Articles written by
Stéphane Paillard

Strategic investors fuel Europe’s space-based solar ambitions The global race to secure clean, uninterrupted energy sources is intensifying, and a growing number of investors are turning their attention to one of the most ambitious frontiers in renewable technology: space-based solar power. Long confined to the realm of theoretical physics and government-funded research programmes, the concept of capturing solar energy in orbit and transmitting it wirelessly to Earth is now attracting serious venture capital — a signal that the technology may be closer to commercial viability than many assumed. Luxembourg-based startup TerraSpark has raised over €5 million in a pre-seed round to advance its space-based solar power technology, marking one of the earliest significant private investments in the sector. The round was led by Paris-based venture capital firm Daphni, with participation from Sake Bosch, better ventures, Hans(wo)men Group, the Luxembourg Business Angel Network, and Karaoke Club. From ESA research to commercial venture Founded in 2025, TerraSpark brings together a team with deep roots in European space research. Co-founder Dr Sanjay Vijendran was one of the principal leaders of the European Space Agency’s Solaris initiative, a three-year research and development programme launched in 2022 to evaluate the feasibility of space-based solar power for Europe. When ESA concluded in August 2024 that the technology was not yet mature enough to proceed to a full demonstration mission, Vijendran left to co-found TerraSpark alongside serial entrepreneur Jasper Deprez, who previously built HRTech platform Tradler into a global operation, and Matthias Laug, who serves as chief operating officer. Rather than attempting to deploy orbital infrastructure immediately, TerraSpark is pursuing a phased commercialisation strategy that begins on the ground. The company’s core technology centres on radio frequency-based wireless energy transmission, which it plans to demonstrate first in controlled terrestrial environments before scaling the system into orbit. This approach allows TerraSpark to validate critical parameters — alignment accuracy, energy density, and atmospheric tolerance — while simultaneously building a commercial pipeline for industrial wireless power applications. An ambitious roadmap to orbit TerraSpark’s development timeline is structured around a series of escalating milestones. In 2026, the company plans to demonstrate wireless power transmission over controlled distances on Earth. By 2027, it intends to launch an orbital technology demonstrator, and by 2028, it aims to achieve the first space-to-Earth power transmission — beaming solar energy from a satellite prototype to a ground receiver. Full commercial deployment, with a constellation capable of delivering continuous, weather-independent energy worldwide, is targeted for 2030 and beyond. The company has already secured a partnership with Dcubed to test its solar array technology on a SpaceX mission scheduled for 2027, providing an early orbital validation opportunity that could prove pivotal for subsequent fundraising rounds. European space-based solar power gains momentum TerraSpark’s raise reflects a broader shift in European energy and deep-tech investment. France’s national quantum and space strategies have allocated billions in public funding, while the European Space Agency continues to explore power-from-space concepts through its broader technology programmes. The European Commission’s long-term energy strategy has also identified space-based solar power as a potential contributor to the continent’s net-zero targets, lending policy-level credibility to the sector. The wireless energy transmission market itself remains nascent, but the convergence of improved satellite launch economics — driven by companies such as SpaceX — with advances in photovoltaic efficiency and power beaming technology is creating conditions for the first generation of commercial space solar ventures to emerge. TerraSpark’s decision to base itself in Luxembourg, a country that has actively positioned itself as a European hub for space commerce through its SpaceResources.lu initiative and favourable regulatory environment, adds a further strategic dimension to its positioning. For European deep-tech investors, TerraSpark represents a high-conviction bet on a technology that, if proven at scale, could fundamentally alter the global energy landscape. The pre-seed round provides the capital to reach the critical terrestrial demonstration milestones that will determine whether the company can attract the substantially larger investment required for its orbital phases. Summary Company: TerraSpark HQ: Luxembourg Founded: 2025 Round: Pre-Seed Amount: €5 million+ Lead Investor: Daphni Use of Funds: Terrestrial wireless power transmission demonstration, orbital technology development, team expansion marking one of the earliest significant private i— alignment accuracy, energy density, and atmospheric tolerance — while simultaneously building a commercial pipeline for industrial wireless power applications.

