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Revolut has finally won a UK banking licence, intensifying the neobank threat to traditional finance. The breakthrough ends a painful wait for Europe’s most valuable fintech firm, which first applied for a licence in January 2021. Regulators were reportedly concerned about Revolut’s accounts, but politicians offered vocal support. Jeremy Hunt, the former chancellor, called the company a “shining example from our world-beating fintech sector.”...

A UK startup is installing electrostatic tyre-dust collecting machines on a fleet of EV delivery vans in London, as it looks to make a dent in the world’s second-largest source of microplastic pollution. When cars drive, friction between the tyre and the road surface causes tiny rubber particles to break off, where they disperse into the air, water, and even our bodies. Tyres contain...

After 12 years in business and several strategic pivots, British unicorn Improbable has achieved profitability for the first time. Improbable credited the milestone to yet another business shift. After numerous attempts to create virtual worlds, the company has reinvented itself as a venture builder. “Venture building has proven to be the optimal model for both Improbable and the metaverse, as experimenting with various use...

DeepL, the Cologne-based AI translation unicorn, has added Traditional Chinese to its language portfolio, strategically expanding its presence in Asian markets. Since its launch in 2017, DeepL has emerged as Europe’s Google Translate rival. But unlike Google, the startup is primarily focusing on business customers. “Translation is really important for businesses,” Jarek Kutylowski, founder and CEO of DeepL, told TNW in a previous interview....

 Welcome to the new episode of the TNW Podcast — the show where we discuss the latest developments in the European technology ecosystem and feature interviews with some of the most interesting people in the industry. In today’s episode, Linnea and Andrii talk about AI in healthcare, the future of European solar, Crowdstrike and Formula 1, astronomers detecting deepfakes, and much more. You’ll...

The UK hopes to produce water on the Moon with a space mirror that reflects solar rays onto lunar ice. The device is the brainchild of the British Interplanetary Society (BIS), the world’s oldest space advocacy organisation. Boffins at the BIS named the device “Ganymede’s Chalice,” after a mythical cup that turns mortals into Gods. On the moon, their elixir is frozen. They want...

It’s a common saying that the eyes are the windows to the soul. Now, researchers claim that they can also reveal deepfakes with the help of tools that study galaxies  — by looking at eyeballs.  According to the research by Adejumoke Owolabi, master’s student at the University of Hull in the UK, it’s all about how the light is reflected in the eyes. Working...

It’s a taunt that’s reiterated to the point of cliché: Europe is a good place to start a tech business, but a bad place to scale one up. The causes are contentious but their impact is undeniable. None of the 10 most valuable tech firms in the world are in Europe. The US, meanwhile, is home to eight of them. Inevitably, that builds dependencies...

In collaboration with LG, UK startup Urban-Air Port has unveiled the AirOne vertiport, which merges robotics with AI integrated systems — a world first, according to the company. Vertiports promise to facilitate advanced urban air mobility, intended for vehicles such as drones and electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft. Urban-Air Port first demostrated AirOne in 2022 in the UK. Now, the vertiport is...

Scientists have discovered oxygen-generating ‘battery rocks’ on the ocean floor that could challenge long-held beliefs about the origins of life on Earth — and make a strong case against deep-sea mining.  A team led by Professor Andrew Sweetman of the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS) made the discovery while on fieldwork in the Pacific Ocean. The researchers were scanning the seabed 4,000 metres...

A Cambridge University spin-out is developing a unfolding, heat-detecting telescope that could capture high resolution thermal images of Earth — at an affordable price. Currently, some large, expensive satellites in low-earth orbit can capture high-resolution images infrequently, while small, low-cost satellites capture frequent but low-resolution images. The startup, SuperSharp, wants to occupy the space in the middle.  SuperSharp credits these capabilities to its unfolding...

Despite taking several years to become fully popularised, Python continues to dominate the programming sphere thanks to its clean and relatable syntax, readability, and ease of learning for beginners. However, the most common complaint among users is that Python is slow. Slower than C++, slower than Java, and slower than C#. It’s also slower than Julia, a high-performing, relatively new kid on the block...

