25 EURO STARTUPS TO WATCH By Yazhou Sun, Mark Bergen and Amy Thomson June 9, 2025 at 1:00 AM EDT

Bloomberg

2 hours ago

These are the innovative European companies breaking new ground in tech this year.
By Yazhou Sun, Mark Bergen and Amy Thomson
Illustrations by Ori Toor
June 9, 2025 at 01:00 AM EDT
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Bloomberg and Founders Forum have combined forces this year to highlight the European companies and founders aiming to have an impact on a global scale.
We tapped influential names in European tech — hailing from venture capital, university foundries and the C-suite of some of the biggest startups — to help us create a list of nominees.
We want to put a spotlight on the inventors and the builders, making bold bets when many companies are hunkering down, trying to make sense of a new world order. US tariffs and increasing hostility toward Europe's regulatory regime have shaken markets and investor confidence. Still, venture capital deals are on track to gain for the first time since 2021, according to first-quarter data from Pitchbook.
Our list highlights both household names and companies that are just emerging, breaking ground in fields including generative AI, space, autonomous vehicles and video games. Bloomberg's editorial team chose the top 25 with an eye on companies that could fundamentally change their industries and the way we move through the world.
Amber Therapeutics
Country
UK
Founders
Aidan Crawley, Tim Denison, Stefan De Wachter and Charles Knowles
Year Founded
2021
Business
Nerve Center
This medical technology group, founded in 2021, makes devices to help treat nervous system diseases. The UK-based company relies on so-called neuromodulation therapy. Its Picostim system acts directly on nerves to sense and alter the body's responses. Its first breakthrough has been in treating mixed urinary incontinence in women — a complex condition that doesn't have a singular treatment — using electrodes implanted near a key pelvic nerve. The Oxford University spinoff raised $100 million last year as it works toward US Food and Drug Administration approval of its device.
Cradle
Country
Netherlands/Switzerland
Founders
Stef van Grieken, Eli Bixby, Elise de Reus, Harmen van Rossum and Jelle Prins
Year Founded
2021
Business
Cell Factories
The ability to engineer specialized proteins is important for developing new vaccines and other medical treatments, sustainable materials and lab-grown foods. But it's historically been expensive and error-prone. Cradle has built a platform that enables scientists to use generative AI to create proteins with desired functions beyond those that exist in nature — faster and more cost effectively. The company was founded in 2021 and counts Johnson & Johnson and Novo Nordisk as customers. In November the startup raised $73 million in a round led by IVP, to expand its wet lab and scale up the platform to target more therapeutic and diagnostic companies.
DeepL
Country
Germany
Founders
Jaroslaw Kutylowski
Year Founded
2017
Business
Machine Translation
Last valued at $2 billion, this German AI translation startup keeps pace with far-better-resourced rivals such as Google, Microsoft and OpenAI. The Cologne-based company is squarely focused on machine translation, with an efficient model tailor-made for the purpose, and claims to be more accurate than its rivals. It sells a paid version of its service to tens of thousands of businesses, including law firms and consulting companies. In November it launched a voice-to-text service, which automatically translates conversations in about 30 languages — in person or online — in real time. Users of DeepL's mobile app can put their device in the middle of the table and it will display subtitles in two languages. Such subtitles can also appear on video calls.
Dream Games
Country
Turkey
Founders
Soner Aydemir Ikbal Namli, Hakan Sağlam, Eren Şengül and Serdar Yilmaz
Year Founded
2019
Business
Bigger Than Candy Crush
As Istanbul emerges as a top global hub for mobile gaming, Dream Games has become local royalty. The studio, formed in 2019, designed Royal Match, the tile-matching mobile app that has overtaken Candy Crush to become the world's top puzzle game by revenue.
CEO Soner Aydemir previously worked for Peak, a Turkish games developer acquired by Zynga. In May, Dream Games announced an investment that will make private equity firm CVC Capital Partners its sole equity partner. The $2.5 billion debt and equity deal values the company at $5 billion.
