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A bankrupt company’s propulsion system for hypersonic planes is being revived by Invictus, a new European Space Agency (ESA)-backed project aiming to build and fly a hydrogen-powered spaceplane by 2031.  The proposed engine for the plane is based on so-called pre-cooler technology, developed over decades by UK aerospace firm Reaction Engines, which went bust in November.  Many of Reaction Engines’ top engineers found a new home at British aerospace and defence company Frazer-Nash Consultancy, which is now leading the Invictus consortium. Other members of the group include US aircraft maker Spirit AeroSystems and Britain’s Cranfield University.  Invictus aims to develop a reusable hypersonic vehicle capable of flying at Mach 5 (6174 km/h) — five times the speed of sound. Unlike most rockets, this spaceplane would take off horizontally from a runway. The plane would skim the edge of space, then return and land like a commercial jet. Powered by hydrogen, the aircraft promises lower emissions and longer endurance than traditional jet fuel engines. The 💜 of EU tech The latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol’ founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It’s free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now! The first stage of the programme, funded by €7mn from ESA’s General Support Technology Programme, plans to deliver a concept design by mid-2026. The design will centre around the plane’s hydrogen-fuelled, air-breathing propulsion system. The pre-cooler is a heat exchanger that cools incoming air before it hits the engine. At hypersonic speeds, air entering the engine can reach thousands of degrees, too hot for traditional turbines. The precooler rapidly chills this air using cold hydrogen fuel running through tiny pipes.  The system is designed to counter the extreme heat caused by shock and friction at hypersonic speeds, allowing engines to run safely. Reaction Engines’ ground tests last year showed promising results when integrated with jet engines.  For now, Invictus is still a concept, but spaceplanes, at least in theory, could prove a more cost-effective way to access the edge of space than rockets. Their advantage lies in taking off from a conventional runway and being reused time and time again — just like a plane, but with more juice.    Sarah Wilkes, managing director at Frazer-Nash, believes the consortium has a good shot at making the concept work.  “With strong industry support and deep engineering and aerospace expertise – including Frazer-Nash colleagues with a decade of propulsion experience – we have all the right ingredients to make this ambitious vision a reality,” Wilkes said.  source

Funding focus is a new series analysing cash flow into the European tech ecosystem. Last week, we looked at the largest investment rounds in the Netherlands, and now we’re honing in on Europe’s budding fusion energy sector.  European fusion energy startups raised a record €290mn in the first half of this year as VCs bet big on a technology with the potential to supply virtually limitless clean power. Funding in 2025 has already eclipsed 2024 levels — the previous record year — which saw fusion energy companies raise €185mn, according to Dealroom data. Leading the pack this year was Munich-based Proxima Fusion. The company secured €130mn in Series A funding in June from big-name investors including Balderton Capital, Cherry Ventures, and Plural. The round marked Europe’s largest single investment in a fusion energy startup.  The 💜 of EU tech The latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol’ founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It’s free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now! Proxima, which was spun out of the prestigious Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in 2023, aims to commercialise a type of fusion machine known as a stellarator. Shaped like a twisted metal doughnut, the stellarator is far more complex to design than the more common tokamak — but if engineered correctly, it could provide a more stable and continuous source of fusion power. Credit: Proxima Fusion3D render of Stellaris, a fusion energy reactor designed by Proxima Fusion. Credit: Proxima Fusion The year’s second biggest cash injection went to another Munich-based company: Marvel Fusion. The company raised €113mn in a Series B funding round in March led by investors including EQT and Siemens Energy.  