Digest · 7 August 2026
European hard tech, the last week. A quieter, mid-summer week on deal count — but the deep-tech signal was loud where it mattered, because Britain minted its biggest-ever chip round. London's Olix raised $312M (Series B) at a $3.3B valuation to build photonic AI-inference chips that ditch high-bandwidth memory — reportedly Europe's largest semiconductor round on record, backed by Arm, Hudson River Trading, Netflix's Reed Hastings and the UK government's Sovereign AI fund. Around it, the week leaned into the physical layer of AI: long-duration energy storage, space-domain awareness and data-centre robotics. One more notable raise stayed out of the linked list below — Spain's FuVeX pulled in €3M for dual-use long-range inspection drones, but has no public careers page live yet. Here are the Series A and up rounds (plus a notable pre-seed) across European deep tech from the past seven days, each with a live careers link. Figures as reported — verify on each company's site.
London, UK · olix.com · 3 Aug · photonic AI-inference chips / semiconductors · $3.3B valuation
Olix designs AI-inference systems end to end — the chips, the lasers and the network that connects them — using photonic interconnects and on-chip SRAM to bypass HBM. Its first chip, DX-1, is a decode accelerator aimed at 100B-parameter models, with tape-out later in 2026 and first delivery targeted for H2 2027. A round this size, ahead of tape-out, means aggressive hiring across photonic and silicon chip design, laser and optical engineering, hardware and systems, firmware, and inference software, plus the first serious commercial, product and operations leaders. → Careers
Amsterdam, Netherlands (TU Delft spin-out) · oreenergy.com · 4 Aug · iron-air long-duration energy storage
Ore Energy's iron-air batteries store renewable power for up to 100 hours by reversibly rusting iron — at roughly a tenth of the per-unit cost of lithium-ion. The Series A (led by Plural and HV) funds its first manufacturing facility, with GWh-scale production targeted for 2028. That points to hiring across manufacturing and process engineering, electrochemistry and materials science, cell and systems engineering, plant and operations leadership, plus utilities business development and communications. → Careers
Coimbra, Portugal · neuraspace.com · 5 Aug · AI space-domain awareness & dual-use defence
Neuraspace uses AI for space traffic management and Space Domain Awareness, and is scaling NeuraspaceDEF, its dual-use capability for government and defence users. The €15.6M (a €6M Series B plus €9.6M from Portugal's Recovery & Resilience Plan) funds more optical sensing infrastructure and autonomous mission operations — so expect hiring across AI/ML scientists, orbital-dynamics and astrodynamics engineers, radar and optical sensing, autonomy and mission ops, plus defence and government business development. → Careers
Zürich, Switzerland · exclaimrobotics.com · 4 Aug · autonomous robots for AI data-centre maintenance
Exclaim came out of stealth — founded by an ex-Google/Microsoft/NVIDIA/ETH roboticist — to build robots that navigate a data hall on their own and work a rack from floor to top rail, starting with the highest-volume break-fix tasks (optics/SFP swaps, cabling, drive replacement). The pre-seed (co-led by Founderful and Playfair) is squarely a hiring round: robotics engineers in manipulation, navigation and perception, plus hardware/mechatronics, systems and autonomy. (Switzerland sits just outside our EU/UK/Türkiye frame, but it's too notable a robotics story to skip.) → Careers
One theme tied the week together: the picks-and-shovels of the AI build-out are increasingly a hardware story. Olix is racing to supply the inference chips; Ore Energy wants to store the renewable power those data centres will need for days at a time; and Exclaim is building the robots that will physically maintain the halls. Sovereignty capital kept showing up too — a UK government fund anchored Olix, and Portugal's recovery plan co-funded Neuraspace's dual-use space assets. The UK led on headline size (Olix), the Netherlands on industrial climate tech (Ore Energy), with Portugal (Neuraspace), Switzerland (Exclaim) and Spain (FuVeX) rounding out a geographically spread but thinner mid-summer week. As ever, the through-line is industrialisation: chips, batteries, sensing and robots all moving from lab toward volume — a manufacturing, deployment and commercial-leadership hiring problem as much as an R&D one.