Scaling Europe

Valarian has raised a $50m Series A led by NEA, just over a year after a $20m Seed. The company built Acra, an infrastructure layer that lets organizations run sensitive AI systems securely on any cloud, from public cloud to on-prem or the edge.

Max Buchan is Founder and CEO of Valarian. The company signed $43m in contracts in its first quarter alone and expects to do about $100m this year.

The Scaling Europe show is presented by Deel. Check them out here: https://get.deel.com/ruynb7o4lfjk

Sponsors:

Chargebee: https://www.chargebee.com/events/beelieve/london/2026

SurrealDB: https://surrealdb.com/

Airwallex: https://www.airwallex.com/uk?utm_source=other&utm_medium=partner_referral&utm_campaign=v01_emea_multi_ib_dg_prtmk_mofu_scalingeurope

Timestamps:

0:00 - Introduction

0:16 - Valarian's $50m Series A led by NEA

2:06 - What Acra actually does

2:51 - Enterprise and defence customers

4:52 - Why sovereignty matters to customers

6:44 - Where the growth is coming from

7:49 - Inside the Series A round

9:37 - UK government support and new investors

11:38 - Plans for the next 6 to 12 months

16:09 - The biggest risk: hiring and execution

18:01 - Bringing on a new head of revenue

Marker just came out of stealth and raised a $13m Seed led by Index Ventures. Marker is an AI editor built to help writers develop their ideas and get feedback throughout the writing process.

Jon Steinback is Co-Founder and CEO of Marker. He and co-founder Ryan Bowman built it to support the whole writing process, from thinking through drafting to editing. The result is a modern word processor made for people who believe in the craft of writing.

The Scaling Europe show is presented by Deel. Check them out here: https://get.deel.com/ruynb7o4lfjk

Sponsors:

Chargebee: https://www.chargebee.com/events/beelieve/london/2026

SurrealDB: https://surrealdb.com/

Airwallex: https://www.airwallex.com/uk?utm_source=other&utm_medium=partner_referral&utm_campaign=v01_emea_multi_ib_dg_prtmk_mofu_scalingeurope

Timestamps:

0:00 - Introduction

0:20 - Marker's seed round and coming out of stealth

0:57 - What Marker actually is

1:41 - Who Marker is built for

3:33 - How Marker's product took shape

4:39 - Finding the balance between AI and human writing

6:52 - Why these investors backed Marker

9:20 - Jon's time at DeepMind

10:52 - How Marker will use the funding

13:04 - The goal behind coming out of stealth

14:33 - Marker's long-term vision

Singular is a European early-stage venture capital firm investing from Seed through Series B, with portfolio companies including Aikido, Vibe, Basecamp and Spore.Bio.

Laura McGinnis is joining Singular as a Partner. She previously spent several years in venture at Balderton Capital. In London, she'll focus on building out the firm's presence and backing UK and Ireland founders earlier in their journey.

The Scaling Europe show is presented by Deel. Check them out here: https://get.deel.com/ruynb7o4lfjk

Sponsors:

Chargebee: https://www.chargebee.com/events/beelieve/london/2026

SurrealDB: https://surrealdb.com/

Airwallex: https://www.airwallex.com/uk?utm_source=other&utm_medium=partner_referral&utm_campaign=v01_emea_multi_ib_dg_prtmk_mofu_scalingeurope

Timestamps:

0:00 - Introduction

0:10 - Laura's move to Singular

0:58 - Why Singular appealed to her

2:22 - How the opportunity came together

3:33 - The type of founders Singular backs

5:31 - Moving from a large firm to a small, nimble team

8:21 - What success looks like in her first months

10:10 - Why Singular is doubling down on the UK and Ireland

13:33 - Finding an edge to meet founders earlier

15:38 - Advice for operators breaking into VC

Nyobolt is building fast energy storage systems for AI infrastructure, where data centres and robotics require far higher power density and faster charging than conventional technologies can provide.

Sai Shivareddy is Founder and CEO at Nyobolt. The company spent years developing its technology before AI infrastructure created demand for it, and is now deploying its systems in robotics, with data centres as its next target market. The company recently raised a $60m Series C at a $1 billion valuation, making it one of the UK's newest unicorns.

