Quantum megadeals, factory exoskeletons, AI tutors, and much more...
What's Up Tech? #228
Welcome to our 228th newsletter, written with 🖤 by Annika Bautista, Sarah Luna Mongin, and Aris Sevastianos, featuring current baby vc fellow Sahba Sadeghi.
🔍 Topics we'll cover this weekGeneral news from the week: Quantum chips get a billion-dollar boost, and the UK goes all-in on AI sovereignty 🧠
Fundraising news from the week: Robo-factories and new space traffic control solutions…is deeptech having a moment?
Up-and-coming ventures to watch: An acoustics startup that tunes into industrial leaks, and a French startup that speeds up the condensation process 💧
🆕 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💸 Payrails locks in $32 million to help enterprises tame global payment chaos (🇩🇪)
Payrails just secured a $32 million Series A round to double down on its mission: making enterprise payment operations less of a headache. 🤯
Founded by former Delivery Hero execs, the startup is building what they call a payment operating system, i.e. a platform designed to help large businesses handle increasingly complex global money flows with fewer workarounds and more agility.
With the global payments market projected to top $1.7 trillion in transactions by 2025, enterprises can’t afford clunky legacy stacks anymore. Payrails’ OS aims to streamline the sprawl, helping companies orchestrate flows, abstract integration mess, and boost performance.
Payrails Raises $32M Series A to Boost Payment Performance for Global Enterprises
🤖 Wandercraft secures $75 million and a Renault partnership to transform factories with exoskeletons and humanoids (🇫🇷)
Wandercraft is bringing Iron Man tech to real life, having raised $75 million in Series D funding, led by Renault Group, with participation from public investment bank Bpifrance. The raise follows the announcement of a strategic partnership with Renault, aiming to bring humanoid robots into factory operations. 👷🏻
The robotics company makes exoskeletons, AI-powered robo-suits, designed to support individuals with reduced mobility. Since 2012, the company has emerged as a key innovator in robotic mobility. Its flagship product, the clinical exoskeleton “Atalante X”, is now used in hospitals and rehabilitation centers around the world, with 110+ units sold.
Wandercraft Raises $75M and Expands into Humanoid Robots with Renault Partnership
💻 Multiverse Computing raises $215 million in Series B funding to revolutionise LLM’s (🇪🇸)
Spanish quantum software company Multiverse Computing has raised $215 million in Series B funding, led by Bullhound Capital, to scale its AI model compression technology. The raise includes $180 million in equity and $35 million in grants and GPU resources, bringing the company’s valuation to over $500 million. 😳
Founded in 2019, the San Sebastian-based startup has developed “CompactifiAI”, an AI model compression tool capable of reducing the size of large-language models (LLMs) by up to 95% without losing accuracy. Unlike traditional methods that sacrifice performance, their models run 4–12x faster and slash inference costs by up to 80%. Compact, efficient, and cloud-to-edge compatible, they’re already backed by 160+ patents and used by 100+ customers globally.
Multiverse Computing Lands €189M to Rewire the LLM Ecosystem
🔭 Look Up is serving up celestial protection with €50 million in Series A funding
Yes, outer space needs defending too. 🧑🚀 Look Up has raised €50 million to scale its space traffic management and radar network aimed at preventing satellite collisions. This represents one of the largest Series A rounds in European spacetech this decade, with €24 million in equity coming from lead investor ETF Partners.
Look Up’s proprietary radar and surveillance infrastructure is already being deployed to track the ever-growing number of objects in low-Earth orbit. The company positions itself as one of Europe’s challengers to the growing dominance in orbital safety systems from Asia and the US.
Look Up Secures €50M in Funding to Accelerate the Global Deployment
📝 Definely scores $30 million in Series B funding for smarter, accessible contracts (🇬🇧)
Definely, founded by global law firm Freshfields alumni Nnamdi Emelifeonwu and Feargus MacDaeid, has raised $30 million in Series B funding led by Revaia. Its AI-powered tools integrate directly with Microsoft Word, allowing lawyers to access and interpret legal documents natively. So far, they’ve cut workflow processing by up to 40%.
