Last month saw 339 VC investments across Europe, with $4.4 billion invested in total – a 6% increase in funding volume compared to January.
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, Health Care leads with 104 investments, followed by AI with 103 and FinTech with 69, each ahead by a significant margin of the next industry, Energy (43).
LvlUp Ventures was the most active investor in February with 14 announced investments. Followed by CDP Venture Capital with 8 investments, Octopus Ventures with 6 investments and LocalGlobe and EIC Accelerator Fund with 5 investments each rounding out the top five most active investors.
Top 10 Industries of Financed Startups
- Health Care
- AI
- FinTech
- Energy
- Manufacturing
- BioTech
- Web
- Consulting
- PropTech
- Sports
Top 5 Investors with the highest number of deals
- LvlUp Ventures
- CDP Venture Capital
- Octopus Ventures
- LocalGlobe
- EIC Accelerator Fund
Notable funding rounds across Europe
In February, the largest funding round was a $1.2 billion Series D by Wayve, a London-based developer of autonomous driving technology using end-to-end deep learning models that enable vehicles to navigate urban environment. Founded in 2017 in the UK, Wayve raised the investment mainly to transition from AI research leadership to scaled commercial deployment.
While Seed Rounds made up the largest share of rounds (42%), the highest investment volume was in Series D Rounds, which accounted for $1.36 billion across 2 deals.
The largest Seed Round was secured by Onodrim Industries, a Amsterdam-based company which focuses on mission-critical systems across defence manufacturing and advanced sensing. Founded in 2025 in the Netherlands, Onodrim Industries raised $47.2 million (€41 million) in February.
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 February, London remained the leading hotspot for European VC by number of investments (61), followed by Berlin (14), Barcelona (13), Paris (12) and Stockholm (10).
The most investments by country were in the UK (103), followed by Germany (43) and Spain (24).
When ranked by investment volume rather than the number of investments, Eindhoven ($259mn) with 2 investments joins London, Berlin, Barcelona and Paris in the top 5 cities.
VC Exit Overview
In February, 44 exits took place including one IPO.
With 20 exits, FinTech companies were the largest exit industrie, followed by Health Care (9) and AI (8) companies.
Most companies exited in the United Kingdom with 16 exits, followed by 7 companies in Germany.
- Number of Acquisition Exits
- Number of IPO Exits
PE Acquisitions Overview
In February, 29 PE acquisitions (8% of all VC and PE investment rounds) were conducted, an decrease of 5pp compared to last month.
With 6 acquisitions, the UK saw the highest number of companies acquired in February.
FinTech (8), Manufacturing (6), Software (6) and Energy (5) were the top acquisition industries mentioned.
The standout deal was Nuveen’s €~11 billion acquisition of Schroders, a company which delivers asset management and advisory services to institutional, intermediary, and individual clients.
- % of all investment rounds
- Number of PE acquisitions
*All data from CrunchBase, as of March 2, 2026.
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