Over $3bn raised this week...
Seb Johnson
May 18, 2026 • Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes
🌟 QUICK INTRO
Hello and welcome back.
What a week. Isomorphic Labs formally locked in its $2.1bn round, Recursive emerged from stealth with $650m, and UK robotics startup Humanoid signed one of the largest disclosed humanoid robot deals ever with Schaeffler.
Read on (and follow my new instagram page here)
Also - a bunch of founders have taken advantage of the 30-minute free consultation with Mishcon. If interested, check it out here.
🇪🇺 SCALING EUROPE
A few updates from me:
Job board is out and live here: https://scalingeurope.co.uk/jobs
My new Instagram is out and live here.
My event page for my first event is out and live here.
I sat down with Martin Mignot here.
💰 BIG ROUNDS
Isomorphic Labs raised a $2.1bn Series B from Thrive Capital, GV and Alphabet to scale its AI drug design engine and expand its pipeline of therapeutic programmes. Read more here.
German Helsing is closing in on a $1.2bn round backed by Lightspeed and Dragoneer that could value the company at nearly $18bn. Read more here.
UK-based Nscale secured €670m financing to expand its AI data centre project in Narvik, Norway. Read more here.
UK-based Recursive Superintelligence emerged from stealth with over $650m raised at a $4.65bn valuation to build AI systems that improve themselves. Read more here.
UK-based Fractile raised a $220m Series B to build next-generation inference hardware for frontier AI models. Read more here.
UK-based Paymentology secured a $175m investment to expand its issuer processing platform into credit, stablecoins, tokenisation and AI-driven financial services. Read more here.
UK-based Elliptic raised a $120m Series D at a $670m valuation to expand its crypto compliance platform for banks, exchanges and government agencies. Read more here.
Turkish Grand Games raised a $70m Series B to scale its hybrid casual games and expand internationally. Read more here.
German n8n received a €60m strategic investment from SAP, raising its valuation to $5.2bn. Read more here.
French UroMems secured $60m from Ajax Health to advance clinical trials of its automated urinary incontinence implant ahead of regulatory submissions in the US and Europe. Read more here.
UK-based Multiverse secured €60m at a €1.8bn valuation to expand its AI and tech upskilling platform across Europe. Read more here.
Embat raised a €30m Series B from Creandum and Cathay Innovation to expand across the UK and Ireland and further develop its treasury automation platform. Read more here.
UK-based Rowden secured £25m from the UK's National Wealth Fund to scale its defence and national resilience technology and open two new UK sites. Read more here.
UK-based Fifth Dimension raised a €22m Series A to scale its decision intelligence platform for institutional investors and asset managers. Read more here.
UK-based Adfin raised a €15.3m Series A backed by Index Ventures to help businesses automate revenue collection with AI. Read more here.
Italian Pillar raised a €12m Seed to expand its AI-powered operating system for construction operations and financial management. Read more here.
French White Circle raised an $11m Seed to help companies monitor, secure and improve AI systems in real time. Read more here.
💸 SMALLER BUT INTERESTING ROUNDS
The Future of Defence: innovation at the sharp end. By Toby McCrindle
Innovation in defence is accelerating, driven by advances in AI, autonomy, cyber capability, space and dual-use technologies. But for emerging businesses in this sector, the opportunity comes with a distinctive set of legal, regulatory and commercial challenges. Defence tech companies often need to navigate complex procurement routes, national security concerns, export controls, investment scrutiny and collaboration with government and international partners, all while trying to scale at pace.
Mishcon vantage point
We see three themes shaping the sector:
Defence innovation brings unusual complexity from day one. Start-ups and scale-ups in this space are often dealing with issues that most early-stage businesses would not face until much later, if at all; from security clearances and supply chain assurance to classified information, government contracting and foreign investment rules.
Dual-use technologies create both opportunity and risk. Many of the most interesting businesses are developing technologies with both civil and defence applications. That can open doors to wider markets, but it also raises difficult questions around regulation, responsible use, ownership of IP and the practicalities of working across public and private sector customers.
The legal framework is evolving alongside the technology. As the nature of warfare changes and the role of AI and autonomous systems grows, the legal and policy environment is shifting too. Businesses operating in this area need to understand not just the current rules, but where regulation, procurement and international norms may move next.
