Inside Nvidia’s European spending spree
by Freya Pratty
Good morning John,
Jensen Huang loves a European shopping spree.
In recent weeks, the Nvidia CEO has been on a whirlwind tour of the continent, dishing out investments into startups across Paris, London, Stockholm and Berlin, to much fanfare.
The trip, which concluded with the chipmaking titan’s flagship GTC event in Berlin this week, saw Nvidia double down on its commitments to European tech, mimicking a similar cheque-writing bonanza just over a year ago.
We’ve analysed Nvidia’s latest spree.
One thing that stands out: just like in the US, Nvidia tends to back the companies that buy its chips. The largest sectors it’s piled money into in Europe are compute buyers and AI cloud builders. VCs have a mixed response to that — read their takes here.
But is there anything wrong with Nvidia's somewhat cyclical spending? As always, I'm keen to hear your thoughts.
Elsewhere today:
/A message from our sponsor Shadeform
Your GPUs, on the Shadeform marketplace
Flex VMs connect any bare-metal GPU cluster to buyers looking for capacity, whatever the data center or architecture. Onboarding is fast. We can have your nodes listed and earning within 30 minutes.
👀 Palantir’s UK and Europe chief said the continent must “accept some dependence” on US tech.
Meet Aaron Rosenberg: The man DeepMind researchers call before they quit
With former DeepMind researchers raising record sums for their own startups, few investors are better placed than Aaron Rosenberg.
Once Demis Hassabis’s deputy and later head of strategy and operations at Google DeepMind, he now leads Canadian firm Radical Ventures’ UK presence and runs a 70+-member London alumni group on WhatsApp for the lab’s former staff.
On this episode of the Sifted Podcast, Aaron tells host John Thornhill why he’s often among the first people DeepMind researchers call when they’re weighing whether to leave — and why his advice is sometimes to stay. He explains why London’s new crop of neolabs is breaking away from what he calls the “assembly line” of frontier model development, what could stop them from becoming global champions and why Hassabis remains his model of what a great CEO looks like.
The pair also discuss Radical’s new $1bn-plus growth fund, the firm’s investments in Inherent and Latent Labs and what the UK’s planned non-compete reforms could mean for founders leaving big labs.
This podcast was brought to you by Chargebee.
Watch on YouTube
Listen on Apple Podcasts
Listen on Spotify
Listen elsewhere
🤑 Nvidia funds European startups. They spend it on Nvidia.
🇮🇹 14 Italian early stage startups to watch, according to VCs.
🇳🇴 Writing from Oslo Innovation Week, senior reporter Anne Sraders reveals how the city’s tech scene is struggling to break out from shadow of Stockholm.
What does it take to build an AI challenger?
Rapid growth, spiralling AI bills and fierce competition for talent: life inside Europe’s AI startups is anything but quiet. In this report sponsored by N47, Sifted speaks to founders about winning customers, building products that are hard to copy and turning increasingly capable models into businesses that last.
If you’d like to submit a deal, let us know.
Alverca do Ribatejo, Portugal-based Beyond Vision, which develops drones for civilian and defence applications, raised €28m in funding. Índico Capital Partners and Lince Capital led the round and were joined by investors including ActiveCap.
London-based Hyperlayer, which builds software that helps banks launch and manage programmable financial products without replacing their core systems, raised a £19.5m Series A extension. Flintlock Capital led the round and was joined by investors including Mouro Capital and Susquehanna Private Equity Investments.
Espoo, Finland-based QuantrolOx, which develops automated control software to optimise and scale quantum computers for research and commercial use, raised €12m in Series A funding. IW Capital led the round and was joined by investors including European Innovation Council and Transpose Capital.
Banbury, UK-based Skyfly Technologies, which develops electric vertical takeoff aircraft, raised €8.9m in Seed funding. HICO Investment Group led the round and was joined by investors including Archangel.
Amsterdam-based Indurex, which provides AI-driven cybersecurity tech to protect critical infrastructure from digital threats and attacks, raised €7m in funding. Contrarian Ventures led the round and was joined by investors including Axeleo Capital and Curiosity.
Sifted Pro subscribers get exclusive access to all of the deals we track across Europe. Not subscribed yet? You can do that here.
Copyright © 2026 SIFTED (EU) LTD, All rights reserved.
Sifted EU Ltd, Thanet House, London, England, WC2R 1DA
Who's scaling fastest in Europe?
Our annual ranking of Europe's fastest-growing startups by revenue growth is out. See which companies made the 2026 leaderboard — and where the continent's growth is coming from.