The European embedded insurance market is experiencing significant momentum, with market analysts projecting compound annual growth of 34.8 per cent through 2031, reaching $18.29 billion by the end of the decade. Within this expanding landscape, Brussels-based Qover has emerged as a critical infrastructure provider, embedding insurance capabilities directly into the platforms where consumers already spend their time. The company has now secured $12 million in growth capital, reinforcing its position as one of Europe’s leading embedded insurance orchestration platforms. CIBC Innovation Banking has led the facility, structured as non-dilutive debt capital designed to accelerate Qover’s technology roadmap without diluting existing shareholder interests. The funding arrives as Qover marks its tenth anniversary, a milestone that underscores the sustainability of its business model and the depth of its market traction. This Qover funding round reflects broader investor confidence in the embedded insurance thesis, particularly among capital providers focused on infrastructure-layer fintech solutions. A decade of building insurance infrastructure Qover was founded in 2016 with a straightforward conviction: that insurance could be simpler and more genuinely accessible across borders. A decade later, the company has validated this thesis at scale, protecting 15 million people across 32 countries with gross written premiums exceeding $173 million. The embedded insurance startup has built an API-based orchestration platform that connects insurance supply directly to digital customer moments, eliminating friction and creating seamless coverage experiences. The company’s partnership ecosystem demonstrates the platform’s strategic importance. Qover’s embedded insurance infrastructure supports some of Europe’s most recognised financial and consumer brands, including Revolut, Mastercard, Monzo, BMW, bunq, Deliveroo, Canyon, and Cowboy. Each partnership represents a distinct use case—from travel insurance within payments platforms to device protection in consumer electronics—illustrating the versatility of the underlying orchestration architecture. Quentin Colmant, Qover’s co-founder and chief executive, articulated the company’s ambition in response to the funding announcement. “We started with a simple conviction: insurance could be simpler and truly accessible across borders. Ten years and 15 million users later, that conviction has become a platform, and with AI now accelerating what’s possible, we are more ambitious than ever. Our goal is to protect 100 million people by 2030.” Colmant, a veteran of Allianz with a decade of insurance sector experience, brings both operational credibility and domain expertise to the embedded insurance startup’s leadership. Platform capabilities and artificial intelligence integration The $12 million in capital will fund three strategic priorities: advancing platform technology, integrating artificial intelligence capabilities, and expanding operational infrastructure to support international growth. Qover’s core platform addresses a persistent structural problem in insurance: the distribution of coverage has historically required friction-laden processes involving underwriting delays, customer verification, and compliance workflows. By embedding insurance orchestration directly into digital platforms, Qover eliminates these friction points and creates new revenue streams for its partners. The integration of AI capabilities represents a critical evolution. Machine learning algorithms can optimise underwriting decisions in real time, personalise coverage recommendations based on behavioural signals, and streamline claims processing. These enhancements are particularly valuable in cross-border scenarios, where regulatory complexity and language barriers have traditionally constrained insurance distribution. Embedded insurance reaches critical mass in Europe Market dynamics support continued expansion of the embedded insurance sector. The European embedded insurance market is projected to grow from $4.11 billion in 2026 to $18.29 billion by 2031, driven by regulatory tailwinds, consumer demand for seamless digital experiences, and the strategic realisation among incumbent insurers that platform partnerships represent a viable distribution channel. Qover funding at this juncture reflects the market’s maturation: capital providers now recognise embedded insurance infrastructure as essential rather than experimental. The company has secured recognition from leading technology and business institutions. Qover has been designated a World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer, included in CNBC’s Top 150 Insurtech list, and featured in CB Insights’ ranking of the top 50 insurance technology companies globally. These recognitions validate the company’s technical achievements and market positioning within the broader insurtech ecosystem. Qover’s trajectory toward its target of protecting 100 million people by 2030 now has enhanced financial backing. The non-dilutive structure of this growth capital facility allows the company to invest in product development and market expansion without compromise to founder control or existing investor positions—a strategic advantage in competitive fintech markets where speed and autonomy often determine outcomes. Summary Company Qover Headquarters Brussels, Belgium Founded 2016 Round Growth Capital Facility Amount $12 million Lead Investor CIBC Innovation Banking Use of Funds Platform technology, AI integration, international expansion Total Funding to Date $100M+ Key Metrics 15M users, 32+ countries, $173M+ GWP

Enterprise automation is undergoing a fundamental transformation. As organisations increasingly deploy distributed systems, artificial intelligence workloads, and complex data pipelines, the gap between legacy scheduler tools and modern operational requirements has become untenable. Legacy solutions like Apache Airflow, designed for simpler data orchestration, struggle to handle the breadth of modern enterprise needs. Into this gap steps Kestra, a Paris-based open-source orchestration platform that has announced a €21 million Series A funding round led by RTP Global. The round underscores a critical market shift: enterprises are ready to consolidate fragmented workflow tooling under a unified, developer-first control plane. With Kestra funding now secured, the company plans to accelerate its push into North America and Europe whilst launching Kestra Cloud, a managed SaaS offering. The Series A round brings Kestra’s total funding to €31 million ($36 million). RTP Global led the investment, with participation from existing backers Alven, ISAI, and Axeleo. Founded in 2021 by Emmanuel Darras—co-founder of gaming studio Ankama—and CTO Ludovic Dehon, Kestra has grown to serve 30,000 organisations globally, executing over 2 billion workflows in 2025 alone, a twentyfold increase from the prior year. The platform boasts 26,000 GitHub stars and hosts over 1,200 plugins, positioning it as one of the fastest-growing orchestration platforms in the open-source ecosystem. RTP Global leads bet on open-source orchestration RTP Global’s decision to lead the Series A reflects confidence in Kestra’s technical differentiation and market timing. Thomas Cuvelier, partner at RTP Global, stated: “As workflows become more distributed and AI-native, legacy schedulers and fragmented tooling can’t keep up. Kestra is positioned to become the global standard for workflow orchestration.” This