Europe’s answer to TBPN is here and ready to go live five days a week starting June 27.
Luke Knight and Ronan Chambers first started in London European Technology Network (ETN) last October, broke down tech trends and news during a two-day-a-week live stream. The show is currently streaming live on X and YouTube and has garnered over 5 million views.
On Monday, the network announced a $1.6 million investment from top players in the media ecosystem, including Powerhouse Capital, Axel Springer SE (owner of Business Insider and Politico), co-founder of the popular LadBible media publication, and angel investors from OpenAI and DeepMind. With this fresh capital, the network is announcing its largest expansion yet.
Now it’s moving to a big studio in Kings Cross (where all the hot London AI startups are located), expanding the team (currently only eight), launching a newsletter and, starting today, switching to a five-day-a-week live show schedule. consultant to Anthropic and Microsoft).
Speaking to TechCrunch, Knight and Chambers said ETN has already become a hot press tour stop for European startups – they spoke to Synthesia founder, Legora CFO, Granola founder and UK’s first AI minister Kanishka Narayan. They even had American investors stop by the show when they were in town, including one from Andreessen Horowitz.
“ETN was born out of a void in the industry,” Chambers told TechCrunch. “It’s centered around tempo.” He said the current media ecosystem in the UK can’t keep up with how fast the tech scene is moving. For example, London startups have raised $14.7 billion so far this year, according to Dealroom. Six companies have raised more than $500 million: Wayve, Superintelligence, ElevenLabs, Recursive, Ineffable Intelligence and Isomorphic Labs, the last three founded by DeepMind alumni.
“These are things that have never happened before in Europe,” Chambers continued, referring to the speed at which capital is flowing through the ecosystem. As the show became more popular, Chambers said they received about 70 appearances a week from guests wanting to come on the show. They would try to cram 12 interviews into two hours twice a week, but it ended up being too much. “We needed an outlet that could move at that pace,” he said of both the interest in the show and how fast Europe’s tech ecosystem is moving, “which is why we went from two days a week to five days a week.”
The five-day format will be very similar to the two-day format. There will be a live show from 12pm to 3pm UK time, breaking down trending stories and then for two hours guests will talk about what they want. Chambers said they also want to host debates, roundtables and a Shark Tank-style pitching session on the show.
“We want to make it as beneficial to the ecosystem as we can,” Chambers said. “There needs to be more discussion around AI in Europe. There needs to be more discourse around venture capital and money coming into the ecosystem. There needs to be more discourse around the amazing things happening in the tech ecosystem, and our role is to be the stage where people can shout about all the amazing things they’re doing.”
The show, like most media outlets, makes money from advertising dollars, and big sponsors already include prediction marketplace Polymarket, blockchain company Base, and AI audio darling ElevenLabs.
When asked about TBPN’s influence on them, Knight and Chambers said they really look up to TBPN founders John Coogan and Jordi Hayes (who recently Sold to OpenAI some say it was a nine-figure sum as pioneers of this new technology media ecosystem. The show has become a place for tech guests to appear and chat with friendly faces to announce new product launches, hires or funding news. “I think if we can have ITV and the BBC, why not have a regional version of it?” The wards continued.
Europe is a big place, with over 40 different countries and over 200 languages spoken (24 of which are recognized by the European Union). Chambers said that although ETN reports from London, he and Knight make an effort to host guests from across the continent. In addition to bringing guests to the studio, they also travel to Europe’s hottest tech conferences. For example, they broadcast from the Panathenaea Conference in Athens and from inside the Louvre in Paris for the RAISE AI Summit.
“You have all these different cultures, these different minds coming together to create different products,” Chambers said. “You get a taste of what makes (Europe) a superpower.”
Despite all that, they said they would never turn away the American founder if he wanted to come on the show. “It’s a European technology network, but we think there are huge (global) opportunities,” Chambers said. Knight added to this, noting how often conversations compare the European tech ecosystem to the US.
“We’re optimistic globally,” Knight said. “We’re pushing global prosperity out of Europe. Wherever you want to go and build your company, wherever is the best place to go and build that company, go and do it, and we’ll yell at you to go and do it.”
He and Chambers don’t necessarily see themselves as journalists either; rather, they consider themselves tech insiders who wonder what’s happening and why. They also do not see themselves as replacing traditional media and instead intend to work in tandem with those publications. “We rely on the traditional media,” Chambers said, adding that’s how they find most of the news to cover on ETN.
Collectively, the duo hopes to document stories from the new wave of European success, from London’s ElevenLabs to Stockholm’s Lovable, to help the next generation understand that technology is a way to move a nation forward.
Discussing the impact of Europe’s success stories, Chambers said, “It’s irritating the next generation to the point where it’s no longer cool to come out of university and go into banking or consulting. People want to leave university and go straight to start-ups, and I think that’s an amazing thing.”
This section has been updated to clarify who invested in the company.
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This does not affect our editorial independence.