Marvel is developing a type of laser-based fusion called inertial confinement. Instead of using big magnets or giant reactors like other fusion approaches, the method fires ultra-powerful lasers at tiny fuel pellets made of hydrogen. The lasers create extreme heat and pressure, causing the hydrogen atoms to fuse together and release energy — similar to how the sun works, but in short, controlled bursts. Last year, Marvel broke ground on a $150mn laser facility in Colorado. Other significant funding rounds in Europe’s budding fusion energy sector this year went to France’s Renaissance Fusion, which raised €32mn for its stellarator design, and Sweden’s Novatron, which secured €10mn to build a unique type of fusion reactor it described to TNW as a “mirror machine.” The record funding comes as Europe races to take the lead in the race to launch the first commercially viable fusion reactor, which the majority of industry experts believe will come online sometime in the 2030s. Francesco Sciortino, co-founder and CEO of Proxima, believes fusion energy can complement wind and solar power and become a “decisive building block” for Europe’s energy security. “Fusion holds the potential to fundamentally transform the way we think about energy, changing the world from a place that’s controlled by those with reserves of oil and gas, to one where technology lets countries control their own fate,” he previously told TNW. Sciortino believes Europe has the potential to lead in the technology. However, funding for fusion on the continent still pales in comparison to the US.  In the first half of this year, US-based fusion startups secured a combined $1.6bn (€1.3bn) in investment, over four times more than their European counterparts. Major rounds include a whopping $1bn Series B for Bill Gates-backed Commonwealth Fusion Systems and a $425mn investment into Helion Energy, which has won support from Sam Altman.  source

Norwegian industrial investment firm Aker has announced plans to build an AI “factory” in the Arctic. It’s the latest company heading to the far north to tap into abundant green energy and natural cooling for power-hungry data centres.  The facility will be located in the Norwegian coastal town of Narvik, which lies 220km within the Arctic Circle. Aker’s president and CEO, Øyvind Eriksen said that the site already had access to 230MW of power and was ready for construction to commence. He added that discussions with potential tech firms and partners for the project were ongoing.  However, Eriksen provided limited details on the facility’s purpose, stating it will “serve as a catalyst for industrial development, job creation, and export revenues.” “AI and data centres are becoming foundational to global business, and northern Norway is uniquely positioned to benefit,” said Eriksen. “The region offers abundant, affordable hydropower and clean energy, along with the conditions needed to attract investment and foster innovation.” The 💜 of EU tech The latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol’ founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It’s free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now! Aker, which is majority-owned by Norwegian billionaire Kjell Inge Rokke, has a number of AI and software investments under its belt, including in Bitcoin investment firm Seetee and industrial data company Cognite. Eriksen said the AI facility in Narvik would represent an opportunity to “enter a new value chain early.”   Bits meet blizzards The Nordic region is fast becoming a global hotspot for AI data infrastructure. Last year, Google committed another €1bn to its Hamina campus in southern Finland, marking its seventh expansion. The data centre upgrade aims to support surging demand for AI compute while tapping into the region’s large supplies of renewable energy.  Not far away, Amsterdam-based Nebius announced in October that it’s tripling GPU capacity at its Mäntsälä site in Sweden, where it aims to run 60,000 GPUs for AI applications.  Also in Sweden, Microsoft bet $3.2bn (€2.7bn) to boost its cloud and AI capacity across its three data centres in the country last year. The tech giant is also reportedly developing a dozen new sites in Finland under its “power-first” strategy, aimed at meeting massive AI compute demands while pushing toward its carbon-negative goals.  Big Tech aside, the Nordics are also sprouting their own homegrown AI players, including the likes of Finland’s Silo AI, which was bought by chipmaker AMD in a $665mn (571mn) deal in October.   With Aker now hopping on the AI bandwagon, the region’s remote edges could be turning into ground zero for Europe’s next tech race. source

