August European Tech Funding Repeats Last Year’s €3.2 Billion

European tech companies raised €3.2 billion in August, the same total as August a year earlier, even as funding fell 63 percent from July. Deal count dropped 38 percent, to 165 rounds from 267.

Ten companies still took more than €100 million each. The largest cheque was Stockholm software firm Lovable, which closed a $400 million Series C at a $13.3 billion valuation while much of the continent’s investment committees were away.

The €3.2 Billion Twin

The August 2026 tally is a photocopy of August 2025, when European tech also raised €3.2 billion. That earlier print came across 189 deals and was itself a 66 percent drop from July 2025, with 47 percent fewer rounds.

Deal count is the part that actually weakened. August 2026 produced 165 rounds, 13 percent fewer than the 189 logged a year earlier, and two more nine-figure tickets (10 against 8). The value line did not move.

Go back one more summer and the floor was much lower. August 2024 brought in €1.9 billion across 203 deals, so last year’s €3.2 billion was up nearly 70 percent year on year. This August held that higher floor. It did not build on it.

THREE AUGUSTS, ONE SUMMER HOLE

Crunchbase’s global book shows why the European print still stings. Worldwide venture funding in August was $42 billion, down 25 percent from July’s $56 billion, yet up 122 percent from the prior August. Europe matched last summer. The rest of the market did not.

July Loaded the Comparison Against August

July 2026 was a poor base month for any sequential reading. Companies raised €8.6 billion across 267 rounds, a touch above June’s €8.3 billion even though deal count slipped 9 percent from 293. Fourteen companies raised more than €100 million, and the ten largest tickets accounted for 70 percent of the month.

Germany led that surge with €3.5 billion over 48 transactions. Defence and dual-use hardware did the heavy lifting, then health and AI infrastructure piled on.

THE JULY TICKETS AUGUST DID NOT REPEAT

• Helsing: The Munich defence AI group raised $1.8 billion in Series E at an $18 billion valuation.
• Quantum Systems: The German unmanned-systems maker closed $1.2 billion in Series D for factories, acquisitions and overseas expansion.
• Neko Health: The Stockholm scan clinic took $700 million in Series C to open in the United States.
• Nscale: The UK AI infrastructure firm added a £670 million revolving credit line for data centres.
• CuspAI: The Cambridge materials lab raised $450 million in Series B.

Those five rounds alone explain why a quiet August looks like a crash on a bar chart. Strip out a handful of outsized July closes and the sequential gap shrinks to the summer hole European funds already know.

Who Still Cleared a Cheque in August?

Capital that did move in August did not spread. The United Kingdom raised €1.4 billion across 51 of the 165 transactions, the top national total. Artificial intelligence led sectors with €677.1 million, or 20.9 percent of the month, down from €1.8 billion in July but still first.

WHERE AUGUST’S €3.2 BILLION LANDED

• UK share: €1.4 billion over 51 deals, the month’s largest national haul.
• AI share: €677.1 million, 20.9 percent of total funding.
• Large rounds: 10 companies above €100 million; 32 of 165 deals hid their size.
• Exits: 37 transactions, with Germany on 12 and the UK on 6.

Announced August rounds behind that UK total included London chip firm Olix, which closed a $312 million Series B at a $3.3 billion valuation, and Cambridge Aerospace, which raised $300 million at $3.4 billion. Zurich’s Gravis Robotics, whose SoftBank cheque into Gravis Robotics already stood out in a slower European week, was another of the ten large tickets.

First-half figures show the same geography at a larger scale. European tech raised €44.1 billion across 1,740 deals in H1 2026, with the UK on €18.7 billion and AI on €5.92 billion. That UK weight, and the split between big late cheques and thinner early ones, is the same pattern already visible in the debt and equity tracks in H1.

Lovable’s $400 Million and Brussels’ New Fund

On 12 August, Lovable raised $400 million in Series C funding at a $13.3 billion valuation, more than double the $6.6 billion mark set when it raised $330 million in December 2025. Menlo Ventures led. The Scaleup Europe Fund, managed by EQT, co-led. New names included Balderton Capital, Carmignac, Tencent, Kaszek Ventures and World Innovation Lab.

Since a November 2024 launch, users have created more than 60 million projects, and apps built on the platform draw over 900 million visits a month. The company says it now reaches employees at nearly two-thirds of the Fortune 500, up from about half in its first year, and plans to grow to about 450 people, keeping its centre in Stockholm while adding London, Boston, San Francisco and New York.

