Nexus raises $4.3 million to scale enterprise AI agent deployment platform

The rapid adoption of autonomous AI agents across enterprise environments has created a significant and largely unaddressed cybersecurity gap. According to Deloitte’s 2026 State of AI report, nearly three in four companies plan to deploy agentic AI within two years, yet only one in five has a mature governance model for autonomous agents. London-based Trent AI has emerged from stealth with a $13 million seed round to tackle this structural vulnerability head-on, offering what it describes as the first multi-agent security solution purpose-built for the agentic era. The seed round was co-led by LocalGlobe and Cambridge Innovation Capital, with participation from senior figures at OpenAI, Spotify, Databricks, AWS, and Stripe. The capital will be deployed to expand the engineering team, accelerate product development, and grow Trent AI’s early customer base across Europe and the United States. LocalGlobe and Cambridge Innovation Capital back agentic AI security play The calibre of Trent AI’s investor roster reflects the seriousness with which the industry views the agentic security challenge. LocalGlobe, one of Europe’s most prominent early-stage venture firms, co-led the round alongside Cambridge Innovation Capital, the University of Cambridge’s venture arm. The angel investor list reads as a who’s who of senior AI leadership: Joaquin Quiñonero Candela, a member of technical staff at OpenAI; Tony Jebara, former Vice President of Engineering and Head of AI/ML at Spotify; Ippokratis Pandis, a Distinguished Engineer at Databricks; and Avinash Bhat, a Director at AWS. The founding team brings deep technical credibility to the challenge. CEO Eno Thereska previously served as Distinguished Engineer at Alcion, AWS, and Confluent. Chief Scientist Neil Lawrence holds the DeepMind Professorship of Machine Learning at the University of Cambridge and previously served as Director of Machine Learning at Amazon. CTO Zhenwen Dai brings experience as a machine learning scientist at AWS and Senior Research Manager at Spotify. A platform built to secure autonomous AI agents Unlike conventional cybersecurity tools retrofitted for AI environments, Trent AI’s platform deploys specialised AI security agents that continuously scan customer environments, assess risk, mitigate vulnerabilities, and evaluate overall security posture. The system operates through four distinct agent groups handling vulnerability detection, severity ranking, remediation recommendations, and security trend analysis. The platform’s proprietary judgement layer and reinforcement learning technology orchestrate these security agents across customer workflows, transforming agentic AI security from a manual audit exercise into a continuous, automated process. Trent AI’s agents can simulate complex attack chains, detect overly broad access permissions, and generate actionable code improvement suggestions — capabilities that static rule-based security tools fundamentally lack. The platform already integrates with popular AI development tools including Claude Code and Lovable, and supports CI/CD pipeline integration for continuous security monitoring. Trent AI has been adopted by several technology firms during its stealth period, with early design partners including Canopy and Weblogic. European agentic AI security market gains momentum Trent AI’s emergence comes at a time when the European cybersecurity market is experiencing substantial investment momentum, driven in part by regulatory frameworks such as the EU AI Act that place increasing obligations on organisations deploying autonomous AI systems. The gap between agentic AI adoption and adequate security infrastructure represents a significant market opportunity, particularly as enterprises move beyond experimental deployments toward production-grade autonomous workflows. The $13 million seed round positions Trent AI among the better-capitalised European cybersecurity startups at the pre-Series A stage. With AI agent deployment accelerating across sectors from financial services to healthcare, the demand for purpose-built agentic security solutions is expected to grow substantially in the coming years. For more on European startup fundraising, visit our fundraising coverage. Summary Company Trent AI Headquarters London, United Kingdom Founded 2025 Round Seed Amount $13 million Lead Investors LocalGlobe, Cambridge Innovation Capital Notable Angels Leaders from OpenAI, Spotify, Databricks, AWS, Stripe Use of Funds Engineering expansion, product development, customer growth

