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Flemish venture capital firm Imec.xpand has raised €300mn to invest in deeptech startups. The VC is a spinoff from Leuven-based Imec, one of the world’s largest microelectronics research institutions. The new fund targets AI, semiconductors, nanotechnology, photonics, and quantum computing. It will also invest in startups working on new ways to diagnose and treat medical conditions. To date, Imec.xpand has invested in 23 companies that have so far raised a combined €1.5bn in funding. This includes two unicorns — companies valued at €1bn or more. Imec.xpand recently opened a new office in the Netherlands, according to Dutch newspaper Het Financieele…
Lithuanian climate investment firm HeavyFinance has added over 700,000 football pitches-worth of farmland in Ukraine to its soil carbon credit programme. Modern agriculture has taken its toll on soils. Centuries of plowing, cutting, and overgrazing has made land less fertile. This has also released billions of tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere. HeavyFinance pays farmers to put some of this carbon back into the ground. Specifically, the company issues loans to encourage the switch to regenerative farming practices. This includes rotating crops, growing cover crops during the off season, or plowing less often. These processes can remove carbon from the…
Welcome to the new episode of the TNW Podcast — the show where we discuss the latest developments in the European technology ecosystem and feature interviews with some of the most interesting people in the industry. In today’s episode, Linnea and Andrii talk about the availability of AI compute, Getir’s imminent departure from Europe, quite some cash for German game developers, and a few things in between. The guest of the show is Alexandra Balkova, general partner and head of portfolio at Startup Wise Guys. In the interview recorded at TechChill in Riga, Alexandra talked about the current state of…
The European Space Agency (ESA) has secured a ride for its solar wind satellite. The Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer — or Smile for short — will blast into space aboard a Vega-C rocket. The launch is scheduled for late 2025 from Europe’s spaceport in French Guiana. “We are delighted to be launching Smile on such a versatile launch vehicle,” said David Agnolon, project manager of Smile. “Vega-C has been selected as it perfectly matches the needs of the mission, such as required mass capability and injection orbit.” Vega-C — a small-life rocket developed by the ESA and Italian…
Under the UK’s new cybersecurity law, consumer smart devices can no longer allow the use of weak, easy-to-guess passwords, such as “admin” or “12345.” This is part of a set of minimum-security standards the UK is requiring to protect consumers from hacking and cyberattacks. The law covers every smart device that comes with internet or network connectivity, ranging from TVs and phones to game consoles, connected fridges, and smart doorbells. Manufacturers of such products will also have to publish contact details so that users can report bugs and other issues. In addition, they’ll need to be transparent about the timing…