Fintech fines, tariff times, AI ears, wealth access, and much more...
What's Up Tech? #219
Welcome to our 219th newsletter, written with 🖤 by Annika Bautista, Sarah Luna Mongin, Aris Sevastianos, Tom McCaughey, Güneş Tümer, Juliana Boccoli Baldy, Martin Zagorov and Franziska Oschmann.
🔍 Topics we'll cover this weekGeneral news from the week: Revolut gets slapped and more regulatory headaches 🤯
Fundraising news from the week: female-led VC power & Europe’s funding heatwave 🔥
Up-and-coming ventures to watch: UK upgrades private markets while France leads the cyberspace
🆕 Product news from the week: scroll to the end for one-liner, stand-out headlines on the latest tech that you should read more about 👀
Internships & Job offers of the week
Enjoy the read! 💛
🤑 Fundraising of the week🚀 Revaia raises €250 million to back Europe’s next tech giants (🇫🇷)
Paris-based Revaia, Europe’s largest women-led VC, just closed its second fund at €250 million, bringing total AUM to a cool €600 million. The fund, dubbed Growth II, is already 40 percent deployed into buzzy sectors like AI, cybersecurity, and energy transition.
The fund is backed by the likes of Bpifrance, the European Investment Fund, and new heavyweights including BNP Paribas Cardif and JP Morgan Chase. Revaia isn’t just writing checks—its Operating Partner team helps startups level up with hands-on support in data, AI, sustainability, and GTM.
Revaia's portfolio companies have seen serious glow-ups: Fund I startups grew 4x, with 80% now pulling in €40 million to €250 million+ in revenue. With a focus on sustainable innovation and global scale, Revaia is gunning to be the VC BFF for Europe’s next tech unicorns. 🦄
Europe’s Largest Women-Led VC Revaia Closes Second Fund at €250M; Reaches €600M AUM
🔥 Marvel Fusion secures €113 million in Series B funding, marking Europe’s largest-ever fusion energy investment (🇩🇪)
Marvel Fusion has raised €113 million in Series B funding, marking Europe's largest private fusion energy investment to date. The round was led by Earlybird, Porsche SE, and Norrsken VC, with participation from institutional and strategic investors.
The Munich-based startup is developing a novel laser-based approach to fusion energy, aiming to deliver clean, safe, and virtually limitless power. Unlike traditional fusion methods, Marvel Fusion’s tech relies on ultra-short, high-intensity laser pulses to ignite fusion reactions, offering a faster, more compact pathway to energy generation.
With this new funding, the company plans to expand its R&D capabilities, build out its prototype infrastructure, and deepen collaborations with leading scientific institutions. Their goal? Bring fusion from theory to scalable reality within this decade. 📈
🦎 Carbon Equity raises €105 million for Climate Tech Fund of Funds (🇳🇱)
Carbon Equity, an Amsterdam-based impact investing platform, has successfully raised €105 million for its Climate Tech Portfolio Fund III, marking a significant milestone in its mission to support climate solution innovations. This latest fund brings Carbon Equity’s total assets under management (AUM) to €300 million.
The fund will back at least 150 companies working on critical technologies such as green hydrogen, CO2-free cement, iron-air batteries, and next-generation proteins. 🥓
🤖 Jobandtalent raises $103 million to plug AI into temp recruiting (🇪🇸)
Madrid-based Jobandtalent just snagged $103 million in Series F funding, but it came with a haircut: the company’s valuation dropped to $1.5 billion, down from $2.35 billion in 2021. The round was led by Atomico. But in today’s startup climate? Could’ve been worse.
Jobandtalent runs a “workforce-as-a-service” platform that matches hourly workers with employers across logistics, retail, and e-commerce. Think temp agency, but powered by algorithms. It’s already placed 300,000+ workers at over 3,250 companies, and now it's betting on AI to scale faster.
Enter Clara, an AI recruiter who’s already conducted 180,000+ interviews and helped make 7,000 hires. That’s recruiter-level productivity—without the recruiter. The new funds will go toward rolling out more of these AI agents and expanding globally. So yes, the valuation took a dip, but the vision? Still pretty bold. 👀
Jobandtalent Raises $103M on a Down-Round $1.5B Valuation as it Looks to AI to Recruit Temps
⏭️ NexGen Cloud raises €41 million to power Europe’s AI infrastructure (🇬🇧)
London-based NexGen Cloud has secured €41 million in Series A funding, pushing its valuation to €323 million. The round, backed by high-net-worth individuals and family trusts, will accelerate the company’s mission to deliver hyperscale-level, sovereign AI infrastructure across Europe and beyond.
Founded in 2020, NexGen Cloud operates Hyperstack, an AI-as-a-Service platform offering on-demand GPU compute for enterprises and startups. Since launching Hyperstack in 2023, the company has seen rapid growth, with €83.9 million in revenue and a 2272% increase in transactions.
