A quieter week by headline standards, but one that revealed a lot about where European venture capital is quietly concentrated: AI agents for physical industries, automation of rural technologies and a growing operator-to-VC pipeline.
What the week of March 16-22 delivered was something different in texture, not volume: smaller rounds, more specific theses, and an investment pattern that pointed more clearly to where European capital actually built confidence. AI agents embedded in complex physical environments.
Finally, agricultural automation with engineering to match its ambitions. A new generation of European VC funds based on operators who have scaled up their companies on the continent.
1. Upvest – $125MD series | Berlin, Germany
Upvest raised $125 million raising its value from €360 million to €640 million just one year after the last round.
The Berlin fintech powers the infrastructure behind investment apps used by clients including Revolut, N26, Openbank and Zopa. Tencent’s support also shows the growing global interest in Europe’s fintech infrastructure.
2. Partex Impact Fund – close to €300M | Paris, France
Partex closed a 300 million euro impact fund It focuses on one of Europe’s most sustainable climate technology gaps: growth capital.
The Paris-based firm will support approximately 15 B2B companies with revenues of more than €10 million across sectors such as clean manufacturing, sustainable agriculture, green construction, mobility and digital health. Its first investment is Luxembourg-based SustainCERT.
What distinguishes the fund is its structure. Partex linked the carried interest to impact performance, not just financial returns, and registered the car as an Article 9 fund under the EU’s sustainable finance rules.
3. Montis VC – €50M first close | Warsaw, Poland
Montis VC has reached 50 million euros is the first close for a new fund focused on European startups in the fields of energy transition, industrial technology and artificial intelligence. Backers include the European Investment Fund, the Polish Development Fund and family offices in Central and Eastern Europe.
The fund plans to invest 0.5 million to 2 million euros in 20-25 seed and seed-stage companies, with half of the capital earmarked for later ventures. Its launch also reflects a broader trend as CEE investors delve deeper into climate and industrial deep technologies, backed by both public and private capital.
4. Parallel – €20M Series A | Paris, France
Parallel, a Paris-based startup building artificial intelligence agents for hospital billing and medical coding, rIt raised $20 million in Series A funding Led by Index Ventures, less than a year after its seed round.
The company is focusing on a French public hospital system, using artificial intelligence to manage legacy software without deep integrations. Parallel says this approach could dramatically reduce deployment times and eventually scale to a wider range of hospital workflows.
5. Rivia – close to €13M | ZurichSwitzerland
Rivia, a Zurich-based startup builds AI for clinical trial operations, the agent raised 13 million euros to expand its data platform.
The company says its system helps biotech teams capture fragmented test data, surface insights, flag anomalies and manage operational risks in regulated environments. The round follows a 3 million euro seed in 2024 and is betting bigger on AI tools that do more than just store data.
6. Kupando – €10M Series A | Schönefeld, Germany
Kupando added 10 million euros To Series A, pushing lead drug KUP101 into Phase 1b trial, raising turnover to €23 million. The German biotech is developing innate immunity therapy, a less crowded route to immunotherapy for advanced solid tumors and drug-resistant infections.
The funding shows investors believe the science is finally ready to move from preclinical promise to patients.
7. eternal.ag – €8M seed | Cologne, Germany
Eternal.ag, a greenhouse robots startup founded by Renji John, former co-founder of Honest AgTech, It collected 8 million euros. Based in Cologne and Bengaluru, the company builds autonomous harvesting systems for greenhouses, starting with tomatoes.
Its pitch is based on simulation-based development: robots are trained in virtual greenhouses using NVIDIA Isaac Sim before being deployed in real greenhouses. Eternal.ag says it accelerates testing and iteration on one of agtech’s toughest automation challenges.
8. Option – €7.1M Series A | PragueCzech
Choice, a A restaurant technology startup founded in PragueIt has raised $7.1 million in Series A funding to expand from Central and Eastern Europe to Western Europe, starting in Portugal.
The company offers an all-in-one platform for restaurants that includes ordering, payment, reservation and delivery integration and says it currently serves more than 7,000 paying customers in nine markets.
9. Ofiniti – $6.8 million Oslo, Norway
Ofiniti, one Oslo-based marine fuel software startup Separated from DNV, raised $6.8 million to expand into major global bunkering hubs outside Singapore.
Its platform digitizes fuel supply documentation, planning and compliance, and the company says it has captured nearly 40% of Singapore’s digital bunker market by 2025, with more than 25,000 bunker transactions.
10. Reson8 – €5M pre-seed | Amsterdam, Netherlands
For Europe’s linguistic complexity, there’s Reson8, an Amsterdam startup pitching AI It raised a pre-seed round of €5 million Managed by Balderton Capital.
The company’s platform supports more than 20 European languages and adapts to industry jargon, accents and speech patterns without retraining. Its focus is on high-precision sectors such as healthcare, logistics, law and finance.
11. BBLeap – €5M | Rijen, Netherlands
BBLeap, a Dutch agritech startup focusing on precision spraying, has raised €5 million in a round led by ESquare Capital with support from Yield Lab Europe and existing investors.
Its technology upgrades existing sprayers to control each nozzle individually, and with the LeapEye system, adjusts treatment in real-time based on what products the plants actually need. The funding will support LeapEye’s commercialization and international expansion.
12. Homaio – €3.6M seed | Paris, France
Homaio, a Paris startup opens carbon storage market to retail investors, raised €3.6 million in seed funding led by RAISE Ventures.
The company allows individuals to buy securities backed physically by EU carbon permits and says it has attracted users from more than 30 countries since it went public in September 2024. The new capital will help it expand beyond carbon stocks into broader energy transition markets.
13. Elea & Lili – €2.5M seed | Finland
VTT has the Finnish company Elea & Lili Raised €2.5 million in seed funding Led by Lifeline Ventures to commercialize a cellulose-based alternative to fossil-derived absorbents used in diapers and agriculture.
The company says its material meets conventional performance by being biodegradable and microplastic-free, although industry-wide validation is still ahead.
14. Call time – €1.8M seed | Ghent, Belgium
There’s Ringtime, a Ghent startup developing artificial intelligence agents for blue-collar recruitment Earned €1.8 million Funded by Volta Ventures.
Its platform automates contact, selection and matching of candidates in 22 languages, targeting sectors such as logistics, retail, food processing and construction. The company is headed by Vincent Theeten, former CEO of Belgian software firm Cheqroom.
15. eYou – €300K pre-seed | Bucharest, Romania
eSen, a A social media startup based in Bucharestraised €300,000 from Fil Rouge Capital ahead of the planned May.
The platform aims to combat disinformation and echo chambers with built-in AI verification and tools that show users how recommendation systems are profiling them.
Positioned around GDPR compliance and European data sovereignty, eYou presents itself as the first trusted alternative to mainstream social media.
The dominant investment theme of the week was not frontier AI models or data center setups, but AI agents entering physical and institutional environments where automation has historically struggled: hospital management, greenhouse harvesting, farm spraying, blue-collar hiring and more.
