Last month saw 366 VC investments across Europe, with $3.3bn invested in total – a 34% drop in funding volume compared to July last year, a slight drop from June’s highs
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 108 rounds, followed by AI with 80 and FinTech with 58, each ahead by a significant margin of the next industry, Energy (49).
EIC Accelerator was the most active investor in July with 10 announced investments. Kima Ventures followed with 8, then Bpifrance and Founderful Campus with 7 each, and Bayern Kapital with 5, rounding out the top five most active investors.
Top 10 Industries of Financed Startups
- Health Care
- AI
- FinTech
- Energy
- Manufacturing
- Food and Beverage
- Retail
- Marketing
- Web
- BioTech
Top 5 Investors with the highest number of deals
- EIC Accelerator
- Kima Ventures
- Bpifrance
- Founderful Campus
- Bayern Kapital
Notable funding rounds across Europe
In July the largest funding round was a $200 million Series A by Stockholm-based AI startup Lovable, which became a unicorn with this investment. Lovable offers an AI-powered platform that enables users to build applications and software products without needing extensive coding skills. It was founded in 2023 in Stockholm, Sweden.
While Seed Rounds made up the largest share of rounds (37%), the highest investment volume was in Series A rounds, which accounted for $938 million across 54 deals.
The largest Seed Round was secured by Donut Lab. The company was founded in 2024 in Helsinki, Finland, and operates an electric vehicle development platform focused on delivering exceptional performance across vehicle categories. Donut Lab raised $29 million (€25 million) in July.
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 July, London remained the leading hotspot for European VC by number of investments, followed by Berlin, Paris, Madrid, and Zurich.
The most investments by country were in the UK (95), then Germany (51) and France (41).
When ranked by investment volume instead of deal count, Stockholm ($216 million across 6 deals), Stuttgart ($141 million across 2 deals) and Basel ($100 million across 2 deals) join London and Berlin in the top five cities by volume.
VC Exit Overview
In July, 43 exits took place. After one IPO which took place June, there were no IPOs in July.
With 12 exits, AI companies present the largest exit industry of the month, followed by FinTech (10) and Marketing (7) companies.
Most companies exited in the UK with 13 exits, followed by 5 companies in Germany.
- Number of Acquisition Exits
- Number of IPO Exits
PE Acquisitions Overview
In July, 45 PE acquisitions (11% of all VC and PE investment rounds) were conducted, a decrease of 2% compared to last month.
With 11 acquisitions, the UK saw the highest number of companies acquired in July.
Manufacturing (11); FinTech (6) and Consulting (4) were the top acquisition industries mentioned.
The standout deal was Apollo €6.3 billion acquisition of IGT, leading global provider of gaming, digital and financial technology solutions.
- % of all investment rounds
- Number of PE acquisitions
*All data from CrunchBase, as of August 4, 2025.
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