28 April 2026: A record-breaking seed round, sovereign EU cloud motions, the UK's $675 Million Sovereign AI Fund, and a mysterious British unicorn

Welcome back to the bi-weekly “Inside European Deep Tech” newsletter, compiled by Robin Wauters, COO and board member of the European Startup Network, co-driver at EU–INC, investor at Syndicate One and formerly founding editor and CEO of Tech.eu.

There are about 75,000 subscribers to this newsletter; I invite each and every one of you to provide feedback so I can upgrade it over time. 💪🏻

Below, please find a tightly curated list of links for anyone with a vested interest in the European deep tech space:

Must-reads

• Europe's Historic Second Chance: Leading AI’s Next Wave

• Cohere and Aleph Alpha agree $20bn transatlantic AI tie-up

• The world’s most complex machine

• The Mystery of the British Unicorn

• How France’s Mistral Built A $14 Billion AI Empire By Not Being American

• What Happens When $90 Billion of Data Centers Come to Town

• How Big Tech Lobbied the EU to Hide Data Centers' Environmental Toll

• America wakes up to AI’s dangerous power

• The UK launched its $675 Million Sovereign AI Fund

• EIB Group confirms support for €2.4 billion energy resilience and deep tech innovation at Hannover Messe

• The EU unveils new proposals under the DMA aimed at opening up Android to rivals' AI services; Google says the measures are “unwarranted intervention”

• Commission awards €180 million tender for sovereign cloud to four European providers

• Franco-German dialogue between AI industry leaders: affirmation of a shared European ambition and submission of a report to the French and German authorities

>> A word from our partner Deep Tech Momentum (DTM):

Deep Tech Momentum (DTM) is on a mission to strengthen European competitiveness, resilience and technological sovereignty by building the #1 marketplace for deep tech and AI on the continent.

DTM 2026 will bring together 3,000+ Europe's boldest senior innovation leaders, top startup and scale-up founders, and leading investors across energy, defence, manufacturing and robotics, advanced materials, high-performance computing, and space – with a shared goal to accelerate the adoption of commercially-ready, next-horizon technologies.

The program includes an AI Productivity Summit, Venture Clienting & CVC Summit, CXO Sovereignty Summit, LP-GP Marketplace as well as high-level industry and public sector speakers.

DTM also features a unique format of highly-curated 1:1 meetings to accelerate deep tech Go-to-Market where attendees engage directly with Europe’s leading network of 300+ corporate innovation leaders with budgets to deploy deep tech solutions at scale.

To learn more, visit www.deeptech.build

Insights: data, research, interviews and profiles

• AI Drives Europe’s Second Straight Quarter Of Funding Gain As Deal Volume Falls Sharply (or: AI startups swallow half the funding across European tech)

• Deep Tech Captures 40% of Global Venture Capital Investments

• The world of voice AI, with Mati Staniszewski of ElevenLabs

• How Ukraine solved the hardest problem in defense

• Inside the numbers: Ten industries leading Europe’s tech investment in 2025

• The 2025 EIC Pre Accelerator Results

• European spacetech mapped: 70+ startups reaching for the stars

• Sasha Vidiborskiy, Atomico: How to Think About Deep Tech Investing

• 70 companies selected under the EIC Pre-Accelerator call

• US Firms Expand European Footprint with Acquisitions

• 15 female founders to watch in European deeptech

• Europe's top physical AI hotspots

• Engineering the Logic Behind Deep Tech Deals

• 11 AI operators to watch in Europe

• Where Nordic women-founded startups can and can’t raise capital

• 54 milliards d'euros, dix secteurs… Les grandes réussites et les petits échecs de France 2030

• Swiss startups explore US investment in Silicon Valley

Opinions worth reading

• How Europe regulated itself into American vassalage

• Nearly €80bn of public money is flooding into European VCs and startups. Is it what the market needs?

• "Europe is not a Museum. It's the Future."

• How Trump 2.0 pushed Cohere and Aleph Alpha together

• The problem with Europe’s Big Tech breakup: It’s still hooked

• 🇫🇷 French Tech Wire: Behold The Great Sovereignty Paradigm

• Can Europe ever compete with California?

