Last month saw 293 VC investments across Europe, with $6.3 billion invested in total – a 115% increase in funding volume compared to May.
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 99 investments, followed by Health Care with 81 and FinTech with 60, each ahead by a significant margin of the next industry, Energy (32).
British Business Bank, HTGF, Y Combinator and Antler were the most active investors with 5 investments each. Followed by Eurazeo with 4 investments rounding out the top five most active investors.
Top 10 Industries of Financed Startups
- AI
- Health Care
- FinTech
- Energy
- Marketing
- BioTech
- Manufacturing
- Web
- EdTech
- Food and Beverage
Top 5 Investors with the highest number of deals
- British Business Bank
- HTGF
- Y Combinator
- Antler
- Eurazeo
Notable funding rounds across Europe
In May, the largest funding round was a $2.1 billion Series B by Isomorphic Labs, a London-based Venture which is an AI-first drug design and development company that transforms drug discovery to design and evaluate new medicines. Founded in 2021 in the UK, Isomorphic Labs raised the investment mainly to scale its AI drug design engine (IsoDDE) globally, advance its therapeutic pipeline towards the clinic, and recruit world-class AI, engineering, drug design, and clinical talent across its international sites.
Seed Rounds made up the largest share of rounds (41%). Despite that, the largest volume of $3.21bn was invested in 18 Series B Rounds.
The largest Seed Round was secured by SWEBAL, a Stockholm-based company which is designing a TNT production plant in northern Europe as an essential component of European supply networks. Founded in 2024 in Sweden, SWEBAL raised $35.3 million (€30.3 million) in May.
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 May, London remained the leading hotspot for European VC by number of investments (60), followed by Paris (18), Barcelona (13), Berlin (11) and Stockholm (8).
The most investments by country were in the UK (92), followed by Spain (28) and Germany (26).
When ranked by investment volume rather than the number of investments, Cambridge ($282mn) with 3 investments, Darmstadt ($240mn) with 1 investment and Basel ($203mn) with 4 investments join London and Paris in the top 5 cities.
VC Exit Overview
In May, 33 exits took place and contrary to last month, there were two IPOs.
With 17 exits, FinTech companies were the largest exit industrie, followed by Health Care (12) and AI (8) companies.
Most companies exited in the Germany with 9 exits, followed by the UK with 8 exits.
- Number of Acquisition Exits
- Number of IPO Exits
PE Acquisitions Overview
In May, 41 PE acquisitions (12% of all VC and PE investment rounds) were conducted, an decrease of 4pp compared to last month.
With 11 acquisitions, the UK saw the highest number of companies acquired in May.
Consulting (8), Transportation, FinTech, Health Care (7 each) and EdTech (5) were the top acquisition industries mentioned.
The standout deal was Brookfield Asset Management $~1.2 billion acquisition of World Freight Company, an global air cargo sales and logistics platform.
- % of all investment rounds
- Number of PE acquisitions
*All data from CrunchBase, as of June 1, 2026.
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