The TLDR
Yes folks, it’s more defence, space and deep tech. Quint Computing raised what it calls Germany’s largest first round for a quantum startup; Tumbleweed raised Austria’s largest spacetech seed, apparently after SpaceX twice rejected its certification proposals; and Fourthline and Veridas completed their identity-verification merger with up to €65m of financing. In funds, ex-Phoenix Court partner Yvonne Bajela launched Evertrue Capital with a $17m debut fund; Berlin’s Robin Capital closed a €15m second fund; and Vest Ventures pledged €1m to four startup-competition finalists.
Cyber security issues are exploding, often driven by AI-made hacks. The cyberattacks that turned up the heat on supermarket freezers across Europe have now reached UK meat suppliers; Binance’s record $6.3bn hack turned out to have started with fake job interviews; and the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre warned that AI-powered malware is highly likely to hit UK infrastructure by 2028. Guys, are fridges included in that? They should be.
Meanwhile, Anthropic disclosed $900bn of AI spending commitments before its IPO, and Apple warned of unprecedented memory chip price rises as AI data centres compete for supply.
THE TOP 6 STORIES
1. Quint Computing raises a €9.1m first round, led by Vsquared Ventures, to cut quantum error-correction overhead
Erlangen-based Quint Computing has raised €9.1m in its first funding round, which it describes as the largest initial round for a quantum computing startup in Germany. Munich’s Vsquared Ventures led, with Quantonation, Nucleus Capital, Faber, Vanagon Ventures and ZOHO.VC joining, as well as industry experts including Prof. Mikko Möttönen, founder of IQM and QMill. The company has also won a €2.2m European Innovation Council Pathfinder grant. TQuint claims its chip could reduce error-correction overhead by a factor of 100, and notes that Google’s Willow has 105 physical qubits.
Why it matters: Error correction is the central bottleneck for useful quantum computers, so a credible hardware approach that shrinks the overhead would be commercially significant.
Sources: Tech Funding News · Tech.eu
2. Tumbleweed raises €6.9m, Austria’s largest-ever spacetech seed, four months after the country’s first commercial satellite
Vienna-based Tumbleweed, founded in 2024, has raised €6.9m in a round led by PactVC, with Vanagon Ventures, early backer Prototype Capital, EWOR and international investors and angels taking part. More than a third of its 25-person team invested their own money. Tumbleweed’s pre-certified Pods let laboratories run experiments in space without going through lengthy certification. Supposedly, SpaceX rejected its first two certification proposals before accepting the third. How’s about that for persistence?
Why it matters: Does “launch first, raise later” now work for European spacetech? Maybe.
Sources: EU-Startups · Tech Funding News · Tech.eu
3. Fourthline and Veridas complete their merger, backed by up to €65m of financing
Amsterdam-based Fourthline and Spanish identity technology company Veridas have completed their merger, which closed on 3 November 2026, creating a group that combines digital identity verification, compliance and fraud prevention services.
Why it matters: Consolidation among identity companies shows that market is kinda done? I think this whole compliance and fraud-prevention market is posed to be re-invented in the AI/Cyber era.
Sources: AFP
4. The cyberattacks that warmed supermarket freezers across Europe now reach UK meat suppliers
The Guardian reports that meat suppliers in the UK have been hit by cyberattacks after hackers raised the temperatures of supermarket freezers across Europe. The National Cyber Security Centre said it was working with the affected companies but that national impact was minimal, and security experts called the incidents possibly the foothills of a wider threat. There’s been an effect on UK meat processing, and supermarkets in Ireland, Sweden and Belgium saw fridge temperatures rise on Monday. Where are the Cyber VCs and founders when you need them?! Let’s go people!
Sources: The Guardian · Sky News · BBC News (1) · BBC News (2)
5. Italy’s CyberKord raises a €2.7m pre-seed to automate IT and cybersecurity operations with AI
Milan-based CyberKord, founded in 2026 by Alessandro Maggio, Dragos Tanasa and Cosimo Michelagnoli, has raised a €2.7m pre-seed round led by 360 Capital, with Plus Partners, Addendum Capital and Vento. It is building an AI-powered platform to automate IT and cybersecurity operations.
Sources: Tech.eu · Startup.eu
6. Ex-Phoenix Court partner Yvonne Bajela launches Evertrue Capital with a $17m debut fund
Yvonne Bajela, a long-standing investor who backed Wise and Marshmallow while at London VC firm Phoenix Court, has closed her debut solo fund at €15m ($17m). Evertrue will invest £250,000–£500,000 at pre-seed in frontier technologies, primarily in the UK and Europe, with an early-stage focus on AI and fintech. Phoenix Court, through its Basecamp fund of funds, and the British Business Bank back the fund. Tech.eu says Bajela is hoping to find Europe’s next Lovable or ElevenLabs.
Sources: TechCrunch · EU-Startups · Sifted · Tech.eu
And finally:
Two academics unveil a breakthrough from a stealth frontier AI lab
Sifted carries an announcement from Professor James Whittington and Dr Ruairidh Battleday about a stealth frontier AI lab. “A new form of sparse attention that can handle context up to 10M tokens. Up to 72.4× faster attention-layer prefill than Full Attention.”
Sources: Sifted * @RMBattleday
A first-person report from a defence event that opens with explosions every ten seconds
Resilience Media’s reporter describes an event that begins with a succession of loud, unannounced explosions, and whose title refers to NATO’s Article 5 mutual-defence clause. Sounds exciting…
Sources: Resilience Media
Apps built on Lovable expose sensitive user data, researchers find
Sifted reports that researchers have found that Lovable apps expose sensitive user data. Oh dear…
Sources: Sifted
Other stories of note:
Creandum closes its eighth fund at $750m to back early-stage tech
Sources: ArcticStartup
London’s Tallia, formerly Revax, raises a €4m seed for AI research and review in tax firms
Sources: EU-Startups
e2e raises a €7m seed to rethink software testing for the age of AI agents
Sources: The Recursive
Berlin’s Conlio raises €6.4m to automate freight finance with AI, led by Piton Capital
Sources: EU-Startups · Tech Funding News ·