assessment aligns with broader industry trends: the workflow orchestration market is valued at $64.26 billion in 2025 and is projected to reach $108.65 billion by 2032, representing a compound annual growth rate of approximately 6.8 per cent. The Kestra Series A capital will fund three core initiatives. First, Kestra 2.0, the next-generation platform, introduces a distributed execution engine and agentic orchestration capabilities, enabling organisations to orchestrate not just data and infrastructure workflows, but increasingly autonomous AI systems. Second, Kestra Cloud will provide a fully managed SaaS experience for enterprises unwilling or unable to self-host. Third, the funding accelerates go-to-market expansion in North America and Europe, two regions where workflow orchestration adoption is highest. What distinguishes Kestra from competitors Kestra’s enterprise customer roster—including Apple, Toyota, JPMorgan Chase, BHP, Bloomberg, Crédit Agricole, and Xiaomi—demonstrates production credibility across demanding use cases. Yet the company’s competitive advantage lies not in customer prestige but in its architectural philosophy. Workflow orchestration landscapes are typically dominated by tools built for a single use case: Airflow for data pipelines, Prefect for modern data workflows, or Temporal for distributed systems. Kestra, by contrast, unifies data, AI, infrastructure, and business workflow orchestration under a single interface. Emmanuel Darras articulated the go-to-market strategy plainly: “Most enterprise software companies try to sell top-down and hope developers adopt. We took a different approach, focusing on building a product that engineers choose because it works in production.” This developer-first ethos, combined with open-source transparency, contrasts sharply with the sales-driven models of competitors. Kestra’s growth metrics—2 billion workflows executed in 2025, representing a 20-fold increase year-over-year—suggest the strategy is resonating. The orchestration gap: why enterprises need a unified control plane The fragmentation of workflow tooling reflects historical organisational siloes. Data teams adopted Airflow. Infrastructure teams deployed Kubernetes and Terraform. AI teams built bespoke orchestration. The result is operational complexity, duplicate tooling, and elevated maintenance burden. Modern enterprises recognise that open-source orchestration solutions offering unified abstractions across these domains reduce cognitive load, simplify security governance, and accelerate time-to-production for new automation initiatives. Kestra’s timing is fortuitous. As AI adoption accelerates, enterprises increasingly need systems capable of orchestrating both deterministic data pipelines and non-deterministic agentic workflows. Legacy tools were not designed for this fusion. Enterprise automation platforms must now support diverse execution models—batch processing, real-time streaming, agentic decision-making—within a single control plane. Kestra’s path forward involves expanding Kestra Cloud adoption among mid-market and enterprise segments whilst deepening open-source community engagement to secure long-term network effects. The €21 million investment enables both strategies simultaneously. Summary Company Kestra Headquarters Paris, France Founded 2021 Round Series A Amount Raised €21 million ($25 million) Lead Investor RTP Global Use of Funds Kestra 2.0, Kestra Cloud SaaS, go-to-market expansion Total Funding €31 million ($36 million)

European quantum computing has historically struggled to attract institutional capital, with the continent capturing roughly 5 per cent of global private quantum funding. However, IQM Quantum Computers’ latest financing round signals a meaningful shift in investor confidence toward European quantum champions. The Espoo-based company has secured €50 million in growth financing from BlackRock, one of the world’s largest asset managers, as it prepares for a landmark public listing on the New York Stock Exchange via special purpose acquisition company merger with Real Asset Acquisition Corp (RAAQ). This round represents a vote of confidence from mainstream institutional investors in IQM’s differentiated approach to quantum computing and its commercial viability. The funding brings IQM’s total capital raised to over $600 million since its 2018 founding. BlackRock’s participation underscores growing recognition that quantum computing infrastructure represents a material investment opportunity. IQM intends to deploy capital toward accelerating its technology roadmap, strengthening research and development capabilities, and expanding into new markets globally. The company follows its Series B round of $320 million in September 2025, led by Ten Eleven Ventures, demonstrating sustained momentum among lead-tier investors. BlackRock signals institutional confidence in European quantum BlackRock’s involvement carries particular significance within quantum computing investment circles. As a fiduciary managing trillions of dollars in assets globally, BlackRock’s participation validates the commercial maturity and long-term viability of IQM’s business model. The investment reflects growing institutional recognition that quantum computing is transitioning from research phase to enterprise deployment, a thesis IQM has substantiated through customer deliveries and commercial traction. The strategic rationale behind BlackRock’s investment lies partly in IQM’s differentiated go-to-market strategy. Unlike competitors focused on cloud-based quantum services, IQM has pioneered an on-premises deployment model that appeals to enterprises requiring data sovereignty, security, and integration with existing infrastructure. This approach has proven commercially viable: IQM has delivered 15 quantum computer systems to 13 customers across research and industrial sectors, establishing proof points for quantum computing’s practical applications beyond theoretical research. IQM’s commercial trajectory and technology position Founded in 2018 by Dr. Jan Goetz, a PhD researcher in superconducting quantum circuits and former Marie-Curie Fellow at Aalto University, IQM has grown to over 300 employees across 12 countries. The company’s superconducting quantum technology portfolio spans three core offerings: IQM Spark, a five-qubit system for research and development; IQM Radiance, a scalable platform supporting 20 to 150 qubits; and IQM Resonance, a cloud-accessible quantum computing service. This product architecture enables IQM to address diverse customer segments, from academic research institutions to commercial enterprises. The company’s customer base reflects its penetration across Europe’s leading scientific institutions. Key customers include the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre and Forschungszentrum Jülich in Germany, as well as VTT Finland, a major research and technology organisation. These deployments demonstrate IQM’s ability to deliver complex quantum systems meeting institutional requirements for uptime, reproducibility, and integration with high-performance computing infrastructure. From Espoo to Wall Street: Europe’s quantum champion prepares for public markets The preparation for a public listing via SPAC merger with RAAQ represents a watershed moment for European quantum computing. The transaction values IQM at approximately $1.8 billion on a pre-money basis, positioning it as the first publicly listed European quantum computing company on a major US stock exchange. Expected