The verdict is in: this raise is definitely a huge funding milestone for both founders. Black founders in the UK remain underrepresented in venture capital, receiving only 0.4% of startup funding last year. For MacDaied, who was registered blind at a young age, this startup purposefully and pertinently tackles a real problem of accessibility for all lawyers. 👩⚖️
🎓 Knowunity raises €27 million to bring AI-powered learning companion to everyone (🇩🇪)
Knowunity just closed a €27 million Series B round led by XAnge bringing their total funding to €45 million.
Knowunity was founded in 2020 by four high schoolers who wanted to fix education’s one-size-fits-all problem. Their AI-powered study companion uses over 3 million peer-created, curriculum-aligned materials to provide instant feedback, tailored revision plans, and audio explainers localised to national curricula. This goes way beyond generic chatbots. 🤖
The platform now has over 20 million users across 15 countries. In Germany, one in three students already use the app, while in Latin America they reached one in ten students within months of launch.
And, guess what? They’re taking participation on another level with more than 380,000 student creators actively contributing content. Students open the app more than five times a week, and the AI companion is used seven or more times weekly, especially by younger learners.
German EdTech Startup Knowunity Raises €27M to Bring AI Tutor to 1B Students
🔥 Up-and-coming startups to watch💧 Kumulus Water raises €3.1 million to turn air into drinking water (🇫🇷)
Kumulus Water just snagged €3.1 million in Seed funding to scale its sci-fi-meets-sustainability tech: machines that literally pull drinking water out of thin air. The round was led by Bpifrance.
The tech? Atmospheric Water Generators that suck in air, filter it, cool it below dew point to condense moisture, then filter and remineralize the water before serving it up. No pipes, no plastic, no drama. These solar-friendly machines pump out 20-30 liters of fresh H₂O per day, already making waves in schools, hotels, and remote sites across Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.
With new cash on tap, Kumulus is cranking out a higher-capacity “Kumulus Boks” model and expanding in France, Spain, Tunisia, and Saudi Arabia, aka places where water scarcity is no joke. Bold claim? Maybe. But a water cooler that runs on air and sunlight might just be the future’s MVP. 🌬
Kumulus Water Raises €3.1M for Atmospheric Water Generators that Turn Air into Water
🤖 Sunrise Robotics raises $8.5 million to democratise factory automation (🇸🇮)
Sunrise Robotics just popped out of stealth mode with $8.5 million in the bank, led by Plural. The startup’s mission? Make smart factory robots less “million-dollar club” and more “everyone gets a shot.” Their pitch: traditional industrial robots are slow, pricey, and too rigid for manufacturers with diverse product lines. Sunrise flips the script with simulation-trained, dual-arm robot cells that adapt fast and deploy even faster.
Their tech builds virtual replicas of factory floors and trains each robot’s AI in that sandbox: think digital twins meets robot bootcamp. The result is a system that’s 10x faster and cheaper to launch, and it even learns as part of a robot hive mind. Oh, and these bots are already on the job in European electronics factories, with 10+ customers lined up in sectors like supercars and high-performance batteries. 🏎️
With talent from Google, Amazon, Red Bull Racing, and Waymo, the crew has already gone from zero to deployment in just 18 months. Smart, cheap, and fast, Sunrise is betting that’s the automation cocktail Europe’s been waiting for.
Sunrise Robotics Emerges from Stealth with $8.5M to Democratise Factory Automation
💰 OpenTrade raises $7 million to make stablecoin yields boringly mainstream (🇬🇧)
OpenTrade just snagged $7 million in strategic funding, led by Notion Capital and Mercury Fund. The startup’s pitch? A B2B2C “yield-as-a-service” platform that helps fintechs and neobanks plug stablecoin-based earnings (think 3-9 percent APYs) directly into their apps, without the compliance headaches.
The tech is sleek but simple: users deposit stablecoins like USDC or EURC, and OpenTrade uses tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) to generate yield. It’s wrapped in institutional-grade legal safeguards and infrastructure, making it attractive in emerging markets where banks are... let’s say, less than helpful. OpenTrade is already handling $47 million in AUM and has pushed nearly $200 million in volume, with 20% month-over-month growth in the past half-year.
