VC Angle Weekly Briefing #19: 16 New European Unicorns & Nvidia Bets Big on UK
VC Angle Weekly Update #19
Hey - welcome to the nineteenth edition of VC Angle Weekly Updates! As always, we're keeping tabs on what actually matters across 🇪🇺 European tech. If something broke the news this week and it's worth your time, it's probably below. Scroll on for the deals, roles, reads, and events you'll want on your radar.
In This Edition:
Revolut bets £3B on UK’s tech pull
Nvidia backs ElevenLabs at $6.6B valuation
European VC funding stuck at 40% of 2021
16 new unicorns in defense, space, and quantum
Is T3D2 outdated?
📰 What Happened This Week
Antler launches Berlin residency with €500K pre-seed funding for Day Zero founders
Venture capital firm Antler kicked off its Berlin residency offering up to €500K in pre-seed funding through its “Day Zero” investment approach—targeting founders at the earliest stages, from solo entrepreneurs seeking co-founders to teams with initial traction. The firm invests based on direct observation during 6-10 week residencies rather than pitch decks.
Venture capital firm Antler kicked off its Berlin residency offering up to €500K in pre-seed funding through its “Day Zero” investment approach—targeting founders at the earliest stages, from solo entrepreneurs seeking co-founders to teams with initial traction. The firm invests based on direct observation during 6-10 week residencies rather than pitch decks.
Antler ONE brings together ~100 hand-picked founders from across Continental Europe in Berlin
Backed over 500 European companies since 2021, including Lovable and ElevenLabs
Follow-on support reaches up to €30M per company through Series C
Partner Dr. Christoph Klink sees AI as a “technological mega-cycle” leveling the playing field for European founders against better-funded US competitors
Nvidia Makes Strategic Investment in UK AI Unicorn ElevenLabs as a part of £2bn investment push
Nvidia announced a strategic investment in UK-based AI audio startup ElevenLabs, marking the chip giant’s first investment in the London unicorn founded in 2022. The partnership goes beyond capital—Nvidia brings GPU expertise and long-term strategic support as ElevenLabs scales its text-to-speech and speech-to-text AI models.
The investment is part of Nvidia’s broader £2 billion commitment to UK AI startups announced during Trump’s state visit. ElevenLabs recently doubled its valuation to $6.6 billion through an employee share sale, up from $3.3 billion in January after a $180 million round. The company is backed by Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia. CEO Mati Staniszewski said the startup doesn’t need additional capital but is focused on securing strategic partners for the next decade.
Revolut opens £3B London headquarters with 1,000 new jobs as fintech rivals flee UK
Revolut celebrated its new Canary Wharf global headquarters with Chancellor Rachel Reeves, marking a £3 billion UK investment and 1,000 new jobs. The fintech giant now serves 65 million customers globally with 10,000+ employees—contrasting sharply with rivals like Klarna shifting operations to cheaper markets and startups relocating to Amsterdam or Dublin post-Brexit.
The timing delivers a needed confidence boost for Britain’s tech sector. After years of watching companies exit for regulatory ease and talent access, Revolut’s expansion shows London’s fintech ecosystem still has pull. Despite enduring a three-year wait for its UK banking license, Revolut’s centralized London bet could cement Britain’s position as Europe’s fintech capital, offering tangible proof the country remains attractive for building billion-dollar companies.
🔍 Reads & Reports
KPMG’s Q2 2025 Venture Pulse report shows European VC funding reached $14.6 billion across approximately 2,000 deals—relatively flat compared to recent quarters but down sharply from the 2021 peak of $38.6 billion. The data reveals a clear pattern: while funding amounts have stabilized after the 2022-2023 correction, deal count has been in steady decline since Q1 2021 when it hit 4,500 transactions.
Q2 2025 deal value: $14.6B (vs $38.6B peak in Q2 2021)
Deal count dropped from ~4,500 (Q1 2021) to ~2,000 (Q2 2025)
Funding levels have plateaued around $15-20B per quarter since early 2022
Pre-seed/seed, early VC, and later-stage funding all show declining activity
In other words; European VC has settled into a new normal at roughly 40% of peak 2021 levels.
