Europe got its FIRST EVER satellite into space from the continent....
Seb Johnson
September 07, 2026 • Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes
🌟 QUICK INTRO
Hello and welcome back.
Germany's Isar Aerospace became the first privately developed rocket to reach orbit from continental Europe, Nvidia confirmed its $12.93bn acquisition of Paris-based Hugging Face, and Fluidstack reportedly closed a $1.5bn round led by Jane Street at an $18bn valuation.
I’m going to be at a hackathon in Stockholm with Accel next week. If you’re interesting in taking part, sign up here.
Read on.
💰 BIG ROUNDS
London-based Nscale closed a $3bn debt facility to fund GPU data centre and AI infrastructure expansion across the US. Read more here.
Amsterdam-based Wonderful raised a $550m Series C at a $5bn valuation to scale enterprise AI agents across customer, employee and back-office workflows in more than 30 markets. Read more here.
UK-based FNZ raised $450m to expand its wealth management platform. Read more here.
UK-based Scan.com raised $220m ($90m Series C equity led by Noteus Partners plus $130m debt) to build the largest medical imaging network in the US ahead of a rumoured flotation. Read more here.
Elche-based PLD Space added €108m to its Series C, bringing the round to €288m to scale reusable rocket development. Read more here.
Stockholm-based Elekta secured a €100m EIB loan to advance cancer and neurological treatment research. Read more here.
Berlin-based Cloover secured a €100m financing facility to expand its AI-powered home electrification platform. Now profitable at a $350m revenue run rate. Read more here.
German HyImpulse Technologies raised over €50m Series A extension to develop commercial rockets using hybrid propulsion technology. Read more here.
London-based Conveo raised a $50m Series A to scale its AI-powered consumer intelligence platform. Read more here.
UK-based Reapit raised £20m to accelerate AI and consumer-tech development across its estate agency software platform. Read more here.
Hannover-based INLEAP Photonics raised a €20m Seed to develop laser-based drone defence systems for critical infrastructure. Timely, given the drone attack at Leipzig/Halle airport this week. Read more here.
Munich-based Atira raised a $17.5m Seed to automate industrial sales engineering for complex, built-to-order products. Read more here.
💰 SLIGHTLY SMALLER ROUNDS
UK-based AI Score raised a £4m Seed led by Fuel Ventures to give enterprise risk, legal and compliance teams real-time governance of generative and agentic AI. Read more here.
UK-based Pharosyn raised a £2m Seed led by Moonfire to build AI infrastructure for commercial decision-making inside pharma teams. Already used by a top-10 biopharma. Read more here.
Estonian Instarc raised €1.25m to scale its cloud-native compliance platform. Read more here.
🎙️ Podcast of the Week - Dominic Raab & Quddus P, Index Law
Dominic Raab, the former UK Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Secretary, has just joined IndexLaw as a founding advisor.
The Legal Tech helps businesses and individuals handle legal work, review contracts, and build legal strategies using artificial intelligence.
We chatted about the company, what's next and why Dominic got involved. Check it out on youtube here or spotify here.
World Wide Technology is a $20bn technology solutions provider, privately held, with a focus on AI. We have been an NVIDIA global partner for over a decade, we delivered the first AI-powered national data centre for a sovereign AI platform, and we helped build four of the world's top twenty supercomputers to serve multiple NeoClouds and Hyperscalers globally.
We help organisations get from use case identification to business outcome at scale, through AI Studio: a single secure platform combining strategic visioning, governance and practical guidance to accelerate AI adoption with measurable results. Top tier partner to the likes of NVIDIA, VAST, HPE, Supermicro, AMD and Intel, ensures WWT are genuinely vendor agnostic across a 200-plus partner ecosystem.
Now we are working to bridge the gap between the companies building AI in Europe and the infrastructure and enterprise demand waiting for them. Find out more at wwt.com
📰 BIG NEWS
Nvidia & Hugging Face
Nvidia formally confirmed its acquisition of Hugging Face for $12.93bn.