With over $11 million raised in just six months, OpenTrade isn’t just riding the stablecoin wave, they’re laying the tracks. The new funds will go toward ramping up product development, engineering, and scaling operations globally. TL;DR: they're building the pipes for the next-gen savings account: one click, one coin, one yield at a time. 🪙
🔊 Omnisent raises $3 million to make machines listen up (🇩🇪)
Omnisent just scored $3 million in Pre-Seed funding led by Atlantic Labs. What makes them different? They’re not training AI to talk or type. They’re training it to listen to the weird whirs, clanks, and hisses of the physical world. Their Large Acoustic Model isn’t about speech. It decodes non-speech audio… think factory floor noise, not TikTok voiceovers.
The startup builds custom ultra-low-power sonic devices that scoop up real-time sound data, helping industries hear problems before they escalate. First stop: compressed air systems in manufacturing, where air leaks cause ~1% of global electricity loss (yep, that much).
The plan? Tackle energy waste, then expand into defense, smart cities, and even space. 📡
Omnisent's team is straight out of Cambridge, blending physics, ML, and mechanical engineering know-how. Already backed by Fraunhofer and the German government, they’re scooping up awards like it’s a science fair.
📰 Tech news of the week🔮 IonQ snaps up Oxford Ionics for $1.075 billion to scale next-gen quantum chips (🇬🇧)
In a $1.075 billion all-stock-plus-some-cash megadeal, IonQ just acquired UK-based Oxford Ionics, a fellow quantum trailblazer. The goal? Fuse IonQ’s full-stack quantum systems with Oxford’s slick ion-trap-on-a-chip tech to build fault-tolerant quantum computers by 2030. The vision includes ramping up to 2 million qubits, which is basically quantum speak for “we’re gunning for god mode.” 🙏
The tech’s actually pretty wild: Oxford Ionics’ chips use ytterbium ions and ditch the lasers, making them way easier to scale and manufacture. IonQ's stock jumped 3.2% on the news, signaling that investors are eating it up like it’s ChatGPT in 2022. Funds will fuel R&D, manufacturing, and expanded UK operations, deepening US-UK tech ties while giving IBM and Rigetti a real quantum headache.
Both Oxford’s cofounders are staying on board, and IonQ’s now flexing its roadmap: 256 qubits by 2026, 10,000 by 2027, and 2 million by 2030. It’s a moonshot but if they pull it off, we're talking real use cases in drug discovery, cybersecurity, aerospace, and materials science. Oh, and by 2040? The market could be worth $850 billion. Not bad for a bunch of atoms floating in a trap. 🧲
IonQ Buys Oxford Ionics for $1.1 Billion: Quantum Computing’s Big Move
🇬🇧 UK Government to invest £2 billion in National AI Plan to transform economy
The UK government just dropped a £2 billion bombshell for AI with its new AI Opportunities Action Plan, a major push to supercharge sovereign compute power and jumpstart tech innovation. Announced by Chancellor Rachel Reeves last Wednesday, this bold move anchors the upcoming 2025 Spending Review, setting the stage for government priorities over the next three years. It’s a sharp pivot after last year’s £1 billion+ funding cuts, signaling that AI sovereignty is now top national priority. 🙆♀️
The plan bundles £1 billion, already pledged by Prime Minister Keir Starmer to boost AI compute capacity by 2030, plus a fresh £750 million for a brand-new national supercomputer. Driving the strategy is Entrepreneur First co-founder Matt Clifford, who’s spearheading a twentyfold expansion of the UK’s AI Research Resource alongside the launch of a UK Sovereign AI Unit designed to help homegrown AI startups scale fast.
📰 Product news of the weekUber and Wayve — a match made in mobility heaven? 💍 The two are partnering up launch fully autonomous car trials in the UK
Apple’s got a new vision for screens: introducing the new Liquid Glass design, its biggest UI overhaul in a decade…maybe paving the way for a future with AR? 👀
👔 Internships & job offersInternships
Part-Time VC Student - kopa ventures (London)
Investment Analyst - Dreamcraft (Copenhagen)
Stagiaires Analystes VC/M&A - brakage (Paris)
Jobs
Associate - Northzone (Stockholm)
Venture Capital Analyst - Lea Partners (Karlsruhe)
Investment Principal - Planet A Ventures (Berlin)
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