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The NATO Innovation Fund (NIF) has made its first investment in a biotechnology startup. The alliance’s VC arm announced today that it’s co-leading a $35mn Series A round for UK-based Portal Biotech as it seeks to strengthen NATO’s defences against biological warfare. Portal develops portable, AI-powered diagnostic devices capable of detecting pathogens at the single-molecule level. The system is capable of defending against biological warfare. Ana Bernardo-Gancedo, senior associate at NATO Innovation Fund, told Reuters that this capability is crucial for defence and security. “We believe it is absolutely imperative that we are able to detect, monitor, and create countermeasures,” she said.  Set up in 2022 in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the NATO Innovation Fund has over $1bn to invest in dual-use technologies, including AI, space, and energy resilience. Its move into biotechnology reflects growing concerns over the security implications of synthetic biology and potential biowarfare. These worries have intensified since the COVID-19 pandemic exposed how vulnerable societies are to biological threats, whether deliberate or not.  TNW Conference 2025 – That’s a wrap! Check out the highlights! Portal’s CEO, Andy Heron, said the company’s sensors could be used for continuous environmental monitoring, spanning from open fields to municipal water supplies. “It allows you not just to detect what you did know was out there, but it allows you to detect what you didn’t know,” Heron told Reuters. Beyond defence applications, the dual-use tech could also aid in drug discovery and medicine by enabling scientists to quickly identify and characterise proteins.  NIF led the Series A investment alongside Berlin-based Earlybird Venture Capital. The round also saw participation from SCVC, Pillar VC, 8VC, Amino Collective, Outsized, We Venture Capital, British Business Bank, and Wilson Sonsini’s venture arm WS Investment Company. Update (11:50 BST; 3 July 2025): A previous version of this article stated that Portal Biotech also secured an $8mn investment from the US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). That deal actually referred to a separate US-based biotech company called Portal. We regret the error. source

AI slop songs are flooding Spotify — and the latest hit is by an indie rock band called The Velvet Sundown. The track’s success has intensified the ongoing debate on whether or not music streaming sites should label AI-generated songs. The group has attracted 474,341 monthly listeners on Spotify in under a month. Its top track, “Dust on the Wind” — which sounds similar to the 1977 Kansas hit “Dust in the Wind”  — has been played over 380,0006 times since its release on June 20. The Velvet Sundown was first flagged as potentially AI-generated by Reddit users, who pointed out some suspicious signs.  A profile picture that looks as if it was created by AI. An Instagram account filled with images of band members that look…weird. And a bio with a purported quote from Billboard magazine saying their music sounds like “the memory of something you never lived, and somehow makes it feel real” — a quote that appears to have never actually been published. TNW Conference 2025 – That’s a wrap! Check out the highlights! There’s also no online trace of the band’s members listed in its Spotify bio: “vocalist and mellotron sorcerer Gabe Farrow, guitarist Lennie West, bassist-synth alchemist Milo Rains, and free-spirited percussionist Orion ‘Rio’ Del Mar.”   Yet, there’s nothing on The Velvet Sundown’s Spotify page to confirm the band is AI-generated. Its tracks even appeared on some Redditors’ “Discover Weekly” playlists, an in-app feature that recommends new songs to users.  The Velvet Sundown is also available on Apple Music and Amazon Music. The only major streaming site where it’s flagged as potentially AI-generated is Deezer.  Earlier this month, Deezer became the first music streaming service to start tagging AI-generated content. Its algorithm can identify artificially created songs made using several popular generative AI models, including Suno and Udio, which turn basic text prompts into “music.”   Over 20,000 fully AI-generated tracks flood Deezer’s platform each day. In April, bot-made audio made up 18% of “total uploaded content” — almost double the 10% figure the company shared in January.  Another popular AI-generated band is The Devil Inside, featured on a recent episode of John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight, titled “AI Slop.”  