LIVE · THU, JUL 09, 2026 --:--:-- ET
Issue Nº 79 COST TOTAL $14738.41 ARTICLES TODAY 10 TOKENS TOTAL 9.40B
Podcast
aiexpert
Subscribe · $8/mo
Running the wire
Funding Kraken Technology becomes Europe's maritime defence unicorn—$175M Series B from NATO, defence investors Policy OpenAI publishes National Security Principles; expands Daybreak cyber access to 9 allied nations Chips Hugging Face transformers backend now reaches native vLLM speed on Qwen3 MoE, dense models Research NVIDIA releases Nemotron Post-Training v3 Prompt Atlas—10T tokens, synthetic personas for agentic AI Breaking Google AlloyDB ships proxy models for semantic queries—23,000x faster, 6,000x cheaper Market SK Hynix Debuts on Nasdaq With $1 Trillion Valuation; Raises $29B for U.S. Expansion Breaking HalluSquatting attack tricks AI agents into running malicious code via hallucinated repos; 85% success rate Funding Europe VC funding hits $24B in Q2 2026—strongest quarter in 4 years as UK leads Breaking SpaceXAI releases Grok 4.5; Musk claims Opus-class performance at half the cost Funding SambaNova raises $1B Series F at $11B valuation; JPMorgan deploys inference chips on-prem Market AI companies deploy $200m+ in 2026 midterms; Leading the Future + Public First Action back 40 candidates Market Gartner: AI servers hit 258 TWh by 2027, surpassing conventional hardware for first time Breaking Grok 4.5 launches at $2/$6 per million tokens, undercutting Opus 4.8 on cost and speed Chips Imec roadmap: 2.5D optical I/O cuts AI inference interconnect power from 1.25kW to <200W Breaking SpaceXAI releases Grok 4.5 at $2/$6 per MTok; claims parity with Opus 4.7, faster Breaking Grok 4.5 launches at $2/$6 per million tokens: SpaceXAI's economics play vs. Opus, not performance crown Funding Rapidus secures ¥267.6B ($1.7B) for 2nm mass production by 2027; Japan largest shareholder Market SK Hynix US IPO (SKHY) launches July 10; $28B raise 7x oversubscribed, AI memory demand drives 200%+ YTD gain Funding QuantumDiamonds closes €91M (€15M equity + €76M grants) for quantum chip-inspection tech Chips Micron breaks ground on $9.3B HBM fab in Japan; adds subsidized capacity for AI Funding Kraken Technology becomes Europe's maritime defence unicorn—$175M Series B from NATO, defence investors Policy OpenAI publishes National Security Principles; expands Daybreak cyber access to 9 allied nations Chips Hugging Face transformers backend now reaches native vLLM speed on Qwen3 MoE, dense models Research NVIDIA releases Nemotron Post-Training v3 Prompt Atlas—10T tokens, synthetic personas for agentic AI Breaking Google AlloyDB ships proxy models for semantic queries—23,000x faster, 6,000x cheaper Market SK Hynix Debuts on Nasdaq With $1 Trillion Valuation; Raises $29B for U.S. Expansion Breaking HalluSquatting attack tricks AI agents into running malicious code via hallucinated repos; 85% success rate Funding Europe VC funding hits $24B in Q2 2026—strongest quarter in 4 years as UK leads Breaking SpaceXAI releases Grok 4.5; Musk claims Opus-class performance at half the cost Funding SambaNova raises $1B Series F at $11B valuation; JPMorgan deploys inference chips on-prem Market AI companies deploy $200m+ in 2026 midterms; Leading the Future + Public First Action back 40 candidates Market Gartner: AI servers hit 258 TWh by 2027, surpassing conventional hardware for first time Breaking Grok 4.5 launches at $2/$6 per million tokens, undercutting Opus 4.8 on cost and speed Chips Imec roadmap: 2.5D optical I/O cuts AI inference interconnect power from 1.25kW to <200W Breaking SpaceXAI releases Grok 4.5 at $2/$6 per MTok; claims parity with Opus 4.7, faster Breaking Grok 4.5 launches at $2/$6 per million tokens: SpaceXAI's economics play vs. Opus, not performance crown Funding Rapidus secures ¥267.6B ($1.7B) for 2nm mass production by 2027; Japan largest shareholder Market SK Hynix US IPO (SKHY) launches July 10; $28B raise 7x oversubscribed, AI memory demand drives 200%+ YTD gain Funding QuantumDiamonds closes €91M (€15M equity + €76M grants) for quantum chip-inspection tech Chips Micron breaks ground on $9.3B HBM fab in Japan; adds subsidized capacity for AI
Funding

Europe VC funding hits $24B in Q2 2026—strongest quarter in 4 years as UK leads

Europe-based startups raised $24 billion in Q2 2026, up 33% quarter-over-quarter and 67% year-over-year from Q2 2025's $14.4 billion, marking the strongest quarter in four years according to Crunchbase data. H1 2026 funding totaled $42 billion, up 50% year-over-year, though still well below the 2021 H1 peak of $60 billion. By contrast, North America raised a record $392 billion in H1, up 158% YoY.

The UK claimed $10.4 billion in Q2 2026—just shy of its 2021 peak of $10.8 billion and the third-largest UK quarter on record. Germany raised $3.2 billion and France $2.4 billion. Within the four-company mega-round cohort (>$1B each), all were AI-focused: Isomorphic Labs (DeepMind spinout, drug discovery), Stegra (green steel), Neura Robotics (home/industrial robotics), and Ineffable Intelligence (AI lab, ex-DeepMind founders). Late-stage funding reached $12.1 billion, up 90% year-over-year, driven by rounds of $100M+, which accounted for 65% of all Q2 funding.

Europe's AI-company sector raised >$10 billion in Q2, the largest quarterly amount to date but slightly below Q1's >50% regional share. Sectors showing strength in large rounds include biotech, quantum, financial services, AI labs, aerospace, semiconductor, robotics, and energy. M&A activity rebounded with 154 venture-backed European companies acquired for $11.5 billion+ combined, including three $1B+ deals in biotech, industrial AI, and micromobility.

The region's steady climb since Q4 2024 signals sustained momentum, but architects watching capital flows should note the gap: Europe's H1 ($42B) is roughly 10% of North America's ($392B) and capital concentration in mega-rounds means mid-market founders face tighter availability. Deep tech and AI labs are the proven winners in the region's fundraising environment, but execution speed and unit economics now matter more than hype to secure follow-on capital.

Sources

Get the signal before the noise.