Einride
Country
Sweden
Founders
Robert Falck, Filip Lilja and Linnéa Kornehed Falck
Year Founded
2016
Business
Keeps on Truckin'
The company's futuristic white electric trucks are among the first autonomous freight carriers to be approved for use on public roads. Einride uses AI to chart the most efficient route for its trucks, which can drive around the clock, overseen by a remote (human) operator. The trucks even load and unload autonomously. inride made its first autonomous delivery — moving goods for GE Appliances from a factory to a warehouse in Tennessee — in 2023. Last year the company announced agreements with Dubai-based DP World to electrify its fleet for shipping between terminals at Jebel Ali Port, and it also has deals with PepsiCo, Lidl and Mars.
ElevenLabs
Country
UK/US
Founders
Piotr Dabkowski and Mati Staniszewski
Year Founded
2022
Business
Who Said That?
Anyone who's ever sat through a badly dubbed movie — a population that includes pretty much every European — understands the business case for ElevenLabs. It uses AI voice cloning to produce highly realistic audio — with emotion, depth and convincing accents — in dozens of languages. In addition to dubbing films, its software is used to create virtual customer service agents and to produce audiobooks and podcasts. ElevenLabs raised $180 million in January, tripling its valuation to $3.3 billion. However, it's success isn't blemish-free. The company has said its technology has been used by some 'for malicious purposes.' The kind of tools it offers have helped fuel the rise of deepfakes, which are increasingly used in scams and political disinformation efforts.
Exotec
Country
France
Founders
Romain Moulin and Renaud Heitz
Year Founded
2015
Business
Warehouse Robots
A facility using Exotec's modular, robotic warehouse system looks a lot like the inside of a beehive. The company fills a warehouse from floor to ceiling with specialized, customizable racks that its Skypod robots climb through to store and collect crates. The system can deliver parcels to workers to fill orders and sort packages and allows warehouse managers to monitor performance. The French company offers specialized, temperature-controlled storage for groceries and medicines, and its customers include Gap, Uniqlo and Carrefour. It raised $335 million in 2022, giving it a $2 billion valuation in a round led by Goldman Sachs.
Helsing
Country
Germany
Founders
Torsten Reil, Niklas Köhler and Gundbert Scherf
Year Founded
2021
Business
AI Defense
Europe's most valuable defense-tech startup began by building artificial intelligence software for drones and fighter jets. Now it's making weapons of its own, developing an attack drone, called HX-2, that can carry ammunition and navigate autonomously. In February the company announced plans to deliver 6,000 of these AI-enabled drones to Ukraine. With close ties to the German military, the Munich-based company is well positioned to benefit from a European defense spending spree as the US reduces military aid. The company was last valued at €5 billion ($5.6 billion), after raising €450 million in a venture capital funding round led by General Catalyst in July.
Isar Aerospace
Country
Germany
Founders
Daniel Metzler, Josef Fleischmann and Markus Brandl
Year Founded
2018
Business
Europe's Answer to SpaceX
Just as European consumers are turning away from Elon Musk's Tesla, the European Union dreams of a day when it won't be dependent on the tycoon's SpaceX. Enter Isar Aerospace, the German rocket startup that's seeking to break Europe's reliance on the US for private satellite launches. In March it held the first liftoff of an orbital rocket from continental Europe outside of Russia. Some 30 seconds later, the rocket crashed. Even so, the launch was hailed as a success, and Isar is moving full steam ahead. Last year, it raised €220 million in a funding round that included a commitment from the NATO Innovation Fund.
Lovable
Country
Sweden
Founders
Anton Osika and Fabian Hedin
Year Founded
2023
Business
Vibe Coding
Remember when coding academies were all the rage? How quaint. Thanks to companies like Lovable, we now know that basic coding is one of the things that AI excels at. Lovable is near the head of the pack when it comes to vibe coding, which helps users with no programming experience build apps and websites. Its platform operates on a chat-based interface that lets you give commands in plain English. While AI isn't going to replace enterprise-grade software overnight, it's already disrupting the startup scene. Lovable co-founder Anton Osika says half of his users are entrepreneurs building their own companies. In February, Lovable raised $15 million in a round with backing from Meta board member Charlie Songhurst.
