Hello,
No time for a proper Sunday edition this weekend - sorry for that. To make it up, thought I’d interest you with the latest intel piece we’ve sent to our customers earlier this morning, which you can find below.
As always, hit reply with your comments.
Have a good one,
Dragos
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Highlights this week:
low American VC exposure in a Swiss capex-intensive startup
fertile American grounds for European driverless tech
stealth French building solid business also in US, backed by tier 1 investors
more powder available at the long tail early stage
🌟 Highlights
🇨🇭 Sunflower Labs - autonomous, AI-powered drone systems for commercial security sites
$16 million series B led by Sequoia Capital, joined by Alarm, Drone Fund, Gentian Investments, Wakestream Ventures, Atlas Ventures, and Daybreak Ventures.
The company nearly went under during the pandemic. The founding team shrank to seven, but they persevered by doing demos, securing pilot customers, and proving real-world use - the type of resilience that turns startups into winners.
now they have 60 customers in 9 countries run about 400 drone patrols per day, and that number is doubling every quarter.
at the stated price charge of $30k/year per system, assuming 2-3 systems per customer - they produce some $5M-ish in sales per year
They also just announced securing a FAA approval to operate beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) across the United States.
this is important, as it's a key gating factor for business development - commercial urban drone operations require approvals from aviation authorities (FAA in US, EASA in EU).
need a permit from EASA for being able to operate in Europe in a similar fashion.
In order to get on the path of $100M ARR, Sunflower should:
convert its early traction into large scale, multi-site enterprise deployments - each deploying 10-100 systems
expand gross margins by upselling software and services, producing scale against hardware capex
dominate one vertical while executing against this scaling
If they hit these, a relatively low VC deal could conservatively turn into a 10-20X return.
deal led by Sequoia's Roelof Botha, just before he was ousted last month - Botha has a personal connection, as he previously backed Evernote, where Sunflower’s CEO Alex Pachikov used to work
$60 million strategic investment round led by Grab, part of a larger deal that can get to $400M.
follows Vay's $95M series B with the likes of Kinnevik, Coatue, Atomico and Eurazeo in 2021.
Important to note - driverless for Germans means having remote drivers only operate during pick-up and drop-off of cars that are delivered to the customers' location.
the cars are rentals - this case makes sense for point-to-point or multi-leg journeys, where parking is a pain while remote driving helps eliminate that friction.
Vay is currently operational in Las Vegas, where it started in January 2024 - money will be used to scale and expand its operations in the US.
Grab, which is big in Asia and not active in the American market at all, is placing a bet on remote driving as an intermediate, practical and scalable step that can generate usable data, and act as a bridge to full autonomy.
that's Grab's second equity stake in a similar startup operating in the US, alongside May Mobility last month.
they follow path of market leader Uber, which both doubled down on its marketplace by onboarding robotaxi services, as well as has invested into UK's Wayve with the strategic goal of implementing the British AI driving software for both L2+ driver assistance and eventually L4 autonomy in Uber’s rides
Idle observation: the North American market is way more advanced compared to Europe in terms of experimenting with self driving cars, making it a more interesting (and lucrative) avenue to explore a solid business case directly impacted by AI.
🔍 Macro/trends
Einride will go public at a $1.8 billion pre-money valuation via a SPAC on NYSE - the Swedes have raised over $800m from the likes of Abony Capital, EQT Ventures, IonQ, and NordicNinja.
Microsoft (in Portugal) & Google (in Germany) commit $16 billion to AI infrastructure in Europe
Cash is king, and anything else is an opinion - buyout firms rediscover fundamentals.
🧩 Media rumours
Lovable is reportedly holding talks for raising at a valuation of around $6 billion 👉 last raised $200M at $1.8B in spring 2025.
Neura Robotics is also in talks for raising $1.2 billion at a valuation range of $9.3 billion and $11.6 billion
👉 last raised $126M series B led by Lingotto in winter 2025.Vinted explores share sale at €8 billion valuation
👉 last valued at €5B in a €340M secondary deal in fall 2024.