French software firm LumApps is set to merge with Swiss counterpart Beekeeper in a deal that will create a new business valued at over $1bn. LumApps, which calls itself an “intranet super app,” offers a platform that helps staff at large firms manage internal communications and workforce apps.  Meanwhile, Beekeeper provides a mobile platform that helps companies engage with their frontline workers via tools such as messaging, shift scheduling, and workflow automation.  Combined, the two firms plan to create an “employee hub” covering a broad spectrum of job roles, from doctors and truck drivers to customer service agents.  Once merged, the company will serve over 7 million users, generate $150mn in recurring revenue, and employ over 600 people, the firms said in a joint press release. The 💜 of EU tech The latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol’ founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It’s free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now! “Together, LumApps and Beekeeper will support all employees, everywhere, in this new age of work,” ​​said Sébastien Ricard, CEO and co-founder of LumApps.  The new firm’s headquarters will be located at LumApps’ current base in Lyon, France. Ricard will lead the business. The deal is due to be finalised this month. British private equity group Bridgepoint — LumApps’ largest existing shareholder — will retain majority ownership in the merged entity. If the deal goes ahead, it will birth Europe’s latest unicorn company. Other firms that reached a $1bn valuation this year include German drone maker Quantum Systems, Swedish body-scanning company Neko Health and no-code app Lovable. source

A new report from the University of Cambridge has warned that the UK’s push to lead in AI risks derailing its climate targets — unless urgent action is taken. According to the University’s Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy, the unchecked growth of AI could drive a 25-fold increase in the global tech sector’s energy use by 2040, putting massive strain on power grids and accelerating carbon emissions.  Even the most conservative scenario suggests a five-fold rise over the next 15 years. The report’s authors argue it’s “magical thinking at the highest levels” to assume countries such as the UK can lead in AI while also hitting targets to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.   Currently, data centres already account for nearly 1.5% of global emissions, but this figure could rise to 8% by 2040, surpassing those from air travel, the report found. In some countries, computing power makes up a larger proportion of energy. In Ireland, for instance, data centres are now responsible for up to 20% of electricity use. TNW City Coworking space – Where your best work happens A workspace designed for growth, collaboration, and endless networking opportunities in the heart of tech. Despite climate pledges from Big Tech, the sector’s emissions are rising fast. Google and Microsoft’s carbon emissions have soared by 51% and 41%, respectively, since 2019, according to the report. However, the paper stresses that the real footprint is likely higher due to Big Tech’s limited transparency, inconsistent emissions accounting, and a lack of independent audits to verify the claims of these companies. “We know the environmental impact of AI will be formidable, but tech giants are deliberately vague about the energy requirements implicit in their aims,” said Bhargav Srinivasa Desikan, the report’s lead author and an AI expert.  “We need to see urgent action from governments to prevent AI from derailing climate goals, not just deferring to tech companies on the promise of economic growth,” he continued.  UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has rolled out the red carpet for AI firms in recent months.   In January, AI data centre builders Vantage Data Centres, Nscale, and Kyndryl pledged a combined £14bn to build out AI infrastructure across the country. Amazon Web Services (AWS), Blackstone, and CoreWeave are investing billions into sprawling new data centre campuses, while Nvidia recently partnered with local firms to supercharge the UK’s compute capacity.  All told, the UK is positioning itself as a global hub for AI. But the report warns that oversight is lacking. It calls for the UK’s energy authority, Ofgem, to impose strict energy efficiency targets for data centres, and for government departments to tie AI funding to clean power use. The researchers also criticised the UK’s new AI Energy Council for excluding civil society voices. “The Council currently consists entirely of energy bodies and tech companies,” the report notes. Professor John Naughton, chair of the Minderoo Centre’s advisory board, called for greater transparency about AI’s impacts. “Every megawatt allocated to AI data centres will be a megawatt unavailable for housing or manufacturing,” he said. “Governments need to be straight with the public about the inevitable energy trade-offs that will come with doubling down on AI as an engine of economic growth.” source

