Scaling Europe – Details, episodes & analysis

Defence, security and resilience startups in Europe have grown 4x over the past five years, with funding now reaching nearly $9 billion as larger rounds start to emerge.

Sander Verbrugge, Partner at the NATO Innovation Fund, says the ecosystem is now producing companies with real revenue and scale. He argues the bigger issue is awareness.

The Scaling Europe show is presented by Deel - check them out here:

https://get.deel.com/ruynb7o4lfjk

Sponsors:

SurrealDB: The multi-model database for AI agents. Check them out here: https://surrealdb.com/

Omni: The AI analytics platform trusted by fast-growing companies like Perplexity, Synthesia, and dbt Labs. Check them out here: https://omni.co/

Venture Comet: The platform that gives startups and scale-ups real-time equity tracking, daily business insights and automated management information. Check them out here: https://venturecomet.com/

Timestamps:

0:33 - Introduction to NATO Innovation Fund

2:11 - DSR startups funding growth and 4x increase

3:18 - What defence, security and resilience actually mean

5:31 - Why larger rounds are driving the ecosystem

7:20 - Key hubs across Europe and rise of new regions

9:04 - Where more funding is still needed

11:02 - How NIF evaluates and deploys capital

13:01 - Changing attitudes towards defence investing

16:01 - Specialist vs generalist investors in defence

18:00 - Portfolio examples and companies to watch

20:33 - Why awareness is Europe’s biggest challenge

Pay-by-bank is becoming a serious alternative to cards in Europe, as merchants look for cheaper and faster ways to process payments.

Lena Hackelöer, Founder and CEO of Brite Payments, says that shift is being driven by how expensive and fragmented payments are for merchants. She describes how Brite expanded into markets where demand already existed, while staying profitable early to keep control as funding dynamics changed.

The Scaling Europe show is presented by Deel - check them out here:

https://get.deel.com/ruynb7o4lfjk

Sponsors:

SurrealDB: The multi-model database for AI agents. Check them out here: https://surrealdb.com/

Omni: The AI analytics platform trusted by fast-growing companies like Perplexity, Synthesia, and dbt Labs. Check them out here: https://omni.co/

Venture Comet: The platform that gives startups and scale-ups real-time equity tracking, daily business insights and automated management information. Check them out here: https://venturecomet.com/

Timestamps:

0:33 - Introduction to Brite Payments

1:32 - How pay-by-bank adoption has evolved

3:22 - Using AI to move faster internally

6:29 - Why Sweden gave Brite an early advantage

6:58 - Expanding across Europe

9:29 - Educating the market

12:24 - How early pay-by-bank still is

13:45 - Profitability and staying in control

15:31 - European sovereignty in payments

18:39 - What’s next for Brite Payments

Fuse Energy has already crossed $500m in annualised revenue and grown 10x.

Alan Chang, Co-founder and CEO of Fuse Energy, says the company’s real constraint is not capital but hiring enough great engineers. The business continues scaling in the UK energy market and is preparing to expand into new products and markets.

The Scaling Europe show is presented by Deel - check them out here:

https://get.deel.com/ruynb7o4lfjk

Sponsors:

SurrealDB: The multi-model database for AI agents. Check them out here: https://surrealdb.com/

Omni: The AI analytics platform trusted by fast-growing companies like Perplexity, Synthesia, and dbt Labs. Check them out here: https://omni.co/

Venture Comet: The platform that gives startups and scale-ups real-time equity tracking, daily business insights and automated management information. Check them out here: https://venturecomet.com/

Timestamps:

00:00: Introduction and overview of Fuse Energy’s milestone growth in 2025

02:30: What drives customer retention and minimal churn

05:00: Talent as the primary growth constraint

09:00: Growth outlook for 2026 and expansion strategy

13:00: Recruiting worldwide and maintaining company culture amid scaling

17:30: Fundraising, profitability, and capital discipline

21:00: Views on European tech ecosystem and investing attitudes

24:30: Strategic bets on energy infrastructure and fusion

28:30: Energy consumption as economic proxy and complexity of climate goals

33:00: Founder mindset and operational challenges

36:30: Climate tech perspective and talent misallocation

41:30: AI adoption and closing remarks

Nebius AI is one of the most interesting, and underrated, European AI companies out there.

It was formed from the remnants of Yandex (the russian search browser that got hit with sanctions after the Ukraine War), and is now building the full-stack cloud for AI.

It is flying recently:

• $25bn market cap (up 220% YTD)
• Recently signed a $20bn deal with Microsoft

I chatted to their cofounder, Roman, to hear the story on how they're building Europe's fullstack of AI.

Carles is one of Europe's top investors and operators. His first investment as an angel was into Revolut.

More recently he was the first investor into ElevenLabs, where he ended up working at employee number 4 and owning GTM (he grew ARR to over $200m).

He's just launched his own VC - Baobab, which we get into.

AIApply is an AI-powered job-search platform that automates resume creation, cover-letter writing, interview preparation, and even end-to-end job applications through its auto-apply engine.

It frequently goes viral on socials, has an incredibly lean team (4 people), and is doing millions in revenue.

Leo is a serial entrepreneur and YC founder. He's now building Visum Labs - an AI & Data consulting & implementation company.

He's helping some of the leading tech companies in the world build and implement AI that has a meaningful impact on their business.

The team at Onstage run Europe's largest demo day. They get over 2,000 applications for 20 spots.

It's quickly become one of the leading events in Europe and has seen amazing success.

Demo day finalists have collectively raised more than £500m from leading VCs, with the likes of Scan.com (£60m) and Lawhive (£44m) becoming some of Europe’s fastest growing startups.

Today it's announced its £10m fund as it looks to become the YC of Europe.

The startup, founded in 2024 by Daniel Moreira, Felix Steinbrenner and Samuel M., has built an AI platform that helps pharmaceutical companies launch new drugs worldwide.It streamlines pricing, market access and regulatory workflows for drug launches by automating data extraction and insight generation, enabling faster decision-making across global markets.The company saw RAPID growth after launching, reaching six figures in ARR within a few weeks. Today it's announced raising a $2.75 seed round led by Frontline Ventures, with participation from Y Combinator, Pace Ventures, Saras Capital and Springboard Health Angels.

Peec AI is one of the standout European companies of 2025. It launched at the start of the year and has exploded:- Gone from $0 to $4m+ ARR in 10 months- Onboarded 1,300 brands and agencies onboarded (including n8n, Attio and ElevenLabs)- Added 300+ new customers every monthThe company launched in February 2025 and raised a seed round led by 20VC in July 2025.Today it's announced raising a HUGE $21m Series A led by Singular which we discuss in the episode.