The Scaling Europe show is presented by Deel. Check them out here: https://get.deel.com/ruynb7o4lfjk

Sponsors:

Chargebee: https://www.chargebee.com/events/beelieve/london/2026

SurrealDB: https://surrealdb.com/

Airwallex: https://www.airwallex.com/uk?utm_source=other&utm_medium=partner_referral&utm_campaign=v01_emea_multi_ib_dg_prtmk_mofu_scalingeurope

Timestamps:

0:00 - Introduction

0:18 - Nyobolt's $60m Series C at a $1bn valuation

0:56 - What Nyobolt builds

2:52 - Real-world results and use cases

7:22 - Working with Symbotic

8:30 - Inside the Series C round

11:53 - Scaling manufacturing while growing fast

14:11 - Biggest bottlenecks to growth

18:40 - Raising hardware-focused venture capital

22:06 - Building a deep tech company from Cambridge

THEKER Robotics builds robots that takes over the hardest physical labor inside heavy factories.

Carla Gómez Cano is Co-founder at THEKER. Their robots that do manual, physical work, like moving packages, assembling parts and folding garments, and use smart software to handle any task or material on a single platform. The company recently raised an $85m Series A, one of the largest robotics rounds ever in Europe.

The Scaling Europe show is presented by Deel. Check them out here: https://get.deel.com/ruynb7o4lfjk

Sponsors:

Chargebee: https://www.chargebee.com/events/beelieve/london/2026

SurrealDB: https://surrealdb.com/

Airwallex: https://www.airwallex.com/uk?utm_source=other&utm_medium=partner_referral&utm_campaign=v01_emea_multi_ib_dg_prtmk_mofu_scalingeurope

Timestamps:

0:00 - Introduction
0:12 - THEKER's $85m Series A
0:54 - What THEKER's robots do today
4:11 - Why THEKER skips pilots
5:03 - Building a robotics company from Barcelona
7:10 - Reconfigurable robots vs. humanoids
10:02 - Biggest bottleneck: hiring
13:01 - The robotics-as-a-service model
16:14 - Biggest lesson: staying focused
17:15 - What's next for THEKER

Rig just raised $2.8 pre-Seed led by Emerge Capital to build infrastructure that helps companies use their internal data with AI. The platform connects existing data systems so teams can build AI apps, workflows and agents more easily.

Toby Mather is Co-founder of Rig. He says the biggest challenge is no longer building AI applications, but giving them secure access to the right internal context. Rig is designed to solve that problem by connecting data from across a business without teams having to stitch together dozens of systems themselves.

The Scaling Europe show is presented by Deel. Check them out here:

https://get.deel.com/ruynb7o4lfjk

Sponsors:

Mishcon: https://www.mishcon.com/pop-ups/scaling-europe

Chargebee: https://www.chargebee.com/events/beelieve/london/2026

SurrealDB: https://surrealdb.com/

Timestamps:

0:00 - Introduction

0:12 - Rig’s $2.8 pre-Seed

0:48 - What Rig is building

1:37 - AI workflows in practice

3:56 - Why Toby started the company

6:37 - Why investors backed the round

8:29 - Lessons from building a second company

10:03 - Building an AI-native startup

11:37 - Hiring for speed and learning

14:11 - How AI is changing careers

17:06 - Toby’s view on vibe coding

19:34 - Priorities after the raise

Orbital recently raised a $50m Series B led by Plural to scale its AI platform for developing advanced materials.

Jonathan Godwin is Co-founder and CEO at Orbital Industries. The company is using AI to discover a new GPU cooling material for data centres, with plans to apply the same technology to hardware and manufacturing across sectors such as semiconductors, energy and aerospace.

The Scaling Europe show is presented by Deel. Check them out here:

https://get.deel.com/ruynb7o4lfjk

Sponsors:

Mishcon: https://www.mishcon.com/pop-ups/scaling-europe

Chargebee: https://www.chargebee.com/events/beelieve/london/2026

SurrealDB: https://surrealdb.com/

Airwallex: https://www.airwallex.com/uk?utm_source=other&utm_medium=partner_referral&utm_campaign=v01_emea_multi_ib_dg_prtmk_mofu_scalingeurope

Timestamps:

0:00 - Introduction

0:20 - Orbital’s $50m Series B

1:50 - Discovering a new GPU cooling material

3:45 - The long-term vision for AI industrials

5:50 - Raising deep tech before the AI boom

8:20 - Why Plural backed Orbital

11:20 - The Orb open-source model

14:05 - Why Orb is open source

15:15 - Why Orbital builds hardware, not just AI models

20:40 - Building a mission-driven company

Seltz just raised a $12.5m Seed as it launches its first product and looks to build a new generation of web infrastructure for AI.