The Devil Inside’s top track, “Bones in the River,” has racked up 1.6 million listens on Spotify since it was released on May 16. Interestingly, the track has no credited creator under the platform’s “View credits” tab.  However, on Deezer the same song is flagged as AI-generated and credited to László Tamási, a Hungarian musician known for being the drummer of Honky Crew, an electro‑swing band. It represents a rare named credit for an AI-generated artist, who typically remain anonymous. We’ve reached out to Tamási for comment and will update this piece if they reply. Deezer is an outlier in its offensive on AI-generated music. Spotify has yet to launch any equivalent detector tool. It also hasn’t made any attempts to label such content, at least not publicly. Other music streaming platforms, including Apple Music, Amazon Music, and Tidal, have remained virtually mute on the topic. It’s perhaps unsurprising that popular music streaming platforms are sitting on their hands. There are currently no regulations on the flow of AI-generated songs, or a consensus on what makes them acceptable or not. Even Deezer is divided.  “AI is not inherently good or bad, but we believe a responsible and transparent approach is key to building trust with our users and the music industry, said Alexis Lanternier, Deezer’s CEO, last week. “We are also clear in our commitment to safeguarding the rights of artists and songwriters at a time where copyright law is being put into question in favour of training AI models.”.   Last year, a group of US record labels sued Suno and Udio, alleging copyright infringement on a “massive scale.” However, the two companies claim that training their models on copyrighted music falls under “fair use,” a common defence from AI firms. source

Europe’s best-funded space tech firm, Isar Aerospace, plans to strengthen the continent’s access to orbital satellites after raising €150mn to expand its launch service. Daniel Metzler, Isar’s CEO and co-founder, said the investment reflects “strong confidence” in the company’s mission to become a new European space leader. “We are catering to the rising global demand for satellite launch services and provide global markets and governments with independent and flexible access to space,” he said.  Founded in 2018 as a spin-off from Technical University Munich, Isar aims to lower the cost and complexity of launching small to medium-sized satellites by offering launch services directly from Europe. 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! Europe’s main rockets, Ariane 6 and Vega C, currently take off from Europe’s primary spaceport in French Guiana, South America. The continent’s companies are also largely reliant on SpaceX for access to orbit.   Isar’s launched its Spectrum rocket for the first time in March, marking the first-ever vertical orbital rocket launch in continental Europe outside Russia. While the rocket exploded shortly after takeoff, the milestone could open the door for future commercial launches direct from the continent.    “We had a clean liftoff, 30 seconds of flight, and even got to validate our flight termination system,” Metzler said at the time. “With this result, we feel confident to approach our second flight.” Spectrum launch vehicles 2 and 3 are already in production, Isar said. However, no timeline has been provided for the next launch.  American investment firm Elridge Industries issued the funding in the form of a convertible bond. The fresh capital brings Isar’s total raised to north of €600mn, according to Dealroom data.  source

Tech startup Kuva Space is working with the Finnish Environmental Institute (Skye) to analyse the health of the Nordic country’s waters with a specialised satellite.  The pilot test will harness Kuva’s hyperspectral sensors, which can analyse a wider light spectrum than traditional sensors. From space, the company’s probe can read the spectral signatures of almost any material on Earth — including toxic cyanobacteria. Also known as blue-green algae, these tiny organisms proliferate in Finland’s lakes and seas during summer. In high concentrations, they can be harmful and even fatal to humans and other animals.  However, cyanobacteria are visually indistinguishable from other, harmless algal blooms. The most accurate way to monitor them currently is to take water samples, which is time-consuming and expensive.     TNW Conference 2025 – That’s a wrap! Check out the highlights! Kuva and Skye are exploring a potentially better alternative. The partners are training AI models on hyperspectral satellite imagery, as well as water samples and insights from biochemical and genetic research.  