Tech
Meet the new European unicorns of 2026
January was such a long month that it has already brought us five fresh European unicorns: from Belgium to Ukraine, several tech startups raised funding at valuations above the $1 billion threshold.
But before we take a closer look at who joined the club, two caveats.
First: This count includes startups that may be incorporated elsewhere but have their roots or a large part of their team in Europe. Until a pan-European corporate structure exists (often called “EU Inc”), this split will remain common — and we’ve decided to overlook it. Take Lovable, which is incorporated in Delaware but cannot be dissociated from Stockholm’s startup scene.
Second: valuation doesn’t equal commercial success, and it is too early to tell whether all of these companies will achieve the kind of traction that Lovable has, with the company recently crossing $300 million in annual recurring revenue. But in the current climate, the fact that VCs were willing to invest in them at unicorn valuations is a strong signal of where the appetite is.
With these caveats out of the way, let’s dive in.
Aikido
Belgium-based cybersecurity startup Aikido Security reached unicorn status with its $60 million Series B funding round. Valuing the company at $1 billion, the round was led by DST Global, with participation from PSG Equity, Singular, Notion Capital, and others.
According to a press release, the funding will help Aikido enhance its platform, which was built to unify security across the entire software lifecycle and is already used by more than 100,000 teams globally. The company also reported “five-times revenue growth and nearly three-times customer growth” over the last year.
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In a blog post, the startup celebrated this milestone and its significance. According to its team, “in an industry dominated by Palo Alto and Tel Aviv heavyweights, Aikido shows that Europe can build a world-class software security company and win globally.”
Cast AI
Cloud optimization company Cast AI is headquartered in Florida, but has Lithuanian roots and a major office in Vilnius — which explains why many now consider it to have become Lithuania’s fifth unicorn.
Cast AI’s valuation now exceeds $1 billion following a strategic investment from Pacific Alliance Ventures (PAV), the U.S.-based corporate venture arm of Korean conglomerate Shinsegae Group. In April 2025, Cast AI raised a $108 million Series C that had reportedly already brought the company close to unicorn territory.
Alongside its latest funding round, the company also introduced OMNI Compute for AI, which aims to help users deploy more AI workloads on fewer GPUs and remove regional capacity constraints.
Harmattan AI
French defense tech company Harmattan AI was only founded in 2024, but is already worth $1.4 billion, according to its latest funding round. The $200 million Series B was led by Dassault Aviation, maker of the Rafale fighter jets, and also ties into a broader partnership.
Before securing this key partner, Harmattan AI had already signed agreements with the French and British ministries of defense and with Ukrainian drone maker Skyeton, amid growing appetite for autonomous defense aircraft.
Osapiens
German ESG software firm Osapiens raised a $100 million Series C led by Decarbonization Partners, a joint venture between BlackRock and Temasek, which valued the company at over $1.1 billion.
Founded in Mannheim in 2018, Osapiens now has more than 2,400 customers worldwide, including large multinational companies that rely on its platforms and tools for sustainability reporting and data compliance, but also to mitigate supply chain risks.
Preply
The 14-year-old language learning marketplace Preply is now a unicorn valued at $1.2 billion — a milestone that also embodies Ukrainian resilience. The edtech company was founded in the United States, but its founders are Ukrainian and supporters of their home country, where Preply has a team of 150 employees.
According to its CEO, Kirill Bigai, who believes in AI-enhanced learning, proceeds from the $150 million Series D round will help the startup hire more AI talent across its four offices — now located in Barcelona, London, New York, and Kyiv.
Tech
Revolut eyes valuation of up to $200B in eventual IPO
British neobank Revolut seems to be eyeing a major valuation bump when it eventually goes public. The company is targeting a market cap between $150 billion and $200 billion in an initial public offering, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday, citing anonymous investor sources.
The fintech giant, which secured a full banking license in the United Kingdom in March after years of waiting, was most recently valued at $75 billion, up from $45 billion in 2024, in a secondary share sale that made it one of Europe’s most valuable private tech companies.
Revolut’s co-founder and CEO, Nik Storonsky, last week said that the company’s IPO was at least “two years away,” according to Bloomberg.
According to PitchBook and the Financial Times, the company is working on another secondary share sale, scheduled for the second half of 2026, that would value it at more than $100 billion.