Recent deals in the Nordics
🇩🇰 QuantumCells
- pre-seed funding with Novo, Forbion, First Spark Capital and Sofinnova.
- as stealth as it gets - founded over the summer by two ex-Novo guys 1, 2
🇸🇪 Favora - conversational commerce agent for fashion platform
- pre-seed deal with Node vc, Wave Ventures and local angel investors.
🇩🇰 Noahs - food tech platform used for deploying mobile modular kitchens
- growth round with PreSeed Ventures
- traction: in use by 150+ gas stations in Denmark and Benelux
🇮🇸 Euler - intelligent process monitoring platform for additive manufacturing
- $2.3 million in a seed round backed by Frumtak Ventures and Kvanted
🇫🇮 Chaos Architects - AI platform for smart cities
- $2.3 million in a funding round with Nidoco and Finnvera
🇱🇹 Self co - digital health service for allergies
- $3 million in a combined grant and venture funding round led by Iron Wolf Capital, with participation from Coinvest and NGL Ventures.
🇫🇮 Cronvall - marketplace platform for industrial procurement
- $4.5 million in a seed round raised from Greencode Ventures, Stephen Industries, Innovestor
- traction: 8,000 industrial and construction clients, producing €6 million in annual turnover.
🇩🇰 Skycore Semiconductors - advanced semiconductor microchips for power conversion
- $5.8 million in a seed funding round led by Amadeus APEX Technology Fund, joined by First Momentum, Mätch VC, and Balnord.
The UK
🇬🇧 Falkin - compliance tool used for real-time scam detection
- $2 million pre-seed deal led by Triple Point, joined by Notion Capital, BackFuture, Haatch, Found Capital, and Founders Capital.
🇬🇧 Adclear - compliance AI for financial services marketing
- $2.8 million in a seed round led by Outward VC, with participation from AFG Partners and Tenity
🇬🇧 Spectral Compute - unified GPU compute layer
- $6 million seed led by Costanoa Ventures, joined by Crucible and angel investors
- Costanoa's third Euro deal this year, along 🇨🇭Auterion's B and 🇸🇪Rerun's seed - portfolio
🇬🇧 Scripta Therapeutics - drug discovery platform
- $12 million seed co-led by co-led by Oxford Science Enterprises and Apollo Health Ventures, joined by AlbionVC, Yzr, Parkwalk Advisors.
DACH
🇩🇪 HandsOn Robotics - robots for commercial kitchens
- seed round with with TGFS, Gigahertz Ventures, superangels, and angel investors.
🇩🇪 Cerpro - tool transforming manufacturing plans into intelligent inspection plans
- $2.3 million in a seed round co-led by seed + speed Ventures and D11Z Ventures
🇨🇭 Omnilex - AI workspace for legal commentary
- $4.5 million in a seed funding round led by Founderful with participation from Plug and Play, Tiny VC and Angel Invest.
🇨🇭 Forgis - industrial automation
- $4.5 million pre-seed financing round led by redalpine, joined by angel investors
- "We got 5 term sheets, 3 from the US, 2 from the EU."
🇨🇭 Sunflower Labs - autonomous, AI-powered drone security system
- $16 million series B led by Sequoia Capital, joined by Alarm, Drone Fund, Gentian Investments, Wakestream Ventures, Atlas Ventures, and Daybreak Ventures.
France
🇫🇷 K-Words - semantic AI for contextual advertising
- $1.9 million pre-seed led by daphni, joined by Neo Founders, Kima Ventures and angel investors.
🇫🇷 Paage - link-in-bio social commerce builder
- $2.2 million pre-seed round led by Aglaé Ventures, Kima Ventures, and Cassius, with participation from angel investors
- traction: 100k users across ten countries
🇫🇷 Dialog - AI shopping agent for e-commerce sites
- $4.3 million seed round led by Galion exe, with participation from Kima Ventures, Weaving Group, and business angels.
