Daniel Ek’s Two Startups Drove Most of Europe’s €2.7B Tech Week

Helsing’s $1.8 billion Series E and Neko Health’s $700 million Series C together made up roughly four out of every five euros that Europe’s tech sector raised last week. Both companies share the same chairman: Daniel Ek, the entrepreneur who co-founded Spotify.

Tech.eu’s weekly tally crowned Germany and Sweden as the week’s top two countries, and artificial intelligence (AI) and healthtech as its top two sectors, across more than 60 deals worth over €2.7 billion. The ranking reflects Ek’s cap table nearly as much as it reflects either country’s broader startup scene.

Germany Topped the Table, Sweden Followed Close Behind

The headline numbers, as tracked in more than 60 deals worth over €2.7 billion, put Germany first with €1.7 billion, Sweden second with €620.5 million, and the UK third with €231.9 million. By sector, AI led with €1.6 billion, healthtech followed with €622.6 million, and software placed third at €94.2 million.

The UK’s third place looks nothing like the top two. Its €231.9 million was spread across more than a dozen separate rounds: Greenjets, Velocity, Risk Ledger, BGF’s investment in Urban Zoo, Applied Computing, Meticulous, Silicon Microgravity, Prolo, Saible, Cue and Tyred among them. No single company dominates that total.

One Name Links the Top Two Countries

Germany and Sweden are different. Munich-based Helsing is co-chaired by Ek. Stockholm-based Neko Health was co-founded by Ek in 2018, alongside Hjalmar Nilsonne, who now serves as chief executive. Ek also announced plans to step back from Spotify’s chief executive role last year, freeing him to chair a defence company and run a health startup at the same time.

Both deals landed in the same seven days. Helsing announced its round on July 13. Neko Health followed on July 15. That timing is not a coincidence of two unrelated national ecosystems; it is one person’s two companies both closing financing in the same week.

Inside Helsing’s Oversubscribed $1.8 Billion Round

Helsing was founded in 2021 by Gundbert Scherf, Torsten Reil and Niklas Köhler. It builds AI software and autonomous systems for defence, including the HX-2 strike drone, the Altra battlefield-operations platform, and the CA-1 autonomous aircraft concept, which comes in an electronic-warfare variant and a strike variant. The company works with established defence contractors including Rheinmetall, Kongsberg and Saab.

The new round values Helsing at $18 billion, up from a reported €12 billion in June 2025. New and existing backers included Dragoneer Investment Group, Lightspeed Venture Partners, ICONIQ, Goldman Sachs Alternatives, JPMorgan Chase, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and General Catalyst, alongside existing investors Prima Materia, Accel and Greenoaks.

Investor demand significantly exceeded the available allocation, reflecting strong and growing confidence in AI-driven and software-defined defence technology.

Helsing said in its own announcement that it remains predominantly European owned despite the international investor list. Its board still runs Ek and Tom Enders as co-chairmen, alongside Jeannette zu Fürstenberg and Denis Mercier, a former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Transformation. Counting the UK, Helsing now trails only the $75 billion fintech Revolut among European startups by valuation, and in the US, rival Anduril raised $5 billion at a $61 billion valuation just two months earlier.

Neko Health’s Own Steep Repricing

Neko Health scans skin, blood, heart function and body composition in a single hour-long appointment, using hardware, software and clinical protocols it builds itself rather than buying from outside suppliers. More than 100,000 people have taken the scan across its Swedish and UK clinics, and over 350,000 more sit on a waitlist. The company is opening its first US location in New York this year.

The new $700 million Series C was co-led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and O.G. Venture Partners, the fund run by billionaire Eyal Ofer. Individual backers included Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan, supermodel Claudia Schiffer, tennis champion Maria Sharapova and former footballer Thierry Henry. Bejul Somaia, a global partner at Lightspeed, said the firm believes Neko is “one of the most important healthcare companies of our generation.”