closing in June 2026 would provide IQM with enhanced capital markets access and elevated visibility among institutional investors and strategic partners. Dr. Jan Goetz, IQM’s Chief Executive, commented on the financing: “This financing further strengthens our capital structure, increasing the resources available to enable us to execute on our technology vision and expand into new markets.” The statement reflects IQM’s strategy of leveraging institutional capital to accelerate commercialisation and scale manufacturing capacity for quantum systems. IQM’s trajectory occurs within a broader context of intensifying European quantum development. Competitors including Pasqal and Alice & Bob in France, each having raised €189 million and €100 million respectively, and planqc in Germany, which secured €50 million, demonstrate sustained venture and growth-stage investment flowing into European quantum infrastructure. However, IQM’s combination of commercial customer deployments, institutional investor backing, and path to public markets positions it distinctly within this competitive landscape. The BlackRock investment and anticipated public listing signal that quantum computing infrastructure has achieved sufficient commercial maturity to attract mainstream institutional capital. For European quantum computing more broadly, IQM’s trajectory suggests that differentiated technology platforms with clear commercial applications can compete effectively for investor capital despite historical funding disparities between European and North American quantum ecosystems. Summary Company IQM Quantum Computers Headquarters Espoo, Finland Founded 2018 Financing Round Growth Financing Amount Raised €50 million Lead Investor BlackRock Use of Funds Technology roadmap, R&D, market expansion Total Funding to Date $600 million+ Upcoming Milestone NYSE listing via SPAC merger (expected June 2026)

The tokenisation of institutional investment strategies has emerged as one of Europe’s most substantive fintech opportunities. As regulatory clarity solidifies across the continent—particularly through the EU’s MiCA framework—investors and platforms are positioning themselves to capture the structural shift from traditional finance into on-chain markets. Berlin-based Midas has now secured $50 million in Series A funding to accelerate this transition, bringing total capital raised to $58.75 million. The Midas funding round signals sustained institutional confidence in the company’s ability to bridge traditional asset management and decentralised finance infrastructure. RRE Ventures and Creandum led the Series A round, joined by an extensive network of institutional investors including Franklin Templeton, Coinbase Ventures, Anchorage Digital, Framework Ventures, HV Capital, Ledger Cathay, M1 Capital, FJ Labs, North Island Ventures, No Limit Holdings, and GSR. The breadth of the investor syndicate reflects confidence across traditional finance, venture capital, and digital asset sectors alike. Institutional heavyweights back tokenised capital markets infrastructure Vic Singh, partner at RRE Ventures, highlighted the strategic importance of the Midas funding announcement: “Tokenisation will fundamentally reshape global capital markets as TradFi moves on-chain. The platform they forged in the depths of the crypto bear market has emerged with strong product-market fit.” This observation captures a critical narrative: Midas has built and validated its core business during a period of significant crypto market volatility, positioning it to scale when broader adoption accelerates. Simon Schmincke of Creandum characterised the opportunity in similarly expansive but grounded terms: “The opportunity to bring institutional-grade investment products onchain is massive, and Midas has the regulatory set-up, the technical architecture, and the distribution network required to do it best.” The emphasis on regulatory compliance and technical execution reflects how the tokenisation startup funding landscape has matured beyond speculative narratives. Institutional strategies meet distributed infrastructure Midas tokenises institutional investment strategies into regulatory-compliant on-chain products. The flagship product, mTBILL, operates through a partnership with BlackRock, allowing investors to gain exposure to tokenised US Treasury bills on distributed ledgers. This represents a concrete example of how RWA tokenisation—the conversion of real-world assets into blockchain-native tokens—translates into practical financial infrastructure. The company has achieved notable traction: over $1.7 billion in cumulative asset issuance and more than 20,000 token holders. These figures suggest genuine market adoption rather than experimental use cases. The founding team brings relevant expertise: CEO Dennis Dinkelmeyer previously worked at Goldman Sachs; co-founders include Fabrice Grinda (FJ Labs) and Romain Bourgois (formerly of Ondo Finance), both with substantial fintech and blockchain credentials. The Series A proceeds will fund the launch of Midas Staked Liquidity (MSL), a layer designed to enable instant redemptions for tokenised assets. This technical enhancement addresses a real friction point in current tokenised finance: the ability to move capital with the speed and certainty that on-chain markets promise. MSL represents a bridge between the liquidity characteristics investors expect from traditional markets and the operational speed of blockchain infrastructure. European tokenisation gains regulatory and investor momentum The broader context supports this investment thesis. RWA tokenisation expanded by approximately 80 per cent over the past two years, driven by clearer regulatory frameworks and institutional adoption curves. The EU’s Markets in Crypto Assets Regulation (MiCA) has provided legal certainty that was previously absent, enabling platforms to operate with greater confidence about compliance requirements. This regulatory maturation distinguishes the current wave of tokenisation investment from earlier cycles driven primarily by speculative demand. Berlin’s position as a fintech hub has also strengthened: the city hosts a concentrated ecosystem of blockchain-native talent and infrastructure companies, creating natural advantages for platforms like Midas that require both regulatory expertise and technical depth. European fintech funding has increasingly flowed toward companies addressing genuine institutional needs rather than consumer-facing applications, reflecting how the sector has evolved. The Midas funding round represents a vote of confidence in tokenised infrastructure as a durable category within European fintech. With $50 million in capital, the company now has runway to expand product offerings, deepen integrations with institutional investors, and build the technical layer required for true market-scale adoption. The substantial investor syndicate—combining traditional finance institutions, venture capital, and digital asset specialists—suggests convergence around tokenisation as a legitimate strategic priority rather than a peripheral fintech theme. Summary Company Midas Headquarters Berlin, Germany Founded 2023 Funding Round Series A Amount Raised $50 million (€43 million) Lead Investors RRE Ventures, Creandum Total Funding to Date $58.75 million Use of Funds Launch Midas Staked Liquidity (MSL) layer; platform scaling