Over time, the algorithms are expected to become more and more accurate at tracking cyanobacteria and decoding what’s driving their spread. “We’re very excited about this pilot with Kuva Space because rather than just detecting the presence of algae, we can use Kuva’s hyperspectral technology and AI to explore the spectral range and take a step further in identifying which algae species are present and assessing their biomass,” said Jenni Attila, leading researcher & group manager at Skye.  Kuva launched its first satellite, Hyperfield-1A, in August 2024. By 2030, the startup plans to have 100 satellites in orbit. From orbit, the probes will analyse the chemical compositions of natural and manmade materials.  In addition to spotting harmful algal blooms, the technology can be tuned in orbit for various other use cases. The agricultural sector, for instance, can optimise the sensors to monitor crops. Defence ministries can tap the data for surveillance. Industrial sites can deploy the imagery to detect chemical leaks. In marine ecosystems, the tech can track aquatic species, water quality, and illegal fishing vessels. source

The European Union has 24 official languages and dozens more unofficial ones spoken across the continent. If you add in the European countries outside the union, then that brings at least a dozen more into the mix. Add dialects, endangered languages, and languages brought by migrants to Europe, and you end up with hundreds of languages. One thing many of us in technology could agree on is that the US dominates — and that extends to online languages. There are many reasons for this, mostly due to American institutions, standards bodies, and companies defining how computers, their operating systems, and the software they run work in their nascent days. This is changing, but for the short term at least, it remains the norm. This has also led to the majority of the web being in English. An astounding 50% of websites are in English, despite it being the native tongue of only about 6% of the world’s population, with Spanish, German, and Japanese next, but a long way behind, each only between 5-6% of the web. As we delve deeper into the new wave of AI-powered applications and services, many are driven by data in large language models (LLMs). As much of the data in these LLMs is scraped (controversially in many cases) from the web, LLMs predominantly understand and respond in English. As we find ourselves at the start of or in the midst of a shift in technological paradigm caused by the rapid growth of AI tools, this is a problem, and we’re bringing that problem into a new age. Europe already boasts several high-profile AI companies and projects, such as Mistral and Hugging Face. Google DeepMind also originated as a European company. The continent has research projects that develop language models to enhance how AI tools comprehend less commonly spoken languages. This article explores some of these initiatives, questions their effectiveness, and asks whether their efforts are worthwhile or if many users default to using English versions of tools. As Europe seeks to build its independence in AI and ML, does the continent have the companies and skills necessary to achieve its goals? Terminology and technology primer 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! To make sense of what follows, you don’t need to understand how models are created, trained, or function. But it’s helpful to understand a couple of basics about models and their human language support. Unless model documentation explicitly mentions it is multilingual or cross-lingual, prompting it or requesting a response in an unsupported language may cause it to translate back and forth or respond in a language it does understand. Both strategies can produce unreliable and inconsistent results — especially in low-resource languages. While high-resource languages, such as English, benefit from abundant training data. Low-resource languages, such as Gaelic or Galician, have far less, which often leads to inferior performance The harder concept to explain regarding models is “open,” which is unusual, as software in general has had a fairly clear definition of “open source” for a while. I don’t want to delve too deeply into this topic as the exact definition is still in flux and controversial. The summary is that even when a model might call itself “open” and is referenced as “open,” the meaning of “open” isn’t always the same. Here are two other useful terms to know: Training teaches a model to make predictions or decisions based on input data. Parameters are variables learned during model training that define how the model maps inputs to outputs. In other words, how it understands and responds to your questions. The larger