Dutch file-sharing service WeTransfer is under fire after users spotted sweeping updates to its terms of service that appeared to let the company train AI models on their uploaded files. The company has now removed the controversial language, but users remain outraged. Here’s what’s going on — and why it matters. What did WeTransfer change? WeTransfer users discovered this week that the service had updated its policy with a clause granting it a perpetual, royalty‑free license to use user‑uploaded content, including for “improving machine learning models that enhance content moderation.” The changes were due to come into effect on August 8.  That language was vague enough that many users — including children’s book writer Sarah McIntyre and comedian Matt Lieb — felt it opened the door for WeTransfer to use or even sell their files to train AI without permission or compensation. How is this acceptable, @WeTransfer? You’re not a free service, I *pay* you to shift my big artwork files. I DON’T pay you to have the right to use them to train AI or print, sell and distribute my artwork and set yourself up as a commercial rival to me, using my own work.😡 pic.twitter.com/OHPIjRGGOM — Sarah McIntyre (@jabberworks) July 15, 2025 The 💜 of EU tech The latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol’ founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It’s free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now! How did WeTransfer respond? On Tuesday afternoon, WeTransfer scrambled to douse the flames, saying in a press release that it doesn’t use user content to train AI, nor does it sell or share files with third parties. The company says it considered using AI to “improve content moderation” in the future, but that such a feature “hasn’t been built or deployed in practice.”  WeTransfer has also now amended its terms of service, removing any mentions of machine learning. The updated version states that users grant the company “a royalty-free license” to use their content for “operating, developing, and improving the service.” But the damage to user trust may already be done. Why are users so concerned? WeChat joins a growing list of companies that have attracted criticism for training machine learning systems on user data. Adobe, Zoom, Slack, Dropbox, and others have also recently walked back or clarified similar AI-related policies after public outcry. All these incidents tap into wider frustrations around copyright and consent in the AI age — and point to trust issues between users and tech firms.  WeTransfer has long marketed itself as a creative-friendly, privacy-conscious file-sharing service. So it’s perhaps unsurprising that the vague wording around AI and sweeping license rights felt like a betrayal to its users, particularly for artists and freelancers worried their work could be quietly fed into machine learning models without consent.  While WeTransder did clarify its terms, for many users of the service, the damage was already done. In replies to WeTransfer’s official announcement on X, some said that it looked like the service had tested the waters with broader AI permissions, got swift public backlash, and then quickly walked it back.  WeTransfer is unlikely to be the last tech firm caught up in this kind of controversy. As AI fever spreads, user data is becoming the new fuel. source

Funding focus is a new series analysing cash flow into the European tech ecosystem. After debuting with a look at the biggest rounds so far this year, we now turn to the largest deals in the Netherlands for H1. Startups in the Netherlands raised just $503mn (€429mn) in the first quarter of this year — the lowest quarterly total since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Dealroom data. But three months later, the outlook has improved. Total funding for the first half of 2025 hit $1.4bn (€1.2bn). That’s down from $1.8bn (€1.54bn) at the same point last year, but up from $1.1bn (€940) in H1 2023. The rebound was driven by a much stronger second quarter, during which startups secured $856mn (€940mn) — a 70% jump from Q1. Leading the momentum is biotech, with half of the top 10 funding rounds in H1 coming from startups with a grounding in the life sciences. Here’s the full list. TNW City Coworking space – Where your best work happens A workspace designed for growth, collaboration, and endless networking opportunities in the heart of tech. 1.Azafaros — €132M  HQ: Leiden  Azafaros develops small-molecule drugs targeting rare metabolic disorders. The company raised €132mn in a Series B round in June 2025. 2. Finom — €115M HQ: Amsterdam  Finom operates a pan-European neobank for SMEs and entrepreneurs. It raised a €115mn Series C in June, following a €50mn Series B round the previous year.   3. Mews — €64M HQ: Amsterdam  Hospitality platform Mews secured $75mn (€64mn) in March. In total, Mews has bagged over $500mn (€425mn) to date, making it one of the Netherlands’ best-funded scaleups. 4. Toloka — €62M HQ: Amsterdam  Toloka is a crowdsourcing platform that uses a global network of human workers to label and evaluate data — text, images, audio, and more — for training and improving AI models. The business is part of Dutch AI infrastructure company Nebius.  In May, Toloka raised $72mn (€62mn) in a funding round led by Jeff Bezos’ investment firm, Bezos Expeditions. 