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• Vienna-based fintech Talentir has raised €4 million in a seed funding round to modernize cross-border payout infrastructure for creators, freelancers, and contractors. • The round was led by Redstone VC and supported by Inovia Capital, featuring backing from former Google CFO Patrick Pichette and eight other investors. • Talentir aims to solve inefficiencies in platform payments by utilizing AI and stablecoin rails to streamline global financial transfers.

• The UK government and private sector announced multi-billion pound investments at London Tech Week. • Lumai unveiled an optical computing system capable of running billion-parameter Large Language Models (LLMs) in real time, a significant advancement in AI technology. • This development indicates that AI is becoming increasingly tangible and powerful, with potential applications across various industries.

• World Fund hosted its 2026 Annual General Meeting and Summit, themed ‘Built to Scale,’ on June 9 at the Delphi Filmpalast am Zoo in Berlin. • The event coincided with SuperVentures and focused on the transition of European deep-tech founders from initial breakthroughs to achieving technological sovereignty. • Among the highlighted developments, the platform Framework, described as the ‘Duolingo of MBAs,’ recently secured £1.5 million in funding to expand its educational tools.

• Creator Fund has raised $56 million to implement the Silicon Valley student venture capital model within Europe, focusing on backing PhD founders at the earliest stages. • The funding round was led by KfW Capital, the venture arm of Germany’s state development bank, with additional support from the Export and Investment Fund of Denmark and over 70 limited partners. • This initiative is significant as it targets high-potential academic researchers before they have developed formal pitch decks, bridging the gap between deep-tech research and commercialization.

• SoftBank Group has committed up to €75 billion to develop 5 GW of AI data center capacity in France, though only €45 billion of that investment is currently firm. • The project is distinguished by its massive scale and a strategic partnership with Schneider Electric to integrate data center capacity with onshore manufacturing. • This move expands SoftBank's global AI footprint, complementing its involvement in the $500 billion Stargate initiative with OpenAI and Oracle in the United States.

• Only 19 venture-backed European startups went public in 2025, according to data from PitchBook. • This stagnation in the IPO market has triggered a liquidity crisis, forcing founders and investors to keep companies private for longer periods. • To combat this, participants are increasingly turning to Europe's emerging secondary market, which is currently valued at $226 billion.