eu · Resilience Media
2. Creandum closes its largest-ever fund at $750m (€668m) to back the AI boom
Stockholm-based Creandum, an early-stage investor that has backed Lovable, Klarna, Spotify and Black Forest Labs, has closed Fund VIII at $750m (€668m), up from €500m ($560m) for Fund VII. The fund will back founders from pre-seed or seed to Series A, with half the capital for new investments and half for follow-ons. It plans around 30 investments over the next two years with a particular focus on AI. The firm has tripled its San Francisco team over the past year to pursue US founders. Creandum was founded in 2003 by Staffan Helgesson with a €40m fund anchored by two Swedish pension funds. Well done them!
Why it matters: A larger fund means more firepower at seed and Series A in Europe. Its push into San Francisco also shows top European firms are now competing for US founders as well as European ones.
Sources: Tech.eu · Tech Funding News · Sifted · EU-Startups
3. London’s LO:TECH raises a $12m Series A led by MMC to build trading infrastructure for 24/7 and onchain markets
LO:TECH, a London capital markets firm built for round-the-clock and onchain markets, has raised a $12m (£8.97m) Series A led by MMC, with existing investors Faction and 13 Books Capital and new investor Atka. Founded by Tim Meggs (CEO) and Marcus Horsley (CTO), it develops trading infrastructure designed to operate continuously across different venues, and plans to use the money to expand.
Why it matters: As markets move towards 24-hour and tokenised trading, infrastructure startups that can run across venues around the clock are attracting institutional-grade venture money. MMC also led Ravical’s $17m seed last week.
Sources: Tech.eu
4. Paris-based Gallium Defense emerges from stealth with €7.1m seed for low-cost drone-detection radar
Gallium Defense has raised a €7.1m seed round co-led by Keen Venture Partners and 360 Capital, with Omnes Capital and Polytechnique Ventures participating, timed to coincide with European Defence Week (2–6 November). Formally established in April 2026 after development work dating back to 2024, it is building sovereign drone-detection radar at a fraction of the cost of legacy systems. Its GDS-10 radar can detect small drones out to 10km at a cost comparable to shorter-range alternatives, and could cost as little as €500,000. The company has no revenue yet, is in talks with six potential customers and aims to reach €6m in orders by 2027, pitching itself as “the Dacia of radar” LOL! Great marketing!
Why it matters: Counter-drone technology is the most urgent area of the defence boom, and a low-cost radar that can detect small drones is desperately needed in Ukraine and western markets.
Sources: Startup.eu · EU-Startups · Tech Funding News · Resilience Media
5. Munich’s Marble Cognition raises $3.75m pre-seed from Heartcore and Seedcamp for AI coworkers that learn by watching
Marble Cognition, founded in late 2025 by Felix Rösner and Christophe Schmit, has raised a $3.75m (€3.35m) pre-seed round co-led by Heartcore and Seedcamp. Angels include a Datadog board member, a Personio founder and executives from McKinsey, Mistral AI and Lovable. Marble’s software observes how teams actually work and then builds AI agents to automate those processes, on the basis that most organisations’ processes are not well enough defined for an agent to take over.
Why it matters: A strong angel line-up from Mistral AI and Lovable, plus two leading European seed investors.
Sources: Startup.eu · Tech.eu · Tech Funding News · EU-Startups
6. Estonia’s Roleo, from a Veriff co-founder, raises €2.9m for an AI career agent that works in the background
Tallinn-based Roleo has raised €2.9m in a round led by Lithuania’s Practica Capital, with Finland’s Inventure participating, taking total funding to €3.46m. It was founded in 2025 by Janer Gorohhov, co-founder of identity-verification company Veriff, and Vahur Hansen, a former member of Wise’s early engineering team. Roleo’s personal AI career agent monitors job opportunities across Europe and connects technology professionals with relevant roles, so they no longer have to keep checking job boards.
Why it matters: Founders from two of the Baltics’ best-known scale-ups are applying agents to the job market.
Sources: Tech.eu · EU-Startups · The Recursive · ArcticStartup · Startup.eu
Bonus Number 7:
Unions gain access to thousands of Google workers after the UK employment rights overhaul
New rights for unions to access workplaces have come into force, and Google UK has signed an agreement allowing the Prospect union to hold workplace sessions and recruit among about 7,000 staff. Unions are expected to make further inroads into big tech companies in the UK. That’s quite the shift.
Sources: The Guardian
Other stories of note
Peec AI at $20m ARR, Blocks at €25m ARR and Mediloon at €10k ARR
Sources: Pathfounders
A second wave of cyberattacks warms supermarket freezers across Europe, destroying food
Sources: TechCrunch · The Guardian · Sky News
Hackers send false nuclear warnings through emergency alert apps in Ukraine and Russia
Sources: Resilience Media
Binance users withdraw $3.6bn after the largest-ever crypto hack
Sources: The Guardian · BBC News
Pelagon comes out of stealth to help secure maritime infrastructure from underwater threats
Sources: Resilience Media
Porto’s Seamoretech raises €1.1m to turn desalination brine into freshwater and critical minerals
Sources: EU-Startups
Stockholm’s Sortrace raises about $800,000 for AI-powered household waste analysis
Sources: ArcticStartup · Tech.eu
15 photonics startups to watch, according to VCs
Sources: Sifted
Square8 launches AI workers that companies can hire and manage like employees
Sources: Startupticker.ch
Pixel Systems raises a $3.1m seed to verify AI-generated and manipulated content
Sources: ArcticStartup
TrollWall AI buys rival Elv.ai to lead Europe’s comment-moderation market
Sources: The Recursive
Enterprise customers want to see AI’s ROI. Here’s how startups can show it
Sources: Sifted
UK retirement savings start backing Britain’s deeptech ambitions
Sources: Tech.eu
European tech weekly recap: over €1.3bn invested across 60+ deals
Sources: Tech.eu
Basel launches a ‘capital bridge’ to connect regional startups with investors
Sources: Startupticker.ch
A satellite unicorn has put Bulgarian tech on the map
Sifted looks at Bulgaria’s startup ecosystem in 2026.
Sources: Sifted
Swiss sports-tech company Ascend to go public through a merger with EvoNext
Sources: Startupticker.ch
Inside Mriia: Ukraine’s million-user experiment in startup-driven govtech
Sources: Tech.eu
The Zag List 2026: 100 mobility changemakers
Sources: Zag Daily
National Grid plans the UK’s biggest substation near a planned Teesside datacentre
Sources: The Guardian
Palantir AI tech unused or little used by 29 NHS trusts said to be benefiting from it
Sources: The Guardian
Western Australia police scan one million faces in a facial recognition trial, leading to 122 arrests
Sources: The Guardian