Growing up, Jari Hazelebach was a full-time interpreter. Both of his parents are deaf, and from a young age he helped them communicate in a world largely oblivious to the struggles of the 430 million people suffering from disabling hearing loss.    “While my parents could lip-read, their hearing disability made group conversations almost impossible,” Hazelebach told TNW. Even family Christmas gatherings were a struggle....

Britain has successfully fired a laser weapon from an army combat vehicle for the first time, the UK government announced today. During trials, the system “neutralised” targets at distances in excess of 1km, officials said. Matt Cork, programme lead of the government’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), called the test a “pivotal moment.” “This technology offers a precise, powerful, and cost effective means...

A team of students from the Technical University of Delft have made history by crossing the North Sea in a fully hydrogen-powered boat.   TU Delft’s Hydro Motion team set off from Breskens, Netherlands on July 11, with 160km of rough ocean ahead of them. Shortly into the trip, however, the vessel suffered a failure in its cooling pump and had to dock in Belgium...

Imagine walking through a bustling railway station. You’re in a hurry, weaving through the crowd, unaware that cameras are not just watching you but also recognising you. These days, our biometric data is valuable to businesses for security purposes, to enhance customer experience or to improve their own efficiency. Biometrics are unique physical or behavioural traits and are part of our everyday lives. Among these, facial...

Swiss app developer Proton has launched a new “privacy-first” AI email writing assistant that could be a more secure alternative to similar offerings from Google and Microsoft.  Proton Scribe, integrated in Proton Mail, allows users to compose emails with simple prompts. The large language model (LLM) can also proofread your drafts before they’re sent.  To use the feature, all you have to do is...

Cultivated meat is now approved for sale in Europe — but don’t break out the fine China just yet. The first dishes are exclusively reserved for pets. Our furry friends can now legally dine on cultivated chicken from Meatly, a startup based in London. The company announced on Monday that British regulators have rubber-stamped sales of the product. By providing the green-light, the UK has...

From your phone to your clothes or even the breakfast you ate this morning, there’s a high chance a boat transported it from where it was made to where you bought it from. The global shipping industry accounts for around 90% of world trade. Most of these goods are ferried by giant cargo ships that carry huge amounts of stuff. But, they’re slow and...

Samsung has snapped up UK startup Oxford Semantic Technologies, in a bid to “hyper-personalise” user experiences with AI. Founded in 2017, Oxford Semantic specialises in knowledge graphs, which integrate and analyse data. The technology powers countless applications, from voice assistants to search engines. Oxford Semantic baked knowledge graphs into a product called RDFox, which the company describes as an “AI reasoning engine.”  The system supports...

Danish startup Again has raised money… again. Google Ventures and Berlin-based HV Capital led the $43mn funding round, which brings the startup’s total to date to just shy of $100mn. Again takes waste CO₂ from industry, combines it with hydrogen and then feeds the concoction to a host of millennia-old bacteria. The little germs devour the brew, turning it into commercial-grade compounds like acetate....

While this year thus far has been less profitable for ASML, the tech giant saw orders for its chip making machines increase again over the past three months. According to the company’s earnings report for the second quarter of 2024, net bookings (i.e. orders) reached €5.6bn — rising over 24% year-on-year. A significant chunk consisted of orders for ASML’s EUV machines, which accounted for...

 Welcome to the new episode of the TNW Podcast — the show where we discuss the latest developments in the European technology ecosystem and feature interviews with some of the most interesting people in the industry. In today’s episode, Linnea and Andrii talk about the launch of Ariane 6 and its consequences, the woes of Firefly, robotic laundry folding, the math of swimming,...

Today, UK error-correction specialist Riverlane and startup Atlantic Quantum announced they have entered into a strategic partnership to scale fluxonium-based qubit architecture and advance the technology towards useful quantum computing.  It is a really encouraging time to be writing about quantum tech. Beyond the fact that it is increasingly being acknowledged as a strategically important technology by security agencies and governments globally, after decades...

Since its launch in 2017, DeepL has successfully rivalled machine translation giants such as Google Translate. Today, with the launch of its new large language model (LLM), the startup aims to raise industry standards even higher. In alignment with the unicorn’s technology development strategy, the new LLM is specifically built for translation and editing. According to DeepL, this fine-tuning to language is what enables...