The convergence of traditional finance and decentralised infrastructure continues to accelerate, with Berlin-based tokenisation platform Midas securing $50 million in Series A funding. The round, led by RRE Ventures and Creandum, signals growing institutional conviction that tokenised real-world assets represent a structural shift in how capital markets will operate — not merely a crypto-native experiment. TradFi meets DeFi in landmark round The Series A was led by RRE Ventures and Creandum, with an unusually diverse consortium of co-investors spanning both traditional finance and crypto-native capital. Franklin Templeton, the $1.5 trillion asset management giant, participated alongside Coinbase Ventures, Anchorage Digital, Framework Ventures, HV Capital, Ledger Cathay, North Island Ventures, M1 Capital, FJ Labs, and GSR. The round brings Midas’s total funding to $58.75 million, following an $8.75 million seed round in March 2024. Vic Singh, General Partner at RRE Ventures, articulated the investment thesis clearly. “Tokenisation will fundamentally reshape global capital markets as TradFi moves on-chain. Midas is building the infrastructure for tokenised capital markets, and we are proud to be on this ride with them,” he stated. Dennis Dinkelmeyer, CEO and co-founder of Midas, framed the company’s ambition in broader terms. “We’re building toward a future where investing works like the internet: open, transparent, composable, and accessible by default,” he said. Solving the liquidity problem Midas occupies a specific niche within the rapidly expanding real-world asset (RWA) tokenisation market. The company’s platform enables asset managers and institutional investors to package investment strategies — including US Treasury exposure, basis trading, and stablecoin yield strategies — into regulatory-compliant, liquid ERC-20 tokens that can be deployed across decentralised finance protocols. Since launching in 2024, Midas has issued $1.7 billion in tokenised assets and distributed $37 million in yield to more than 20,000 token holders. Its flagship product, mTBILL, tracks short-dated US Treasury Bills through a BlackRock-managed fund, whilst mBASIS offers a market-neutral crypto basis trading strategy designed to perform in both bull and bear market conditions. The central innovation accompanying the Series A is Midas Staked Liquidity (MSL), a $40 million liquidity facility that enables instant, atomic redemptions without settlement delays or counterparty risk. This addresses what many institutional investors have identified as the primary friction point in tokenised assets: the inability to exit positions quickly. Rather than unwinding underlying positions on each redemption, MSL uses pre-allocated capital to provide immediate liquidity — a mechanism the company describes as the “missing piece” for institutional adoption. Europe’s regulatory advantage in tokenised finance Midas holds regulatory approval in Liechtenstein under the principality’s progressive DLT framework, which enables EU-wide passporting of its products. Notably, the company’s tokenised funds are among the first in Europe to be accessible to non-accredited retail investors — a distinction that could prove commercially significant as the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation continues to reshape the regulatory landscape for digital assets. The broader context is compelling. Global tokenised RWA assets surpassed $12 billion by March 2026, more than doubling from $5 billion at the start of 2025. Venture capital deployment into crypto and blockchain projects reached $3.1 billion in March 2026 alone, with the majority concentrated in infrastructure and RWA tokenisation. The European market is emerging as a particularly fertile ground, with Binance launching a $500 million RWA tokenisation pilot with European banks and a $1.2 billion fund tokenising European commercial real estate during 2026. The Series A proceeds will fund the expansion of the MSL facility, development of new institutional asset classes including reinsurance-linked securities and asset-receivables strategies, deeper integrations with major DeFi protocols such as Morpho and Pendle, and continued European expansion leveraging the company’s regulatory approvals. Founded in 2023 by Dinkelmeyer, serial entrepreneur Fabrice Grinda (co-founder of OLX and founding partner of FJ Labs), and Romain Bourgois (formerly of Ondo Finance and Criteo), Midas brings together institutional finance expertise and deep DeFi product knowledge. With traditional asset managers now actively moving on-chain, the company’s positioning at the intersection of regulatory compliance and DeFi composability could prove to be precisely where the market is heading. Company: Midas HQ: Berlin, Germany Founded: 2023 Round: Series A Amount: $50 million (€43M) Lead Investors: RRE Ventures, Creandum Total Funding: $58.75 million Use of Funds: Scale MSL liquidity facility, new asset classes, DeFi integrations, European expansion

Europe’s quantum computing sector is entering a new phase of maturity, with institutional capital increasingly flowing toward hardware companies that can demonstrate both commercial traction and a credible path to scale. Finnish quantum computing leader IQM Quantum Computers has secured €50 million in growth financing from funds managed by BlackRock, further bolstering its position as the continent’s most-funded quantum hardware company ahead of a planned US public listing. Strategic investors back European quantum leadership The financing comes from funds and accounts managed by BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, marking a significant direct investment in quantum computing hardware beyond its existing passive exposure through quantum-focused ETFs. For IQM, the deal strengthens its balance sheet at a critical juncture: the company announced in February 2026 a planned merger with Real Asset Acquisition Corp (RAAQ) that would see it listed on a major US exchange at a pre-money valuation of approximately $1.8 billion. Jan Goetz, CEO and co-founder of IQM, described the timing as pivotal. “The financing package comes at a pivotal time for IQM, as we build momentum for our next phase of growth. This financing further strengthens our capital structure, increasing the resources available to enable us to execute on our technology vision and expand into new markets,” he stated. The proceeds will be directed toward accelerating IQM’s technology roadmap, advancing research and development in quantum error correction and qubit quality, expanding into new geographic markets, and preparing for its forthcoming public listing. The growth financing facility is structured to lower IQM’s overall cost of capital whilst diversifying its funding base ahead of the IPO, expected to close around June 2026. From Finnish lab to global quantum contender Founded in 2018 as a spinout from Aalto University and VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, IQM has grown into Europe’s leading quantum hardware company. The Espoo-headquartered firm develops full-stack superconducting quantum computers, delivering on-premises systems and cloud-based quantum computing access to research institutions, high-performance computing centres, and industrial partners worldwide. IQM’s commercial traction is notable. The company has delivered 15 quantum computers to 13 customers across multiple countries — the largest publicly disclosed deployment figure among quantum computing companies globally. Its customer base includes Germany’s Leibniz Supercomputing Centre (LRZ), where IQM has integrated quantum systems with classical high-performance computing infrastructure, and