Antonio Mallia is Founder and CEO at Seltz. The company is building for a world where AI agents become a new type of web user, requiring a completely different way to access information online. Instead of returning a list of links, Seltz is rebuilding the entire search stack so agents can access trustworthy, citable information and run hundreds of queries in parallel to complete tasks independently.

The Scaling Europe show is presented by Deel. Check them out here:

https://get.deel.com/ruynb7o4lfjk

Sponsors:

Mishcon: https://www.mishcon.com/pop-ups/scaling-europe

Chargebee: https://www.chargebee.com/events/beelieve/london/2026

SurrealDB: https://surrealdb.com/

Airwallex: https://www.airwallex.com/uk?utm_source=other&utm_medium=partner_referral&utm_campaign=v01_emea_multi_ib_dg_prtmk_mofu_scalingeurope

Timestamps:

0:00 - Introduction

0:25 - $12.5m Seed announcement

1:15 - Why AI needs a different type of web search

3:20 - Why Seltz rebuilt the entire stack

5:00 - Why investors backed the company

7:20 - Building a research-heavy team

11:50 - Early traction and customer use cases

15:40 - The next 12 months

16:25 - Rethinking retrieval for AI agents

18:30 - Running hundreds of queries in parallel

Seedcamp just closed $220M + $100M funds as it looks to support European founders from their first cheque through to later stages of company building. The new $220M core fund will continue backing early-stage companies, while the $100M select fund allows Seedcamp to double down on breakout portfolio companies from Series B onwards.

Will Bennett is Principal at Seedcamp. He believes the definition of pre-seed is changing rapidly, with founder profiles becoming increasingly diverse and companies achieving more at an earlier stage. As more founders move to the US earlier in their journey, Seedcamp is expanding its presence there to help companies build customer, talent and investor networks.

The Scaling Europe show is presented by Deel. Check them out here:

https://get.deel.com/ruynb7o4lfjk

Sponsors:

Mishcon: https://www.mishcon.com/pop-ups/scaling-europe

Chargebee: https://www.chargebee.com/events/beelieve/london/2026

SurrealDB: https://surrealdb.com/

Airwallex: https://www.airwallex.com/uk?utm_source=other&utm_medium=partner_referral&utm_campaign=v01_emea_multi_ib_dg_prtmk_mofu_scalingeurope

Timestamps:

0:00 - Introduction

0:25 - Seedcamp’s $220M + $100M funds

1:40 - Why the funds are getting bigger

2:30 - Why Seedcamp launched a select fund

3:50 - European founders moving to the US

6:30 - How founder profiles are changing

8:15 - What pre-seed means today

10:00 - Defence and frontier technologies

13:00 - What founders get from Seedcamp

15:20 - Building a stronger US presence

19:30 - The secret behind Seedcamp’s success

Debtist scaled to €15M ARR in just 3 years as it builds an AI-powered receivables management platform across Europe.

Matteo Benedetti is Founder at Debtist. The company started from identifying a gap in traditional debt collection and built an end-to-end software platform that automates receivables management using AI across email, calling, document handling, and legal workflows. It now serves around 500 clients across Germany, the UK, Scandinavia and other European markets.

The Scaling Europe show is presented by Deel. Check them out here:

https://get.deel.com/ruynb7o4lfjk

Sponsors:

Mishcon: https://www.mishcon.com/pop-ups/scaling-europe

Chargebee: https://www.chargebee.com/events/beelieve/london/2026

SurrealDB: https://surrealdb.com/

Airwallex: https://www.airwallex.com/uk?utm_source=other&utm_medium=partner_referral&utm_campaign=v01_emea_multi_ib_dg_prtmk_mofu_scalingeurope

Timestamps:

0:00 - Introduction

0:25 - $60m Series A announcement

3:01 - What Debtist does

5:39 - Novesta partnership

6:56 - Enterprise adoption and go-to-market

8:41 - Scaling across Europe

9:02 - AI in receivables management

10:37 - Building organisation and learnings

15:18 - Expansion strategy

20:37 - Hiring and culture