Yandex founder Arkady Volozh is building a cloud service platform for developers to train artificial intelligence models. Named Nebius Group, the company says its aim is to become a European global leader in AI infrastructure.  The launch follows news from yesterday that Yandex had successfully sold its Russian assets in a $5.4bn deal, in what constitutes the largest corporate exit from the country since...

UK-based AI startups are now worth $256bn, according to new data from Dealroom and HSBC Innovation Banking. They also account for 22% of the country’s innovation ecosystem value — up from 12% in 2019. In the first half of 2024, startups in the field raised $2.1bn. And this amount is projected to more than double in the coming five months. This means they’re on...

UK-based Huma has launched today the Huma Cloud Platform, a “Shopify-like” tool for the healthcare ecosystem to design, build, and launch digital health services. “The digitalization of the healthcare ecosystem is a transformative force that is reshaping how we deliver and experience healthcare and how we conduct research,” Dan Vahdat, founder and CEO of Huma, told TNW. Founded in 2011, Huma has been working...

UK-based Naked Energy has raised £17mn in a Series B round to boost the global expansion of its solar tech solutions. Founded in 2009, Naked Energy set out to help decarbonise heat generation, which contributes over 40% of global CO2 emissions. The scaleup has developed a pair of modular solar collectors, called Virtu. It claims they are four times more efficient at offsetting emissions...

If there’s one area where AI can truly have an unprecedented positive impact, it is healthcare — especially when it comes to the diagnosis and treatment of currently incurable diseases such as dementia. The condition affects over 55 million people worldwide, with nearly 10 million new cases every year. Dementia’s most common type, Alzheimer, contributes to 60%-70% of all cases. Globally, the cost of...

French startup AdCreative.ai has launched a new large language model build exclusively for advertising. Named AdLLM Spark, the system was built to craft ad text with high conversion rates on every major advertising platform. AdCreative.ai said the LLM combines two unique features: instant text generation and accurate performance prediction. Working with Nvidia, the startup trained the model on real-life ad copy. The training data encompasses...

Innovation thrives at the intersection of academia and entrepreneurship. Universities serve as breeding grounds for startups poised to disrupt industries with their novel ideas and cutting-edge technologies.  Yet, the path from academic breakthroughs to commercial success is laden with challenges, particularly for DeepTech companies with extended development timelines and hefty capital requirements. Here, venture capital emerges as the indispensable catalyst. Venture funds play a...

Military AI startup Helsing has raised a whopping €450mn at a reported valuation of €5bn. The German company said the war chest will fund security for NATO’s Eastern Flank. Founded in 2021, Helsing has rapidly grown into one of Europe’s defence tech leaders. It’s now also among the continent’s most valuable AI startups. This rapid rise has coincided with increasing alarm about Russia’s threat to Europe....

UK-based startup Oxford Ionics today announced a significant achievement for its ion-trapped quantum processors, demonstrating over twice the performance of the previous world record — without using error correction.  While not providing exact numbers, Oxford Ionics says it used “10x less” qubits than its competitors, and set the performance record for both single-qubit and two-qubit gate operations. Furthermore, its chips can be manufactured in...

Whisper it, but startup funding is showing signs of a rebound. Venture capital investment in Europe has risen by 12% so far in 2024, according to Dealroom. By June, the financing for startups and scaleups had reached $29.3bn. If the current spending rate continues, this year will become the third-most active ever for VC funding in the continent. The leading industry for investment is...

PhotonDelta, a photonic chip accelerator in the Netherlands, has opened an office in Silicon Valley — marking a milestone moment for the Dutch semiconductor sector. The move is part of PhotonDelta’s goal to create a unified photonic chip industry that leverages the capabilities of both European and US-based companies. Founded in 2018, the organisation has built an integrated photonics ecosystem in the Netherlands, which...

US chipmaker AMD has agreed a $665mn (€614mn) deal to buy Finnish startup Silo AI, one of Europe’s leading artificial intelligence firms. AMD announced the all-cash transaction on Wednesday. The Californian company described the acquisition as “a significant step” towards delivering end-to-end AI solutions. It will also give AMD new tools to compete with Nvidia’s high-performance chips. Silo describes itself as “Europe’s largest private AI...

