Nebius, Aive, Lendurai, and Literal Labs

🚀 Welcome to the 14th edition of the Who Got Funded? newsletter in 2025.

I’m Onofre, an entrepreneur based in Aarhus, Denmark, and each week I spend 3–4 hours reading European startup funding stories and summarizing the most exciting ones for you - so you can save some of your very, very valuable time. Thank you for reading. 🫶 

Before we jump in, two quick things from my side:

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As always, it’s a pleasure to write this newsletter.✌️ 

Estimated reading time: ⌛️ 9 min.

SERIES B AND LATER
Amsterdam-based Nebius Group raises €1 billion to expand its full-stack AI infrastructure

🇳🇱 Amsterdam-based Nebius Group, a full-stack AI infrastructure company providing compute, storage, and managed services for AI/ML developers, has raised $1 billion in convertible notes.

Nebius is a technology company building full-stack infrastructure to support the explosive growth of the global AI industry, including large-scale GPU clusters, an AI-native cloud platform, and tools and services for developers. Enough said, right?

The group also runs three other businesses, each with its own distinct brand:

• Toloka AI: a data partner supporting every stage of AI development, from training to evaluation.

• Avride: a seasoned self-driving team building autonomous cars and delivery robots.

• TripleTen: a top edtech platform helping people reskill for careers in tech.

This company is up nearly 60% year-to-date, and I believe it’s one of the most exciting growth stories right now.

👉️ Read more.

More Series B (and later) funding stories:

🇩🇪 Munich-based Scalable Capital, a digital platform that helps everyday people invest money easily in stocks, ETFs, and more, has raised €155 million.

🇬🇧 London-based Mubi, an independent film streaming and production platform, has raised €87.7 million.

🇮🇪 Dublin-based Nomupay, a fintech startup offering a single platform to handle diverse payment methods and manage money flows across regions, has raised €35 million.

🇬🇧 London-based Treefera, an AI-powered data platform that gives companies clear, real-time insights into the very start of their supply chains, has raised €26.2 million.

🇫🇷 Paris-based Fabriq, a scale-up providing a simple platform that helps factory teams track daily targets, spot and fix issues fast, and improve teamwork, has raised €22 million.

🇫🇷 Paris-based Moments Lab, an AI video discovery startup that helps organizations quickly find and repurpose key moments in video content, has raised €21 million.

🇬🇧 Southampton-based AccelerComm, a startup providing 5G technology for satellite networks to enable mobile coverage from space, has raised €13.1 million.

🇪🇸 Madrid-based Payflow, a FinTech startup offering employees on-demand access to earned wages through a mobile app, has raised €10 million.

SERIES A
Paris-based Aive raises €12 million to automatically edit, personalize, and optimize videos with AI

🇫🇷 Paris-based Aive, a video post-production automation startup using AI to automatically edit, personalize, and optimize videos for different formats and channels, has raised €12 million.

“Thanks to the convergence of AI Analytics, AI Generative, and our genetic optimisation technology, Aive doesn’t just automate creation: it maximises performance. We’ve seen our customers achieve up to 2.5x more conversions and an average 30% reduction in cost of acquisition,” said Rudy Lellouche, co-founder of Aive.

As you can see, this startup isn’t just focused on automating video editing - it’s also aiming to create videos that perform well across different channels.

Launched commercially in early 2024, the startup already counts 40 international groups as customers and generates over €1 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR).

👉️ Read more.

More Series A funding stories:

🇬🇧 Edinburgh-based Wordsmith AI, a legal technology startup that builds AI-powered tools for corporate legal teams to streamline workflows and decisions, has raised €21.9 million.

🇬🇧 UK-based Skyral, an AI-driven digital twin startup that models and simulates complex systems for better decision-making in defense, healthcare, infrastructure, and more, has raised €17.5 million.

🇬🇧 London-based Labrys, a startup offering a secure platform to verify, coordinate, and pay globally dispersed teams, has raised €17.5 million.

🇬🇧 UK-based ThreatSpike, a cybersecurity platform offering 24/7 managed detection and response to simplify enterprise-grade security for mid-sized businesses, has raised €12.2 million.

🇩🇪 Berlin-based Baobab Insurance, an InsurTech startup offering cyber insurance and active risk prevention services, has raised €12 million.

🇨🇭 Zurich-based Jua, a startup using AI to simulate Earth conditions and help energy traders make better decisions, has raised €10 million.