This funding positions NexGen Cloud as a key player in Europe’s push for sovereign, enterprise-grade AI solutions.
NexGen Cloud Secures €41M in Series A Funding to Expand Sovereign AI Infrastructure in Europe
🔥 Up-and-coming startups to watch🔐 Qevlar AI raises €9.1 million to supercharge cybersecurity with autonomous SOC agents (🇬🇧)
Paris-based Qevlar AI has raised an additional €9.1 million, bringing its total funding to €12.8 million, to scale its autonomous security operations centre (SOC) technology. The round was led by EQT Ventures and Forgepoint Capital International, with backing from industry leaders at Datadog, Dataiku, and DeepMind.
Founded in 2023, Qevlar AI is tackling the overwhelming alert fatigue in modern SOCs by deploying AI agents that fully automate security investigations, cutting time from 40 minutes to just 3, and achieving 99.8% accuracy. Their API integrates with existing security stacks, enabling Level 1 and 2 analysts to focus on higher-value tasks by automating routine triage and classification.
In the face of rising cyber threats and a global cybersecurity talent shortage, Qevlar’s solution is rapidly gaining traction, with analysts reporting up to 90% efficiency gains. The funding will fuel global expansion, product R&D, and team growth as the company positions itself at the forefront of AI-led cybersecurity operations.
Qevlar AI Raises €9M to Supercharge Security Operations Centres with Agentic AI
pyannoteAI secures €8 million to advance Speaker Intelligence AI (🇫🇷)
pyannoteAI, a Paris-based pioneer in Speaker Intelligence AI, has raised €8 million in Seed funding, led by Crane Venture Partners and Serena. The company specializes in speaker diarisation technology, which accurately distinguishes speakers across languages and spontaneous speech patterns. With over 45 million monthly downloads on HuggingFace, pyannoteAI’s open-source tools have empowered more than 100,000 developers globally.
The funding will enable pyannoteAI to scale its enterprise-grade solutions and expand operations in Europe and the US. By turning raw speech into actionable insights, pyannoteAI is setting new standards for voice data processing, transforming industries like transcription, customer service, and audiovisual dubbing. 🗣️
pyannoteAI Raises €8M to Build the First Language-Agnostic Speaker Intelligence Platform
💸 Private markets, made simple: Treble Peak raises £5 million (🇬🇧)
London-based Treble Peak has raised £5 million in equity funding to accelerate its growth across the UK and Europe, aiming to broaden access to private markets for non-institutional investors.
Since its founding in 2022, the platform has partnered with top-tier fund managers like DN Capital, reflecting rising global demand for alternative assets. With private equity-backed exits hitting $813 billion in 2024 and European fundraising reaching €118 billion in the first half alone, Treble Peak’s tech-driven approach is poised to reshape private market investing.
British Treble Peak Raises £5M to Digitise Private Market Access
📰 Tech news of the week🏦 Lithuania's central bank fines Revolut €3.5 million over anti-money laundering failures (🇱🇹)
Revolut has come under regulatory inspection in Lithuania, resulting in a €3.5 million fine for shortcomings in its anti-money laundering controls. After carrying out a scheduled inspection, the Central Bank of Lithuania uncovered that Revolut consistently failed to identify doubtful transactions due to procedural deficiencies in monitoring business relationships and operations.
Although no instances of money laundering were identified or confirmed, the bank underscored the need for improved regulations. Revolut has cooperated with authorities, efficiently acknowledged the issue, and continues its commitment to the fight against financial crime. This penalty is the largest ever imposed by Lithuania's central bank. 😳
🇪🇺 EU counter-tariffs at a standstill: strategic counter to Trump’s revived tariffs pending negotiations
As US President Donald Trump reimposes sweeping reciprocal tariffs, targeting European steel and aluminum industries, the EU is preparing a phased retaliation targeting €22.1 billion in American exports. The bloc’s plan includes a series of escalating 25% duties on agricultural products, such as steel, soybeans, and almonds, kicking off in stages between April and December 2025.
While retaliatory tariffs resume April 15, the EU has also paused counter-measures on metals for 90 days to allow room for negotiations. This is a developing story, and we’re expecting to hear more updates in the coming weeks.
📰 Product news of the weekOpenAI going dev mode: Sam Altman announces open model, seeking feedback from devs
Amazon is joining the ‘AI agent’ party: they’ve released “Nova Act,” an agent that controls your web browser for shopping needs
👔 Internships & job offersInternships
Impact/ESG & Philanthropie - Ring Capital (Paris)
Startup Acceleration Analyst - RAISE Sherpas (Paris)
Growth Analyst - Inovexus (Paris or Madrid)
Jobs
Investment Associate - Sofina (Brussels)
Associate Fintech - Speedinvest (London)
Investment Partner - Marvelous (Berlin)
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The whole baby vc crew 🖤