the number of parameters, the more complex the model is. With that brief explanation done, how are European AI companies and projects working to enhance these processes to improve European language support? Hugging Face When someone wants to share code, they typically provide a link to their GitHub repository. When someone wants to share a model, they typically provide a Hugging Face link. Founded in 2016 by French entrepreneurs in New York City, the company is an active participant in creating communities and a strong proponent of open models. In 2024, it started an AI accelerator for European startups and partnered with Meta to develop translation tools based on Meta’s “No Language Left Behind” model. They are also one of the driving forces behind the BLOOM model, a groundbreaking multilingual model that set new standards for international collaboration, openness, and training methodologies. Hugging Face is a useful tool for getting a rough idea of the language support in models. At the time of writing, Hugging Face lists 1,743,136 models and 298,927 datasets. Look at its leaderboard for monolingual models and datasets, and you see the following ranking for models and datasets that developers tag (add metadata) as supporting European languages at the time of writing: Language Language code Datasets Models English English en 27,702 205,459 English eng 1,370 1,070 French fra 1,933 850 Spanish Español es 1,745 10,028 German Deutsch de 1,442 9,714 English eng 1,370 1,070 You can already see some issues here. These aren’t tags set in stone. The community can add values freely. While you can see that they follow them for the most part, there is some duplication. As you can see, the models are dominated by English. A similar issue applies to the datasets on Hugging Face, which lack non-English data. What does this mean? Lucie-Aimée Kaffee, EU Policy Lead at Hugging Face, said that the tags indicate that a model has been trained to understand and process this language or that the dataset contains materials in that language. She added that the confusion between language support often comes during training.“When training a large model, it’s common for other languages to accidentally get caught in training because there were some artefacts of it in that dataset,” she said.

Helsinki has launched a pilot project to test e-scooters equipped with AI-powered sensors that monitor rider behaviour and flag safety risks in real time.  Backed by the European Union, the trial involves 40 shared e-scooters from Tier-Dott, one of Europe’s largest operators.  Each vehicle is fitted with sensors developed by UK-based See.Sense, which detect sudden braking, swerving, and vibrations that may signal road hazards. The data is then analysed and visualised through a mobility data platform developed by French startup Vianova. The pilot is coordinated by Forum Virium Helsinki, the city’s innovation agency, as part of the EU-funded ELABORATOR project. The goal is to help cities take a more proactive approach to e-scooter safety. TNW Conference 2025 – That’s a wrap! Check out the highlights! “By using advanced technology, we can help the city gain new information about accidents and near misses, as well as places where risky situations are concentrated,” said Noora Reittu, senior project manager of ELABORATOR. Micromobility has faced growing scrutiny in Europe following a rise in injuries and deaths. In 2023, police in Germany registered 9,425 e-scooter accidents, 22 of which were fatal, double the previous year.   Cities have responded with new restrictions. Paris voted to ban rental e-scooters in 2023. Other cities, including Oslo and Madrid, have capped fleet sizes, introduced no-parking zones, or tightened speed limits.  Operators are under pressure to prove they can integrate safely into urban mobility systems. Profitability remains a challenge, with rising hardware costs, competition, and regulatory hurdles cutting into margins. Tier-Dott, formed by the 2024 merger of Tier and Dott, has said it aims to scale more sustainably through data-driven collaboration with cities. By embedding sensors in vehicles, the Helsinki pilot shifts focus from rider behaviour alone to infrastructure quality — a move the partners say could help address the root causes of many accidents. “Partnering altogether with the City of Helsinki allows us to go beyond reactive safety initiatives and to proactively identify risks thanks to real-time data,” said Elina Bürkland, Dott’s head of public policy for the Nordics.   Results from the pilot will feed into broader EU research on safe, inclusive transport and may inform future regulation. For now, Helsinki becomes the latest testbed in Europe’s evolving micromobility experiment.  source