5. Leyden Labs — €60M HQ: Leiden Leyden Labs is developing intranasal medicines to protect against respiratory viruses. In January, it raised $70mn (€60mn), bringing its total raised to $257mn (€220mn).  6. Alesta Therapeutics — €56M HQ: Leiden Alesta Therapeutics is another biotech startup from Leiden — home to one of Europe’s leading life science hubs. The company focuses on developing small-molecule therapies for rare diseases, which are taken orally. In January, it raised $65mn (€56mn) in Series A funding.   7. Salvia BioElectronics — €53M  HQ: Eindhoven Salvia BioElectronics makes soft brain implants to treat chronic migraines using gentle electrical pulses. In May, the startup raised €53mn in Series B funding. 8. Avidicure —  €44M HQ: Amsterdam Avidicure develops antibody therapies to activate the immune system and treat cancer. In April, it raised a hefty €44mn seed round to accelerate R&D.    9. Piano — €38M HQ: Amsterdam Piano offers tools that help businesses understand their customers’ online behaviour and deliver personalised content or offers to keep them engaged and increase sales. In February, it raised $45mn (€38mn) in Series D funding.  10. Vivici — €32.5M Vivici is a foodtech startup using precision fermentation to produce animal-free dairy proteins. Its proteins are designed to replace traditional dairy ingredients like whey and casein. In February, it raised €32.5m in Series A funding. source

New research has found that large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT consistently advise women to ask for lower salaries than men, even when both have identical qualifications. The study was co-authored by Ivan Yamshchikov, a professor of AI and robotics at the Technical University of Würzburg-Schweinfurt (THWS) in Germany. Yamshchikov, who is also the founder of Pleias, a French–German startup building ethically trained language models for regulated industries, worked with his team to test five popular LLMs, including ChatGPT. They prompted each model with user profiles that differed only by gender but included the same education, experience, and job role. Then they asked the models to suggest a target salary for an upcoming negotiation. In one example, ChatGPT’s o3 model was prompted to give advice to a female job applicant. The model suggested requesting a salary of $280,000. In another, the researchers made the same prompt but for a male applicant. This time, the model suggested a salary of $400,000. TNW City Coworking space – Where your best work happens A workspace designed for growth, collaboration, and endless networking opportunities in the heart of tech. “The difference in the prompts is two letters; the difference in the ‘advice’ is $120K a year,” Yamshchikov told TNW. The advice to the female (left) and male candidates. Credit: Ivan Yamshchikov. The pay gaps in the responses varied between industries. They were most pronounced in law and medicine, followed by business administration and engineering. Only in the social sciences did the models offer near-identical advice for men and women. The researchers also tested how the models advised users on career choices, goal-setting, and even behavioural tips. Across the board, the LLMs responded differently based on the user’s gender, despite identical qualifications and prompts. Crucially, the models didn’t disclaim any biases A recurring problem  This is far from the first time AI has been caught reflecting and reinforcing systemic bias. In 2018, Amazon scrapped an internal hiring tool after discovering that it systematically downgraded female candidates. Last year, a clinical machine learning model used to diagnose women’s health conditions was shown to underdiagnose women and Black patients, because it was trained on skewed datasets dominated by white men.  The researchers behind the THWS study argue that technical fixes alone won’t solve the problem. What’s needed, they say, are clear ethical standards, independent review processes, and greater transparency in how these models are developed and deployed. As generative AI becomes a go-to source for everything from mental health advice to career planning, the stakes are only growing. If unchecked, the illusion of objectivity could become one of AI’s most dangerous traits. source