As of November 2025, the company had raised a total of $5.89 billion, according to PitchBook. Revolut reported revenue of $6 billion in the financial year ended December 31, 2025, up from $4 billion in 2024. The company’s net profit grew to $1.7 billion, up from $1 billion in 2024, and counted 68.3 million retail customers at the end of 2025.
Revolut declined to comment.
Founded in 2015, Revolut offers a range of services spanning multi-currency accounts, payment and transfer services, crypto products, insurance, and more. The neobank has been pouring truckloads of cash into expanding its operations internationally, and recently applied for a banking license in the United States.
Besides the U.K., Revolut has a banking license in the European Union, and it operates in Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, Brazil, and the U.S. Revolut launched operations in India last October, is about to start operating in Colombia this year, and has received a banking license in Mexico.
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Tech
Amazon taps Sweden’s Einride for its electric big rigs
Einride is adding 75 of its electric heavy duty trucks to Amazon’s Relay freight network as part of a deal that gives the Swedish startup a toehold in the e-commerce giant’s operations. Einride will also provide charging infrastructure across five locations in the United States, under the agreement announced Tuesday.
Amazon isn’t buying or operating the electric trucks. Instead, Einride will own and manage (using its own Saga AI software) the trucks, which can be used by drivers in Amazon’s Relay freight network. Relay, launched in 2017, is an app that truck drivers can use to book hauling gigs with Amazon.
Einride CEO Roozbeh Charli, who took over as chief nearly a year ago, said working with Amazon is a powerful validation of the startup’s technology and strategic vision.
“By deploying our intelligent platform within one of the world’s most sophisticated logistics networks, we are accelerating growth, while continuing to build industry-leading operational expertise,” he said in a statement.
Einride has gained attention and investment for its two-pronged approach to freight. The company has developed and now operates a fleet of about 200 heavy-duty electric trucks for companies like Heineken, PepsiCo, and Carlsberg Sweden in Europe, North America, and the UAE. It has also developed autonomous pod-like trucks, which stand out for their cab-less design.
The agreement with Amazon doesn’t include the autonomous pods.
Einride has landed this agreement at a critical time: The startup is finalizing a merger with blank-check company Legato Merger Corp. and is expected to go public soon.
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While the agreement might not carry the same weight for Amazon, which has a market cap of $2.7 trillion, it does contribute to its low-carbon goals. Amazon has said it wants to reach net-zero carbon emissions across its operations by 2040.
“This rollout is an important step forward in addressing one of the toughest challenges we face in decarbonizing our transportation network — electrifying heavy-duty trucking,” an Amazon spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “We’re excited to continue to collaborate with Einride and learn from these operations as the trucks hit the road.”
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Tech
YouTube expands its AI likeness detection technology to celebrities
YouTube is expanding its new “likeness detection” technology, which identifies AI-generated content, such as deepfakes, to people within the entertainment industry, the company announced on Tuesday.
The technology works similarly to YouTube’s existing Content ID system, which detects copyright-protected material in users’ uploaded videos, allowing rights owners to request removal or share in the video’s revenue.
Likeness detection does the same, but for simulated faces. The feature is meant to help protect creators and other public figures from having their identities used without their permission — a common problem for celebrities who find their likenesses have been used in scam advertisements.
The technology was first made available to a subset of YouTube creators in a pilot program last year before expanding more broadly to include politicians, government officials, and journalists this spring.
Now YouTube says the technology is being made available to those in the entertainment industry, including talent agencies, management companies, and the celebrities they represent. The company has support from major agencies like CAA, UTA, WME, and Untitled Management, which offered feedback on the new tool.
Use of the likeness detection tool does not require entertainers to have their own YouTube channels.
Instead, the feature scans for AI-generated content to detect visual matches of an enrolled participant’s face. Users can then choose to request removal of the video for privacy policy violations, submit a copyright removal request, or do nothing. YouTube notes that it won’t remove all content, as it permits parody and satire content under its rules.
In the future, the technology will support audio as well, the company says.
Related to this, YouTube has also been advocating for similar protections at a federal level, with its support for the NO FAKES Act in Washington, D.C. This would regulate the use of AI to create unauthorized re-creations of an individual’s voice and visual likeness.
The company hasn’t yet said how many removals of AI deepfakes have been managed by the tool so far, but noted in March that the amount of removals was still “very small.”
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