🇫🇷 Filiz - SAAS for private education institutions
- $7 million from Hexa
- traction: 500 customers in France producing €2 million ARR.
🇫🇷 Sunday - mobile app for restaurant business
- $21 million in a Series B led by DST Global.
- follows a $100 million series A led by Coatue back in 2021.
- yet to be profitable out of a customer base of 3000 restaurants from France and the US
🇫🇷 U-Space - producer of next gen satellites for medium sized constellations.
- $28 million Series A funding round with Blast, Definvest, Expansion, CapSpace, ARIS, Primo Space, Audaciaand Vertech Finance.
🇫🇷 Beside - audio-based AI assistant
- $32 million in a combo of seed and series A funding, led by EQT Ventures, with participation from Index Ventures.
- launched 18 months ago, now producing $4 million in ARR out of 20,000 paying customers, mostly in the US of A.
- founded by a French founder who sold his startup for 20M in 2021, seeded by Index's Martin Mignot, alongside NextView and a bunch of angels.
Spain
🇪🇸 Holo - on-demand preventative health advice based on blood samples analysis
- $1.2 million pre-seed with Calm/Storm Ventures, Mission VC, and angel investors.
🇪🇸 Velorum - enterprise knowledge automation platform
- $3.5 million seed with Iris Venture Builder.
🇪🇸 Digitail - SAAS for veterinary services
- $23 million Series B led by Five Elms Capital, with participation from Atomico, Partech, byFounders, Gradient.
- traction: 10k vets on the platform.
- founded in 2019 by a Romanian duo in Malmö, where it raised pre-seed, then HQ-ed to Barcelona to build business, now scaling from the American West Coast.
🇪🇸 Amenitiz - software for the hotel industry
- $45 million in a mix of loans and Series B equity led KFund, joined by Thayer Ventures, Columbia Lake Partners, Eight Roads, Point9, Otium, Backed VC, and Chalfen Ventures.
- follows a $30 million series A led by Eight Roads in 2022.
Belgium
🇧🇪 Introw - AI-enabled onboarding platform for sales
- $3 million seed round led by Visionaries Club, joined by PitchDrive.
🇧🇪 Lifepowr - intelligent energy management platform
- $6.6 million in an equity round led by Noshaq and SPDG, joined by ROM InWest
🇧🇪 Azumuta - platform connecting frontline workers and factory systems
- $9.3 million series A led by Keen Venture Partners, joined by Capricorn Partners, PMV, Angelwise, and Dirk Vermunicht.
Other geo
🇮🇪 Glitch Ads - AI tool used to deploy digital ad campaigns.
- $2.3 million seed with Elkstone, HBAN, Enterprise Ireland and Gaingels.
🇵🇹 Spinnable - platform for deploying AI workers
- $2.3 million pre-seed funding round with Heartcore, Florent VC, and Alphagraph.
- Heartcore's veteran partner Max Niederhofer led the deal
🇮🇹 OhmSpace - advanced resistojet propulsion systems for all classes of satellites
- $2.9 million seed led by Galaxia joined by Plug and Play, Deep Ocean Capital and Scientifica Venture Capital.
🇮🇹 CommerceClarity - AI agents that automate and optimize catalog, pricing, and advertising for ecommerce ops.
- $3.1 million in a pre-seed round co-led by Entourage and Italian Founders Fund, joined by Vesper, Vento, Redstone VC, Ithaca Investments and Euregio+.
Investors on the move
🇬🇧 Erin Hallock joined Nato Fund as a partner after leading bp's CVC out of London for more than four years.
🇬🇧 Adam Heaysman joined Triple Point as head of fund finance in London, after almost three years spent as MD with Alpha Group.
🇬🇧 Michelle Cheng joined Bessemer as head of talent in London, poached from Notion Capital where she's done a similar job for five years.
