A lot happening around AI and the UK today as we start the week. ElevenLabs added $100m in ARR in Q1 and is now pushing toward $1bn, while the UK is launching a £500m Sovereign AI Fund to back domestic scaleups. OpenAI is also opening a permanent London office, continuing its expansion in the region.Let’s dive in.
💰 Funding rounds
Danish startup Subra raised €40m in a Series A round led by Novo Holdings to scale its superconducting cable technology and acquired THEVA Dünnschichttechnik to vertically integrate production. Read more here.
Karlsruhe-based startup Nesto raised €11m in growth funding from Expedition Growth Capital to scale its AI workforce management platform for hospitality across Europe. Read more here.
London-based startup Round raised €5.1m in a Seed round led by Alstin Capital to build its AI-driven finance automation platform and launch agentic workflows and autonomous payroll. Read more here.
Warsaw-based startup Replenit raised €2.1m in a pre-Seed round co-led by Movens Capital and Vastpoint to build its AI decision engine for retail. Read more here.
Berlin-based startup Zell raised €500k in a Seed round co-led by P3 Ventures and SkyDeck Europe to automate sales management workflows with AI. Read more here.
Neuchâtel-based startup LightSeeds secured €162k from Venture Kick to scale its vertical solar panel technology for infrastructure and industrial use. Read more here.
💡 Other news
London-based GoCardless reported revenue growth to £155.5m in 2025 as it moves towards profitability, following a restructuring impacting around 90 roles. Read more here.
San Francisco-based OpenAI is opening its first permanent London office with capacity to more than double its local team, signalling continued expansion in the UK despite pausing its data centre plans. Read more here.
Accenture and Google Cloud launched a Sovereign Centre in Brussels to support secure AI and cloud adoption for Europe’s public sector and regulated industries. Read more here.
Anthropic is reportedly developing a “vibe-coding” product inside Claude to compete with Sweden’s Lovable, based on leaked feature previews. Read more here.
London-based ElevenLabs added $100m in ARR in Q1, now working with companies like Revolut, Klarna and Deutsche Telekom, as it targets $1bn ARR within the next 12–18 months. Read more here.
London-based ElevenLabs enabled a Neuralink patient with ALS to speak again using AI-generated voice matching their natural speech. Read more here.
📣 Fund news
London-based Eka Ventures closed a €91.5m Fund II to back UK startups across health, wellbeing and sustainability at pre-Seed and Seed stage. Read more here.
The UK government is launching a £500 million Sovereign AI Fund to support domestic AI scaleups with access to compute, procurement opportunities and early public-sector demand. Read more here.
🎧 Podcasts
The Scaling Europe Podcast featured Jon Coker, Founding Partner at Eka Ventures, on the firm’s £80m second fund. Listen here.
The Scaling Europe Podcast featured Jonathan Sanders, CEO at Light, on how Light is replacing fragmented finance tools with an AI-native system. Listen here
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