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December 24, 2025

14 people in European tech who mattered in 2025

2025: the year of the bro-caster


Freya Pratty and Éanna Kelly

7 min read

UK entrepreneurship advisor Alexandra Depledge appears on stage at Summit

It’s been a comeback year for European tech. Thanks to a fresh wave of AI-native startups, the ecosystem clocked up its third-best funding year ever, trailing only the heady days of 2021 and 2022.

We’ve seen hefty deals and a flurry of investments: ASML backing Mistral, vibe-coding startup Lovable raising twice and hitting a $6.6bn valuation, and data centre startup Nscale pulling in a monster $1.1bn round. 

Not everything’s been rosy though. Europe’s best-funded climate tech, Northvolt, filed for bankruptcy this year — a sobering symbol of a tough 12 months for the continent’s greener startups.

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Photo of Lovable's cofounder Anton Osika
Lovable CEO Anton Osika
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Project Europe's CEO, Kitty Mayo
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Laura Modiano, EMEA startups lead at OpenAI
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Ekaterina Zaharieva. Photos: European Commission
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Nik Storonsky, CEO and cofounder of Revolut
Revolut CEO Nik Storonsky
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Freya Pratty

Freya Pratty is a senior reporter and investigations lead at Sifted. Follow her on X , LinkedIn and Bluesky

Éanna Kelly

Éanna Kelly is a contributing editor at Sifted. Follow him on X and LinkedIn

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