🇩🇰 Alexis Horowitz-Burdick was promoted to a GP position with Unconventional Ventures after four years spent with the company.
🇨🇭 Nicholas Smith Wang joined Partners Group as partner and head of their PE vertical in the Swiss HQ, after 14 years with Warburg Pincus.
🇪🇸 Jaime Gil-Delgado joined Dozen Investments as CEO after eight years spent with Swanlaab Venture in Madrid.
Powder
🇬🇧 Medicxi closed its fifth fund at €500 million for spending it on biotechnology startups in Europe.
🇳🇱 Oyster Bay made a final €100 million close for a second fund focused on food startups in Germany.
🇬🇧 Backed VC announced a $100 million closing for its third fund.
🇫🇮 Vendep Capital announced closing €80 million for its fourth fund to support early-stage SAAS founders in the Nordics and Baltics.
🇩🇰 Unconventional Ventures made a first €50 million first close for its second fund.
🇮🇹 Step Venture made public a debut fund with a €30 million first close to invest in early-stage Italian startups.
🇬🇧 Cocoa VC announced closings of $23 million for a second fund.
Exits
🇸🇪 Griffin Gaming, Firstminute Capital, Sisu Game Ventures and angels exited from Coherence, a Swedish startup building a framework for runnning multiplayer games, acquired for an undisclosed amount by Roundtable Interactive Group.
the startup was co-founded by Unity's David Helgasson and has raised about 10 million since 2018.
Roundtable Interactive Group is a Swedish holding formed earlier this year by Robin Flodin with the backing of 🇬🇧 EMK Capital for building a cluster of gaming companies.
Europeans abroad
🇩🇪 Robin Dechant of General Catalyst in Berlin led a $5 million seed raised by Dryft, startup founded by two German ladies 1, 2 that just moved to San Francisco for building an agentic operating system for manufacturing.
🇬🇧 20vc chipped in to a $6.8 million round led by Greylock Partners with SuperMe, American startup building an AI-native professional network.
🇫🇮 Hannu Rajaniemi of Helix raised a $15 million seed round for Red Queen Bio, a new West Coast-based startup focused on blocking bad actors from creating biological weapons powered by AI - OpenAI was lead investor.
🇳🇴 Northzone co-led a $60 million in Series B funding raised by GC AI, American startup done by the former Replit's legal counsel, building an AI platform for in-house legal teams.
🇬🇧 Index Ventures, IVP and Insight Partners co-led a $100 million series A round raised by Wonderful AI, an Israel-based startup building an enterprise platform for agentic AI.
🇬🇧 Also Index co-led a $100 million series A raised by Parallel Web Systems, American startup founded by ex-Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal and developing a web API product purpose-built for AI - deal done at $740 million post-money.
🇸🇪 Bullhound Capital chipped in to a $275 million in Series C funding at a $2B valuation closed with D-Matrix, an American AI chipmaker.
Elsewhere
Adrian Nicholas Radu joined Khosla Ventures as a partner in the NYC office, after four years in a similar position with Lightspeed.
Elad Gil is reportedly raising $3 billion for a new fund.
Addition led a $30 million series A raised by CloudX, American startup building an AI-native advertising platform for mobile publishers.
a16z and Accel co-led a $68 million series B at $2.1B raised by Gamma, Americans building an AI platform for visual storytelling (deal includes 20M secondary) - they just passed $100M ARR.
Founders Fund and Ribbit Capital led, with Haun Ventures and Robinhood participating, a $68 million at a $1.5B valuation deal done by Lighter, an Ethereum-based DEX and Layer 2 network
Sequoia Capital led a $75 million series B equity deal raised by Neros, American startup manufacturing low-cost military drones.
Accel and Coatue led a $2.3 billion transaction at $29.3B post-money closed with Anysphere, the maker of coding assistant Cursor.
That’s all folks, have a wonderful week! To get this kind of intel in your inbox every week, sign up here or simply join Nordic9.
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