• ‘Europe is a digital colony’: Startups wrestle with tech sovereignty demands

• Europe urged to become first “electro-continent” with 50% electrification target by 2040

• Amadeus Capital: "The best technology disappears"

• When Brussels speaks, do capitals act?

• Bessemer Predicts: Robotics and physical AI

• The Next AI Wave Is Building in Three Dimensions

• Germany’s digital minister wants a European Palantir

• Britain's biotech potential (part I): world-class science, second-class support?

• Germany's Merz says industrial AI needs less stringent EU regulation

• Sten Tamkivi: Poland's defence start-ups should be seen as future GDP drivers

Major European deep tech startup and scale-up news

• Ineffable Intelligence launches with record-breaking $1.1B Seed round

• Self-improving AI startup Recursive Superintelligence pulls in $500 million just four months after founding

• CamGraPhIC lands €211 million to tackle AI’s data bottleneck - in one of Italy’s largest DeepTech funding deals

• Verda raises $117M to scale AI cloud infrastructure built on clean Nordic power

• Temasek-Backed CuspAI in Talks to Boost Value Above $1 Billion

• German robotics startup Sereact raises $110M

• ASML alum’s Euclyd eyes €100M raise to build AI chip systems: report

• Chipmakers AMD, Arm, and Qualcomm are all investing in buzzy self-driving tech startup Wayve

• Airbus strengthens sovereign cyber security with acquisition of Quarkslab in France

• German startup Synera lands $40M to automate engineering workflows with AI agents

• SpaceTech startup UNIVITY raises €27 million to position Europe as a key player in global hybrid connectivity

• ATMOS Space Cargo secures €25.7M Series A to expand Europe’s sovereign return-from-orbit capability

• OrangeQS closes €15M seed round

• Savox Communications (defense tech) and Varjo (VR for military training) are both considering Helsinki IPOs

• Eight European startups set to receive scale-up funding from the EIC under the STEP Scale Up scheme

Major European deep tech investor news

• Investors and founders react to the launch of the UK’s £500M Sovereign AI Fund

• Spacetech investor Seraphim Space targets £350M raise

• Backed by EIF and Bpifrance, Kurma Partners hits €1B AUM with €215M Biofund IV close

• ET Capital launches Cambridge Venture Index Fund 2 to broaden access to deeptech investing

• The European Investment Fund (EIF) is investing SEK 170 million in Turbine Capital

In other links

• Commission's merger revision plots course to curb startup killers

• AI in science: Europe seeks to balance sovereignty with progress

• Anthropic unveils plans for major UK expansion after OpenAI announces first permanent London office

• How defence start-ups can sell to the Ukrainian military

• Chip giant ASML raises 2026 guidance as AI semiconductor demand stays strong

• Poland to transfer €30M of regional funds to boost Horizon Europe participation

• TSMC Says ASML's Latest Chipmaking Gear Is Too Pricey to Use

• The Europe-Tokyo Corridor: IQ Capital’s Vision for a Global Deep Tech Future

• European Innovation Council: Defence Experts Needed for Upcoming Evaluations

• Cooling becomes strategic: Calyos brings passive thermal tech to Europe’s defence stack

• With 90% of European AI Users on US Platforms, Vienna's Eustella Wants to Fight Back

• DeepL, known for text translation, now wants to translate your voice

• 🇫🇷 French Tech Wire: Building Europe’s Amazon of Reusable Packaging

• The Netherlands to build first commercial molten salt reactor

• KIC funding for 2026-28 activities on track, EIT says

• DARE Campus opens deep tech hub in Schlieren

• Lucy, France’s photonic quantum system, integrated with Joliot-Curie supercomputer

• ETpathfinder becomes permanent European research center

• Imperial partners with Lenovo on new London AI Technology Centre

The scrolled-all-the-way-down extras

• The Vatican is racing to build digital defenses for the artificial intelligence era — and quietly positioning itself as a global referee of what's real

• The 2026 AI Index Report

• Voice actors fight to save their livelihoods and local cultures from Hollywood’s AI push

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