Annual recurring revenue has nearly tripled from $200 million at the end of 2025, and the firm said it was tracking toward $600 million by the end of August. Felix Haas, who leads design at Lovable, put the same point in plainer words: since the last round eight months earlier, ARR had nearly tripled. CEO and cofounder Anton Osika called the moment “still day zero.”

https://x.com/Lovable/status/2087479640952836349

The political name on the cap table matters as much as the dollar figure. The European Commission’s €5 billion Scaleup Europe Fund, anchored by a €1 billion Commission cheque and run by EQT, was built to write growth tickets of €100 million and above so European scaleups do not have to leave the region to finish a round. Founding investors include Novo Holdings, EIFO, CriteriaCaixa, Santander/Mouro Capital, APG for Dutch pension fund ABP, Wallenberg Investments and Allianz. First investments were slated for autumn 2026. Lovable is among them.

Anton, Fabian, and the Lovable team have built one of the most ambitious and fastest-growing AI companies we’ve seen. They prove that Europe has no shortage of exceptional founders. We’re excited to co-lead this investment in Lovable through the Scaleup Europe Fund, which reflects exactly why the Fund was established: to help Europe’s most ambitious technology companies become global leaders.

Victor Englesson, Partner at EQT and Co-Head of the Scaleup Europe Fund

Matt Murphy, a partner at Menlo Ventures, said Lovable was “built for the billions of people with the creativity and knowledge to make something, but who had always been blocked by technical ability.” The live argument around the price is narrower: Lovable routes other labs’ models rather than training its own, so a $13.3 billion mark is a bet those labs never ship the same business layer themselves.

Germany Took the Exits Instead

Germany’s August was a mirror of July. After leading Europe with €3.5 billion of funding, it led the exit tape. Of 37 European tech exits in August, 12 were German, about 32 percent of the total. The UK followed with six.

Exit volume itself cooled from July’s 51 deals, which had already risen from 39 in June. The mix still moved. Software, AI, fintech, healthtech and HR tech showed up across the July book, and August stayed busy enough that the summer pause looks like a funding event, not an M&A freeze.

That split is the other half of a concentrated market. When two German defence rounds can add $3.0 billion in a single July, the next month’s funding line falls over as soon as those committees go quiet. The companies that were ready to sell did not wait for September.

Why European Dealmaking Dies in August

Dealroom’s own seasonality work, built on years of European round data, finds July and August are the quietest months on the calendar, while June and September overcompensate. US venture is much flatter through the year. France does the most damage to the European average: August activity there typically runs at about 20 percent of the annual monthly mean, as investment committees lose the quorum they need to approve new deals.

Founders who try to start a raise into that window are pitching empty inboxes. The rounds that do announce in August are usually closes that began in spring. Lovable’s Series C, Olix’s chip round and Cambridge Aerospace’s $300 million fit that pattern: large, late, and already in motion before the out-of-office replies went on.

THE SUMMER FUNDING CALENDAR

1. June 2026: European tech raises €8.3 billion across 293 deals, with 39 exits.
2. July 2026: Funding edges up to €8.6 billion across 267 deals as Helsing, Quantum Systems and Neko Health close; exits rise to 51.
3. August 12, 2026: Lovable announces its $400 million Series C at a $13.3 billion valuation, co-led by Menlo Ventures and the Scaleup Europe Fund.
4. August 2026: The month closes at €3.2 billion across 165 deals, matching August 2025, with 37 exits.
5. September 4, 2026: The monthly tally is published, and the 63 percent sequential drop becomes the headline.

Weekly tallies through late August already pointed at a solid summer for anyone adding the weeks rather than staring at July. The 63 percent figure travelled less than Lovable’s valuation. The objection that kept coming back was the price of that one company, not the idea that European venture had switched off for good.

Scaleups Already Take More Than Half

Dealroom’s Europe guide puts closed-quarter funding at $25.6 billion in Q2 2026 and $44.5 billion in the first half, against $63.8 billion for all of 2025. The same book has the full year on track for $89.1 billion if the run rate holds. London metro alone took $26.2 billion in the 12 months to the end of Q2 2026. In the trailing four quarters, 54 percent of European venture capital landed in scaleup rounds of $100 million or more, 30 percent in the $15 million to $100 million band, and 16 percent under $15 million.

Europe’s share of global venture capital was 9.0 percent in 2026, against 12.8 percent in 2016. That is the slower story underneath the August bar. A market already tilted toward a few large cheques will always print a cliff when those cheques slip by a month, and it will always look healthier than it is when two defence rounds land in the same July.

September is the month Dealroom says European funds use to catch up. The Scaleup Europe Fund has already started writing the growth cheques it was created to write. The next monthly tally will show whether the holiday hole filled in, or whether August 2026 was the summer the large-round habit and the calendar finally lined up against everyone else.