Last month saw 327 VC investments across Europe, with $4.8 billion invested in total – a 42% decrease in funding volume compared to March.
Number and volume of announced funding rounds over the past 12 months*
- Number of funding rounds
- Invested volume in $bn
Leading Industries and Investors
According to the number of conducted investments, AI leads with 113 investments, followed by Health Care with 77 and FinTech with 52, each ahead by a significant margin of the next industry, Energy (33).
Bpifrance was the most active investor in April with 8 announced investments. Followed by HTGF with 7 investments, Antler with 6 investments, EIC with 5 investments and Enterprise Ireland with 5 investments rounding out the top five most active investors.
Top 10 Industries of Financed Startups
- AI
- Health Care
- FinTech
- Energy
- PropTech
- BioTech
- Manufacturing
- Food and Beverage
- Marketing
- HR
Top 5 Investors with the highest number of deals
- Bpifrance
- HTGF
- Antler
- EIC
- Enterprise Ireland
Notable funding rounds across Europe
In April, the largest funding round was a $1.1 billion Seed Round by Ineffable Intelligence, a London-based Venture which develops machine learning systems that learn through interaction and experience. Founded in 2026 in the UK, Ineffable Intelligence raised the investment mainly to build a high-performance computing infrastructure and recruit specialized staff in the United Kingdom over the coming months.
Seed Rounds made up the largest share of rounds (39%), accumulating the highest investment volume across all rounds, which accounted for $1.60 billion across 128 deals.
The largest Venture Round was secured by Blue Energy, a Kastrup-based company which is a nuclear power plant company that provides reliable, clean, and abundant electricity with faster and cheaper construction. Founded in 2023 in Denmark, Blue Energy raised $380 million (€323 million) in April.
Number and total volume of financing rounds per stage
- Number of funding rounds per stage
- Volume of financing rounds per stage in $mn
Detailed overview by stage
European VC Industry Hotspots
In April, London remained the leading hotspot for European VC by number of investments (54), followed by Paris (16), Madrid (10), Dublin (10) and Munich (8).
The most investments by country were in the UK (97), followed by Germany (36) and Spain (26).
When ranked by investment volume rather than the number of investments, Kastrup ($380mn) with 1 investment and Helsinki ($140mn) with 6 investments joins London, Paris and Madrid in the top 5 cities.
VC Exit Overview
In April, 38 exits took place and like last month, there was no IPO.
With 12 exits, FinTech companies were the largest exit industrie, followed by AI (10) and Marketing (7) companies.
Most companies exited in the United Kingdom and Germany with 8 exits each.
- Number of Acquisition Exits
- Number of IPO Exits
PE Acquisitions Overview
In April, 27 PE acquisitions (8% of all VC and PE investment rounds) were conducted, an decrease of 2pp compared to last month.
With 6 acquisitions, the UK saw the highest number of companies acquired in April.
Manufacturing (7), Food and Beverage (4), Health Care (4), Security (3) and Consulting (3) were the top acquisition industries mentioned.
The standout deal was Charterhouse Capital Partner’s £~235 million acquisition of Animalecare Group, an international group of veterinary pharmaceutical services business.
- % of all investment rounds
- Number of PE acquisitions
*All data from CrunchBase, as of May 6, 2026.
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