Tech & Venture Briefing — Thursday 29 October 2026

Sifted reports from filings that Fractile has raised a £540m Series C and that fintech Spiko closed a $90m round at an $800m valuation without ‘actively’ fundraising, they say. There’s also been a sudden welter of Series A rounds: Ravical’s $17m seed, Braid’s profitable €34m Series A, MuRay’s €7.1m and StrollMe’s €22m. In VC funds, Entourage closed a €100m second fund, Auriga closed €80m for cybersecurity and BY Venture Partners closed $60m.

The UK Budget is the main story for UK founders (and Europeans with UK TopCos). Its new Founders’ Relief, an expanded EMI scheme, visa reforms and a £400m drone commitment drew a mixed but largely welcoming reaction, although the devil is in the detail especially over the relief and BADR issues. Meanwhile the public markets delivered a sharp reminder of AI risk: Alphabet lost around $500bn in value after a profit miss, US tech stocks fell on capex worries. But Oracle told investors its AI bet will pay off sooner than expected. Deeptech and defence continue to attract early stage capital.

1. Fractile raises a £540m Series C, according to filings
Sifted reports exclusively that Fractile has raised £540m in a new Series C round, citing company filings.
Why it matters: This is a big round by European standards, and ironically surfaces in a week full of public-market jitters over AI spending. But it also shows that Fractile is on its way to designing an inference chip of some significance, long term. 
Sources: Sifted

2. Fintech Spiko closes a $90m round at an $800m valuation
Sifted interviews the team at Spiko, a fintech that, it claims, was ‘not actively raising’ when it (OMG surprise surprise!) closed a $90m round at an $800m valuation. I love it when startups say this. There’s literally no such thing as a startup that’s not fundraising. ABR, kids - always be raising. What japes…
Why it matters: It doesn’t really matter that much, other than well done to Spiko’s comms people for cajaoling the title to get it into the headline.
Sources: Sifted

3. Braid raises a $38m (€34.13m) Series A led by Octopus Ventures to put mobile connectivity inside bank and airline apps
Dutch company Braid, formerly Next Communications, has closed a €34.13m ($38m) Series A led by London-based Octopus Ventures, with KPN Ventures also investing. The round is Braid’s first outside capital since it was founded in 2023, and the company says it is profitable, so this sounds not dissimilar to a growth round. Its API connects to over 600 carriers in more than 200 countries and is used by nearly 90 enterprise customers, allowing brands to launch their own branded mobile connectivity, for example inside banking and airline apps.
Why it matters: This is a clever business and probably flew under most people’s radar.
Sources: EU-Startups  ·  Tech Funding News

4. Ravical raises a $17m seed led by MMC Ventures to break the link between accounting firms’ growth and hiring
Ghent-based Ravical, which builds AI technology for accounting and tax firms, has raised a $17m seed round led by MMC Ventures. Existing investors Lakestar and Pitchdrive took part, along with new investor Shapers, bringing total funding to $25m. The company was founded in 2025 and announced the round on 29 October. It will use the money for product development and international expansion.
Why it matters: A $17m seed for a company founded in 2025 and a vertical AI for professional services shows there’s live in the AI application layer play yet.
Sources: Startup.eu  ·  Tech.eu

5. The UK Budget claims to back founders: Founders’ Relief, a wider EMI scheme and a mixed reaction from tech leaders
The Chancellor unveiled a package of measures to encourage entrepreneurs to ‘build in Britain’. It includes a new Founders’ Relief, support for female founders, visa reforms to help startups attract global talent and positive signals about pension fund investment in UK startups. Founders who build large enough companies could pay just 10% capital gains tax on up to £10m of exit gains, and sets this against what its headline describes as a halved relief. The EMI scheme has been expanded and there is new support for young entrepreneurs. However, there has been a mixed reaction from technology and business leaders. Some welcomed commitments on AI, startup investment and small business support, while raising concerns about gaps in regulation, access to finance and tax simplification.
Why it matters: Well, of course it matters, but as usual the devil is in the details. There is growing disquiet about whether the Founders’ Relief really amounts to anything substantive. The consultation period with industry should flush out the realities of the proposals.
Sources: Tech.eu (1)  ·  Tech.eu (2)  ·  Tech Funding News  ·  Pathfounders

6. Entourage closes a €100m second fund after passing its €75m target in two weeks, backed by entrepreneurs and family offices
London-based early-stage investor Entourage, founded by Showpad co-founder and former CEO Pieterjan Bouten, has closed Fund II at €100m, just over two years after launching its first fund in 2024. It said it passed its €75m target ‘within two weeks’ and was then capped at €100m. The backers are entrepreneurs, family offices and private investors, including founders behind Aikido, TechWolf and Collibra. Fund II will write €1m–€5m cheques into around 25 pre-seed and seed companies in AI, robotics and deeptech, and Bouten says the firm almost never takes board seats, even when it leads a round, unusually. 
Why it matters: Founder-backed fund. Light-touch approach to governance. What’s not to like, right?!
Sources: EU-Startups  ·  Tech Funding News  ·  Tech.eu

Peter Sarlin’s NestAI sets up across the Nordics and Baltics a year after emerging from stealth
Finnish startup NestAI emerged from stealth a year ago with €100m to develop AI for autonomous systems, command centres and other military uses, and has since been expanding across the Nordics and Baltics, most recently with an office in Tallinn. It is backed by Nokia and Tesi, Finland’s sovereign wealth fund. Resilience Media profiles the road taken by founder Peter Sarlin into European defence.
Sources: Resilience Media

MuRay raises €7.1m to inspect rocket engines and turbines beyond the limits of X-rays
Sources: Startup.eu  ·  Tech.eu  ·  Sifted

Paris-based Bleu Robotics raises a €5m pre-seed to teach humanoid robots new tasks with fewer demonstrations
Sources: EU-Startups  ·  Sifted

Coherence Quantum raises a €2.78m seed to tackle quantum computing’s hardware challenges
Sources: ArcticStartup

Proxima Fusion signs two Japanese partnerships to strengthen Germany’s fusion supply chain
Sources: Tech.eu

ANYbotics ships the first ANYmal X robots for explosive environments
Sources: Startupticker.ch

The UK Budget commits £400m to British Army drone technology
Sources: Zag Daily

Seraphim launches a SpaceTech Academy that will invest $150,000 in early-stage startups
Sources: Tech.eu

Fronted raises about €1.7m to build a Nordic alternative to Deel and Remote
Sources: Tech Funding News  ·  ArcticStartup  ·  Tech.eu

BY Venture Partners closes a $60m Fund III and opens a Lisbon office
Sources: Tech.eu

Auriga Partners reaches an €80m interim close for its second cybersecurity fund
Sources: EU-Startups  ·  Tech.eu

Lovable opens a London hub with 70 staff and aims for 100 by December
Sources: Tech Funding News

Musk’s AI Odyssey is panned as the dullest possible riposte to Nolan
The Guardian reviews the roughly seven-minute AI-generated film made with Grok after Musk attacked the casting of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey without having seen it. The critic compared the output to a “laptop screensaver”…
Sources: The Guardian

Psychics push back against AI-generated readings
Oh dear! The Guardian reports that human practitioners warn computer-generated divination lacks the empathy and connection at the heart of the practice. The article opened with a chatbot psychic predicting that the writer will soon marry… LOL.
Sources: The Guardian