LocalGlobe

We backed Mistral at seed in 2023, when Europe's frontier AI capabilities hung in the balance. Three years later, they've built Europe's definitive full AI stack: the entry point for dozens of global enterprises to deploy frontier AI to solve their hardest problems. Congratulations to Arthur Mensch, Guillaume Lample, and Timothee Lacroix on this exciting milestone.

Scientific breakthroughs have seen biological computation emerge as a new substrate for AI and computing. Biological neural tissue can learn with far greater sample efficiency and has the potential to train and run models at much lower cost, while avoiding some of the memory and networking constraints of conventional GPU infrastructure. Frontier Computing (YC S26) is pushing the boundaries of this technology. Founded by Cambridge scientist Michael Domarkas, they’ve developed a new tissue-culture approach that breaks through the previous ~1 million neuron scaling barrier, opening the possibility of training models on living neurons at a scale that was previously inaccessible. By January 2027, Frontier will launch its 500M biological neurone cluster, 2500x larger than the next-largest publicly available biocomputing system. They’ve just announced $10M in pre-seed funding led by General Catalyst, where we’ve invested via LocalGlobe alongside KAYA, Long Journey and Amino Collective. Phoenix Court | Ziv

Over a billion raised by our portfolio in the last six weeks. European summer is firmly in the past. Check out some of our highlights below.

"We want to create the ecosystem that will power the creative AI revolution." Powerful words from Wonder Studios founder Xavier Collins, whose seed round we led last year, in conversation with Ziv Reichert.

The science for identifying and preventing chronic diseases is improving exponentially. But our methods for actually detecting these diseases in the first place have barely changed. Fear-inducing needles, ugly testing kits gathering dust in a drawer at home. How important is the science if there’s no appetite for actually using these tests? While many companies have focused solely on science, Early is taking this a step further, putting design and usability at the forefront of at-home testing. Their at-home urine test screens for a number of key biomarkers associated with serious diseases such as bladder and urinary tract cancer, diabetes and pre-diabetes, kidney conditions and cardiovascular health. Bringing laboratory-grade longitudinal testing into the home, results are delivered in under 5 minutes. The waitlist for their first tests is now open: https://lnkd.in/d6HkFXDt This is one of the most significant advances ever in home testing for disease. Early has an exceptional founder team, bringing together D-J Collins, ex-Google, and Thomas Heatherwick, the renowned British designer led by the principle that poor design carries a measurable human cost. Chief Medical Officer Mark Emberton is a leading urologist and a professor in interventional oncology at UCL. We're proud to have been with Early since the beginning, as one of their first investors leading their seed round back in 2023. Julia Svennerstål-Hawkins | Saul Klein | Amy G.

Katie King, PhD, founder & CEO of LocalGlobe-backed BioOrbit, on developing early proof points in their mission to transform cancer treatment, and when scaled correctly, wider medicine. Earlier this month, BioOrbit's first prototype returned from space, where it successfully proved its method for forming protein crystals for a new class of medicine.

Europe faces a race for AI sovereignty. Its factories are already kitted out with largely-imported machinery. But its data and deployment layer, which captures worker knowledge, ingests operational data, and trains models, is still up for grabs. But time is running out. Workers and experts who carry two centuries of industrial knowledge are marching towards retirement. So can Europe codify that knowledge, or risk losing it forever? microagi is leading the way through developing an ownable deployment and data layer for Europe. Founded by Bercan Kilic, Yoan Iliev (both former F1 engineers), Nico Nußbaum, and Artjem Weissbeck, MicroAGI’s Atlas platform captures and trains models on customers' real operations, thereby closing the gap between flashy demos and viable physical AI that works on the line. This layer is neutral, hardware-agnostic, preventing lock-in to any single provider. We’ve backed MicroAGI since the beginning, and today, we’re delighted to announce our investment in their $55M seed round, Germany’s largest ever seed round, alongside Hummingbird Ventures, Northzone, Village Global, and redalpine. Ziv Reichert

Anyone who's suffered from writer’s block will know that writing isn’t a time problem: it’s a thinking problem. Thinking of the right word to use, a better way to phrase something, or even, the right place to start. So while AI word processors might help you write faster and with higher output, they aren’t challenging you to be more thoughtful, creative, and authentic. That’s what Marker is building: an AI writing tool for people who believe in writing. Sitting alongside you as an editor, challenger, and intelligent reader, Marker supports writers in the trickier, unseen hurdles of writing: forming arguments, considering alternative perspectives, guiding your own unique voice and style without ever hijacking it. Founders Jon Steinback (Head of Creative & Marketing at Google DeepMind) and Ryan Bowman (former Financial Times data journalist) bring a strong creative perspective and above all else, a love for writing as a critical form of communication. Ziv Reichert, investor at LocalGlobe, says: "What impressed us about Jon and Ryan is that they understand writing isn't an output problem. It's a manifestation of thinking. Most AI tools can make text sound like you; they can't make it the product of your own thinking. Jon and Ryan are the right people to address this challenge: they understand what makes a great product, they're lifelong writers, and they're building a path forward that combines the very best of AI with the human judgement that should always be at the centre of the creative process." We led Marker’s pre-seed round last year, and we’re excited today to announce that we’re investing again in their $13M seed round alongside Index Ventures, and angels including Steve Newman (Writely, Google Docs), Thomas Wolf (Hugging Face), Laura Modiano (OpenAI), Cal Henderson (Slack), and Mehdi Ghissassi (ex-DeepMind). Learn more and hone your writing craft at Marker.

AI is being promised at a scale it cannot yet deliver. Existing chips are constrained by high costs, scarcity of supply, and underperformance—meaning that gap between promise and reality is widening. So what if you could decouple AI workloads from the hardware itself? That’s exactly what ZML, and founder Steeve Morin, is building: a software that allows you to run on the fastest available chips, whether that’s NVIDIA, AMD, Google TPU, Apple Metal, or Intel Arc. Launched today, ZML/LLMD is a new LLM inference server that eliminates the cost and friction of switching between hardware, and which opens the door for a new generation of challenger chipmakers to compete with incumbents. The result: software that finally meets society's exploding demand for compute. And it’s currently free to use. This launch also coincides with their $20M seed round, where we’ve invested alongside 20VC, Commit, AALVC, Drysdale Ventures, Kima Ventures, Kindred Capital VC, and Puzzle Ventures. Read about their new product in TechCrunch (via Anna Heim): https://lnkd.in/gJ4xYZf5 Run ZML/LLMD here: https://zml.ai/llmd/ Saul Klein | Ziv Reichert | Sam Warren

The GTM playbook has been completely rewritten, and success now requires a total rewiring of how companies sell. A new stack, a new motion, a different kind of team. Alongside our friends from Primary, we’re excited to be hosting a ‘GTM in the AI Era’ breakfast on July 16th. We’ll be welcoming a brilliant lineup of panellists including Ellen (Moeller) McCormack (Head of EMEA Sales @ Clay), Tuomo Riekki (Co-founder @ Zero) & Jonathan Marriott (GTM @ Pit). Seats are limited, apply to attend: https://luma.com/qenzndar Ambi Mistry | Nick Daley | Cassie Young