The EU AI Act is expected to introduce its key rules for general-purpose AI (GPAI) models on August 2. However, amid growing concerns that over-regulation could erode Europe’s competitiveness in artificial intelligence, calls to postpone the roll-out have intensified from some key stakeholders, including Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, Bosch CEO Stefan Hartung, and the tech lobbying group CCIA Europe, whose members include Alphabet, Meta, and Apple. At TNW Conference in Amsterdam on June 20, Eoghan O’Neill, senior policy officer at the AI Office of the European Commission, addressed the potential delay of the roll-out. He clarified that the Commission plans to finalise its rules for GPAI in July. The European Parliament will then adopt its position on the standards. “This is a big, sophisticated technology, and we want to get it right,” he said. “We need specific obligations to capture some of the most impactful or potentially harmful models under the AI Act.” O’Neill highlighted that the guidelines were drafted by a broad code of practice group. Members included major model providers, civic society organisations, NGOs, academics, AI safety experts, SMEs, and European industrial giants. “It is a big tent with all of those voices from the stakeholder community”, he said. Tech leaders, however, warned that the EU needed to reduce its regulatory burdens. TNW Conference 2025 – That’s a wrap! Check out the highlights! “Europe is not the United States,” said Fabrizio Del Maffeo, CEO at Axelera AI, a Netherlands-based chip company. “We have many languages, many markets, and many regulations – both European and local. And these are stifling growth because they create borders, making it difficult for companies to expand.” Del Maffeo said his company had signed the petition for “EU Inc,” a proposal to create a standardised legal entity for startups that would enable easier operations across EU member states. EU Inc would sit under the bloc’s 28th regime, a pan-European legal framework designed to help startups expand throughout the union. In a speech at the Davos economic forum in January, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the rules would combine “corporate law, insolvency, labour law, [and] taxation” in “one single and simple framework.” But regulation isn’t the only problem, Del Maffeo stressed. The obsession with launching new startups needs to be balanced with a focus on scaling existing ones, which, he argued, requires capital more than policy. The data backs him up: Europe accounts for just 8% of the world’s scaleups, compared with 60% in North America, and no EU-founded startup in the past 50 years has surpassed a €100bn valuation. The region is the birthplace of countless innovations, but struggles to turn them into big businesses. “If you look at machine builders, we are leading the world,” he said. “In automotive, we are great, but we are losing traction. In robotics, we do great, but we are also losing traction.” Speakers at TNW Conference shared diverse views on Europe’s AI future. Credit: TNW Peter van der Putten, director of the AI Lab and lead scientist at software firm Pegasystems, echoed this view. He emphasised that the EU needs to become more attractive for investments, both domestic and international. Funding data underlines the investment gap: European startups raised about $52bn (€44bn) in venture capital last year — far less than the $209bn (€177bn) their US counterparts attracted. “Investment could come from the EU, but also from the US,” van der Putten said. “Regulations could be adjusted to make it easier and more attractive for funding that’s leaving the US to flow into Europe.” Europe is also in a good position to attract talent back from the US, noted Elise de Reus, co-founder of Cradle. She pointed to a growing trend of European engineers returning from Big Tech jobs in the US, drawn by purpose-driven work and better quality of life. “We’re welcoming European engineers who used to work at Big Tech companies like Facebook in the US to come back and contribute to solving societal and global problems such as climate change,” she said. “We’re also maybe a little bit too modest. We should measure happiness, not GDP, which is not a sustainable metric. I don’t think we should copy and paste the American system.” source

