When FIRSTPICK backed Emilė Radytė in 2021, her company Samphire Neuroscience was still building its first product and the risk, by the fund’s own assessment, was high. There was no revenue, no clear route to market, and a proposition, a neurotechnolog…
Thomas Rettenwander was writing his doctoral thesis at Austria’s Montanuniversität Leoben when he first studied dragonfly wings in detail. Not for their beauty, but for their engineering. Dragonfly wings are a masterclass in structural minimalism: heav…
The town of Flintbek is not somewhere you would expect to find one of Europe’s more credible answers to Chinese battery dominance. It is a quiet commuter settlement south of Kiel, better known for light industry than deep tech. But tucked inside a clim…
Apple’s March announcements arrived the way Apple increasingly prefers to move now: not as a single theatrical keynote, but as a controlled release of pressure across the product line. The headline items, a $599 MacBook Neo, a $599 iPhone 17e, and a re…
Global consulting and technology services firm Accenture has agreed to acquire Ookla, the Seattle-based network intelligence company best known for Speedtest and Downdetector, in a deal valued at $1.2 billion in cash. The acquisition comes from Ziff Da…
Mutable Tactics, a UK-based defense-tech startup, just raised €1.8 million in a pre-seed fund round to develop an AI software that enables drone team collaboration for autonomous operation and decision-making when communications are lost or unreliable….
OpenAI has released GPT-5.3 Instant, the latest iteration of the fast, general-purpose model that powers everyday interactions in ChatGPT. Rather than introducing a new frontier model, the update focuses on refining the system that handles most routine…
Berlin- and Singapore-based venture platform GHARAGE Ventures has launched Fund I, a €40 million early-stage fund focused on technologies shaping the future of travel infrastructure and airport retail. The fund is anchored by Gebr. Heinemann, the Hambu…
Spanish launch company PLD Space, headquartered in Elche, has secured €180 million in Series C funding to accelerate production of its orbital rocket systems and expand global launch operations. The round includes strategic participation from Mitsubish…
Oxford-based autonomous vehicle software company Oxa has raised $103 million in the first close of its Series D round to expand deployment of its industrial self-driving platform. The round includes a $50 million commitment from the UK National Wealth …