Europe’s tech sector continued at pace into the new year, with a little over 70 funding rounds racking up more than €2.3 billion this week alone. Along with the inflow of capital, the region saw many acquisition and strategic announcement activities, which indicate that the confidence towards the innovation economy in the area is on the rise.
Major funding rounds signal strong investor appetite
The biggest news in the week’s deals was perhaps the announcement of UK fintech Capital on Tap getting a £500 million funding package that helped the company deepen its foothold in the very competitive area of financial services for SMEs. Known as a provider of business credit cards and some spend-management tools, the company said that the money injection would be used to finance the tour of the company and new product launches.
Dutch online supermarket Picnic also managed to raise lots of money, closing a round worth 430 million euros as it speeds up its European footprint. With a dozen electric delivery vehicles and a logistics model pretty much built around efficiency, Picnic is still one of Europe’s most tightly watched scale-ups.
France’s move towards clean-energy received a major boost when solar manufacturer HoloSolis gathered €220 million for building what is planned to be one of the largest solar panel factories on the continent—an essential step in the direction of energy technology import reduction.
Flatpay, a Danish fintech firm, became Denmark’s latest unicorn after obtaining $170 million in a round of funding. It is now part of the long list of Nordic startups which have reached billion-dollar valuations.
Acquisitions reflect a maturing market
M&A moves remained the main driver of changes in Europe’s topic. UK fintech Curve disclosed its sale to Lloyds Banking Group, thereby creating one of the major exits in the British fintech sector this year.
Germany was a stage for two big moves: accounting software platform Integral in buying cleverlohn and space exploration startup The Exploration Company announcing the plan to get Thrustworks as it will help increase engineering capabilities.
In Northern Ireland, the compliance platform AuditComply was purchased by Canadian software company Nulogy, which is another move of international expansion into the European markets.
Venture capital firms ramp up sector-focused investment
A number of large funds also declared new pools of money. One of the most substantial specialist life-sciences vehicles to have emerged in Europe over the last years is the €650 million fund with which Paris-based Sofinnova Partners supported biopharma and medical technology research and innovation.
Medicxi, a European life-sciences investor, also launched its fifth fund with a size of half a billion euros, thus reaffirming biotech and therapeutics sectors’ momentum.
At the same time, to the growing interest in AI investment strategies, EQT elaborated how it is progressively using the technology to evaluate companies and to identify early-stage openings—a clear demonstration of how machine-assisted decision-making is transforming European venture capital environment.
On top of that, the Royal College of Art inaugurated its first investment fund focused on design and innovation and EIT Urban Mobility reported impressive results together with a new €44 million fund dedicated to future mobility solutions.
Policy shifts, events, and sector trends
The UK administration was the talk of the town when it revealed its multi-billion-pound scheme for AI, which besides other things will lead to the founding of a Sovereign AI Unit aimed at improving national capabilities and lessening dependence on foreign technologies.
Tech.eu Summit London 2026 organizers have got a good reason for the second wave of their speakers announcement—namely, to create the buzz for one of the major technology events in Europe.
In other places, French accounting platform Pennylane has started its German operations and as part of its expansion plans, it intends to hire 100 employees.
A recap of the major European quantum-tech deals in the first half of 2025 has revealed that investors are becoming more and more confident in quantum computing, sensing, and cryptography technologies.
Startups to watch
The early-stage ecosystem was still lively. Local UK biotech firm InvenireX was able to raise £2 million to take their disease-detection platform to the market and concurrently Italian Overlab got €450,000 to speed up digital innovation across European industries. Home affordability-platform Sencillo in the UK was able to raise over £350,000 to help families navigate education costs, and Germany’s Integral went ahead and obtained fresh capital to develop its AI-powered accounting and payroll solutions further.