Synthesia, Maki, and Genesy

🚀 Welcome to another edition of the Who Got Funded newsletter.

Before jumping into our preferred topic of discussion, a couple of things from my side:

• EU Startups has decided to give the Who Got Funded community a 20% discount for its EU-Startup Summit happening in Malta on April 24–25. At the summit, there will be a pitch competition that may interest you if you’re an entrepreneur looking to raise funds. Applications for the pitch competition are open until January 31, and the discount code (WGH20) is valid until February 20.

Thank you EU Startups for sharing this discount with us! If you’re a brand interested in offering another discount to this community, you can reach out at [email protected].

• Besides, I'd like to take this opportunity to recommend Ignacio Arriaga’s newsletter, Disaaster.io (only in Spanish). If you’re a startup founder, especially in the SaaS space, you can’t miss it—he brings tremendous value week after week.

My name is Onofre — product manager by day, entrepreneur by night, based in Aarhus (Denmark). As you know, I spend 3–4 hours every week reading European startup funding stories and summarizing the most interesting ones in this newsletter.

As always, thank you so much for reading! 🫶 

Estimated reading time: ⌛️ 6 min.

(If you could share this newsletter with your friends, it would mean the 🌍️ to me)

SERIES B AND LATER
London-based Synthesia, a startup focused on enterprise AI-powered video communications, raises €174 million

🇬🇧 London-based Synthesia, a startup focused on enterprise AI-powered video communications, has closed a €174 million Series D funding round, bringing its valuation to €2 billion and its total capital raised to over €320 million.

This startup claims to have a very simple mission: “bring the magic of video to all communication”. To me, it basically means that they are helping individuals and organizations create high-quality videos without requiring advanced skills or specialized infrastructure.

Founded in 2017 by a team of AI researchers and entrepreneurs from UCL, Stanford, TUM, and Cambridge, Synthesia began as the “first” company offering AI avatars. Today, they offer much more—dubbing, screen recording, translation, collaboration, assisted creation, and so on.

The company already has over 60,000 customers worldwide, and 60% of Fortune 100 companies use the platform for their communications. Amazing numbers! 👏 

👉️ Read more about this deal here.

+ Series B (and later) funding stories:

🇩🇪 Metzingen-based NEURA Robotics, a startup looking to become a global leader in cognitive and humanoid robotics, raised €120 million.

🇩🇪 Berlin-based Nelly, a rising startup at the intersection of health and fintech, secured €50 million.

🇳🇱 Amsterdam-based Recharge, a fintech startup focused on online prepaid payments, secured €45 million in debt.

🇪🇸 Loiu-based H2SITE, a deep-tech innovator of hydrogen separation solutions, secured €36 million.

🇬🇧 London-based BeZero Carbon, a global carbon ratings agency, raised €31 million to expand coverage and invest in AI.

🇬🇧 Surrey-based NatureMetrics, a nature intelligence and biodiversity monitoring startup, secured €24.3 million.

SERIES A
Paris-based Maki, a startup focused on conversational AI agents for talent acquisition, raises €26 million

🇫🇷 Paris-based Maki, a startup developing conversational AI agents focused on talent acquisition, has successfully raised €26 million.

Founded in 2022, this startup has created a system that uses AI-driven skills tests, data, and analysis tools—delivered through bias-free conversational AI agents—to help recruiters focus on candidates’ real competencies. This approach eliminates the need for “archaic” CVs and enables faster candidate assessments.

Maki’s conversational AI agents have been rolled out in 50+ markets globally, reportedly delivering 80% automation of screening and interviewing processes, a 3x reduction in time-to-hire and a 20% reduction in turnover. That sounds impressive! 🙌

In 2024, Maki experienced over 300% growth, driven by large-scale contracts with enterprise companies such as H&M, BNP Paribas, PwC, Deloitte, FIFA, Abercrombie and Capgemini.

👉️ Read more about this deal here.

+ Series A funding stories:

🇫🇷 Paris-based Robeauté, a medtech startup developing neurosurgical microrobots, secured €27.2 million to advance its microbot tech, initiate human trials in 2026, and establish US operations for FDA approval.

🇳🇱 Amsterdam-based Workwize, a leading platform for global IT hardware asset management, closed €12.6 million to fast-track AI-driven automation integration.

🇬🇧 London-based Intelex Vision, specializing in AI-driven video analytics for real-time surveillance, closed €6.6 million.

SEED
Barcelona-based Genesy, a startup reshaping B2B sales processes through AI, raises €5 million

🇪🇸 Barcelona-based Genesy, an AI-driven startup dedicated to reshaping B2B sales processes, has successfully raised €5 million in a seed funding round.

Founded in 2023 with offices in Madrid and Barcelona, Genesy aims to be a leader in leveraging AI to streamline B2B sales operations. The company’s platform integrates advanced AI technologies to autonomously identify, qualify, and engage potential clients for businesses.

According to Genesy, this funding marks the “largest round in a Gen-AI native company led by a Spanish VC to date“.

The company was approaching €1 million in ARR by the end of last year and projects reaching €3 million ARR by the end of this year. We’ll follow them closely! 🚀 

👉️ Read more about this deal here.

+ Seed funding stories:

🇫🇷 Paris-based Hyperline, a monetisation platform focused on revenue management for SMEs, raised €9.7 million.

🇳🇱 Amsterdam-based Klearly, a fintech startup focused on in-person payment solutions, raised €6 million.

🇳🇱 Eindhoven-based PHOTON IP, a startup manufacturing advanced low-power optical chips, raised €4.75 million.

🇬🇧 London-based Oh completed a €4.4 million seed funding round to develop its platform of “digital twins” of influencers and online creators.

🇬🇧 London-based Lupa, an AI-native vet management platform, closed €3.8 million to expand and onboard more veterinary providers across the UK.

🇪🇸 Barcelona-based Brickken, a startup focused on the tokenisation of real-world assets (RWA), closed €2.4 million.

🇭🇷 Zagreb-based Hypefy, a provider of AI-driven influencer marketing software, secured €1.7 million.

🇬🇷 Thessaloniki-based Progressive Robotics, an innovative robotics startup, raised €1.5 million to make advanced robotic automation accessible to SMEs.

🇩🇪 Munich-based Audavis, an AI-driven auditing startup, secured over €1.1 million to enhance its flagship product, the “Artificial Auditor”.

🇳🇱 Amsterdam-based Engyon, an innovator in audit automation software, raised €1 million.