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Good morning and welcome to Sunday CET from a cold typical Swiss dawn that’s supposed to get to a sunny 10 Celsius at peak today. Are you guys in the Xmas mood yet? Got the tree and the gifts and everything else? 😀
We’ve got an absolute banger of an email today, with two materials you won’t find elsewhere on the internet:
an awesome interview with Kris Naudts, one of the founders of a newly launched VC firm focused on series A/B quantum startups.
a packed piece with brain pickings about next year from a bunch of people whose opinion I respect - and to which I am forever grateful for taking the time to answer on a short notice during the busiest period of the year.
Ended up with what you will find below - as always, hit reply reply with thoughts and comments!
Enjoy,
Dragos
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Market talk
We are doing an interview series for taking the pulse of the startup market through the eyes of the investors. This week - Kris Naudts - co-founder at Firgun Ventures, a London-based VC company that just raised $70 million for a debut fund targeting deals with Series A / B Quantum scale-ups.
Why does Firgun exist and what do you offer that founders cannot already find from generalist growth funds or corporate strategics?
We want to plug the funding gap for early-growth stage Quantum scaleups.
We focus exclusively on Quantum.
We are also building a unique, quantum industry knowledge graph tracking thousands of companies, founders, patents, talent flows, and funding events.
Why Series A/B specifically? Why not seed or later-stage?
Founders experience a funding crunch at this particular early-growth stage of their journey. The Series A-B valley is often the make-or-break stage for many of them to succeed in the market.
Why is now the right moment for a specialist growth-stage quantum fund? How does the maturity curve of the quantum ecosystem map onto Firgun’s own growth trajectory? And is your approach dogmatic or opportunistic as the ecosystem evolves?
Founders are looking for “informed” capital, as in investors who can credibly lead a round.
We believe we have the skills across the team and our advisors to do this, and Firgun will grow and evolve with the space as it evolves over the next 10 years.
We aim to be opportunistic and adaptable to the evolution the ecosystem itself undoubtedly will undergo.
Which areas of the quantum ecosystem remain structurally underfunded or underserved, and how is Firgun specifically positioning itself to fill these gaps?
The newer hardware modalities are somewhat underfunded or underserved, and so is sensing and comms.
How do you segment the market and think about portfolio construction in a field where technology roadmaps and capex differ radically between hardware, middleware, algorithms, applications, and hybrid approaches? Which verticals do you expect to commercialize first, and what evidence guides your view?
We aim to invest across Quantum Technologies (Computing, Sensing, Communications/Cryptography) and build a portfolio of 15-20 companies.
We expect quantum to commercialise first in life and material sciences, finance, and telco.
Who are the best-in-class quantum investors globally and in Europe? What are the biggest misconceptions about the quantum market among investors right now?
Best in class are the thematic quantum investors in our view. The single-biggest misconception about the quantum market among investors right now is that the Quantum revolution is more than 10 years out.
Beyond the QIA anchor, how is your LP base structured, and do any LP mandates or geopolitical considerations influence your deployment or exit strategy? In a sovereignty-sensitive sector like quantum, how do you manage potential conflicts or national-interest constraints between China, US, EU, Gulf states?
Our LP base consists of our anchor investor and a number of family offices, including Ilyas Khan’s, founder of Cambridge Quantum Computing/Quantinuum (a company we have been private investors in since 2016).
Our investment mandate is OECD, plus India and Singapore.
You emphasize ‘first, do no harm’ and ‘patient capital’ – what does that translate to in term-sheet terms, governance, or board behavior? Operationally, how do you help founders bridge the gap from lab-proven technology to real-world deployment, especially given long quantum sales cycles and variable customer readiness?
“First, do no harm” translates into a constant self-check of not doing harm as an investor, and being a caring and informed supporter, instead of an actual operator.
Of course, we aim to add value but we will have the self-awareness to know when we shouldn’t or couldn’t.
As to real-world deployment, we will actively help our portfolio companies secure industry partnerships through our own networks.
What are some interesting quantum startups you came across in Europe lately?
We like Universal Quantum in the UK, Commutator Studios in Germany.
What is your most contrarian belief about the future of quantum – something you think is true but the broader industry does not yet accept?
Unless specific steps are taken to mitigate that outcome, Quantum is an industrial revolution and will create a multi-speed world with nations that are haves and have-nots, and all the consequences one can imagine that to have.
You can read all the interviews here. Who else would you like us to do next? Hit reply with your favorits!
Signals
Interesting early stage deals
🇸🇪 Cybret AI (AI cybersecurity tool) - pre-seed
🇧🇪 Dockflow (logistics enablement platform) - pre-seed
🇮🇹 Generative Bionics (developer of humanoid robotics) - seed
🇩🇰 NobodyWho (inference engine for running LLMs locally) - pre-seed
🇬🇧 Sarah AI (AI agents for CPG) - pre-seed
More
investors on the move
November’s investors and their deals in Europe
We add more of those on Linkedin and keep a religious track of what’s interesting in Europe on Nordic9.