Europe added 16 unicorns in 2025 spanning quantum computing (IQM), space tech (Isar Aerospace), defense (TEKEVER, Quantum Systems), pharmaceuticals (Verdiva Bio), and energy infrastructure (Fuse Energy) alongside expected AI/software entries.
The list shows geographic spread—Finland, Portugal, Sweden, Germany, UK, France, Netherlands—though whether this represents genuine ecosystem maturity or just VC capital finding deals in a slower funding environment is unclear. These sectors require longer development cycles and more capital to reach profitability than typical SaaS plays, which raises questions about exit timelines when public markets remain selective and strategic acquirers are cautious.
If you ask General Catalyst’s Hemant Taneja… Absolutely not.
OpenAI hit $12 billion in annual revenue within five years of launching ChatGPT, while Anthropic reached $200 million in 2024. Salesforce took ten years to reach $1 billion. The traditional T3D2 framework (triple-triple-double-double ARR growth to IPO) suddenly looks slow, according to some.
IPO expectations shifted from $100 million in trailing revenue growing 50% to $300 million growing 50%. Non-AI companies now face tougher fundraising because investors compare them to AI growth rates.
It’s too soon to tell if large contract sizes and fast growth are sustainable or just an experimental buying phase that leads to churn. For now, traditional startups get measured against a benchmark that may not hold. Question is: who will finance growth of the companies that have healthy revenue and growth numbers we considered quick only a few years ago?
💶 Where Funds Went (Or Will Go)
Startups
🇵🇱 sun.store raises €6M to grow Europe’s B2B solar marketplace
🇫🇷 Goodvest raises €12M Series B to expand sustainable investment offerings
🇫🇷 Holy Technologies raises €4.3M to build autonomous composites factory
🇧🇪 Belfort (KU Leuven spinoff) raises €5.5M ($6M) for encrypted-compute accelerator
🇫🇷 Navigator secures €4.6M (£4M) to scale post-cookie adtech platform
🇸🇪 Hedda raises €1.5M for AI-powered bid writing
🇩🇪 revel8 raises €5.7M seed (total €7M) to fight AI-driven cyberattacks
🇩🇪 Optimeleon raises €1.5M pre-seed for AI conversion optimisation
🇬🇧 Nscale raises €1.1B Series B to expand UK AI data centre infrastructure
🇬🇧 Vocca raises €5.1M ($5.5M) for voice AI in healthcare
🇬🇧 Trismik raises €2.6M (£2.2M) for AI evaluation platform
🇵🇱 BeeSpeaker raises €2M seed to expand AI-driven language learning
🇪🇸 Orbio raises €7.6M to scale AI-native HRtech platform
🇨🇭 Corintis raises €24M with Microsoft endorsement for chip cooling deeptech
🇬🇧 Light raises €30M Series A for finance tools for hypergrowth companies
🤝 M&A
🇩🇪 Arsipa acquires 🇩🇪 Bloom to deliver an end-to-end occupational safety platform
🇬🇧 UK’s Connect Earth snaps up 🇸🇪 Swedish ESG reporting platform Datia
🇩🇪 German SoftProject acquires 🇫🇷 French software firm Blueway
🇸🇪 Swedish Netigate buys 🇳🇱 Dutch feedback platform Mopinion
Investors
🇫🇷 Ventech closes €175M Fund VI — its largest to date
🇫🇷 C4 Ventures launches €100M Fund III for AI & deeptech
🇳🇱 DDF raises a €50M fund III
💼 Open Roles
Kameha Ventures → Analyst in Lisbon, Portugal. Apply here.
Korelya Capital → VC & Growth Equity Analyst in Paris, France. Apply here.
Project A → Investment Team Intern in Berlin, Germany. Apply here.
VU Venture Partners → VC Investor Accelerator in Berlin, Germany (Remote). Apply here.
Lakestar → Visiting Analyst Program in Berlin, Germany. Apply here.
Earlybird Venture Capital → Visiting Analyst in Berlin, Germany. Apply here.
👋 That’s a wrap for this week.
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