Despite a cautious VC climate and ongoing geopolitical jitters, European startups are still attracting serious cash.  Covering everything from AI drug discovery and space launches to quantum software and fusion energy, the continent’s startups raised €19bn in the first half of 2025, according to Dealroom data.  We’ve crunched the numbers so you don’t have to. Here are the 20 largest startup funding rounds for H1 2025. (Note: This list includes only startups founded in 2015 and later.)  1. Helsing — €600M HQ: Munich, Germany 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! Helsing builds AI-powered software for defence systems, designed to help democratic governments respond to modern security threats. It raised €600mn in a Series D round led by General Catalyst — a huge endorsement for Europe’s rapidly growing defence tech sector. The deal brought Helsing’s valuation to €12bn, making it one of the continent’s most valuable private companies. 2. Isomorphic Labs — €508M HQ: London, UK A DeepMind spinout using AI to model molecular biology, Isomorphic Labs aims to dramatically speed up drug discovery. It raised €508mn in March, signalling the faith investors have in AI’s promise to reshape pharmaceutical R&D.   3. NEoT — €350M   HQ: Paris, France NEoT offers financing solutions for clean transport and off-grid energy projects, like electric buses and solar battery storage. Its €350mn round is less about flashy tech and more about enabling Europe’s green infrastructure at scale.  4. Verdiva Bio — €348M HQ: London, UK  Verdiva Bio emerged from stealth in January with a whopping €348mn for a new range of drugs aimed at tackling the obesity epidemic. It was one of Europe’s largest-ever biotech VC deals, indicating the investor appetite for the booming weight loss market.  5. XY Miners — €254M HQ: Lewes, UK  XY Miners raised €254mn in a late-stage VC round in April 2025 to expand its cloud-based Bitcoin mining operation. 6. Neko Health — €250M   HQ: Stockholm, Sweden Founded by Spotify’s Daniel Ek, Neko Health offers AI-powered full-body health scans for early disease detection. Its €250mn Series B in January was a big vote of confidence in preventative healthcare. 7. Multiverse Computing — €189M HQ: San Sebastián, Spain Multiverse Computing builds quantum software for sectors like finance and logistics. Thanks to its €189mn Series B round in June, the company has become one of Europe’s best-funded quantum players.   8. Auro Travel — €180M HQ: Madrid, Spain Auro operates a premium ride-hailing and chauffeur service for businesses — essentially a high-end Uber for corporate clients. The company raised €180mn in a late-stage VC round in February 2025, with plans to scale across Southern Europe’s mobility market. 9. TravelPerk — €170M HQ: Barcelona, Spain  TravelPerk manages bookings, payments, and policies for corporate travel. It brought in €170mn in a Series E round in January 2025 to expand globally, as business trips continue to bounce back. 10. Windward Bio — €169M HQ: Basel, Switzerland Windward Bio emerged from stealth in January with €169mn to develop new treatments for cancer, immune conditions, and rare diseases.   11. Dojo — €161M HQ: London, UK Dojo builds payment and business tools for service-focused brands — think salons, cafés, and event spaces. It raised €161mn in a growth equity round in May 2025, which it hopes will help it compete with players like Square and Stripe.   12. Synthesia — €152M HQ: London, UK Synthesia lets users create AI-generated videos from text for applications such as corporate training and marketing. Its €152mn round brought it to a €1.9bn valuation. 13. Isar Aerospace — €150M HQ: Ottobrunn, Germany Isar, which builds small rockets for satellite launches, pulled off Western Europe’s first orbital rocket launch earlier this year. In June, it secured a €150mn convertible loan, taking its total raised to north of €600mn — making it Europe’s best-funded space startup. 14. Ori Industries — €149M HQ: London, UK Ori builds infrastructure for managing workloads across cloud and edge networks. The €149mn raise positions it well as edge computing demand heats up.  15. Quantum Systems — €149M  HQ: Gilching, Germany Quantum Systems manufactures electric drones used in defence, mapping, and agriculture. It raised €149mn in a Series C round in May 2025, becoming Europe’s latest defence tech unicorn.   16. Quantexa — €148M HQ: London, UK Quantexa uses graph-based AI to spot fraud and financial crime. The company raised €148mn in a late-stage VC round in January 2025, taking its total funding past half a billion euros, as it pushes deeper into sectors such as insurance and defence. 17. Solaris — €140M HQ: Berlin, Germany Solaris offers a Banking-as-a-Service platform that enables businesses to integrate regulated financial services. It raised €140mn in a Series G round in June 2025. 