Starling Bank, a UK challenger bank, announced plans to cut 130 jobs as part of a restructuring effort to streamline operations and accelerate AI-driven product development. The move follows a 3% decline in pre-tax profits to £217m and a revenue drop to £887m for the year ending 2025. The bank aims to enhance agility and reduce duplication while expanding its use of AI in banking services.
The PyTorch Foundation, now an independent non-profit, plays a central role in Europe’s open-source AI ecosystem. It supports projects like Safe Tensors and fosters collaboration among European AI startups and researchers to advance AI sovereignty and open infrastructure.
Rohlik, the Czech grocery unicorn operating Sezamo in Romania, launched an integration with ChatGPT to enable natural language interactions for grocery shopping, including recipe searches, basket management, and order tracking.
Blenda Labs, founded by Erik Wahlberg after his previous venture Frever was shut down, was acquired by music platform Epidemic Sound just six months after its launch. Wahlberg stated the acquisition happened earlier than planned.
Two former Spotify developers founded Encore to simplify life for developers. The company has now raised additional funding, with its valuation more than doubling to over 400 million Swedish kronor.
Airway Shield, a Spanish startup developing a medical device to make endotracheal intubation safer, has launched a funding round to raise 800,000 euros. The company has already secured 320,000 euros in commitments.
Allegro, the Polish e-commerce platform, is expanding into Ukraine with a strategy that differs from initial assumptions, focusing on a tailored approach for the Ukrainian market.
Mdotm, a London-based fintech firm using AI to manage investment portfolios, secured $27 million in funding led by Expedition Growth Capital. The company serves over 60 financial institutions globally and plans to expand its AI platform Sphere, which supports $100 billion in assets under management.
calltime founder Jonathan Kurth reveals the company has over 300 customers ranging from scale-ups to corporations and aims to double this number while increasing revenue per customer in the next year.
The article discusses two competing approaches in physical AI: data-driven methods and architecture-first strategies. FieldAI, a European startup, is spotlighted for its architecture-first model, which emphasizes real-world deployment, uncertainty quantification, and operational intelligence. This approach contrasts with data-first methods used by companies like Physical Intelligence and Generalist, and is positioned as more resilient for complex, safety-critical environments.