Scaling Europe

European AI startups are raising billion-dollar rounds, while defence and deep tech companies are attracting far larger rounds than the market was seeing a few years ago.

Alex McCracken is Head of Venture Capital Relationships, EMEA at J.P. Morgan, where he is seeing US investors move into Europe earlier and more technical AI founders raise capital across the market.

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

0:16 - The biggest shifts in European venture

0:48 - Billion-dollar AI seed rounds

2:45 - Why mega rounds are increasing in Europe

3:55 - The impact of large AI rounds

5:37 - Where capital is flowing in deep tech

6:43 - Defence, space and European resilience

8:20 - Why defence investment is accelerating

9:49 - The rise of US investors in Europe

12:25 - How European VCs are adapting

14:43 - Growth at all costs vs sustainable growth

18:24 - New financing structures for deep tech

Transition VC raised a new $150m fund to back highly technical founders building the next generation of energy, compute and industrial companies.

David Helgason, Co-founder at Transition VC, says AI is increasing demand for compute, power and industrial systems at a time when venture is moving beyond traditional software. The new fund will focus on companies building across energy, hardware and industrial infrastructure.

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

0:22 - Transition VC’s new $150m fund

0:58 - Backing founders rebuilding industrial systems

2:01 - Climate tech, AI and resource constraints

3:47 - Raising Fund II

6:09 - Investing in photonics chip company Olix

9:16 - The founders the firm wants to back

10:26 - Nuclear, hardware and industrial innovation

12:47 - Why venture is moving beyond traditional SaaS

14:00 - Europe vs the US for deep tech

15:45 - Building the investment team

18:13 - What makes a great founder

Checkout.com is one of Europe’s leading payments companies, powering transactions for some of the world’s biggest digital businesses.

Ashley Paulus, VP of Revenue (UK & EEA) at Checkout.com, is leading the company’s growth across two of its most important markets after 78% growth in the UK and around 60% growth in Europe last year. As merchants look for better acceptance rates, global coverage and faster access to capital, Checkout.com is becoming a bigger part of how companies grow across borders.

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

0:16 - Checkout.com’s growth in the UK and Europe

1:51 - Why major merchants choose Checkout.com

3:40 - Scaling payments across global markets

5:12 - Growth targets for 2026

7:01 - New merchants and existing customers

8:14 - Europe vs Southeast Asia in payments

10:16 - AI in payments infrastructure

13:50 - Using AI in revenue teams

16:26 - Agentic commerce

18:04 - Stablecoins and faster merchant settlement

1KOMMA5° is working to deliver the cheapest and cleanest electricity in the world, at a time when energy is becoming one of the biggest questions behind the AI boom.

Philipp Schröder, Co-founder and CEO at 1KOMMA5°, has grown the company from home electrification into one of Europe’s most important energy players. It is already managing one gigawatt of capacity, with a much larger ambition: making millions of homes part of the energy infrastructure Europe now needs.

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

0:28 - 1KOMMA5°

2:27 - Business model

5:30 - Subscription model

13:11 - Virtual power plant

16:27 - One gigawatt of managed capacity

21:11 - IPO plans

24:38 - Energy and AI

27:21 - Europe vs NASDAQ

29:32 - International expansion

33:25 - Building from Germany

36:03 - Entrepreneurs and politics

39:08 - Taking pushback

41:24 - Energy abundance in Europe

43:41 - What governments are missing

47:38 - Lessons from Tesla

48:54 - The future of energy companies

Scope is building AI for the people who inspect the physical world, from factories and industrial equipment to the assets companies rely on every day.

Jonathan Low is CEO at Scope, and the company has just raised $20m led by Index Ventures after growing more than 10x since relaunching last year. Much of this work still runs on pen, paper, Word and Excel, and Scope is turning inspection work into usable data about the physical world.

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 - The inspection industry

1:34 - How Scope works

2:20 - Scope’s $20m round

3:08 - Growing more than 10x

5:08 - Scaling to $15m ARR

8:14 - Why inspection is ready for AI

10:06 - Building close to customers

13:13 - International expansion

18:48 - Hiring talent in London

Mouro Capital is a fintech-focused venture firm investing at the intersection of financial services and technology.

Manuel Silva Martinez is a GP at Mouro Capital, and they just announced a new $400m fund backed by Banco Santander, giving the firm more capital to back fintech entrepreneurs across the US, Europe and Latin America. Mouro’s thesis has stayed close to financial services, but the opportunity now looks much broader as AI pulls more horizontal companies into the category.