18. Zepz — €140M HQ: London, UK Zepz owns WorldRemit and Sendwave — two major digital remittance platforms. With €140mn in new funds, it’s doubling down on mobile-first money transfers in emerging markets. 19. Azafaros — €132M HQ: Leiden, Netherlands Azafaros develops small-molecule drugs targeting rare metabolic disorders. The company raised €132mn in a Series B round in June 2025.  20. Proxima Fusion — €130M   HQ: Munich, Germany Proxima Fusion is developing stellarator reactors for nuclear fusion, aiming to create a new source of virtually limitless clean energy. Its €130mn Series A round, raised in June 2025, is the largest round ever raised by a European fusion startup.  The big picture So far, 2025 has seen a heavy concentration of funding in AI, biotech, defence, and deep tech — with startups like Helsing and Proxima Fusion raising record-breaking rounds in their respective fields.  Unsurprisingly, startups in the UK and Germany dominated the charts. But don’t overlook Spain and France, both of which had multiple startups raising north of €150mn. source

Norwegian software firm Visma has provisionally picked London for its IPO next year. It could mark a rare win for the UK’s troubled stock market — if Downing Street pulls through on its promised reforms.  British private equity firm Hg acquired a 70% stake in Visma in 2006 at a £380mn (€445mn) valuation. The company, which makes accounting, payroll, and HR software products, is now worth an estimated €19bn.  Visma previously considered listing in Amsterdam but has since turned its sights to the British capital, according to the Financial Times.  Its IPO would run counter to the recent trend of companies shifting their primary listing away from the London Stock Exchange (LSE), delisting entirely, or bypassing the exchange in favour of New York. 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! Earlier this month, British fintech Wise said it would move its primary listing to New York. UK chip designer Arm chose to go public there in 2023, while Sweden’s Klarna has also confirmed plans to go public in the Big Apple.  In 2024, 88 companies either delisted or shifted their primary listing away from London’s main market, while just 18 new firms joined, according to the LSE’s own data. Analysts previously told TNW that tech firms are drawn across the Atlantic by bigger valuations, deeper capital markets, and more investor appetite for risk. In order to reverse the exodus, the British government made significant changes to company listing rules last year in a bid to make the IPO process smoother.  Poppy Gustafsson, the UK government’s minister for investment and former CEO of cybersecurity firm Darktrace, said much of the work has been done trying to revive the IPO market.  “There are some good potential IPOs that are queuing up,” she told delegates at the annual Investment Association conference in London today, Financial News London reports. Visma, however, wants additional listing reforms in place before committing to a London listing, according to the Financial Times. The company said its IPO was contingent on a deeper implementation of the rules.   source

The Netherlands’ hottest tech festival is just around the corner, and the buzz is electric. TNW Conference brings together Europe’s sharpest minds, boldest startups, and game-changing tech leaders at Amsterdam’s NDSM on June 19 and 20. It’s two days packed with big ideas, fierce debates, and innovations that could shape the future. We’ve combed through the packed schedule and picked seven sessions you absolutely can’t miss — the ones set to challenge the status quo and get everyone talking. 1.Where’s Iron Man? Why tech belongs in defence — Purple Stage, Thursday 16:25 – 16:55 Capital is pouring into defence tech right now. Startups are raising big rounds, securing major contracts, and giving the legacy military contractors or “primes” a run for their money.  TNW Conference 2025 – That’s a wrap! Check out the highlights! At TNW Conference, four defence tech heavyweights will come together to discuss the rise of the sector, its potential to shape future warfare, and the role of startups.  The session will feature insights from Jyoti Hirani-Driver, COO at NATO’s DIANA accelerator, Giuseppe Lacerenza, partner at Amsterdam-based defence-focused fund Keen Venture Partners, and Dr Benjamin Wolba, co-founder of the European Defence Tech Hub. Last but not least is Marc Wietfeld, CEO of ARX Robotics, a German startup building autonomous land vehicles. 2. Gods of industry: The battle for deep tech dominance — Purple Stage, Friday 10:30 – 11:00  Next up, we’re looking at another battle. This one is being fought over deep tech — the science and engineering breakthroughs shaping everything from health to transportation. Leading the conversation will be two tech titans: Peter Wennink, former CEO of chip giant ASML, and Young Sohn, managing partner at deep tech VC Walden Catalyst.  