Mistral AI
Country
France
Founders
Arthur Mensch, Guillaume Lample and Timothée Lacroix
Year Founded
2023
Business
Europe's AI Answer
It's the only European company that can credibly claim to be in the conversation with the US and Chinese heavyweights when it comes to large language models. Mistral's open-source models have a less-is-more approach: They use fewer parameters than ones made by OpenAI and Anthropic in a bid to be faster and more energy efficient. Last year Mistral raised €600 million at a €5.8 billion valuation, establishing it as one of Europe's most valuable startups and the continent's best hope for an AI champion. However, that pales in comparison to the sums that US rivals have brought in, and Mistral has begun adding closed-source models, tailored for businesses, in a bid to get more commercial traction.
Monumental
Country
The Netherlands
Founders
Salar al Khafaji and Sebastiaan Visser
Year Founded
2021
Business
Another Brick in the Wall
While 3D-printed houses are all the rage, the Dutch startup Monumental wants to revolutionize the building industry brick by brick. It has designed brick-laying robots that are small and agile enough to fit anywhere a human can. That means they don't rely on greenfield developments and can build affordable, scalable construction projects in cities, where new buildings are needed most. After starting with a 15-meter facade for an office and warehouse in 2023, its robots have worked on several projects, including social housing. Monumental raised $25 million last year to roll out more AI-powered robots across Europe and train them to use more varied construction materials.
Neko Health
Country
Sweden
Founders
Hjalmar Nilsonne and Daniel Ek
Year Founded
2018
Business
Body Scanners
At Neko, co-founded by Spotify CEO Daniel Ek, body-scanning technology is at the forefront of a movement seeking to revolutionize medicine by shifting the focus from treatment to monitoring and early interventions. Its array of sensors uses AI-powered analysis to check for skin conditions, cardiovascular troubles and other issues in less than an hour. For now, the scans are available at clinics in Stockholm and London and cost up to £299 ($397)a pop. Some experts worry that scanning healthy people could lead to overdiagnosis or unnecessary treatments. While Neko's effectiveness hasn't been confirmed by peer-reviewed studies yet, its spa-like approach to health care has led to long waiting lists and a $1.8 billion valuation.
Nothing
Country
UK
Founders
Carl Pei
Year Founded
2020
Business
Affordable, Funky Phone
You can tell a Nothing phone from any other on the market by the LED lights on the back, which provide visual cues for notifications and calls. While some might call the feature a gimmick, the UK-based phone manufacturer has managed to produce midrange phones with enviable cameras for £400 to £700 as well as earbuds and accessories. The London-based company's founder, Carl Pei, previously co-founded Chinese smartphone maker OnePlus. Nothing is backed by investors including Highland Europe, EQT Ventures, Google Ventures and iPhone co-inventor Tony Fadell.
Ochre Bio
Country
UK
Founders
Quin Wills and Jack O'Meara
Year Founded
2019
Business
Curing Liver Disease with Data
Ochre Bio is one of several new companies using the latest artificial intelligence technology to develop drugs more quickly. But the Oxford-based startup is focused squarely on chronic liver disease, testing RNA therapies for the deadly illness with limited treatments. Ochre Bio signed a deal worth up to $1 billion with drugmaker Boehringer Ingelheim last year, followed by a licensing partnership with GSK. The startup has opened labs in New York and Taipei, but it's competing in AI drug development with larger biotech firms and newcomers such as Isomorphic Labs, the spinoff from Google DeepMind. In 2024, Ochre Bio's co-founder Jack O'Meara stepped down as CEO, replaced in the interim by its executive chair, the veteran pharmaceutical executive Eliot Forster.