We also clean up slop for producing the best VC intel in Europe every week - gotta purchase a sub for the good stuff.
Predictions for 2026
Other than being mostly superficial, with heavy doses of Christmas vibes, NBA and movies catching up, on this part of the year I also try to reflect a little, looking back at what’s happened and building the mojo for what’s coming, seeking the right blend of optimism, opportunity and risk.
A few moments have felt as pivotal as the one we’re into now - mid-WW3, with Russia pushing it into its fifth year, macro and capital markets impacted by a new type of American and European political dance, AI becoming a mainstream thing that’s turning paradigms upside down and startups in the middle of it all, trying to squeeze into their trajectory both unprecedented pressure and unexpected tailwinds.
What’s coming next year though? If I knew exactly, I’d be rich and move to Dubai to avoid paying taxes. Just kidding, I don’t like living in the desert, point is no forecast is perfect, no matter how great your navigation gear is, you gotta go into it with an open mind - however, taking the temperature of people smarter than you is a sensible way to get the lay of the land.
And so, I asked a few astute observers from the European ecosystem about what they make of all these - below some of the things I found interesting.
In a nutshell:
Most of them are cautious-to-strong optimists.
The sentiment is that, in spite of the challenges, 2026 will see major company creation and renewed liquidity in Europe, riding the tech wave and defence boost.
We’re at the beginning of a major new cycle and most fertile moment in years for startups building - albeit volatile due to Europe’s fragile position, dependent on geopolitics and capital availability.
Traditional growth-at-any-cost narratives are effectively dead while durability and velocity are the definitive bars guiding the investors active in the buying market.
Tech is hot-hot-hot for building a fast growing business - local inference, neoprimes, programmable grids and consumer plays are some value drivers to keep an eye on.
Electrification, quantum and transportation are major verticals already producing substantive value, and trends worth further betting on
All in all, 2026 will be pivotal as AI industrializes, capital becomes more demanding, and both founders and ecosystems are forced to adapt to a faster, more physical, and more geopolitically shaped technological era.
Tech to watch out for:
10X reasoning models
local inference
tabular AI
hardware
cleantech
neoprimes
batteries
embodied AI
‘every category will come back!’
Would put to trash if they could:
9-9-6
‘AI-first’
slop (such a tease!)
IoT
I hope LinkedIn listicles with emojis for bullet points will die
the ultra ridiculous EU cookie law
Bullish on:
human connections
EU Inc
VCs as cringe content creators (!)
financial markets big bang
programmable grid
transportation
Spain
people leaving academia to build startups
1 trillion euro global tech champion from Europe
Wisdom:
Everyone is successful but no one is happy.
Staying off LinkedIn might be the best hack for 2026.
Never been a better time to build and a harder time to win
I take each day as it comes
There will be either a large markets correction or a crash
The chips-to-models-to-chips circle-jerk of AI platform financing is plain to see
Value is shifting from financial capital toward production capital
Don’t be an average SaaS company
Legacy industrials will become kingmakers
If they get it right, German family offices will be forced by Merz to invest more
If everything works out, we’re going to be closer together. If not, we’re going to experience some awful things.
Team attrition in VC funds is going to be a thing.
The kids in venture are going to be so confused that the world doesn’t begin and end with markups
Set a few minutes aside, make yourself comfortable and read everything from here.
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Also notable
European chipmakers need TSMC’s help to grow their own semiconductor supply chain, but the chip giant’s Taiwanese suppliers find Europe a tough place to do business.
Estonian startups in 2025: 1700 have a pulse, €5.1B revenues (in EE), +19% YoY growth, 17100 employees., 4.3% of 🇪🇪 GDP
Spanish tax oddities
the Brits convened 100 fast growth company founders over at Downing Street.
Opera launched an AI-powered browser, charges $20 a month for it.
Apple’s monopoly getting broken little by little - in the US, the Apple Tax is now officially dead for good.
Google will launch AI glasses next year.
Satya got his pay upgraded to $96.5 million - base 2.5M, rest is stock.
Trump considers eliminating taxes on gambling winnings and is pushing the SEC to make crypto accessible inside 401(k)s.
the Arabs with a big push to be on the map, have billionaires calling them the future of capitalism at a big-deal event in Abu Dhabi this week.
The EU hit Elon Musk’s Twitter with a $140 million fine for breaching the DSA, and as a result Musk started calling the EU folks names and asked, no less, for the EU dissolution - just like a 6 year kid would react when they’d been grounded. Funny thing is that Elon tweaked the timeline’s reach algo to show ‘a lot’ of his hatred against the EU (the reason he bought it, no?), message not surprisingly aligned to the official one of White House’s calling Europe’s trajectory a matter of American national security. Fwiw, there’s an ongoing deep rift between the US and EU, with Trump describing the continent as “decaying” and ruled by “weak” leaders. The EU counterparts are just mum about it.
That’s all folks, have a wonderful week!
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Created every Sunday by @drnovac of Nordic 9 with weekly notes and observations from the European startup ecosystem.
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