The new European tech unicorns from 2024

Good morning there,

2024 was an up-and-down year for UK tech. The government changed hands — a move that was welcomed with cautious optimism from many on the startup scene — before an increase in company taxes and cuts to public funding for tech products turned the mood a little sour towards the end of the year. 

Funding for startups in the UK also fell for the third year running in 2024 — but there were some notable raises. One noteworthy deal came in the form of autonomous vehicle company Wayve’s $1bn Series C in May — a record sum for an AI company in Europe.  A few UK-based VCs also closed funds of more than $1bn.

So what should we expect from 2025?

I spoke to Hoxton Ventures, Air Street Capital, AlbionVC and Index Ventures to find out how they see things shaping up. They’re betting on the AI talent flywheel churning out more founders, the government trying to work more closely with AI startups and the future of compute taking centre stage.

You can read their full predictions here — and if you think something’s missing, get in touch and let me know.

Elsewhere today:

• The 13 European startups that became unicorns in 2024
• Which sovereign wealth funds invested most in European tech in 2024?

— Kai Nicol-Schwarz, reporter

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🇮🇹 Italy is reportedly in talks with Elon Musk’s SpaceX for it to provide secure telecom services to its government for €1.5bn, in what would be the largest such European deal, according to Bloomberg. 

• The deal would reportedly be a five-year contract for SpaceX to provide the Italian government and military with secure telephone and internet encryption services via its satellite service Starlink. A deal hasn’t been reached yet, Bloomberg reports.

What are the fastest-growing companies in Europe?

We ranked the region’s most innovative high-growth startups in fintech, green energy, healthtech and many other sectors. We also dig into the trends and data to understand what factors are fuelling their growth.

🇬🇧 AI talent flywheel spins and future of compute takes centre stage: VCs’ UK tech predictions for 2025.

🦄 The 13 European startups that became unicorns in 2024.

🏥 Are LLMs good at diagnosing patients? A new study has found that although AI models perform well when presented with a structured case study and a multiple-choice list of answers, their accuracy rates drop dramatically when having to diagnose patients on the basis of actual conversations. (New Scientist)

🤖 Does investment research make sense in the age of AI? (Financial Times) 

⚡️​ ​How to prepare for an M&A bolt-on. (Sponsored by J.P. Morgan)

💰 Singapore’s GIC ploughed more money into European startups than any other sovereign wealth fund globally in 2024. The fund put $1.9bn into European startups across last year, according to research consultancy Global SWF.

• GIC, which has $847bn in assets under management, topped the charts for deal value by backing just two European companies last year: German hydrogen startup Sunfire and Storegga, a UK startup developing carbon removal plants.

Kyiv-based Deus Robotics, which is developing autonomous warehouse robots, raised $3m in seed funding. U.Ventures led the round and was joined by investors including 1991 Ventures, SID Venture Partners, Sigma Software Labs and SD Capital.

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