The round pushes Neko’s valuation to nearly $7 billion, a steep climb from the $1.8 billion it commanded after a $260 million Series B just eighteen months earlier. Here is how both companies’ valuations moved in that stretch:

1. January 2025: Neko Health closes a $260 million Series B, valuing the startup at $1.8 billion.
2. June 2025: Helsing’s valuation is reported at €12 billion.
3. Early July 2026: German drone maker Quantum Systems raises a $1.2 billion Series D at an $8 billion valuation.
4. July 13, 2026: Helsing closes its $1.8 billion Series E at an $18 billion valuation.
5. July 15, 2026: Neko Health closes a $700 million Series C, nearing a $7 billion valuation.

Both jumps happened inside eighteen months, on rounds led by some of the same global growth investors moving between defence and health.

How Much of the Week Do Two Deals Explain?

Converted at roughly $1.14 to the euro, the exchange rate that held through the week both deals closed, Helsing’s raise equals about €1.57 billion and Neko Health’s equals about €612 million. Compared against tech.eu’s own country and sector totals, those two conversions land almost exactly on top of Germany’s, Sweden’s, AI’s and healthtech’s reported figures for the week.

Add the two deals together and they cover close to €2.19 billion of the week’s reported €2.7 billion plus, or roughly four out of every five euros tracked across all 60-plus transactions. The remaining fifth is spread across dozens of much smaller rounds.

Helsing Joins a Crowded Field of Defence Unicorns

Helsing is not raising in isolation. Defence technology has become one of the fastest-growing corners of European venture capital, and several other companies have closed mega-rounds in recent months alongside it.

• Quantum Systems (Germany): a $1.2 billion Series D in early July, valuing the drone maker at $8 billion, more than double its roughly €3 billion price from late 2025.
• Stark (Germany): €500 million raised in June at a €3.2 billion valuation for the unmanned-systems maker.
• ICEYE (Finland): €450 million Series F for a radar satellite constellation that militaries across Europe have been ordering.
• Harmattan AI (France): a $200 million Series B led by Dassault Aviation in January, making it France’s first defence unicorn at a €1.4 billion valuation.
• Kraken Technology (UK): a $175 million Series B and $1 billion valuation for its autonomous vessels, with NATO interest behind the demand.

Even smaller deals last week carried the same thread. UK-based Greenjets raised €35 million with backing tied to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and Ukraine’s Vigilant Works landed an angel check from Angel One Fund. Defence is not the only capital-hungry deep-tech category pulling nine-figure checks in Europe right now; a $240 million record bet on European fusion landed earlier this year using the same pattern of concentrated, investor-led conviction. Readers can browse every $100 million-plus round closed in Europe this year to see how thin that top tier really is.

Below the Two Megadeals, a Very Different Market

Beneath Helsing and Neko Health sits a genuine middle tier: SWISSto12’s $70 million Series C for multi-orbit satellite work, Microagi’s $55 million, Valarian’s $50 million, and roughly fifteen more rounds in the $10 million to $70 million range. Below that sits a long tail of six- and even five-figure checks: Switzerland’s RAROG raised just €162,000 for rescue beacons, Romania’s QuickLegal won a €75,000 Women TechEU Grant, Sweden’s Liveday closed €270,000, and Türkiye’s Kant Labs took in $250,000.

That shape is not unique to one week. 54% of capital landing in scaleup rounds of $100 million or more over the past four quarters, according to Dealroom, even though those rounds are a small fraction of total deal count across Europe. Big checks dominate the money; small checks dominate the headlines’ “60-plus deals” count.

The exits column tells a related story about speed. SAP agreed to acquire Prior Labs for more than €1 billion just eighteen months after that startup launched. Omio Group is buying Rail Europe to build a rail travel platform. Adzuna, a British job service, is picking up the insolvent Hamburg HR company Joblift. American and international buyers keep showing up in these tallies, too: New York-based VisualLogix is acquiring refyne, and the US firm Apryse is buying Switzerland’s PDF Tools. A similar run of US buyers acquiring European startups showed up in an earlier week’s tally, too.

SAP closed its Prior Labs deal barely a year and a half after the startup’s founders opened for business.