Hugging Face is the default hub for open-source AI models, datasets and inference infrastructure, used by millions of developers globally.
There has been a lot of discussion about whether the company is French or American due to its New York HQ.
Either way, it's a fantastic result for its very large French team and the French founders. it's also great validation for Station F, as it marks their largest exit to date
Isar
Munich-based Isar Aerospace launched its Spectrum rocket from Andøya Spaceport in northern Norway on 5 September and reached orbit, deploying five satellites.
It is the first time a privately developed rocket has reached orbit from continental Europe. Spectrum is a two-stage vehicle designed in-house, carrying up to 1,000kg to low Earth orbit. This was Isar's second attempt after months of delays from weather, technical issues and even a rogue boat in the launch zone.
A huge milestone for European sovereign launch capability, and a great moment for the Isar team.
Read more here.
📰 SMALLER NEWS
Matt Clifford, the architect of the UK's AI Opportunities Action Plan, joined Anthropic as Managing Director of International Affairs, leading its government work outside North America. He retains his chair role at ARIA and his role at Entrepreneurs First but will recuse himself from Anthropic-related matters at ARIA. Parliament's Science and Technology Committee has already written to the government demanding an explanation of how conflicts will be managed. Read more here.
Wayve and Uber launched their London autonomous ride service to the public, with 15 vehicles now bookable via the Uber app (still with safety supervisors on board). Early reviews are mixed. Read more here.
Revolut received conditional approval from the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to form Revolut Bank US, National Association, a real step towards its full US banking licence.
August European tech funding fell 63% as dealmaking slowed sharply during the traditional summer lull. Read more here.
Munich-based AIRMO is taking aim at methane leaks from space, offering satellite-based emissions monitoring for oil and gas operators. Nice on-theme space-plus-climate story. Read more here.
💰 M&A
London-based fitness gaming developer Quell was acquired by London-based HITAI to integrate camera-less motion recognition into its sports motion tracking platform. Read more here.
Spanish Factorial acquired Berlin-based AI startup Empion. Read more here.
Stockholm-based eComID acquired Nilum to expand into recommerce just weeks after closing its own €14.6m Seed round. Read more here.
Oslo-based Pistachio acquired Hugin.io to expand into cybersecurity compliance. Read more here.
💶 FUND NEWS
The UK's Sovereign AI Unit launched four £100m rapid procurement competitions, inviting British startups to bid for public-sector contracts of £250k to £10m across NHS productivity, AI compute efficiency, defence and agent security. Read more here.
London-based Uplift Ventures launched a €100m fund to back European deeptech startups. Read more here.
UK-based Zinc closed a €81.5m Science-for-Impact Fund backed by a €53.6m commitment from the British Business Bank, to support UK deeptech startups tackling health and environmental challenges. Read more here.
Berlin-based Auxxo closed Female Catalyst Fund II at €33.3m to back female-led startups across Europe. Read more here.
Former Ukraine defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov is planning a new defence-tech investment fund focused on battlefield robotics, interceptor drones and AI-powered missiles. Read more here.
🎪 EVENTS
Parloa has announced WAVE 2026: The AI + CX conference: October 7-8, 700+ enterprise AI and CX leaders in Berlin for hands-on workshops, a look at real-world AI roadmaps, and a peek into what's coming next. 30+ speakers, including leaders from HealthEquity, AUTO1, Langdock, and SAP, as well as world champion Bastian Schweinsteiger. Register now with code W26-ScalingEu-50 for 50% off here.
Tickets are available for Wave, the leading tech conference in Turin. Confirmed speakers include Dario Amodei, Jony Ive, Charlie Songhurst, and many more. Get 10% off using discount code SCALINGEUROPE-WAVE10 at checkout here.
THAT’S ALL
Thank you.
Seb