Orbital Materials
Country
UK
Founders
Jonathan Godwin, Daniel Miodovnik and James Gin-Pollock
Year Founded
2022
Business
AI for Advanced Materials
Orbital Materials' AI helps uncover novel, advanced materials. The program can design a new material from scratch after it's prompted with desired properties, using a proprietary dataset. The company has recently focused its attention on improving the efficiency of data centers. These server farms are essential for the development of AI, but are extremely power hungry and generate a lot of waste heat. Finding materials to cool them more effectively and capture carbon can allow the field of AI, and Orbital Materials' business, to advance more quickly. The British company has a partnership with Amazon Web Services and is backed by Nvidia's venture arm. It's all about AI helping AI.
Pennylane
Country
France
Founders
Tancrède Besnard, Felix Blossier, Thierry Deo, Edouard Mascré, Quentin de Metz, Alexandre Roquoplo and Arthur Waller
Year Founded
2020
Business
Accounting Platform
Bookkeeping can be an administrative headache for companies and their accountants. Pennylane's dashboard combines accounting, invoicing, expenses management and banking. The system plugs into third-party services to import bank statements or billing information and will transcribe photographs of printed receipts. The French company raised €75 million this year in a round led by Sequioa Capital at a $2.2 billion valuation, which it plans to use to expand across Europe as businesses increasingly adopt electronic invoicing. The company has 4,500 accounting firms and 350,000 small and medium-size enterprises as customers in France and will begin its expansion this year, starting in Germany.
Pigment
Country
France
Founders
Eléonore Crespo and Romain Niccoli
Year Founded
2019
Business
Excel with Élan
Pigment sells its AI-powered planning and business forecasting platform following a strategy that's helped propel enterprise software companies to greatness for the past decade — subscriptions. It's a winning approach so far: The company doubled its annual recurring revenue in the last year and its services are used by clients including Coca-Cola, Unilever and ServiceNow. In 2024, Pigment was crowned a unicorn after a $145 million funding round that included money from former Meta Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg.
Poolside
Country
France/US
Founders
Jason Warner and Eiso Kant
Year Founded
2023
Business
AI Coding
If you were to ask an AI chatbot to create the ideal elevator pitch for a venture capitalist, the result just might sound like Poolside: a company that builds AI to generate code all on its own. The startup was founded in 2023 in the US by Jason Warner, who oversaw the Copilot tool for Microsoft's GitHub, and software entrepreneur Eiso Kant. However, following early investments from state-owned investment firm Bpifrance and multiple French billionaires, it's now based in both Paris and San Francisco. Late last year the startup, which has shared few details, raised $500 million to further its goal of working towards artificial general intelligence.
Quantexa
Country
UK
Founders
Vishal Marria
Year Founded
2016
Business
Breaking Down Data Silos
Quantexa's AI-driven data-crunching software helps companies interpret information from all over their organization. The tech, which it calls 'decision intelligence,' can help generate insights about how a company's units are performing, detect potential fraud or money laundering and gather insights about customer needs. The company raised $175 million in March, hitting a $2.6 billion valuation. It said it plans to use the fresh investment to explore deals and expand its business serving government agencies — it's also planning more tools for US banks. A good chunk of its customers are financial institutions, including ING, HSBC and Standard Chartered.
Quantum Systems
Country
Germany
Founders
Florian Seibel, Michael Kriegel, Tobias Kloss and Armin Busse
Year Founded
2015
Business
All-Seeing Drones
Investors are clamoring for defense deals in Europe as the war in Ukraine drags on. Quantum Systems makes drones for surveillance and reconnaissance in the battlefield. Based in Munich and backed by billionaire Peter Thiel, the startup has been a regular supplier of equipment to Ukraine. In May it became the latest European unicorn, raising €160 million from venture capital firms, German defense firm Hensoldt and others. Thiel also invested again.
Synthesia
Country
UK
Founders
Victor Riparbelli, Steffen Tjerrild, Lourdes Agapito and Matthias Niessner
Year Founded
2016
Business
Video Avatars
That actor in the compliance video you just watched might actually be an avatar, if Synthesia had anything to do with it. The London startup can create lifelike clips from text prompts in more than 140 languages. It sells its services to businesses looking to produce cheap training videos and localize marketing content. Powerful tools like this have raised concerns about deepfakes, leading Synthesia to place some restrictions on individual users. That hasn't deterred investors. Synthesia raised $180 million at a $2.1 billion valuation this year, in spite of increasing competition from OpenAI, Google and Meta.
