Early-stage startup funding in Europe was up in May compared to April. VCs invested €1.7bn across 407 pre-seed, seed and Series A rounds last month — higher than April’s €1.4bn across 307 rounds, according to Sifted data.
France took the early-stage crown for most funding in Europe, Germany was second and the UK slipped to third after coming out on top in April.
French early-stage startups raised €340m in May, up from €272m in April. German startups raised €283m, up from €211m the month before. Early-stage British startups brought in €204m from VCs in May, down from the €314m they raised in April.
The three sectors that brought in the most early-stage funding were climate tech (€478m), deeptech (€377m) and healthtech (€352m). The deeptech sector was helped by the €231m raised by GenAI startups, whereas the €121m raised by early-stage solar startups helped top up climate tech’s total.
Innovate UK, Speedinvest and Carbon13 were the three most active investors last month.
Here are 12 early-stage rounds that caught Sifted’s eye.
Healthtech
Swiss startup SixPeaks Bio, a longevity startup launched this year, raised $110m in a combination of $80m debt and $30m equity from AstraZeneca and Versant Ventures. The Basel-based company has launched a pipeline of therapies for healthy weight loss.
Oxford, UK-based medical device startup Oxford Endovascular bagged £8m led by Parkwalk Advisors, with participation from Norcliffe Capital, Oxford Science Enterprises, Vulpes and the University of Oxford. The startup is building medical devices to treat brain aneurysms and prevent brain haemorrhage.
Dublin-based Spectrum.life, which provides enterprises with a digital healthcare solution for staff, raised €17m from ACT Venture Capital.
Gaming
In May, Spain’s Kings League, a seven-a-side football competition with a platform that lets fans interact with matches in real-time, raised a €60m round from Left Lane Capital, Fillip fund and Cassius VC — three funds with a focus on consumer internet. The startup is led by former FC Barcelona and Spain men’s footballer Gerard Pique and counts more than 13m followers on its social media platforms.
In the UK, Sheffield’s Steel City Interactive bagged a £15m round which saw participation from Novator Ventures and London Venture Partners. The startup is building a boxing video game called “Undisputed”. Another interesting gaming raise last month was Marseille, France-based Cross The Ages’ €3.5m round which saw participation from Animoca Brands, Sebastien Borget and Nicolas Jeuffrain. The startup has built a fantasy sci-fi gaming universe.
Fintech
Berlin-based climate fintech Cloover, which offers embedded financing options to homeowners for them to access renewable energy solutions, raised €105m in a seed funding round led by Lowercarbon Capital, with participation from QED and 9900 Capital.
Crypto & DeFi (decentralised finance) continued its momentum this month too; the sector contributed 15 out of the 55 fintech rounds in May.
Baar, Switzerland-based startup Arcium, which offers confidential computing to public blockchains, raised $5.5m led by Greenfield Capital, with participation from Heartcore Capital, Coinbase, Staking Facilities, Longhash VC, Everstake, Smape Capital and L2 Iterative Ventures. In London, Zeal, which is a DeFi wallet founded by ex-Revolut employees, raised a $2m seed round from Gibraltar-based Gnosis.
Climate tech
Tallinn, Estonia-based Stargate Hydrogen bagged a €42m seed round led by UG Investments with participation from Important Projects of Common European Interest, which is a strategic instrument for implementing the EU’s industrial strategy. The startup is building green hydrogen electrolysers using ceramic-based catalyst materials and claims it can bring down the cost of producing green hydrogen from €5/kg to €1/kg. Moving over to wind energy, Berlin’s Caeli Wind raised €11m from HTGF, Notion Capital and Santander Alternative Investments. The startup has built a platform for analysing and marketing wind energy sites. It claims to accelerate the realisation of wind farms by 18 months with its digital analysis platform.
Another Berlin-based startup, Trawa, secure a €10m seed round from Balderton Capital, AENU, Speedinvest, Magnetic and TinyVC. Trawa provides SMEs with tools to organise their energy purchasing and crafts an optimal mix of power from various products to align with the buyer's consumption patterns.
