When we talk about drones, the conversation often jumps straight to warfare, surveillance or consumer gadgets. But one of the most important uses may be less dramatic but far more economically significant: inspecting the critical infrastructure that keeps modern life running. Energy grids, gas pipelines, pylons and remote assets still often rely on helicopters and manual inspection, which is expensive, slow, and can be dangerous. Beagle Systems, a startup based in Hamburg, is trying to change that Co-founder Oliver Lichtenstein joins Pathfounders Editor for this Pathfounders Live Podcast, recorded in front of an audience in Berlin. ​This fireside conversation covers: ​• ​Oliver's journey to founding Beagle Systems and scaling in a complex regulatory landscape​​• Why drones are becoming the default tool for critical infrastructure inspection​• How autonomy and AI are transforming what's possible in the field​• What the next wave of drone technology actually looks likeThank You To Our Event Partners: ​Infra Onehttps://www.infra.oneFull fund setup for multi-LP structures. Ideal for long-term venture or private-equity vehicles with multiple investors.​PT1https://www.pt1.vc

PT1 is a European venture capital platform investing in early-stage tech that’s upgrading the physical world in three core clusters: \ Electrification & energy transition\ Built world AI & automation\ Climate & infrastructure resilience. With initial tickets ranging from €300k to €4M, we back the boldest founders across the UK and Europe who are redefining how we build, power and sustain our world. At PT1 we don’t just fund startups - we actively support to add value where it matters most. Combining deep domain expertise with data-driven insights, we leverage our AI-enabled deal flow engine to identify and accelerate future category winners. Championed by our network of 100+ industry experts – from unicorn founders to corporates and industrial veterans – we provide startups with collective wisdom, hands-on guidance, strategic acceleration sprints and the backing needed to scale.

We’re looking at what could become a major reset coming for Britain’s AI strategy. According to the Financial Times, Andy Burnham, who is tipped to be the next UK Prime Minster, is exploring a shift away from the current policy towards one built around UK AI sovereignty, regional growth and re-skilling, as opposed to the more AI-forward approach we’d become used to under Sir Keir Starmer, who had wooed US tech giants like OpenAI and Anthropic, while promoting of home-grown AI companies. Indeed, it even launched a £500 sovereign AI fund. But are we about to see the rise of a far more tech-sceptical UK administration? 

Featured on this podcast:

Host: Mike Butcher, Founder & Editor, Pathfounders.com and former Editor-at-large of TechCrunch. 

https://x.com/mikebutcher

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikebutcher

Guest: Alys Key, an Editor, Writer and Journalist, who writes the Substack newsletter, UK2.0.

https://x.com/@alys_key

https://www.linkedin.com/in/alyskey/

Guest: Meryem Arik, Co-founder and CEO at Doubleword, which builds high-performance open source model inference infrastructure for AI at scale.

https://x.com/@MeryemArik9

https://www.linkedin.com/in/meryemarik

When Habs Kim’s family moved from South Korea to the UK, one of their first encounters with the British state was one of the most feared entities on the British Isles: The planning department. That experience now sits behind Xylo, the UK govtech startup Kim cofounded with former lawyer and operator Dermot O’Riordan, which has now raised £2.8m in pre-seed funding to help local authority planning officers process applications faster and more accurately. Xylo is building AI agents for planning teams. The pitch is not that AI should make planning decisions. It is that officers are drowning in admin before they even get to the decision. Kim spoke to Pathfounders’ Mike Butcher.

Seedcamp, one of Europe’s best-known early-stage venture firms, has raised $320 million for its next phase of investing. The firm, an early investor in Revolut, Wise, UiPath, Fluidstack and Synthesia, is also expanding its US presence and placing a bigger bet on startups operating where AI meets science, robotics and the physical world. Seedcamp partner Tom Wilson joined Mike Butcher to discuss where one of Europe’s ‘original gangster’ investors goes from here.

You might have though diversity and impact was out of fashion, but apparently it’s alive and well. And Europe has no shortage of startups claiming to make an “impact”. But what does Impact mean in 2026, which companies are genuinely worth watching? “Next Impact Europe”, is a new platform created by two investors: 4P Capital in Paris, and Impact Shakers, a VC and accelerator. They’ve unveiled an inaugural list of 50 impact startups, selected from 520 nominations across 35 countries. The initiative aims to give greater visibility, and potentially greater access to capital, to diverse founders tackling challenges ranging from climate and waste to healthcare, food and education. To discuss how the companies were selected, what “impact” really means in venture capital in 2026, and whether greater visibility can translate into investment, Mike Butcher spoke to Yonca Braeckman, founder of Impact Shakers and co-founder of Next Impact Europe.

UK startup Cosine has won UK government backing to train Lumen Sovereign, its own frontier AI model, on the Isambard-AI, the UK’s most powerful supercomputer. It will work with partners such as BT, Lloyds Banking, HSBC, BAE Systems, Thales and other major British companies and institutions, to build a frontier AI model designed to operate without dependence on foreign technology or infrastructure. Cosine co-founder Yang Li spoke to Pathfounders’ Editor Mike Butcher about their plans.

New UK startup Apoha has emerged from stealth with $36 million to build what it calls “Liquid State Intelligence” — a data layer for measuring how molecules, materials and formulations behave in the real world. The round was led by Singular, with participation from Draper Associates, Redalpine, Seedcamp, Wilbe, Nucleus and grant funding from Innovate UK.

Founded in 2021 by Shamit Shrivastava and Anshika Srivastava, Apoha is trying to fill a gap in molecular science. Researchers can already analyse a molecule’s sequence and structure. Apoha wants to measure its behaviour: how it responds to stress, liquids and real-world conditions.

Pathfounders’ Founder and Editor Mike Butcher interviewed the co-founders at SXSW London to find out their next moves.

Energy-intensive industries like cement, glass, and steel-making are facing an energy crisis. But the software that controls their plants is ancient. AI startup Gigaton plans to catapult these laggard industries into the future, by building fully autonomous plants. CEO and co-founder Josh Vernon told Pathfounders' Editor Mike Butcher how they plan to do it.

Transition Ventures' second fund has closed at over $150M, bringing AUM to $300M. David Helgason, founding CEO of Unity Software (NYSE: U), spent two decades giving developers the tools to build virtual worlds. Now, with Transition, he's backing the founders building the physical one. He spoke to Pathfounders Editor Mike Butcher about its pivot towards rarified areas such as photonics and even small modular reactors.

Europe’s healthcare systems are still focused on sickness, not prevention, even as its population become more interested in the latter. That’s the bet of Lucis, the Paris-based preventive health startup that has just raised a $20 million Series A round led by Singular Ventures. Its playbook includes biomarker testing, longitudinal data and an AI health companion. In this interview with Pathfounders editor Mike Butcher, Lucis co-founder and CEO Max Berthelot, says they plan to use the funding expand across Europe. And recounts the first time they met…