 Welcome to the new episode of the TNW Podcast — the show where we discuss the latest developments in the European technology ecosystem and feature interviews with some of the most interesting people in the industry. In today’s episode, Andrii talks about fusion energy in Europe, ‘the war on floppy disks’, and more. The guest of the show is Daniel Keiper-Knorr, general partner at...

Amid increasing interest in Iceland’s tech ecosystem, Reykjavik-based Frumtak Ventures has closed a $87M fund aimed at local startups. This is the venture capital firm’s fourth fund, following a $57mn predecessor in 2021. While sector-agnostic, Frumtak Ventures has so far mostly invested in B2B SaaS startups at the seed or Series A stage. The new fund will focus on the intersection of AI, software,...

Air taxis have been cleared for takeoff during the Paris Olympics — and President Macron has been offered a seat on the first flight. German startup Volocopter will deliver the flying taxis. A barge on the River Seine will provide a tiny airport for the vehicles. The French government confirmed the plans on Tuesday. In an official degree, public officials named the terminal the...

Finally, Europe has regained independent access to space. The continent reestablished a sovereign launch capacity on Tuesday with the maiden flight of the Ariane 6 rocket. However, the mission didn’t go entirely to plan. Built to take satellites into orbit, Ariane 6 lifted off from the European Spaceport in French Guiana at 16:00 local time (21:00 CEST). The rocket then soared into the cosmos...

In a collab between big tech and telcos, Meta and Vodafone today announced the roll-out of network optimisation across 11 different markets in Europe to free up capacity and boost video quality.  It is no secret that video content has exploded on the internet over the past couple of years. And it’s not just your ice-bathing guys or gals pushing the latest longevity schtick...

Belgian startup Textgrain is building the world’s first AI model that will be capable of detecting hate speech online in all 24 official EU languages. Founded in 2016, Textgrain is a spinoff from the University of Antwerp. The company develops AI-based data management and analysis tools for enterprises, with services ranging from text analytics to measuring online sentiment on social media platforms and websites....

TNW Conference 2024 showed us plenty of pathways the future of tech may take. As I mull over this year’s event, there are several lessons that stand out for Europe’s tech community while it seeks to navigate current challenges and opportunities. Tech growth in Europe We live in unprecedented times, to use one of the holdover clichés from the COVID era. The world is...

To protect critical underwater infrastructure from potential attacks or natural disasters, NATO is backing a project that aims to reroute internet from subsea cables to satellites in space. The Alliance will reportedly support the project with a grant of €400mn through its Science for Peace and Security Programme (SPS). While the initiative hasn’t been publicly announced yet, Eyup Kuntay Turmus — adviser and programme...

German quantum computing startup planqc yesterday announced a Series A raise of €50mn. A mere 18 months after its founding, the startup has already scaled its digital atom-based technology to over 1,000 qubits — something that puts it on par with industry giant IBM. The company is a spinout from the Max Planck Institute, and its technology was built at the Institute’s Quantum Optics...

In Formula One, races are often won by slimmer margins than the naked eye can see. A tiny twist of a steering wheel, a twitchy step on a pedal, a fleeting lapse of concentration: any moment can determine success or failure. Frequently, these moments arrive when the car comes to a halt. When a driver hears the “box, box” call on their radio, they exit...

When it comes to programming languages, it’s often the newest that garner the most attention. But according to Ted Kremenek, Apple director of languages and runtimes, programmers should be shaking off programming stalwart C++ in favour of Swift. “Swift’s safety, speed, and approachability, combined with built-in C and C++ interoperability, mean Swift is the best choice to succeed C++,” Kremenek said. 3 developer jobs...

Dutch venture capital fund manager LUMO Labs is launching a new €100mn fund for Europe’s impact-driven tech startups. Building on LUMO Lab’s existing investment strategy, the new Rise Fund will target startups that develop emerging technologies which align with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The technologies include AI, blockchain, IoT, VR, and AR. Their application needs to serve LUMO Labs’s focus areas of...

Europe is set to regain independent access to space tomorrow, July 9, when the long-awaited Ariane 6 rocket lifts off for the first time. The heavy-lift satellite launcher — commissioned by the European Space Agency (ESA) and made by ArianeGroup — was supposed to replace its predecessor, Ariane 5, right after its retirement a year ago. But a series of delays in developing Ariane...