Skeleton Becomes a Unicorn, Nvidia’s €9B European Bet, DeepMind Opens Up to European Science - Hot Tech News #W42

European Tech & VC: weekly signal over noise. News, deals, funds, & exits.

Oct 19, 2026

📅 Oct 12 – Oct 16, 2026 | Read time: 5 mins
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Nvidia took minority stakes in nine European startups in the same week, four in France and five in the UK, and put its total commitment to European tech at nearly €9B. Siemens led a nine-figure round that made Estonia’s Skeleton Technologies a unicorn, on the strength of the energy systems it builds for GPU clusters. Google DeepMind is giving up to 200 European researchers access to AlphaFold 3 and its other science models. And Nebius says it has signed several UK AI labs still in stealth, as the UK prepares to ease non-compete clauses.

📰 News of the Week

Nvidia takes stakes in nine European startups
Nvidia is taking minority stakes in four French startups (Doctolib, Entalpic, Genesis AI and Pigment) and five UK ones (Boltz, Foresight, Hiverge, Prima Mente and Riverlane). Nvidia puts its total commitment to European tech at nearly €9B, a week before its GTC Berlin event on October 21.

Skeleton Technologies becomes a unicorn
The Tallinn company raised a nine-figure round led by Siemens, at a valuation above $1B. Skeleton makes high-power systems built on its own “Curved Graphene” cells, which smooth out the millisecond power spikes of GPU clusters. It plans to invest more than $200M in Silicon Valley, including US cell manufacturing, to sell to hyperscalers.

Google DeepMind opens its science models to 200 European researchers
Google DeepMind and Google Cloud will give up to 200 European researchers access to AlphaFold 3, WeatherNext, AlphaGenome, AlphaEvolve and AlphaEarth Foundations, along with $3M in compute credits.

Nebius signs UK AI labs
Nebius says it has signed a number of early-stage UK AI labs as customers, some still in stealth, without naming them or the size of the deals. Its EMEA general manager Gary Tierney welcomed the UK government’s plan to ease non-compete clauses: “if that goes away, I think you are going to see an emergence of a lot more labs.”

🇪🇺 Top Deals of the Week

Skeleton Technologies | Nine-figure, undisclosed | Estonia | AI Infrastructure | Siemens

🚪 Exits

🔍 My Personal Favorites

HyLight | Aerospace | €13M | Rubio Impact Ventures, DRW, Teampact Ventures
Paris-based startup inspecting power lines, pipelines and railways with autonomous hydrogen-powered airships.

The 12-metre HyLighter flies up to ten hours with no direct emissions, carrying LiDAR, cameras and methane detectors
Customers include Enedis, SNCF Réseau, VINCI, NaTran and Téréga
Authorised by the DGAC and EASA to fly beyond visual line of sight, with expansion planned into Germany and the Netherlands

Stride | HealthTech | £4.6M Seed | Arāya Ventures, Morgan Stanley Inclusive & Sustainable Ventures
UK preventative health membership combining DNA, blood and gut testing with personalised insights.

Founded by Olympic medallist Andrew Steele, co-founder of DNAfit
Innovate UK is funding two of its research projects, on biological age and an AI health copilot
Plans to launch its Stride One membership outside the UK before the end of 2026

KP Labs | SpaceTech | €4.42M | Momentum Capital Partners
Polish company building hardware and AI that process satellite data in orbit, so only the useful information is sent back to Earth.

Works with ESA, NASA, Airbus Defence and Space and Thales Alenia Space
Its Intuition-1 satellite operated in orbit from 2023 to 2026
Described by its investor as profitable and capital-efficient

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