VTT in Finland, where a joint project aims to deliver a 300-qubit system by late 2027. The company reported approximately $35 million in revenue for 2025, with bookings and visibility exceeding $100 million. Its product range spans from 5-qubit educational systems to advanced 150-qubit platforms, with single-qubit and two-qubit gate fidelities consistently above 99.9 per cent. Europe’s quantum moment IQM’s fundraising underscores a broader shift in the European quantum computing landscape. European quantum funding reached an estimated €1.5 billion in 2025, up approximately 170 per cent year-on-year, though the continent still captures only around 5 per cent of global private quantum investment compared to more than 50 per cent flowing to the United States. Government support has been instrumental. The European Union’s Horizon Europe programme has allocated over €1.9 billion to quantum research, whilst individual member states have committed substantial national programmes — Germany alone earmarked €2 billion for quantum R&D. Finland’s €70 million government grant for the VTT-IQM 300-qubit project exemplifies the public-private collaboration driving European competitiveness in the sector. Comparable European raises in recent months include Alice & Bob’s €100 million Series B in Paris, Multiverse Computing’s €189 million Series B in Spain, and UK-based Quantinuum’s $800 million across two rounds. IQM’s cumulative fundraising of over €600 million places it firmly among the continent’s most-funded quantum ventures. Should the RAAQ merger proceed as planned, IQM would become the first European quantum computing company to list on a major US exchange — a milestone that could catalyse further institutional interest in the sector and validate Europe’s growing quantum ecosystem on the global stage. Company: IQM Quantum Computers HQ: Espoo, Finland Founded: 2018 Round: Growth financing Amount: €50 million (~$57.6M) Lead Investor: BlackRock Total Funding: Over €600 million Use of Funds: Technology roadmap acceleration, R&D, market expansion, IPO preparation

Enterprise orchestration enters a new era As enterprises grapple with increasingly complex technology stacks spanning data pipelines, AI workflows, infrastructure automation, and business processes, the demand for unified orchestration platforms has never been more acute. The proliferation of cloud services, microservices architectures, and AI-driven operations has created an orchestration challenge that legacy tools were never designed to address — and a new generation of open-source platforms is stepping in to fill the gap. Paris-based Kestra has raised $25 million in Series A funding led by RTP Global to build what it describes as “the orchestration standard for enterprises,” with continued participation from existing investors Alven, ISAI, and Axeleo. The round brings the company’s total funding to $36 million. RTP Global leads bet on open-source orchestration The investment from RTP Global, a technology-focused venture firm with a strong track record in developer tools and infrastructure, validates Kestra’s approach to enterprise orchestration. Founded in 2021 by Emmanuel Darras and Ludovic Dehon, the platform unifies data pipelines, AI workflows, infrastructure automation, and business processes into a single declarative control plane with over 1,200 plugins spanning cloud, SaaS, and enterprise systems. Kestra’s language-agnostic, event-driven architecture has resonated with engineering teams seeking to consolidate fragmented orchestration tooling. The platform’s growth metrics speak to this demand: enterprise revenue has increased 25-fold since the seed round eighteen months ago, and the platform executed over 2 billion workflows in 2025, up 20 times year-on-year from 100 million in 2024. Blue-chip enterprises adopt Kestra at scale The calibre of Kestra’s customer base is remarkable for a company at the Series A stage. Apple uses the platform for AI pipeline orchestration across the App Store, Apple Music, and device diagnostics. JPMorgan Chase relies on Kestra for cybersecurity pipelines, whilst Toyota has adopted it for unified AI and data pipeline monitoring. Deutsche Telekom, BHP, and Crédit Agricole round out an enterprise roster that would be impressive for companies at far later stages of development. With over 26,000 GitHub stars and adoption across more than 30,000 organisations worldwide, Kestra has established itself as the fastest-growing open-source orchestration platform in the market. The vibrant open-source community, with hundreds of active contributors, provides a powerful distribution engine that has fuelled the company’s rapid enterprise adoption. Building the orchestration layer for the AI era The newly raised capital will support the development of Kestra 2.0, the company’s most significant product milestone to date. The upgrade will introduce regional deployment capabilities, segregated network support, and dedicated experiences tailored to data, AI, and infrastructure teams. Kestra also plans to expand its fully managed cloud offering and strengthen its commercial presence across North America and Europe. The timing is significant. As enterprises accelerate their adoption of AI, the orchestration layer that coordinates workflows across data preparation, model training, inference, and monitoring becomes mission-critical infrastructure. Kestra’s position at this intersection — combining open-source accessibility with enterprise-grade reliability — places it at the centre of a rapidly expanding market. France’s vibrant open-source ecosystem, which has produced companies like Hugging Face and Mistral AI, continues to demonstrate its capacity to build globally significant developer infrastructure. Company: Kestra HQ: Paris, France Founded: 2021 Round: Series A Amount: $25 million Lead Investor: RTP Global Total Funding: $36 million Use of Funds: Kestra 2.0 development, cloud offering expansion, North America and Europe growth

Tokenised finance infrastructure attracts institutional capital The infrastructure layer underpinning tokenised real-world assets is rapidly becoming one of the most actively funded segments in European fintech. As institutional players from BlackRock to Franklin Templeton commit to bringing traditional financial products on-chain, the companies building the plumbing to make these assets liquid, composable, and accessible are commanding serious investor attention. In 2025 alone, over $2.5 billion flowed into tokenisation infrastructure globally, and the pace shows no sign of slowing. Berlin-based Midas has raised $50 million in Series A funding to scale its platform for tokenised investment products, with the round co-led by RRE Ventures and Creandum alongside a roster of heavyweight backers including Franklin Templeton, Coinbase Ventures, Framework Ventures, and HV Capital. Solving the liquidity problem for tokenised assets At the heart of Midas’s proposition is a problem that has long constrained institutional adoption of on-chain yield products: liquidity. While tokenised assets offer compelling advantages in transparency and composability, investors have historically faced cumbersome redemption processes, with capital locked in vault-like structures that impose waiting periods for withdrawals. Alongside the Series A, Midas launched its Open Liquidity Architecture, anchored by Midas Staked Liquidity (MSL) — a facility with up to $40 million in initial capacity that enables instant, atomic redemptions for tokenised assets without