The market for AI sales agents targeting B2B software companies is attracting serious capital as investor conviction grows around the displacement of traditional sales development representative roles. Tallinn-based startup Handhold has raised a €3 million seed round to deploy AI agents across the full software buying journey — from first contact through to customer onboarding — positioning itself at the intersection of two of the fastest-growing categories in enterprise software. The round was led by Entourage Capital, with participation from Inovia Capital and e2vc. The raise also drew a notable cohort of angel investors from within the European tech ecosystem, including Markus Villig, the founder and chief executive of Bolt, Harsh Sinha, chief technology officer at Wise, Janer Gorohhov, co-founder of Veriff, and Ott Kaukver, former chief technology officer of Twilio. The calibre of individual backers reflects growing confidence that AI-driven sales automation is moving beyond experimentation into mainstream enterprise adoption. A platform built to unify the fragmented buying experience Handhold was founded in 2025 by Georg Vooglaid and Uku Tammet. The company’s central thesis is that B2B software purchasing has become structurally inefficient — vendors rely on human sales teams that cannot operate at the scale or speed that modern buyers expect, while buyers receive inconsistent, fragmented experiences that rarely reflect the actual product. Handhold’s answer is a suite of three coordinated AI agents that operate continuously and in sequence. The first agent handles inbound qualification, engaging website visitors in real time, answering product questions, and assessing lead quality without requiring a human sales representative. The second delivers personalised, voice-driven product demonstrations — including live interaction with the actual product interface — at any hour and in over 50 languages. The third guides newly converted customers through onboarding, maintaining context from every prior interaction to ensure continuity across the entire buyer journey. The system is designed to be operational within one to three days of deployment, significantly faster than the six-week average the company cites for comparable enterprise implementations. One early customer, Parim, reported a 60 per cent reduction in poor-fit sales calls alongside a 20 per cent month-on-month increase in qualified leads — metrics that suggest the platform is improving both the efficiency and selectivity of inbound pipelines. Handhold soft-launched in September 2025 and reached a six-figure annual recurring revenue run rate by year end, serving more than 15 customers across sectors including logistics and financial services. The four-person team plans to use the seed capital to accelerate go-to-market execution and scale towards enterprise-grade deployments. Strong operator backing reflects confidence in the AI agent opportunity The involvement of Markus Villig and Harsh Sinha is particularly instructive. Both built or scaled companies that faced the challenge of managing complex, high-volume customer interactions at scale — Bolt across ride-hailing and Wise across international payments. Their backing suggests firsthand recognition of the operational leverage that well-designed AI agents can deliver. Georg Vooglaid, chief executive of Handhold, framed the company’s approach around the economics of personalisation at scale: “With AI agents, we can now replicate that one-to-one experience at scale because the economics work.” The comment points to a structural shift in what is now achievable. Historically, highly personalised selling was reserved for large enterprise deals where the margin justified the headcount. Handhold’s platform is designed to make that level of engagement commercially viable across a much broader customer base. The company identifies a total addressable market of approximately $60 billion in combined sales development representative and customer success manager labour costs across the United States and European Union — a figure that, even partially captured, represents a substantial commercial opportunity. European AI sales automation attracting growing investor attention Handhold enters a competitive but expanding market. Direct competitors include Spara, 1mind, Supersonik, Quarterzip and Trig, each of which focuses on specific segments of the sales funnel. Handhold’s differentiation lies in its integrated approach: a single platform that maintains contextual continuity from initial prospect engagement through post-sale activation, rather than addressing discrete stages in isolation. The broader AI agent market is expanding rapidly, with analyst estimates suggesting the sector will grow from approximately $7.8 billion in 2025 to over $52 billion by 2030. Within that trajectory, sales and customer engagement represent one of the largest near-term deployment opportunities, given the direct impact on revenue generation and the measurability of outcomes. European investors, long cautious about AI infrastructure plays concentrated in US markets, are increasingly backing applied AI companies that can demonstrate unit economics within months rather than years. For Handhold, the seed raise provides the runway to prove that its integrated AI sales agent model can scale beyond early adopters and into the mid-market and enterprise segments where the commercial returns are most significant. The company’s trajectory — six-figure ARR within three months of soft launch, backed by some of the most operationally credible angel investors in European tech — positions it as one to watch in the rapidly consolidating AI sales automation space. More information: handhold.io | Source: Tech.eu | Related: European Startup Fundraising News

