Funding Wrap of the Week | European Startups Funding Roundup | June 9 – June 14

The Top 10 European Startups Funding Roundup of This Week

Mistral

France-based challenger AI startup Mistral secures €600million in funding for its bid to rival industry leader OpenAI. Along with longtime backers Lightspeed, Andreessen Horowitz, Bpifrance, and BNP Paribas, General Catalyst led the round.

Mistral is a small, imaginative team with strict adherence to science. By revolutionary advances, they create transparent, effective, useful, and reliable AI models.

Parquest

Parquest, a leading independent French mid-market private equity firm, secures Parquest III (“the Fund”), with total limited partner commitments of €414M.

Parquest is a recognized player in private equity in France in the mid-market segment. Since its creation in 2002, it has invested and committed itself selectively as a true trusted partner to make entrepreneurial adventures prosper.

Highway power

Highview Power has secured the backing of the UK Infrastructure Bank and the energy industry leader Centrica with a £300 million investment for the first commercial-scale liquid air energy storage (LAES) plant in the UK.

Highview Power is the leading provider of long duration energy storage able to be deployed at grid-scale today. Its technology provides flexible, responsive, and dependable energy storage solutions that help reshape renewables for their always on world.

Black Semiconductor

Black Semiconductor, a pioneer in next-generation chip technology, raises €254.4 million in seed funding, one of the largest funding for a deep tech company manufacturing chips in Europe to date.

Black Semiconductor is a deep tech company introducing a new generation of chip technology by leveraging graphene technology to create powerful chip networks with unparalleled performance, connecting thousands of chips to allow them to interact as if they were one.

Vsquared

Vsquared Ventures, one of Europe’s leading early-stage deep tech funds, secures €214 million in funding . Oversubscribed at €214 million, Vsquared closes Vsquared II, surpassing the original €165 million target size. The fund solidifies the deep tech trend in Europe by being the biggest early-stage European fund to date.

Vsquared Ventures supports business owners who engineer the seemingly unattainable. They are early-stage investors in deep-tech businesses that are addressing the most important issues facing society, with a focus on artificial intelligence (AI/ML), robotics, renewable energy, artificial intelligence (Q&N), new space exploration, synthetic biology, and healthcare.

Cognigy

Cognigy, a global leader in AI-first customer service automation, secures €93 million in series C round funding. The round was led by Eurazeo Growth, with participation from existing investors Insight Partners, DTCP, DN Capital, and others. The new funding will accelerate Cognigy’s mission to deliver AI-first customer service at scale.

At Cognigy, they were leading the charge to transform the customer service sector by offering the most advanced AI workforce available. Their multi-award winning technology is made to enable companies to provide quick, personalised, multi-channel, instantaneous customer assistance across any language.

Italian Founders Fund

Italian Founders Fund (IFF), a first-ever Italian Venture Capital fund created by founders for founders, secures inaugural €50 million fund. Supported by a broad coalition of Italian businesspeople from many industries and generations, IFF is united by the objective of fostering digital innovation and extraordinary potential in Italy's future generations.

The Italian Founders Fund is Italy's first venture capital fund established by founders, for founders. They have united over 100 experienced entrepreneurs to build the premier founder-backed VC community, actively supporting Italy’s next generation of exceptional talent and digital innovation.

Echion Technologies

The world’s leading developer of niobium-based, fast-charging battery materials, Echion Technologies, secures £29million in series B round funding . The round was led by specialist battery and energy storage technology investor Volta Energy Technologies (Volta), with participation from existing investors CBMM, BGF, and Cambridge Enterprise Ventures.

Echion has devised, tested, and patented a niobium-based anode material, XNO®, which delivers lithium-ion battery performance highly suited for industrial, commercial, and high-value applications that demand the highest up-time, lowest total cost of ownership, and highest safety.

Moleculent

Moleculent AB, a company pioneering technology to study the communication between cells in human tissue, secures $26million in series A round funding. The round was led by ARCH Venture Partners (ARCH) and co-led by Eir Ventures with participation from the company’s existing investors.

Moleculent is on a mission to develop advanced technology-enabled products that leverage new insights into the molecular foundation of human biology. The company is developing the first functional profiling platform that allows scientists to map cell-cell communication directly in clinical tissue, providing insights to accelerate the functional understanding of biology.

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