German startup Enerkii has launched an energy-as-a-service model that aims to cut power bills in half for industrial customers — and decarbonise them in the process. The model uses an in-house operating system (OS) to calculate the optimal solar energy configuration for any company in around 15 minutes. Then it provides the hardware stack to set it up — solar panels, battery storage, EV charging, and, soon, heat pumps.  Henrik Abel, co-founder of Enerkii, said the approach shifts from simply installing or leasing solar panels to offering a turnkey (or ener-key) energy management system. “The era of ‘solar-only’ energy solutions is over,” Abel told TNW. “We’re entering a new age where the challenge isn’t just about clean power generation, but about intelligent on-site distribution and optimised energy management.” Enerkii’s approach aims to reduce the energy costs and CO₂ emissions of industrial sites. In Germany, around 80% of industrial plants still rely on dirty energy, according to research from Deutsche Bank. Enerkii hopes to lower that figure by taking on the complex task of transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable energy systems. TNW City Coworking space – Where your best work happens A workspace designed for growth, collaboration, and endless networking opportunities in the heart of tech. The startup tackles this challenge in a novel way. While many established solar companies sell or lease solar panels to homeowners, Enerkii operates the entire power system itself, acting as a mini on-site energy utility. Customers sign performance-based contracts, paying only for the electricity they use or the savings achieved, so there’s no up-front investment required.  “What’s been missing in this space is an operator who can provide expertise, financing and operation from a single source,” Abel said. “We are filling that gap with Enerkii. We only earn when the customer saves. This makes decarbonisation a no-brainer and an immediate competitive advantage.”  Enerkii, which was founded last year, says it’s signed 18 contracts with (unnamed) German industrial leaders, representing a total capacity of 87 megawatts. The company today announced it has secured fresh funding in a round led by World Fund. The undisclosed sum will fuel the rollout of Enerkii’s energy-as-a-service model across Europe. source

London-based insurtech startup Laka has raised $10.4mn in Series B funding as it eyes profitability at the end of next year. Laka offers “collective” insurance for bikes and e-scooters, pooling claims across a community of riders. Instead of fixed, upfront premiums, customers pay a variable monthly fee based on the total number of claims across the entire user base. The fee is capped at a maximum amount based on the value of their gear. Fewer claims mean lower costs for everyone.   Laka provides the insurance cover both directly and through retailers like Decathlon, Brompton Bikes, Gazelle, and Ribble Bikes.  Tobias Taupitz, the company’s CEO and co-founder, said the business aims to turn the traditional insurance model “on its head.”  The 💜 of EU tech The latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol’ founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It’s free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now! “Traditional insurance is built around fixed premiums, which often means overpaying for peace of mind,” Taupitz told TNW.  “With Laka, we only earn when claims are paid. We win when our community wins.” According to Taupitz, insuring e-bikes is expensive and complicated. He believes one of the main issues is that traditional insurers aren’t bike specialists. “They often bundle bikes into the same category as gadgets or watches, not recognising that for many, a bike is a vital part of daily life,” he said.  Still, collective insurance isn’t without its challenges. The model hinges on low claims frequency and high trust among riders — variables that could introduce volatility if accident rates spike.  Despite that, Laka’s model appears to be holding up so far, with largely positive reviews online. It currently insures 80,000 users across the UK, Netherlands, France, Germany, Belgium, Austria, Denmark, Portugal, and Luxembourg. The company’s growth stems, in part, from a trio of acquisitions.  In October 2023, Laka snapped up French e-bike broker Cylantro, gaining a local customer base and bringing founder Thomas Arnou onboard to lead its French operations. A year later, it acquired the insurance renewal rights to UK-based CoverCloud’s bike portfolio. Most recently, in March, Laka took over Luko’s e-scooter insurance portfolio, adding over 20,000 French customers to its books and marking its entry into e-scooter cover.  Laka has recently expanded beyond insurance to include recovery services for stolen or damaged bikes and e-scooters. It has also launched an initiative to salvage and recycle old bike parts in a bid to be more sustainable.  Laka aims to cash in on a micromobility industry that — despite cooling off since the COVID-19 lockdown boom — continues to show steady growth.  The global micromobility market is set to double in size from roughly $160bn today to $340bn by 2030, according to McKinsey. Europe is poised to lead the charge, with its market expected to jump from around $60bn in 2022 to $140bn by the end of the decade.   Laka’s Series B round was co-led by Shift4Good and US firm MS&AD Ventures. Existing investors, including Ponooc, Achmea Innovation Fund, Autotech Ventures, Motive Partners, Creandum, LocalGlobe, 1818 Ventures, and Republic (formerly Seedrs), also chipped in. source