Good news from around Europe
Qonto and Pennylane: French fintech friends and foes Qonto and Pennylane are two of France’s most well-known fintech disruptors. The Paris-based fintechs set out to disrupt particular areas of finance: Qonto- SME banking; and Pennylane- accounting software for SMEs. Qonto, founded in 2016, four years before Pennylane, is the bigger name in France, yet
Ex-DeepMind researchers land record Creandum funding to scale AI agents for Nasdaq A startup founded by three ex-Google DeepMind researchers which builds AI agents to trade across the Nasdaq says it has hit a valuation of more than $500m, following fresh funding. Prague-based EquiLibre Technologies says it has closed a Series A
Wayve undertakes $85M employee tender offer to “retain talent” UK self-driving car technology startup Wayve is giving its employees the opportunity to cash in on their equity, as it looks to “retain talent”. Wayve, which is one of the UK’s best-funded startups, is launching what is called an employee tender
Nothing-backer Tapestry VC raises $80M fund, opens London office The backer of smartphone disruptor Nothing has raised an $80m fund, nearly three times bigger than its predecessor, as it looks to invest in repeat founders across both sides of the Atlantic, which it says are going through a boom. The London and
Sony will stop producing physical discs for new PlayStation games from 2028 Sony Interactive Entertainment will end production of physical discs for all new PlayStation games starting January 2028. This was announced by Sid Shuman, Senior Director of Content Communications at Sony Interactive Entertainment. All subsequent releases will be digital-only
Google unveiled the Nano Banana 2 Lite and Gemini Omni Flash models Google introduced two new artificial intelligence models for developers: the image generator Nano Banana 2 Lite and the tool for creating and editing videos, Gemini Omni Flash. The company announced this. Both solutions are already available in Google
Anthropic restores access to Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5 after U.S. export controls lifted The U.S. government has lifted export controls on Anthropic’s latest artificial intelligence models, Fable 5 and Mythos 5. The company announced this. Anthropic will gradually restore access to the models for users worldwide starting July
Self-driving scaleup Wayve set to test LSE’s Pisces Powered by WPeMatico https://sifted.eu/articles/self-driving-scaleup-wayve-set-to-test-lses-pisces
Klarna wins $1.97bn antitrust lawsuit against Google Powered by WPeMatico https://sifted.eu/articles/klarna-wins-1-97bn-antitrust-lawsuit-against-google
An AI agent was named after this 57-year-old Belgian credit analyst. Is he philosophical about it? Powered by WPeMatico https://sifted.eu/articles/herman-ai-oper