The Exploration Company
Country
Germany
Founders
Hélène Huby
Year Founded
2021
Business
Reusable Spacecraft
Backed by the French and German governments, the Exploration Co. is leading European efforts to build a reusable space cargo ship to rival Elon Musk's Dragon. Unlike the Dragon capsule, which is designed for launch by SpaceX rockets, Exploration's Nyx is designed to be 'launcher agnostic,' meaning it can hitch a ride with a variety of rockets from different countries. The company raised $160 million in November and said it will launch a Nyx prototype this year in what it calls Mission Possible. Eventually it could shuttle cargo to the International Space Station and to the new generation of commercial space stations being developed by private companies.
Tripledot Studios
Country
UK
Founders
Lior Shiff, Akin Babayigit and Eyal Chameides
Year Founded
2017
Business
One Hundred Games of Solitaire
Ever play Solitaire on your phone? Then there's a good chance you've used one of Tripledot Studios' apps. The mobile gaming company, formed by three friends in London in 2017, gained a reputation for well-designed (not to mention addictive) card and puzzle games. Within five years it raised $116 million at a $1.4 billion valuation. That was just the start. In May, Tripledot agreed to buy the gaming units from ad-tech company AppLovin for $400 million and a 20% stake in Tripledot. With the deal, Tripledot will operate 12 gaming studios across 23 cities and rake in nearly $2 billion in revenue a year.
Wayve
Country
UK
Founders
Alex Kendall and Amar Shah
Year Founded
2017
Business
Self-Driving-ish Cars
Formed in 2017, Wayve takes a different approach to self-driving cars than Silicon Valley and Detroit. Rather than building robot cars, Wayve makes software to give vehicles autonomous and driver-assistance features. In 2024 it raised more than $1 billion from SoftBank, Nvidia and others, the largest amount for a European AI startup. Microsoft is also an investor — Wayve once took Bill Gates for a self-driving spin around London. The company has signed a deal with Nissan to add driver-assistance capabilities to the carmaker's fleet. Wayve has promised a commercial debut 'in the near term.'
Methodology
To kick off our startups list, the teams at Bloomberg and Founders Forum reached out to a group of leaders and investors in the global startup ecosystem. These judges donated their time and expertise to nominate a long list of startups that eventually became our 25.
All nominations met the following criteria:
Technology focused, but sector agnostic
Less than 10 years old
Strong ties to Europe via headquarters and/or founders
Minimum current valuation of $50 million
Impressive growth
Innovation that gives them the potential to be industry leaders
Founders Forum then ranked the nominations with its proprietary scoring algorithm, and the Bloomberg News tech team whittled down the best-scoring 100 to get our top 25.
We'd like to thank our judges:
Sree Vidya Bhaktavatsalam, senior executive editor for finance and legal at Bloomberg
Ed Bussey, CEO of Oxford Science Enterprises
Vittorio Colao, vice chairman of EMEA at General Atlantic
Lynn Doan, managing editor for Tech in EMEA and US East Coast at Bloomberg
Peter Elstrom, executive editor for tech in EMEA and Asia at Bloomberg
Dean Forbes, CEO of Forterro
Tom Giles, senior executive editor for Global Tech at Bloomberg
Matthew Grimes, co-director of the Entrepreneurship Centre at Cambridge Judge Business School
Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn and investor at Greylock
Luciana Lixandru, partner at Sequoia
Tom MacKenzie, anchor of Bloomberg Daybreak
Sonali De Rycker, partner at Accel
Kate Ryder, CEO of Maven
Cristina Stenbeck, chairperson of Kinnevik
Founders Forum Group Executive Chair Brent Hoberman and CEO Carolyn Dawson and Atomico and Skype founder Niklas Zennström provided additional guidance to the list.
Amy Thomson, Olivia Solon, Yazhou Sun, Jake Rudnitsky and Mark Bergen were the Bloomberg News team who put the list together.
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