European neurotechnology attracts growing investor interest as wellness meets wearables The intersection of neuroscience and consumer technology is emerging as one of Europe’s more compelling deep tech investment themes, as advances in brainwave entrainment, biometric integration, and auditory engineering create new commercial pathways for technologies that were previously confined to clinical research settings. With the global wellness technology market expanding rapidly, startups that can bridge the gap between peer-reviewed neuroscience and scalable consumer products are drawing increasing attention from strategic and institutional investors. Helsinki-based Audicin has raised $1.9 million (€1.6 million) to scale its real-time nervous system regulation technology across defence, healthcare, and enterprise applications. The round includes private investment, follow-on backing from Petteri Lahtela and Virpi Tuomivaara — the co-founders of Oura Health, one of Finland’s most successful consumer health companies — and a grant from Business Finland through its Deep Tech Accelerator programme. The capital brings Audicin’s total funding to approximately $3 million. Oura Health co-founders double down on brainwave entrainment technology The continued involvement of the Oura Health co-founders is a notable signal for Audicin’s commercial trajectory. Oura, which pioneered the smart ring category and has become a global standard in passive health monitoring, provides both a strategic reference point and a potential integration pathway for Audicin’s technology. The follow-on investment suggests that the Oura founders see material alignment between Audicin’s nervous system regulation capabilities and the broader ecosystem of wearable health devices. Audicin’s technology draws on brainwave entrainment, music neuroscience, and auditory engineering to deliver audio-based interventions that support nervous system regulation. Unlike mindfulness applications that require active user engagement, Audicin’s approach works through passive background listening — audio sessions adapted to a user’s physiological signals play in the background while they work, commute, or rest, requiring no conscious effort from the user. The company’s SDK, Audicin for Apps, enables third-party digital health, performance, and consumer platforms to integrate the technology directly, triggered by biometric data, time of day, or in-app events. The SDK supports integration with leading wearables including Oura, Apple Watch, Garmin, and Whoop, positioning Audicin as an infrastructure-level technology rather than a standalone consumer application. From wearables to defence: a dual-use commercial strategy Founded in 2022 by an all-female team — Laura Avonius (CEO), Victoria Williamson, and Mariana Sousa Aguiar — Audicin is pursuing a dual-track commercial strategy that spans consumer wellness and restricted-access environments. A new product in development, a standalone offline Sleep Headband, targets healthcare facilities and defence settings where mobile devices are not permitted. The device delivers pre-configured recovery programmes based on low-frequency brainwave protocols without requiring a connected phone, opening addressable markets that most consumer wellness companies cannot reach. The company reports strong early commercial traction, with a €6.9 million ($8 million) sales pipeline spanning defence, athletic performance, and wellness clinic sectors. This pipeline figure, notably large relative to the company’s current funding stage, suggests that Audicin’s dual-use approach is resonating with institutional buyers who value evidence-based nervous system interventions delivered through scalable, passive technology. Finland’s deep tech ecosystem supports neuroscience commercialisation Audicin’s fundraise is emblematic of a broader trend within Finland’s deep tech ecosystem, where companies are increasingly commercialising technologies rooted in peer-reviewed scientific research. The backing from Business Finland’s Deep Tech Accelerator programme underscores the institutional support available to Finnish startups operating at the frontier of applied neuroscience. For a female-founded company operating in a sector where the gap between scientific capability and commercial product has traditionally been wide, Audicin’s progress from laboratory science to a multi-million-dollar sales pipeline in under four years represents a notable trajectory. Company: Audicin HQ: Helsinki, Finland Founded: 2022 Round: $1.9 million (€1.6 million) Key Investors: Petteri Lahtela and Virpi Tuomivaara (Oura Health co-founders), Business Finland Deep Tech Accelerator Total Funding: ~$3 million Use of Funds: Scaling technology across defence, healthcare, and enterprise applications Website: audicin.com