That is why we are running The Future of Defence: Expert Perspectives, our video series exploring the pivotal role of innovation in Defence Tech. In our first episode, we spoke to Tom McSorley, General Counsel at NATO DIANA, about the challenges faced by defence start-ups and NATO DIANA’s role in supporting them.
Watch the series here.
Get a 30-minute free consultation here.
📰 BIG NEWS
Recursive
A new AI company that has launched simultaneously in both London and San Francisco raised $650m at a $4.65bn valuation to:
"create AI that experiments on how to safely improve itself, turning compute into knowledge that accumulates in an open-ended process of endless, automated scientific discoveries."
The round was led by GV (Google Ventures), with backing from UK fund Twin Path Ventures.
One of the co-founders, Tim Rocktäschel, is a professor of AI at UCL, and was, very recently, a principal scientist at Google DeepMind.
Read more here.
📰 SMALLER NEWS
UK-based Graphcore received more than $450m from SoftBank to support its next phase after being acquired by the Japanese group in 2024. Read more here.
Charli xcx is now a shareholder in Nothing and is joining as their first Global Brand Ambassador.
Nscale raised $790m in debt financing for the development of an AI data centre in Norway. Read more here.
AI and robotics startup Humanoid signed an ‘phased deployment and supply agreement’ with Schaeffler to integrate humanoid robots directly into live manufacturing operations. Read more here.
Dutch defence company Destinus is reportedly seeking €200m in pre-IPO funding at a €5bn+ valuation, ahead of a potential Amsterdam listing. Read more here.
SAP also made a strategic investment into Parloa.
Dealroom numbers: the UK's share of European venture capital is at an all-time high of 48% YTD in 2026, well above the long-run average of ~35%. The driver: a run of AI mega-rounds (Isomorphic, Nscale, Wayve, Ineffable, Recursive, ElevenLabs).
The FT is calling King's Cross London's "Silicon Roundabout of AI." About three weeks later than X (as expected). Read it here.
💰 M&A
OpenAI has acquired Tomoro, a Scotland-based applied AI consultancy founded in 2023, to seed the OpenAI Deployment Company, a new majority-owned consultancy arm backed by more than $4bn from PE.
Australia's National Australia Bank acquired London-founded Banked to bring its account-to-account payments technology to more customers. Read more here.
MovitOn acquired Tallinn-based Glocalzone to expand peer-to-peer logistics through AI-powered courier matching and decentralised delivery infrastructure. Read more here.
💶 FUND NEWS
London-based Eighteen48 Partners announced a €175m first close for its private equity fund to back mid-market buyouts across Europe. Read more here.
London-based Lansdowne Partners held a €128.9m first close for a new VC fund to back UK companies emerging from university research. Read more here.
The UK government's £500m Sovereign AI fund appointed Suzanne Ashman (ex-LocalGlobe, who led the Motorway and Open Cosmos investments) as Managing Partner. Read more here.
London-based Lightrock closed $500m for its Accelerate7 fund to put $10m–$50m cheques into energy, mobility and enabling technologies across South & Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.
Arãya Ventures and Sie Ventures partnered to launch the Arãya Sie Fund with a £7.5m first close to back female founders in AI, deeptech, fintech, healthcare and sustainability.
Copenhagen-based BioInnovation Institute launched AI Lab with €7m from the Danish Industry Foundation to support early-stage AI startups in Denmark. Read more here.
🎪 EVENTS
Chargebee is hosting their third annual conference, Beelieve '26, on 4th June, 2026. This year's theme is The Next Frontier: Scaling AI-Era Business Models. The conference brings together operators building and scaling AI-era business models, with sessions covering pricing, monetization, and the GTM systems required to make them work. Register here for free using code SCALE
👷🏾♀️ JOBS OF THE WEEK
Over 3000 people have clicked to apply to jobs on my new job board, including for some fantastic jobs:
Wordsmith AI is hiring a Product Legal Engineer + remote AEs, a Product Engineer, and a GTM Legal Engineer
Exein is hiring a Principal Software Engineer & a Linux Security Engineer
Lawhive is hiring for a Product Engineer (US Growth) + head of Product Engineering, a Brand Lead and a role in the Founder's Office.
tem, l is hiring for a VP Communications + Senior ML engineers, a Product Marketing Manager, and a Senior Staff Engineer.
If you’ve got this far you should DEFINITELY subscribe to my daily newsletter here.
Thank you.
Seb