Inertia Enterprises burst onto the scene in February with a $450 million Series A, making it one of the best capitalized startups in the industry, aiming to bring laser-based fusion reactors to market.
He gave me this pitch that Goldman is an incredible place, but you are a cog in a giant wheel. There were so many industries that no one was paying attention to on the tech side in the U.S. He got me really passionate about doing something to help improve how those industries work.
They can no longer use e-commerce, book hotels online or hire a car. Their home smart devices ignore them. Credit cards from European banks no longer function, because Europe has still not developed its own EU-wide payments system, so most electronic purchases go through Visa and Mastercard. Converting euros to foreign currencies is extraordinarily difficult because everything passes through dollars. Living in Europe is no protection against Donald Trump bricking your digital life.
Every January, millions take on Dry January , a ritual of restraint and resetting after the holiday season. If that's the benchmark for kicking off the year with moderation, Europe's startup ecosystem clearly didn't get the memo. In the opening weeks of 2026, the region saw five startups join the unicorn club, crossing the $1 billion valuation mark across sectors as varied as cybersecurity, cloud optimisation, defence tech, ESG software, and education technology.
According to Dealroom's 2024 European Tech report, mentions of "AI" in European startup pitch decks increased by over 200% between 2022 and 2024. VC funding for AI-adjacent startups surged, even as overall funding in Europe contracted. The signal was unmistakable: if you want capital, you need to speak the language of artificial intelligence.
As the race to dominate AI accelerates, Europe's most prominent AI startup is betting that geography - not just technology - can be a competitive advantage in its home market. Arthur Mensch, the CEO and cofounder of French AI company Mistral, said the company's edge in Europe over Silicon Valley rivals like OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic isn't about having dramatically smarter models.
AI has quietly unlocked some of the biggest opportunities I've seen in content and marketing. Inside enterprise, the shift is already happening. Massive budgets are moving into AI-driven writing, editing, and distribution - because results are measurable and speed matters more.