settlement risk or reliance on external market makers. This infrastructure effectively removes one of the most significant barriers to institutional participation in on-chain finance. Strong traction from a young company Founded in 2023 by Dennis Dinkelmeyer (ex-Goldman Sachs), Fabrice Grinda (FJ Labs), and Romain Bourgois (ex-Ondo Finance), Midas has moved quickly to establish itself as a leading platform for composable on-chain investment products. Since launching, the protocol has facilitated $1.7 billion in tokenised asset issuance, distributed $37 million in yield to approximately 20,000 individual mToken holders, and accumulated $500 million in total value locked. The founding team brings precisely the blend of traditional finance pedigree and crypto-native experience that investors increasingly seek in this space. Dinkelmeyer’s Goldman Sachs background provides institutional credibility, whilst Grinda’s track record at FJ Labs — one of the most prolific angel investors globally — and Bourgois’s experience at Ondo Finance, another leading tokenisation platform, bring deep domain expertise. Europe’s growing role in tokenised finance The round brings Midas’s total funding to approximately $58.75 million, following an $8.75 million seed round in 2024. The quality of the investor syndicate is notable: Franklin Templeton, which manages over $1.5 trillion in assets, has been one of the most forward-leaning traditional asset managers in the tokenisation space, whilst Coinbase Ventures and Anchorage Digital bring deep crypto infrastructure expertise. Berlin continues to strengthen its position as a hub for blockchain and financial infrastructure companies, with Midas joining a growing cohort of well-funded German fintechs building at the intersection of traditional and decentralised finance. As the regulatory landscape in Europe matures — particularly through the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework — the continent is well-placed to become a global centre for compliant tokenised financial products. Company: Midas HQ: Berlin, Germany Founded: 2023 Round: Series A Amount: $50 million Lead Investors: RRE Ventures, Creandum Total Funding: $58.75 million Use of Funds: Scaling Open Liquidity Architecture, expanding tokenised investment infrastructure

European quantum computing reaches inflection point Europe’s quantum computing sector is entering a defining chapter, with institutional investors signalling growing confidence in the continent’s ability to compete on a global stage. As governments from Helsinki to Paris channel billions into quantum research programmes and the first generation of European quantum startups mature toward commercialisation, the sector is beginning to attract the kind of heavyweight capital that was once reserved for its American counterparts. Finnish quantum computing company IQM Quantum Computers has secured €50 million in growth financing from funds managed by BlackRock, marking a significant vote of confidence from the world’s largest asset manager ahead of IQM’s planned listing on Nasdaq. BlackRock backs Europe’s quantum hardware leader The €50 million financing package, announced on 30 March 2026, comes at a pivotal moment for IQM. The Espoo-headquartered company is preparing for a merger with Real Asset Acquisition Corp (RAAQ), a Nasdaq-listed special purpose acquisition company, in a deal that values IQM at approximately $1.8 billion. The transaction, expected to close around June 2026, would make IQM the first publicly listed European quantum computing company and is projected to provide over $450 million in combined financing. BlackRock’s involvement underscores the institutional appetite for quantum technology. Jan Goetz, CEO and co-founder of IQM, noted that the financing comes at a pivotal time as the company builds momentum for its next phase of growth. The capital will accelerate IQM’s technology roadmap, fuel research and development, and support continued market expansion across its global footprint spanning 12 countries including France, Germany, Japan, and the United States. Commercial traction sets IQM apart What distinguishes IQM in the quantum landscape is its commercial progress. The company reported $35 million in unaudited revenue for 2025 and over $100 million in orders and bookings by year-end — figures that place it among the most commercially advanced quantum computing firms globally. IQM has sold 21 quantum systems to 13 customers, with 15 already delivered, which the company describes as the largest publicly disclosed figure among quantum computer manufacturers. IQM’s product portfolio spans from its entry-level IQM Spark system to its flagship IQM Resonance platform, serving high-performance computing centres, research laboratories, universities, and enterprises. The company employs over 300 people and has built one of the deepest engineering teams in European quantum hardware. A maturing European quantum ecosystem The investment arrives against a backdrop of accelerating quantum investment across Europe. The European Commission’s Quantum Technologies Flagship programme, national initiatives such as France’s €1.8 billion quantum strategy, and Germany’s dedicated quantum computing centres have created fertile ground for companies like IQM to scale. With total funding now exceeding $600 million — including a $320 million Series B led by Ten Eleven Ventures in September 2025 — IQM has positioned itself as the continent’s most well-capitalised quantum hardware company. The planned Nasdaq listing represents more than a liquidity event; it signals that European deep tech companies can chart a path to public markets on their own terms. For the broader quantum computing sector, IQM’s trajectory offers a compelling case study in building globally competitive technology companies from European soil. Summary Company: IQM Quantum ComputersHQ: Espoo, FinlandFounded: 2018Round: Growth FinancingAmount: €50 million ($57 million)Investor: BlackRockTotal Funding: Over $600 millionUse of Funds: R&D acceleration, market expansion, Nasdaq listing preparation

The enterprise AI landscape in Europe is evolving rapidly beyond automation and productivity tools, with a new category of platforms emerging that target the strategic decision-making layer of organisations. As European companies raised over $9 billion for AI ventures in the first two months of 2026 alone, investor attention is increasingly shifting towards applications that serve the boardroom rather than the back office, addressing the growing gap between the volume of available intelligence and executives’ capacity to act on it. Paris-based Omniscient has raised €3.5 million ($4.1 million) in pre-seed funding to develop its AI decision intelligence platform, designed to replace the fragmented ecosystem of monitoring and intelligence tools that large organisations typically rely upon. The round was led by Seedcamp, one of Europe’s most prolific early-stage investors, with participation from Drysdale, Plug and Play, MS&AD, Raise, Anamcara, and xdeck, a global syndicate spanning France, Japan, and the United States. Bpifrance also contributed support to the round. Seedcamp backs ex-McKinsey founders’ vision for unified executive intelligence The company was founded in 2024 by Arnaud d’Estienne and Mehdi Benseghir, both former McKinsey consultants who observed first-hand how global organisations struggled to synthesise intelligence from disparate sources into actionable strategic decisions. Their platform addresses a specific pain