Category: Deep tech
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Vay secures €34M to bring remote-controlled cars to the streets of Europe
German “teledriving” startup Vay has secured €34mn from the European Investment Bank (EIB). In January, Vay launched a commercial remote-controlled car service in Las Vegas. Now it wants to roll out the technology on its home turf. In 2023, the company successfully conducted test drives without a safety driver on public roads in Hamburg. Vay…
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German startup OroraTech raises €25M to scale wildfire early warning system
Munich-based startup OroraTech has secured €25mn in funding to scale up its AI-powered wildfire detection system. Korys, the investment arm of the Colruyt’s — a Belgian noble family — led the funding round. The EU’s Circular Bioeconomy Fund (ECBF) also chipped in, alongside existing investor Bayern Kapital. OroraTech will use the fresh funding to fuel…
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Taiwan’s TSMC is planning more chip fabs in Europe
In what could be a big win for the EU’s chip industry, Taiwan’s National Science and Technology Council Minister, Wu Cheng-wen, says TSMC is planning to further expand operations in the bloc TSMC broke ground in August on a €10bn chip plant in Dresden, Germany — its first in Europe. The German government will provide…
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EU backs Dutch scaleup Lumicks to fast-track discovery of cancer treatments
Amsterdam-based scaleup Lumicks has secured €20mn from the European Investment Bank (EIB) to accelerate the discovery of immunotherapy drugs for cancer. The venture debt funding will help Lumicks further develop and market its cell avidity analyser, a machine with the potential to transform the way researchers study and develop treatments for Europe’s second most deadly…
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Google DeepMind duo win Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Google DeepMind scientists Demis Hassabis and John Jumper today won this year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The duo will share the prestigious prize — seen as the pinnacle of scientific achievement — with University of Washington professor David Bakker for his work on computational protein design. “This prize represents the promise of computational biology,” Jumper…
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Holiday homes platform launches ‘global first’ visual search engine
Danish startup Landfolk has launched a visual search engine for holiday homes. Named Daisy, the feature invites users to search for their dream destinations. They can enter endless prompts, from “a luxurious room overlooking the ocean” to “a cosy cabin in the mountains.” After ingesting a query, the feature spits back images linked to properties…
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OpenAI adds offices in Paris, Brussels to deep European footprint
OpenAI is opening new offices in Paris and Brussels as the ChatGPT maker accelerates its global expansion plans. The new sites increase the company’s European presence to four offices. They join London, which began OpenAI’s international expansion in 2023, and Dublin, which became the firm’s first EU base a few months later. Alongside the European…
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Stockholm startup Lovable raises $7.5M for AI coding assistant
Stockholm-based Lovable has raised $7.5mn in pre-seed funding for its newly-launched AI coding assistant that promises to make everyone a dev. Dubbed GPT Engineer, the AI coding tool generates production-ready code in real-time, without requiring developer experience. According to the startup, users need only chat with the assistant to build websites and web apps. “We want…
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AI startup Poolside raises $500M as AI coding market booms
AI startup Poolside has raised a whopping $500mn — and it still hasn’t even launched a product. Despite the barren release schedule, the company has become an investors’ darling. The new Series B round brings Poolside’s total funding to $626mn. Its valuation now stands at a cool $3bn. The cash magnet is a AI-powered coding….
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Dutch startup targets remote patient monitoring with its smart stethoscope
Amsterdam-based Lapsi Health is looking to firmly position itself in the rapidly-evolving market of smart medical devices. The startup announced yesterday the US launch of its first clinical support tool, a digital stethoscope, after receiving clearance from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) — the US regulator for medical devices. Dubbed Keikku, the digital stethoscope…
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Huma acquires eConsult to advance digital healthcare in the UK
London-based scaleup Huma announced today the expansion of its digital healthcare solutions with the acquisition of eConsult. This is one of the UK’s largest digital triage and consultation platforms across primary and emergency care. Founded in 2011, Huma works with healthcare providers and big pharma to improve clinical outcomes with digital solutions. Since its founding,…
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Chip that steers terahertz beams sets stage for ultrafast internet of the future
Imagine a future where internet connections are not only lightning-fast but also remarkably reliable, even in crowded spaces. This vision is rapidly approaching reality, thanks to new research on terahertz communications technologies. These innovations are set to transform wireless communication, particularly as communications technology advances toward the next generation of networks, 6G. I’m an engineer…
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AI translation unicorn DeepL launches New York tech hub to boost US expansion
DeepL, the Cologne-based AI translation unicorn, today launched its first tech hub in the US, in New York City. The move follows the company’s increasing growth and investment in the US market, where it already counts customers such as Coursera and Morningstar. DeepL opened its first US office, in Austin, Texas, earlier this year. The…
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Autoscriber teams up with Microsoft to scale ambient clinical intelligence software
Microsoft has partnered with medical note taking software startup Autoscriber to further scale the latter’s software across the EMEA region. The company’s speech-based AI tool frees up large chunks of doctors’ time and allows them to stay focused on their patients during consults. Based out of the Netherlands and South Africa, Autoscriber offers an ambient…
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AI will turn smartphones into ‘proactive assistants’
Arm wants to upgrade the brains inside our devices. The chip designer — whose architectures power 99% of smartphones — envisions AI bringing a new wave of breakthroughs to our handsets. The company outlined this plan after the release of Llama 3.2 — Meta’s first open-source models that processes both images and text. Arm said the models run…
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New UK startup raises $12M for personal AI agents with long-term memory
London-based Convergence has raised $12mn in pre-seed funding to further develop its personal AI agents, which can learn using long-term memory much like humans do. Behind the startup are machine learning engineers Marvin Purtorab (CEO) and Andy Toulis (CTO). The duo met at Shopify while working on recommender systems and AI assistants. In 2023, they…
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UK biotech startup raises $100M for next-gen vaccines for respiratory viruses
The vaccine market might be a crowded one, but London-based Vicebio aspires to cement its own place within it. The startup announced today it has raised $100mn in Series B funding for the development of its next-generation vaccines for respiratory viruses. Vicebio aims to deliver vaccines that are highly effective, easy to manufacture, and ready-to-use…
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AI doesn’t hallucinate — why attributing human traits to tech is users’ biggest pitfall
This year, Air Canada lost a lawsuit against a customer who was misled by an AI chatbot into purchasing full-price plane tickets, being assured they would later be refunded under the company’s bereavement policy. The airline tried to claim the bot was “responsible for its own actions.” This line of argumentation was rejected by the…