7 Minutes
Overview: A renewed funding momentum in European tech
After the traditional summer slowdown, European funding activity is reviving — and the early signs from 2025 are bullish. While the era of record-breaking mega-rounds from 2021 hasn’t fully returned, the first half of 2025 still produced 12 new unicorns — private startups valued at $1 billion or more. That concentration of billion-dollar valuations highlights where investor appetite is strongest today: artificial intelligence, biotech, dual-use and defense tech, autonomous systems, and renewable energy.
Why this matters for the technology ecosystem
Unicorn formations are useful signal events: they show which product categories, technical capabilities, and go-to-market strategies are converting investor capital into high valuations. For founders, engineers, and corporate innovation leads, these raises point to market validation for technologies such as large language models and conversational AI, homomorphic encryption for data privacy, autonomous and dual-use drones, AI-driven drug discovery, and digital preventive health tools.
New European unicorns of 2025 — month by month
July 2025
Lovable
Lovable, a Swedish AI-first startup focused on “vibe coding” — a creative coding workflow powered by generative models — reached unicorn status in July after a $200 million Series A led by Accel at a $1.8 billion valuation. Remarkably, the company hit this milestone just eight months after launch. Corporate registration sits in Delaware (Lovable Labs Inc.), but the team and open roles are primarily based in Stockholm. Key product differentiators: rapid iteration loops, AI-assisted code generation tailored to creative outputs, and strong developer experience (DX) for rapid prototyping.
Fuse Energy
Fuse Energy, a UK renewable energy developer founded in 2022 by former Revolut executives, reportedly secured financing that valued the company above $1 billion. Fuse’s focus on utility-scale renewables and smart-grid integration underscores investor interest in climate tech startups that combine energy project development with fintech-style capital efficiency.
June 2025
Mubi
Indie streaming service Mubi raised $100 million in June in a round led by Sequoia Capital, earning a $1 billion valuation. Mubi’s product strategy mixes curated streaming with original production and distribution — a model that differentiates it from larger on-demand platforms through editorial curation, niche audience engagement, and a premium content pipeline.
Zama
French cryptography startup Zama raised $57 million in a Series B that pushed its valuation over $1 billion. Zama focuses on homomorphic encryption, enabling computation on encrypted data — a crucial technology for privacy-preserving AI, secure cloud computing, and compliance-sensitive enterprise workloads. Compared with traditional encryption, homomorphic approaches allow data science and ML workflows without exposing raw data.
Isar Aerospace
German launch provider Isar Aerospace became a unicorn by securing a €150 million convertible bond from Eldridge Industries. Spun out of the Technical University of Munich (TUM), Isar strengthens Europe’s small-to-medium orbital launch capacity. Market relevance: lower-cost, responsive launch services for satellite constellations and defense customers.
May 2025
Tekever
Portugal’s Tekever, a dual-use drone company, confirmed a valuation north of £1 billion after a funding round in May. Backed by institutional investors including Ventura Capital, Baillie Gifford and the NATO Innovation Fund, Tekever plans to invest £400 million into a five-year U.K. development program. Product strengths include rugged autonomous airframes, secure communication links, and defense-grade sensor payloads for maritime and land surveillance.
Quantum Systems
Also in May, German autonomous-drone specialist Quantum Systems raised a €160 million Series C to accelerate production, expand internationally, and advance autonomy, software, and AI features. The round, led by Balderton Capital, included strategic aerospace and defense investors such as Hensoldt and Airbus Defense and Space. Use cases span search-and-rescue, mapping, and defense ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance).
Parloa
Berlin-based Parloa, which builds a conversational AI platform for customer service, secured $120 million in Series C funding and reached a $1 billion valuation. Parloa competes with other contact-center AI vendors by emphasizing fast integration, modular conversational flows, and improved NLU/intent handling for enterprise customer support teams.
March 2025
Isomorphic Labs
Isomorphic Labs, a London spinout from DeepMind focused on AI-driven drug discovery, raised $600 million in its first external financing led by Thrive Capital, with participation from GV and Alphabet. While the valuation wasn’t disclosed, the round size places the company in unicorn territory. Product focus: structure-prediction-informed small-molecule discovery, accelerating preclinical hypotheses with generative models.
February 2025
Tines
Dublin’s Tines, which automates workflows using AI, became a unicorn after a $125 million Series C at a $1.125 billion valuation. Born in security orchestration, Tines’ workflow automation platform has broadened to infrastructure, engineering, and product teams — now executing over a billion automated actions per week. Competitive advantages include extensible connectors, low-code flow building, and strong observability for incident response.
January 2025
Verdiva Bio
London-based biotech Verdiva Bio raised a $410 million Series A less than a year after launch, instantly scaling it to unicorn status. The company’s pipeline includes an oral GLP-1 candidate, targeting metabolic disease markets dominated by injectable incumbents like Ozempic and Wegovy. Verdiva’s strategy mixes rapid clinical development with platform-enabled molecule optimization.
Neko Health
Neko Health, co-founded by Spotify’s Daniel Ek, closed a $260 million Series B at a $1.8 billion valuation. The company provides full-body health scans to enable early detection and preventive care. The funding will fuel international expansion (including U.S. locations) and R&D investments in diagnostic analytics and population health features.
Product features, comparisons and use cases
Across these unicorns, several recurring product themes emerge: AI-native product design (Isomorphic Labs, Lovable, Parloa), privacy-first computation (Zama), autonomous systems and edge AI (Quantum Systems, Tekever), and vertically focused healthtech and biotech (Verdiva Bio, Neko Health). Investors are favoring startups that can pair differentiated IP (e.g., homomorphic encryption, proprietary drug-discovery models, or flight-proven airframes) with clear go-to-market pathways in regulated or high-cost segments.
Comparatively, startups that combine hardware and software (drones, launch vehicles) can command strategic partnerships and defense contracts, while software-first AI companies scale faster and attract software valuations based on recurring revenue and usage metrics. Biotech unicorns require heavier capital but can unlock enormous addressable markets when clinical results validate efficacy.
Advantages and market relevance
For corporates and enterprise buyers, the rise of these European unicorns expands vendor choice across critical tech stacks: conversational AI for customer engagement, privacy-preserving encryption for regulated industries, autonomous drones for logistics and surveillance, and AI platforms that accelerate R&D in pharmaceuticals. For investors, the mix of strategic and financial backers demonstrates continued confidence in European deep tech and climate tech.
Conclusion: What to watch next
The list of 12 new unicorns through mid-2025 suggests Europe’s funding engine is warming up in targeted sectors. Watch for follow-on rounds, cross-border expansion (particularly into the U.S.), and commercialization milestones that convert these valuations into public or strategic exits. For founders, the playbook remains consistent: combine defensible technology, disciplined capital use, and enterprise-ready go-to-market execution to capture investor attention in this selective market.
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