No-code web wars, record-breaking quantum fundraising, defense logistics, and much more...

What's Up Tech? #236

Sarah Luna Mongin

Annika Bautista

, and

Aris Sevastianos

Sep 09, 2025

Welcome to our 236th newsletter, written with 🖤 by Annika Bautista, Sarah Luna Mongin, and Aris Sevastianos.

🔍 Topics we'll cover this week

General news from the week: Klarna revives its IPO dreams, and OpenAI sets its sights on LinkedIn’s turf 🔗
Fundraising news from the week: Record-breaking quantum bets, life sciences finally cracking compliance, and CRMs reimagined for the AI-native era 💸
Up-and-coming ventures to watch: Molten-salt nuclear reactors, smarter self-driving built on neuroscience, and proptech that finds your next home 🏡
Internship & Job offers of the week

Enjoy the read! 💛

🤑 Fundraising of the week

🔮 IQM raises €275 million to push quantum computing beyond science fiction (🇫🇮)

IQM Quantum Computers has secured €275 million in Series B funding, marking the largest round ever in the quantum space outside the US.

The round was led by Ten Eleven Ventures, IQM’s first US investor, which is set to help the company unlock expansion efforts. They are also working towards scaling from thousands to millions of qubits for stronger error correction.

Dealroom notes that this fundraise comes just days after Quantinuum’s $600 million raise led by Nvidia. With quantum hardware gaining funding momentum, the question is whether this is an early signal for mass adoption or a bubble in the making. 🤔

🌐 No-code website builder Framer lands $100 million in Series D funding, hitting $2 billion valuation (🇳🇱)

Framer has just closed out a landmark Series D round led by Atomico and Meritech Capital.

With a focus on new enterprise-grade features, the company is positioning itself to compete head-to-head with traditional webstacks and buzzy vibecoders. 👩‍💻

The platform, now used by over half a million people each month, including companies like Miro, Perplexity, and Scale AI are already building on it, alongside 40% of Y Combinator’s latest cohort.

Framer reported $50 million ARR this year, staying profitable, and aims to double that figure by 2026. 👏

🧬 CHARM Therapeutics secures €68.5 million to fight treatment-resistant cancers (🇬🇧)

CHARM Therapeutics has raised €68.5 million in an oversubscribed Series B led by NEA and SR One.

The team is now working on advancing its next-generation menin inhibitors into the clinic. Discovered using its proprietary DragonFold AI platform, these inhibitors are designed to overcome resistance mutations that limit the effectiveness of first-generation drugs.

By maintaining potency against all known resistance mutations, CHARM aims to establish itself as a leader in precision oncology for blood cancers and beyond. 🩸

🤙 Attio raises $52 million Series B to reinvent CRM for the AI era (🇬🇧)

The builder era is changing GTM teams, and Attio is at the forefront with a new round led by Google Ventures.

In an era where AI can surface insights directly from data, Attio is betting that the future of CRM is not about static systems of record. It’s about giving humans and AI the ability to collaborate side by side.

The platform lets companies mold their CRM workflows to match their growth strategies, while building on primitives designed for AI-native software.

With 5,000 paying customers including Lovable, Granola, and Modal, Attio is on track to deliver 4x ARR this year while positioning itself as the “operating system” for modern go-to-market teams. 💪

🧬 Ketryx raises 39 million dollars to make AI in life sciences actually play by the rules (🇦🇹)

Ketryx just snagged $39 million in a Series B led by Transformation Capital, bringing total funding past $55 million. Their pitch is an AI-powered compliance platform that slashes documentation time by 90% and makes highly regulated teams ship products 10x faster without getting smacked by the FDA or EU regulators.

Already trusted by three of the top five medtech giants and Fortune 500s, Ketryx is trying to prove that regulation doesn’t have to kill innovation…it can actually speed it up. 🏃💨

🚛 FERNRIDE raises €18 million to bring autonomous trucks into defense logistics (🇩🇪)

FERNRIDE just pulled an extra €18 million in Series A cash, taking its total haul to €75 million. The round was led by Helantic with dual-use backers like ex-Airbus Defense exec Thomas Müller (no, not the footballer 😂) jumping on board.

The company makes safety-certified autonomous terminal tractors that replace human drivers in high-risk, repetitive jobs. Fresh funds will scale its tech across European container ports and push into defense - where drones target trucks and NATO needs logistics without relying on soldiers behind the wheel. 🪖

🔥 Up-and-coming startups

🏡 Zefir raises €15 million to roll out AI home-hunting assistant (🇫🇷)

French proptech Zefir just secured €15 million in fresh funding, led by FinTech Collective, pushing its total raise to €50 million. The startup already drives €600 million in annualised home sales by slashing transaction times for sellers, and now it’s flipping the script to help buyers too.

Their new AI assistant, “ZIA,” acts like a digital house-hunting agent: cutting out endless calls, spammy portals, and dead-end viewings. Fresh cash will fuel expansion into France’s 15 biggest cities, double headcount by 2026, and cement Zefir’s ambition to become the “Booking.com of real estate.” ✨

☁️ Alpic raises €5.1 million to build the first MCP-native cloud platform (🇫🇷)

Alpic just snagged €5.1 million in Pre-seed funding to launch the world’s first MCP-native cloud platform. The round was led by Partech.

