Last month saw 302 VC investments across Europe, with $4.5 billion invested in total – a 13% increase in funding volume compared to November.
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 108 rounds, followed by Health Care with 76 and FinTech with 53, each ahead by a significant margin of the next industry, Energy (37).
Y Combinator was the most active investor in December with 14 announced investments. Followed by HTGF with 7 investments, PXN Ventures with 6 investments and Bpifrance and Kima Ventures with 5 investments each rounding out the top five most active investors.
Top 10 Industries of Financed Startups
- AI
- Health Care
- FinTech
- Energy
- Manufacturing
- BioTech
- Retail
- Web
- Marketing
- HR
Top 5 Investors with the highest number of deals
- Y Combinator
- HTGF
- PXN Ventures
- Bpifrance
- Kima Ventures
Notable funding rounds across Europe
In December, the largest funding round was a $1.0 billion Venture Round by Kraken, a London-based global customer and culture platform for energy, water, and broadband. Founded in 2019 in the UK, Kraken raised the investment mainly to proceed with the complete separation from Octopus Energy.
While Seed Rounds made up the largest share of rounds (40%), the highest investment volume was in Venture rounds, which accounted for $1.8 billion across 62 deals.
The largest Seed Round was secured by Generative Bionics, a Genoa-based company which develops humanoid robotics and Physical AI systems for industrial and service applications. Founded in 2024 in Italy, Generative Bionics raised $81.6 million (€70 million) in December.
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 December, London remained the leading hotspot for European VC by number of investments (56), followed by Paris (16), Berlin (12), Barcelona (10) and Istanbul (8).
The most investments by country were in the UK (86), followed by France (33) and Germany (30).
When ranked by investment volume rather than the number of investments, Freiburg im Breisgau ($300mn) with 1 investments and Copenhagen ($126mn) with 5 investments join London, Paris and Barcelona in the top 5 cities.
VC Exit Overview
In December, 33 exits took place including 2 IPOs for the first time since September.
With 17 exits, FinTech companies were the largest exit industrie, followed by Food and Beverage (7) and Marketing (5) companies.
Most companies exited in the France with 8 exits, followed by 6 companies in the UK.
- Number of Acquisition Exits
- Number of IPO Exits
PE Acquisitions Overview
In December, 43 PE acquisitions (12% of all VC and PE investment rounds) were conducted, an increase of 2pp compared to last month.
With 7 acquisitions, the UK saw the highest number of companies acquired in December.
Health Care (10), Manufacturing (8) and FinTech (7) were the top acquisition industries mentioned.
The standout deal was Trian Fund Management $7.4 billion acquisition of Janus Henderson Investors, a company providing investment solutions and research-driven insights to help clients achieve long-term financial goals.
- % of all investment rounds
- Number of PE acquisitions
*All data from CrunchBase, as of January 5, 2026.
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