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VC Angle Weekly Briefing #37: Europe Hits 5 New Unicorns in 2026

VC Angle Weekly Briefing #37: Europe Hits 5 New Unicorns in 2026

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Published Date
February 1, 2026
Author
S
Stepan Kuzmin
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Category
Last Week in Tech

Hey - welcome to the thirty-seventh edition of VC Angle Weekly Updates! We’re moving weekly briefings to Sundays from now on.

As always, we're keeping tabs on what actually matters across 🇪🇺 European tech, as well as relevant global tech news. If something broke the news this week and it's worth your time, it's probably below. Scroll on for the deals, reads, and reports you'll want on your radar.

In This Edition:

Five new European unicorns in January

ASML forecasts record-revenue year

Revolut founder corrects UK residency filing

European VC hits $85B despite deal drought UK tops European business environment rankings

Europe hits third-strongest year by capital but second-lowest deal count in a decade

⏱️ 3:57 Reading Time

💥 Main Events Past Week

Five (!) new European unicorns emerge in January 2026
Europe already has 5 new unicorns in 2026. 
Europe already has 5 new unicorns in 2026. Image Source: uktech.news

January brought five new European unicorns: Belgium’s Aikido Security ($1B), Lithuania-rooted Cast AI ($1b+), French defense tech Harmattan AI ($1.4B), German ESG firm Osapiens ($1.1B), and Ukrainian edtech Preply ($1.2B).

Revolut founder corrects residency filing back to UK
Revolut CEO Nikolay Storonsky. 
Revolut CEO Nikolay Storonsky. Image Source: Bloomberg.com

Nikolay Storonsky’s family office corrected corporate filings to show UK residency after an October filing listing him as UAE resident alarmed regulators reviewing Revolut’s banking licence. The £10bn fintech has been stuck in provisional banking licence limbo for 18 months despite applying five years ago.

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ASML forecasts €34bn-€39bn in 2026 sales driven by AI demand
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Dutch chipmaker ASML expects sales up to €39bn in 2026 after Q4 orders doubled analyst forecasts to €13.2bn. The company is cutting 1,700 jobs (4% of staff) while customers prepare for AI-driven capacity expansion.

📰 Other News

  • Revolut deploys ElevenLabs AI voice agents, cutting support resolution time by 8x across 31+ languages [See here]
  • New AI agents social media draws attention as things get… weird [See here]
  • Meet the new Slush CEO [See here]
  • VC firm 2150 raises €210M fund to solve cities’ climate challenges [See here]
  • Nvidia and Alphabet VC arms back AI startup Synthesia at $4 billion valuation [See here]
  • Europe’s investors at Davos say capital is available but fragmentation slows scale-up [See here]
  • Nik Storonsky’s Quantum Light fund targets $500M [See here]
  • Germany captured a larger share of Europe’s venture capital than the UK in 2025 for the first time in history [See here]
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