Wennink and Sohn will explore the seismic forces reshaping the next decade of deep tech innovation. Expect sharp takes on geopolitics, supply chain strains, the limits of Moore’s Law, and the rise of AI-native hardware. 3. Solving your burnout with psychedelics: Exploring the future of storytelling, AI, and mental health — Purple Stage, Thursday 15:30 – 15:50 Our next session takes a more introspective turn. Emmy-nominated storyteller, futurist, and presenter Jason Silva will take us not to the deal books of VCs or the frontiers of tech but to the intersection of AI art and psychedelic therapies.      Silva, the host of National Geographic’s hit TV show Brain Games, will show how  AI-generated psychedelic films can lead you on an adventure to the inner depths of your consciousness.  This session will be a fast‑paced mix of philosophy, live performance, and vivid media that invites you to embrace AI as a partner in healing, play, and reimagining yourself. Hold on tight — this promises to be one hell of a trip!   4. Quantum race: Can Europe secure leadership in quantum? — Green Stage, Thursday 11:30 – 11:55 From psychedelics, we’re now entering the equally bizarre realm of quantum mechanics. It’s a world where matter can exist in multiple states at once, particles can be entangled across vast distances, and the rules of classical physics go right out the window. Quantum computing, which looks to exploit these strange phenomena to make potentially world-changing calculations, is fast becoming one of the most competitive frontiers in tech. Startups and governments around the world are scrambling for pole position. But the big question is: can Europe take the lead? In this session, Jan Goetz, co-founder and CEO of Munich-based quantum scaleup IQM, joins Tom Henriksson, general partner at VC firm OpenOcean, to tackle that very question. They’ll explore the breakthroughs Europe needs in quantum hardware, networks, and infrastructure — and what it’ll take to stay in the race as global competition heats up. 5. DEI or Die: Why startups can’t afford to opt out — Purple Stage, Friday 15:00 – 15:30  Whether you’re building a deep tech powerhouse or trying to crack quantum code, most industry experts agree that every tech startup ought to foster a diverse workforce. But those efforts — coined under the umbrella term Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) — have been faltering as of late. Just this year, several major tech firms, including Meta and Amazon, rolled back their DEI programs amid a broader shift in the West to more conservative politics.  Against this concerning backdrop, a group of tech insiders and DEI champions will debate why startups should continue to pursue inclusive strategies and what that looks like in today’s world.  This session will feature Matthijs Welle, CEO of Dutch hospitality unicorn Mews; Raashi Sikka, chief diversity, inclusion, accessibility, and social impact officer at Ubisoft; Constantijn Van Oranje, special envoy at TechLeap;and Ingrid Tappin, CEO and founder of Diverse Leaders in Tech.  6. Are we there yet? Launching the EU’s space ambitions — Purple Stage, Friday 16:35 – 16:55 Speaking of representation in tech, former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe — the first Black woman to travel on a commercial space flight — will also be gracing the stage at TNW this year. Bowe will discuss developments in Europe. With the EU reclaiming sovereign access to space last year, the continent’s spacetech scene is buzzing with renewed ambition. Harnessing this momentum, could we be on the brink of a European space renaissance? This session will explore cutting-edge innovations, bold projects, and the key challenges shaping the future of Europe’s spacetech ecosystem.  7. A drink with an F-bomb killer — VIP Lounge, Friday 11:15 – 11:45 Finally, we’re heading to Hollywood with British film director turned tech founder Scott Mann.   Mann is the mastermind behind several action flicks, including Heist, Final Score, and Tournament. He’s also the founder of Flawless, a startup pioneering photo-realistic AI edits for films — which includes removing F-bombs from scenes without having to reshoot them.   Mann will share behind-the-scenes Hollywood stories, insights on building cutting-edge startups, and his vision for AI’s future in entertainment — all over a drink. So whether it’s psychedelic trips, space travel, quantum computing or the future of deep tech as we know it, these