So what’s the big deal? Alpic is building infrastructure that lets AI agents stop awkwardly scraping websites and instead connect directly to digital services via Model Context Protocol (MCP), the new open standard backed by all the major AI players.

The fresh cash will go toward scaling its developer toolkit and making agent-accessible services as seamless as hitting “book now” on your next flight. 🛫

🔋 TracXon raises €4.75 million to reinvent the PCB for a greener future (🇳🇱)

TracXon, a spin-off from TNO, just scored €4.75 million in seed funding. The round was led by DeepTechXL.

The company’s tech swaps dirty, material-heavy printed circuit boards for hybrid printed electronics, which use five times less CO₂ and twelve times less material (woohoo!). Fresh funds will bankroll its patented roll-to-roll equipment, including the first-ever R2R VIA Printer, which connects layers on both sides of a circuit. 🌍

📰 Tech news of the week

📣 Seaya Andromeda takes minority stake in Adsmurai to fuel AI-driven global marketing push (🇪🇸)

Seaya Andromeda just snagged a minority stake in Barcelona-based Adsmurai, one of Europe’s fastest-growing AI marketing tech players. The deal will bankroll Adsmurai’s international expansion and beef up its proprietary AI platform, Zero Loop, which automates campaign workflows while keeping data governance squeaky clean.

Adsmurai already powers campaigns for brands like Unilever, Mango, and UNICEF, pulling in over €100 million in 2024 revenues with sights on €400 million by 2029. With Seaya’s backing, the company is doubling down on AI as the engine of digital marketing’s next big disruption. 🚀

💳 Klarna revives IPO plans, targets $14 billion debut in NYC (🇸🇪)

Swedish BNPL powerhouse Klarna is back on the IPO stage, eyeing a New York Stock Exchange listing under the ticker “KLAR”. The company and select shareholders are offering 34.3 million shares priced at $35–$37 each, aiming to raise up to $1.27 billion and land at a valuation of around $14 billion. 💸

Klarna’s path to this moment charts an epic swing: once valued at over $45 billion in 2021, the company’s worth plummeted by nearly 85% to $6–7 billion by 2022. Now, its recovery positions it right back on the radar. 2025 Q2 revenue surged 54% year-over-year to $823 million, while GMV climbed 14% to $6.9 billion. Net loss narrowed by 42% to $53 million compared to the same quarter last year.

🤖 OpenAI takes on LinkedIn with new AI-powered jobs platform (🇺🇸)

OpenAI is moving into the hiring market with plans to launch the OpenAI Jobs Platform by mid-2026, setting up a direct clash with LinkedIn (owned by Microsoft, OpenAI’s biggest backer).

The service, announced in a blog post by Fidji Simo, OpenAI’s CEO of Applications, promises to “use AI to help find the perfect matches between what companies need and what workers can offer.” It will feature a dedicated track for small businesses and local governments looking to tap into AI talent.

If successful, the Jobs Platform could become one of the most high-profile tests of AI’s ability to reshape labor markets not by replacing jobs, but by actively rewiring how talent and employers connect. 🔗

👔 Internships & job offers

📣 Applications are now open for the next HPI Venture Builder batch — a 3-month, tech-focused incubation program starting October 27th at the Hasso-Plattner-Institute in Potsdam, Germany. Get expert support, mentorship, €1,500/month scholarship, and potential funding from HPI Ventures. Apply here!

Internships

Analyst VC - La Banque Postale (Paris)

Analyst CVC - Safran (Paris)

VC Analyst Intern - FrenchFounders (Paris)

VC Analyst Intern - Hexa Scale (Paris)

VC Analyst - Storen (Paris)

VC Analyst - Supernova Invest (Paris/Grenoble)

VC Analyst - Ventech (Paris)

VC Analyst Internship - Breega (Paris)

Impact VC Analyst - Starquest (Paris)

VC Analyst - 50Partners (Paris)

VC Analyst - Racine² (Paris)

Stage Venture Capital - Demeter (Paris)

VC Analyst - Orange Ventures (Paris)

Visiting Analyst - Gateway Ventures (Vienna)

VC Investment Intern - First Momentum Ventures (Munich)

Visiting Analyst - Gateway Ventures (Vienna)

Venture Capital Intern - Evli Growth Partners (Helsinki)

Jobs

Analyst/Associate - GET Fund (Munich)

Investment Associate Venture Capital - UVC Partners (Munich)

Associate - DN Capital (Berlin)

Investment & Research Associate - Samaipata (Madrid)

Associate - CORBITES (Madrid)

Investment Associate - Planet A Ventures (Berlin)

Principal - Green Code Ventures (Stockholm/Amsterdam/Helsinki/Munich/Essen)

You can also read more about baby vc on our website and follow our updates on LinkedIn, or directly reach out to us at hello@baby-vc.co! 🤝

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