🇪🇺 European AI Captured 20% of Global Funding Last Week

Munich, not Mountain View, landed this week's biggest round

Hey,

Last week, I did something different.

Instead of waiting for the end of the quarter, I compiled and analyzed just one week's AI funding data.

And damn.

I was surprised to discover the trends and gaps in the $3.6B deployed across 88 AI deals.

So I am officially shipping the first edition of AI Markets Turning Hot*, where every week I’ll:

• Break down AI funding trends and top deals,

• Track Investor momentum,

• Spot the early signals that matter.

Before we start, I have a quick question for you:

📊 This Week's Market Pulse

While SoftBank is reportedly planning a massive trillion-dollar AI infrastructure “Project Crystal Land” in Arizona, the private funding market remained pretty busy.

We saw an average deal size of $41M (median $12.3M) spread across 20 countries and 49 cities. Investors continue writing bigger checks and moving as fast as AI developments.

💰 Top 3 Deals (And What They Mean…)

1. Helsing - $691M (Munich) European military tech just landed the week's biggest round. Defense spending is heating up as geopolitical tensions are rising. Every country wants its own AI-powered weapons systems and surveillance technologies.

2. Applied Intuition - $600M (Mountain View) AV software is no longer a niche play. With co-lead institutional investors, BlackRock-managed funds and Kleiner Perkins, Applied’s valuation jumped from $6 billion in early 2024 to $15 billion with this series F round.

3. Teamworks - $235M (Durham) Earmarked for accelerating AI-driven tool development and expanding Teamworks’ data science team, the legacy SaaS company founded in 2004, seems to pave the way for integrating AI. Coupling stable recurring revenue with AI seems to be a winning formula that justifies large late-stage rounds.

🔥 Hottest Sectors This Week

Poll reveal time! Government & Public Services dominated last week, grabbing one quarter of the total funding. Helsing's massive round is the culprit for this, but the sector landed four additional deals too.

1. Government & Public Services - 24.3% of all funding ($878M) with five deals

2. Core AI - 19.1% ($690M) with six deals

3. Financial Services - 13.7% ($496M) with eleven deals

The most active sector in terms of the number of deals is healthcare, with fifteen deals—it just didn’t have any massive rounds last week.

👥 Most Active Investors

General Catalyst is absolutely on fire - 6 deals, $1.46B deployed across three countries, and a 1.4 momentum score.

(Momentum score = my proprietary metric measuring investor activity and deal velocity).

Rising momentum players:

• Khosla Ventures (1.3 momentum, 20% lead rate where they were the lead investor)

• Kleiner Perkins (1.2 momentum, 75% lead rate)

• Lightspeed (1.1 momentum, 33% lead rate)

📈 Early Signals to Watch

Stage concentration: Series D ($852M) and Series F ($835M) dominated, suggesting growth-stage companies are finding their footing again.

Geographic shift: Germany captured 20.3% of funding this week (thanks to Helsing), while the US maintained 65.6%. European late-stage is heating up.

Co-investment patterns: General Catalyst + Khosla Ventures are appearing together, which signals coordinated big-bet strategies.

And that’s it for today.

One question for you: Which sector do you think will surprise us with the next $500M+ round? Hit reply and let me know. I would love to hear your feedback on this new format.

*📋 Quick Note on How I Track AI Companies: Using my daily tracking system at Bot Memo, I track startup funding rounds and classify them across 20 sectors, 100+ industries, and dozens of niche segments.