Lidl owner and Bosch Ventures co-lead $500M Series B into German AI startup Aleph Alpha.

German AI startup Aleph Alpha has raised a Series B funding round of $500 million from a consortium of seven new investors, as well as existing investors from previous rounds. Founded in 2019, Aleph Alpha’s funding may be dwarfed by that of Microsoft-backed OpenAI ($11.3 billion), but the startup makes great play of the fact …

Berlin-based Ostrom picks up extra €7.5M in order to advance Europe’s green energy transition

After closing its €9.3 million Series A in December 2022, Ostrom has raised an additional €7.5 million in an investment round led by SE Ventures, a Silicon Valley-based venture fund backed by Schneider Electric. Existing investors Union Square Ventures, Adjacent, J12, and Übermorgen also participated in the financing, extending its Series A to €16.8 million …

Investors back AskUI’s unique approach to process automation with €4.3M funding

Today German prompt-to-automation platform AskUI announced €4.3 million in seed funding. The platform uses artificial intelligence to understand applications and their context, providing a unique and cost-effective solution for automating intentions, not interactions. Conventional automation solutions offer powerful functionalities but are complicated to deploy and configure. Customising these platforms requires massive consultancy efforts, reliance on APIs, and …

468 Capital raises $400 million to back European startups

VC firm 468 Capital has raised $400 million for its second seed-stage fund focused on European startups, and American ones with a connection to Europe. Why it matters: The past year has been a record year for the European startup market, even attracting unprecedented levels of American venture capital. It previously raised about $200 million (€170 …