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

0:28 - Mouro Capital’s new $400m fund

0:52 - The history of Mouro Capital

2:33 - How AI fits into fintech

4:04 - Raising from Banco Santander

5:55 - Liquidity and exits

8:15 - Creating liquidity in Europe

11:00 - Growth in fintech

13:10 - InsurTech

15:55 - New markets in financial services

17:49 - The next generation of fintech founders

19:18 - Mouro Capital’s portfolio

European founders are still going to the US earlier than ever, but AI is now changing how the companies they build actually operate.

Martin Mignot, Partner at Index Ventures, looks at this shift from inside a global firm working with founders on both sides of the Atlantic. For founders and CEOs, AI is becoming much bigger than a tooling question. The challenge is to rethink how the company works before the old structure slows them down.

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

0:32 - European founders going global earlier

2:12 - How AI is changing company building

3:02 - CEOs learning from San Francisco

4:39 - Founder mode and AI leadership

7:20 - How Index helps founders through the shift

9:48 - Why Index invested in Anthropic

13:04 - Index’s AI strategy

17:17 - Assessing AI founders

21:07 - Explore vs exploit in AI

22:19 - Index’s AI portfolio

24:27 - Why Index operates as one global team

27:24 - The trade-offs of a global partnership

AI data centres are running into a network bottleneck as models demand more bandwidth, more connected processors and dramatically more power.

James Regan, CEO of Oriole Networks, thinks the industry is still trying to scale architectures that fundamentally do not work at the size AI is heading towards. Oriole’s approach replaces electrical packet switches with photonic switching technology designed to move data optically across the data centre, with the long-term goal of connecting a million XPUs in a single hop while cutting power consumption at the same time.

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

0:27 - What Oriole Networks is building

1:48 - Why optical switching matters for AI

4:50 - The network bottleneck problem

7:22 - Prism Ultra and scaling AI infrastructure

10:24 - Industry reaction to Prism Ultra

12:49 - US vs European deep tech investors

16:07 - What James does differently as a repeat founder

20:27 - Spinning companies out of universities

24:15 - Why founders should avoid weak early deals

25:53 - Recognising bad VC deals as a repeat founder

Founders can spend years building valuable companies while paying themselves almost nothing, with all of the upside locked away until an exit that may still be years off.

Kevin Smith, CEO at Venture Comet, is building a platform that helps founders release a small amount of equity earlier in the journey instead of waiting for a single make-or-break outcome at the end. One of the biggest shifts he points to is how much investor attitudes around founder secondaries have changed, with far more acceptance that giving founders some financial breathing room can actually help companies last longer and build bigger outcomes.

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

1:07 - What Venture Comet does

2:20 - Why founders struggle in years 3-5

4:52 - When founders should consider secondaries

6:24 - Why Kevin started the company

8:36 - The rise of founder secondaries

11:17 - How Venture Comet works with investors

13:48 - The future of Venture Comet

16:38 - Building differently the second time around

19:23 - Staying focused as a second-time founder

Most people running multiple roles have no clear way to price their work or decide what is actually worth their time.

June Angelides MBE, Founder of the Portfolio Method and Venture Partner at Samos Investments, is building a product around that problem after seeing it play out in her first workshop, where most participants realised they were underpricing themselves once they broke everything down. What started as a single session is already turning into a product with early users, as she builds it in real time and tests how a portfolio career can actually be structured instead of just managed informally.

Find out more about the Portfolio Method and get a free audit here: https://theportfolio-method.com/.

Most people running multiple roles have no clear way to price their work or decide what is actually worth their time.June Angelides MBE, Founder of the Portfolio Method and Venture Partner at Samos Investments, is building a product around that problem after seeing it play out in her first workshop, where most participants realised they were underpricing themselves once they broke everything down. What started as a single session is already turning into a product with early users, as she builds it in real time and tests how a portfolio career can actually be structured instead of just managed informally.Find out more about the Portfolio Method and get a free audit here: https://theportfolio-method.com/.

An anonymous benchmarking survey for portfolio careers is also now live, check it out here: https://tally.so/r/eqxrQq.

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 - Why she started the Portfolio Method

2:36 - The cost of context switching

3:27 - Underpricing and workshop insight

4:02 - Going back into build mode

6:24 - Product vision and early users

11:38 - Investing in African startups

13:13 - African tech ecosystem

15:01 - Balancing a portfolio career