TAKEAWAYS:

STARK:

• Raising 500M at a 3.5B valuation from leading US funds and European players like NIF.
• The contrast between Defence Investing and Defence Budget Investing.
• Shows that Europe is pricing in defence.

NEURA:

• What really is the TAM of Robotics
• The contrast between European Industrial base investments and American Venture Investors for funding Robotics

Seraphim Space:

• In Space before it was fashionable!
• Strategic LPs added real value. 
• Built out an evergreen structure with the Seraphim Space Investment Trust, and the recent share sale raised 137m GBP.
• Becoming the “Sequoia” of space.

TAKEAWAYS:

Helsing:

• Raising 1.2B a year after their previous raise in summer 2025.
• Valuation allegedly 18B which compares to a 61B valuation of Anduril.
• Backed by Lightspeed and Dragoneer rather than big European funds as far as we can tell.
• Contrast with the whole Ukraine defence industry. 
• Shows that Europe is pricing in defence.

Nordic Compass:

• Co-ordinate the major players in industry.
• Big names but its too early to say what will they actually do.
• One opportunity could be blending capital, Ukraine tech and re-industrialising Europe.
• Nordics are 10% of the European population but one third of Europe’s landmass. 12th largest economy in the world.

Einride:

• Electrification of everything trend
• Trucking / ground transport huge markets
• Fantastic to see a Nordic company really pushing the frontiers to take on this big space.
• SPAC in the US markets is a blessing and a curse. Blessing because its the “marketing effect” and curse because we are still reliant on US capital to support this sort of bet.

TAKEAWAYS:

Hades:

• A Munich-based company focused on extracting the underworld using lasers and then creating geothermal sources.
• A great brand. Does what it says on the tin and is definitely another high-performing tech team out of Munich.
• Taking on two of the biggest problems for Europe. Accessing its own minerals efficiently and keeping Europe warm in the winter.

Yubico:

• Cybersecurity has been treated like insurance protecting against the unexpected.
• But what if millions of agents, including your own, run around and expose every vulnerability?
• The pendulum swings, and we need a hardware solution to a tsunami-sized problem.

SpaceX Transport 16:

• 119 payloads launched
• A third were European
• The European space ecosystem is accelerating.
• Astrolight from Lithuania
• Lodestar Space from UK
• ICEYE from Finland
• It doesn’t matter if it’s your first orbit or your 70th satellite, the trend is clear.

TAKEAWAYS:

Isembard:

• Precision factory manufacturing via franchise model with Isembard
• The company was inspired by the famous British engineer Isembard Kingdom Brunel.
• The team discussed the recent 50M series A raise led by Union Square Ventures and the venture-backed industrialisation of forward deployed factories with operating systems such as Mason OS a move pioneered by Shein and Hadrian in different sectors.

Ukraine Exports:

• The Ukrainian Government announced the mechanism for getting affordable combat-tested technology to its closest allies.
• The hosts discussed the export controls and the strategic significance of 100 and 200-dollar drones from Ukraine being used to change the economics on the battle field.
• UFORCE a Ukrainian founded company based in the UK has a number of combat tested systems in operation and recently raised 50M itself.

Capture Energy:

• The discussion focused on Capture Energy, a leading Swedish Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) provider.
• They discussed the importance of price and resilience being delivered in tandem as a competitive advantage. 
• The market is growing a healthy 50% year on year.
• The comparison with Base Power in the US, which had started as a consumer play and appeared to be announcing more industrial partnerships, was made. 

TAKEAWAYS:

Griffin Tech Days:

• Run by the Finnish military in partnership with XD solutions, with over 15 different countries and 1000 participants attending 
• Trialling a range of companies’ products over a full week and a second week for selected companies
• Temperatures were -30C and below
• Purchase orders were not the objective or expectation
• Companies should be funded to demonstrate capabilities that work for the warfighter

TechArena:

• Big AI vibe! 
• Companies that are raising money rather than testing capabilities
• Call for more European investors to double down.
• Positivity around the surface area of AI and how much can be done.

NIF & Dealroom:

• Mega rounds skew the data, so be aware of percentages
• The big capital is going in the later stages 
• Early and mid stage is basically flat year on year.
• The report could have been 50% shorter

TAKEAWAYS:

Polish Grid Attack:

• A fire drill run by the arsonist
• Designed to hide systems
• Decentralised grids offer a huge attack surface
• 165M euro investment by the Polish state
• A warning to all European energy grids

SandboxAQ:

• The rise of LQMs
• Google spin-out
• Maths is the language of the universe
• Europe needs to build this capability, or the best we can do will be the “Loveable” to Sandbox’s ChatGPT

SpaceX:

• IPO prep or real opportunity
• Leapfrog Google in the AI race
• Another Elon pipe dream or a stroke of genius
• Blurring the line between robots and satellites
• Robots will need a massive amount of compute
• SpaceX’s “Act 3”
• What will be Europe’s response to the cost of launching

TAKEAWAYS:

Donut Lab / Nordic Nano:

• The Donut Motor is world-class
• Creative chaos signal
• Founder motivation
• Chemistry is binary
• Impossible vs merely late
• Vertical integration vs horizontal innovation

Harmattan AI:

• High talent density young team
• Prime buying capability
• Multi-directional signal

Fractile AI:

• Inference is so important
• Europe needs to provide an upgrade  to its own manufacturing base
• Without inference AI doesn’t work