Hi everyone,

This week was a relatively quiet one on the pure-play VC side. Most rounds came in below €10 million, and the two largest figures in the week, Hynaero’s €117 million and Enersweet’s €45 million, are better described as an aerospace program financing and a growth equity roll-up respectively than as classic venture deals. Strip those out and you are looking at a week of modest seed activity spread across defence, deep tech, health, and gaming.

One deal worth flagging specifically: Sans Strings Studio, the US-based real-time puppetry and interactive animation studio co-founded by French founder Sébastien Deguy (Oscar-winner and creator of Substance 3D acquired by Adobe), raised a $5.5 million Seed co-led by Red River West and a16z Speedrun. Let’s dive in.

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💸 Startup funding news

Rounds €5M to €15M

• Egide raised €8 million in a Seed round co-led by Eurazeo, Expeditions, and Heartcore Capital, with participation from Galion.exe, Kima Ventures, Oprtrs Club, and Better Angle, to develop electrically propelled interceptor systems and the Mystique AI-driven detection platform. Founded in 2025 by former MBDA engineers Simon Calonne and Florian Audigier, the startup is building scalable, low-cost air defence systems designed to counter mass-produced drone threats.

• Leviathan Dynamics raised €8.2 million in a Seed round led by Keenest and la Banque des Territoires, with participation from Daphni (via its Time4 fund) and Team for the Planet, to open its first production facility in La Courneuve. Founded in 2016, the company develops a patented vacuum compressor technology using water as a natural refrigerant for decarbonized industrial cooling and wastewater treatment.

• DiappyMed raised €5 million in a Seed round backed by AFI Ventures, Sofilaro, and IRDI Capital Investissement, alongside a strategic partnership with Sanofi, to pursue reimbursement certification from French national health insurance for its EkiYou digital diabetes management solution.

• K-Motors raised €5 million in a Seed round backed by Kyocera Ventures, Bpifrance Amorçage Industriel, Région Sud Investissement, LCL, Société Générale, and CEPAC, to scale production of its supercapacitor-based hybrid energy storage systems for electric vehicles.

Rounds €1M to €5M

• Sans Strings Studio raised $5.5 million in a Seed round co-led by Red River West and a16z Speedrun, to develop its real-time interactive puppetry and animation platform. Co-founded by Sébastien Deguy, the French creator of Substance 3D who sold the company to Adobe, the SF-based studio is building a production pipeline that combines live performance capture with real-time rendering for interactive content and entertainment. Read my article on Red River West’s substack to learn more.

• games2gether raised €4.5 million in a Series A round led by Griffin Gaming Partners, with participation from Bpifrance and business angels, to scale its co-creation platform enabling video game studios to involve players directly in game development. Spun out of Amplitude Studios, the Paris-based company.

• Bitstack raised €3.9 million via a crowdfunding campaign on Crowdcube, to expand its bitcoin savings platform for retail users. Founded in 2021 in Paris, the fintech enables recurring bitcoin purchases and micro-roundups on everyday spending.

• Piston raised €3 million in a Seed round backed by Daphni, Drysdale Ventures, Ovni Capital, Motier Ventures, Kima Ventures, and business angels, to build an AI-native ERP platform for supply chain-heavy companies. Founded in 2025 in Paris.

• Nabu raised €3 million (including €0.9 million in debt) in a Seed round backed by Getlink, InvestorX, Maersk Growth, and business angels, to expand its customs formalities automation platform across Europe. Founded in 2018 in Strasbourg, with nearly half of its procedures already processed outside France.

• Babbar (Ibou) raised €2.5 million in a Series A backed by NJJ Capital (Xavier Niel) alongside historical investors, to launch the public beta of Ibou Explorer, its first content discovery vertical. Founded in 2019 in Normandy by Sylvain Peyronnet and Guillaume Pitel, the company is building a conversational AI search engine focused on source quality.

• MindDay raised €2 million backed by Impactivist, Inco, and Xange (via the Mutuelles Impact vehicle), to deepen its integration into the French mutual insurance ecosystem. Founded in 2021, the Paris-based CBT self-therapy app has reached nearly 2 million downloads and over 50,000 paid subscribers.

🎉 M&A transactions

Dragon LLM, a developer of sovereign AI models for regulated industries, has been acquired by OVHcloud in the cloud provider’s first-ever acquisition, marking the launch of its AI Lab for model fine-tuning on European infrastructure.

Instant System, a MaaS platform serving over 20 million daily users across Europe and North Africa, has been taken private in a buyout by Meanings Capital Partners and Bpifrance Investissement, advised by Avolta.

Chimere, a Zero Trust Network Access startup, has been acquired by Ekinops, positioning the listed French telecom equipment maker as Europe’s only single-vendor SASE player.

Alyx, a revenue management and pricing optimization tool for sports ticketing used by Olympique Lyonnais and Stade Rennais, has been acquired by FanXP.

Healabs, a remote patient monitoring platform for nephrology, has been acquired by Sêmeia, the Toulouse-based health surveillance specialist, in its second acquisition.

Zygon, a SaaS identity visibility and security tool, has been acquired by Memority in the IAM specialist’s first external growth move since its 2025 funding round.

🚀 Investor & accelerator news

360 Capital announced an €85 million first close for Poli360 2, its new technology transfer fund targeting a total size of €100 million, focused on early-stage deeptech spinouts from European universities. The fund deploys at least 80% in Italy with the remainder across Europe, and counts the European Investment Fund, CDP Venture Capital, MBDA, and Brembo among its LPs.

Partech closed its inaugural Partech Impact Fund at €300 million, targeting European B2B impact tech companies above €10 million in revenues across decarbonation, sustainable agriculture, low-carbon construction, new mobility, and digital health. LPs include Allianz, Bpifrance, the British Business Bank, the European Investment Fund, and Neuberger Berman.

Initiative & Finance announced the final closing of its new fund at €240 million, dedicated to capital transmission and development in the French small-cap segment, with tickets between €3 million and €20 million.

Phitrust closed its new social impact fund at €60 million, targeting innovative European companies addressing urgent social challenges.

💡 Startup & ecosystem news

The European Investment Bank group unveiled a next-generation fund-of-funds program that could invest up to €200 million per VC fund, four times the previous average, targeting a total envelope of €15 billion and aiming to mobilize up to €80 billion for European scale-ups. A first closing is expected in the coming months with €1.25 billion already committed.

The European Commission presented AGILE, a €115 million programme to fast-track disruptive defence innovation from lab to field, with a focus on startups working on AI, quantum, and drones. The instrument caps subsidy processing at four months and covers up to 100% of eligible costs. It is expected to be operational from early 2027.

Two large rounds that are worth noting but sit outside the classic venture category: Hynaero raised €117 million from Bpifrance and la Région Sud to finance its Frégate F100 amphibious water bomber program, and Enersweet raised €45 million in growth equity led by Ring Capital to fund acquisitions in energy transition software. Both are significant in their domains but closer to infrastructure financing and roll-up strategy than traditional venture.

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