point: large enterprises typically manage more than 150 separate intelligence platforms, each covering a different channel, geography, or function, with no unified view of what matters. “Organisations were sitting on vast amounts of data, but with no reliable way to turn it into decisions at the speed the market demands,” said d’Estienne, describing the gap that Omniscient aims to fill. At its core, Omniscient’s platform employs a proprietary architecture of specialist AI agents, each assigned to a defined domain — news monitoring, regulatory developments, supply chain signals, and competitive intelligence — that feed into a unified management cockpit. The system ingests data from more than 100,000 sources across press, social media, web, video, audio, and internal corporate pipelines, then synthesises that information into a two-minute executive briefing updated in real time and delivered across multiple markets and languages. The pre-seed capital will fund key engineering hires, further product development, and the initial expansion of commercial operations. The company is already working with global organisations and plans to extend beyond monitoring into predictive and prescriptive analytics, advising leadership teams on emerging risks and recommended actions before situations demand reactive responses. European enterprise AI investment reflects growing demand for strategic tools Omniscient’s raise sits within a broader wave of European investment in AI applications that target strategic rather than operational use cases. Artificial intelligence accounted for 62 per cent of European venture capital funding in early 2026, with enterprise decision tools identified alongside generative media, autonomous systems, and defence applications as key growth sectors. The decision intelligence category itself is gaining definition, with companies like London-based Quantexa and others building AI-powered platforms for complex data analysis and strategic insight. Omniscient differentiates through its explicit focus on the C-suite and board level, a segment where the consequences of delayed or poorly informed decisions are most acute and where existing tools have largely failed to deliver integrated solutions. The international composition of Omniscient’s investor syndicate, spanning European venture capital, Japanese corporate investment, and American capital, reflects the global applicability of the company’s approach. As regulatory complexity, geopolitical volatility, and information velocity continue to accelerate, the demand for platforms that can distil signal from noise at the executive level is likely to intensify across industries and geographies. Company Omniscient HQ Paris, France Founded 2024 Round Pre-Seed Amount €3.5 million ($4.1 million) Lead Investor Seedcamp Co-Investors Drysdale, Plug and Play, MS&AD, Raise, Anamcara, xdeck, Bpifrance Use of Funds Engineering hires, product development, commercial expansion

The European photonics sector is quietly building the hardware foundations for the next generation of augmented reality devices, with integrated chip-scale solutions poised to solve the miniaturisation and power consumption challenges that have long constrained consumer AR adoption. As major technology companies accelerate their AR hardware roadmaps, the demand for compact, efficient display components is creating significant opportunities for European deep tech startups operating at the intersection of semiconductor design and optical engineering. Brilliance, an Enschede-based photonics startup, has raised €6 million in a funding round led by Cottonwood Technology Fund to scale development of its integrated RGB laser chip platform for AR displays and other projection applications. Existing investors PhotonVentures, Oost NL, and PhotiX also participated in the round, which follows an initial €2 million seed investment secured in November 2023. The capital will support the company’s push towards delivering custom solutions to customers and preparing for initial production by the end of 2026. Cottonwood Technology Fund leads round as AR hardware demand accelerates The investment reflects growing investor confidence in European photonic integrated circuit (PIC) technology as a critical enabler for next-generation display systems. Cottonwood Technology Fund, which focuses on deep technology investments, is joined by returning backers who have supported Brilliance since its earliest stages, indicating continued conviction in the company’s technology roadmap. Founded in 2023 by CEO Tim Tiek and CTO Douwe Geuzebroek, Brilliance has developed a technology platform that integrates laser sources with silicon nitride photonic circuits on a single chip. This approach replaces the bulky optical assemblies traditionally used in light engines for AR glasses and head-up displays, enabling significant reductions in size, weight, and power consumption whilst delivering higher brightness and a wider field of view. “The capital will support scaling development, delivering custom solutions, and preparing for initial production by year-end,” said Tim Tiek, highlighting the company’s transition from research-stage development to commercial readiness. The company’s technology addresses what many in the industry consider the primary bottleneck to mainstream AR adoption: the light engine. Current AR display systems rely on discrete optical components that are too large and power-hungry for comfortable, all-day wearable devices. Brilliance’s integrated approach promises to deliver what it describes as “the smallest and most efficient RGB laser” for projection applications, a claim that, if validated at production scale, could position the company as a key supplier to AR device manufacturers. European photonics ecosystem strengthens position in global AR supply chain Brilliance’s raise adds to a growing body of evidence that Europe’s photonics ecosystem, particularly the Netherlands’ Twente region and broader PhotonDelta cluster, is developing into a globally competitive hub for AR-enabling technologies. Belgian startup Swave Photonics raised €27 million in 2025 for its holographic extended reality platform, whilst several other European companies are advancing complementary display and sensing technologies. The AR market itself continues to attract substantial investment, with industry analysts projecting significant growth as enterprise and consumer use cases mature. The convergence of improved display optics, more powerful mobile processors, and advancing AI capabilities is expected to drive a new wave of AR device launches in the coming years, creating demand for the type of component-level innovation that Brilliance is developing. Beyond AR glasses, the company’s RGB laser chip technology has applications in automotive head-up displays, industrial laser systems, and other display architectures, providing multiple potential revenue streams as the technology scales towards production. With this funding secured, Brilliance is positioned to move from prototype to production within the year, a milestone that would mark an important step in demonstrating Europe’s capacity to compete in the global race to build the optical infrastructure for spatial computing. Company Brilliance HQ Enschede, Netherlands Founded 2023 Round Seed (follow-on) Amount €6 million Lead Investor Cottonwood Technology Fund Co-Investors PhotonVentures, Oost NL, PhotiX Use of Funds Scale development, custom solutions, first production launch (end of 2026) Total Funding ~€8 million