🇪🇸 San Sebastian–based Semi Zabala, a specialist in gallium nitride power transistors for aerospace applications, has raised €8.5 million.

🇬🇧 UK-based AUAR, a construction tech company offering robotic micro-factories and AI-driven software to automate and scale timber home building, has raised €6 million.

🇬🇧 Liverpool-based OBT Live, an AI-powered customer engagement startup helping brands drive sales and loyalty through hyper-personalized real-time digital experiences, has raised €2.6 million.

SEED
Estonia-based Lendurai raises €5.6 million to build autonomous systems that aren’t reliant on GPS

🇪🇪 Estonia-based Lendurai, a defence-focused startup building autonomous navigation systems for drones that work even when GPS is jammed or unavailable, has raised €5.6 million.

It turns out that up to 70% of remotely controlled drones and UAVs fail in the field due to radio jamming. A very high number, indeed. And on top of that, remotely controlled systems come with significant overhead just to keep them running.

The solution? This startup is developing a proprietary autonomy stack that runs advanced AI fully on-board - delivering high-end autonomy in a compact, flexible, and resilient platform.

Manufactured in Estonia with European components and fully NDAA-compliant, Lendurai’s products are ready for procurement and deployment, including NATO operations, with availability for commercial use cases to follow.

👉️ Read more.

More Seed funding stories:

🇨🇭 Zurich-based Aeon, a preventive HealthTech startup using AI-driven full-body MRI, blood biomarkers, and genetic testing to detect and predict diseases early, has raised €8.2 million.

🇬🇧 London-based Latent Technology, a game tech startup using AI to power real-time, interactive animations, has raised €7 million.

🇩🇰 Copenhagen-based deepdots, an AI-driven platform that automatically collects and analyzes customer feedback from reviews, surveys, and support tickets in one place, has raised €5.5 million.

🇩🇪 Munich-based Atmen, a startup providing a platform that automates certification of product origins and ensures supply chain integrity for industrial manufacturers, has raised €5 million.

🇪🇸 Madrid-based Dedge Security, a cybersecurity startup providing tools to protect blockchain-based applications and digital assets, has raised €4 million.

🇫🇷 Paris-based Kumulus Water, a climate tech startup building machines that extract safe drinking water from the air for off-grid and water-scarce communities, has raised €3.1 million.

🇩🇪 Cologne-based Lumoview, a PropTech startup that captures and processes building data in just 2 seconds per room to help make renovations faster and more energy efficient, has raised €3 million.

🇵🇹 Porto-based PFx Biotech, a biotech startup using precision fermentation to create sustainable, allergy-free human milk proteins for infant and adult nutrition, has raised €2.5 million.

🇬🇧 UK-based Valla, a legal technology platform that helps workers gather evidence, create legal documents, and receive affordable expert support for employment disputes, has raised €2.4 million.

🇪🇸 Valencia-based Voltrac, a DeepTech startup building autonomous, electric tractors for agriculture and frontline logistics, has raised €2 million.

🇫🇮 Helsinki-based AIATELLA, a MedTech startup using AI to make cardiovascular imaging faster and more accurate for early detection and prevention of heart issues, has raised €2 million.

PRE-SEED
Newcastle-based Literal Labs raises €5.4 million to create faster and more efficient AI models

🇬🇧 Newcastle-based Literal Labs, a logic-based AI startup building faster, more energy-efficient, and highly explainable AI models to replace neural networks, has raised 5.4 million.

Founded in 2023 as a spin-off from Newcastle University, the startup builds custom AI models using one simple idea: clear, rule-based logic. By replacing the heavy math behind neural networks with straightforward logic rules, their models run up to 54× faster and consume 52× less energy.

If I’m understanding it correctly, this startup is combining good old-fashioned “if/else” logic with the power of AI. For use cases where GPU-heavy models are too costly or inefficient, their approach could help reduce expenses and improve efficiency.

I believe this startup is chasing a promising market opportunity. We’ll be following them!

👉️ Read more.

More Pre-Seed funding stories:

🇫🇷 Paris-based Pletor, an AI brand engine that enables marketers and designers to build custom AI agents for generating and optimizing marketing visuals at scale, has raised €2 million.

🇬🇧 London-based Kiin Bio, an AI-driven life sciences startup building a virtual scientist platform to streamline drug discovery, has raised €1.9 million.

🇸🇪 Stockholm-based Ivy Interactive, an AI-powered platform that helps developers quickly create internal tools like CRMs and CMSs, has raised €917k.