As global trade tensions simmer after Donald Trump’s latest wave of tariffs sent markets into freefall, Europe’s hardware startups are stepping into the spotlight.
As manufacturers rethink supply chains and geopolitical pressures look set to redraw the tech landscape, Europe looks like fertile ground for innovation that stays closer to home.
From AI chips and robotics to wearable devices, a new wave of startups is looking to take advantage of a shifting global order — and the growing demand for resilient, locally-sourced tech.
To find out who’s at the cutting edge, we asked top European investors to name the hardware startups they’re watching closely — with one rule: no portfolio plugs allowed.
Hardware startups to watch in Europe
Jack Kennedy, investor at Founders Factory
Isembard — UK
While industries like manufacturing and mining have long been overlooked by founders and investors alike, it’s great to see a new generation of founders rebuilding Europe’s industrial base from the ground up.
Isembard is building decentralised factories to bring machine part manufacturing back to Europe. Targeting defence and heavy industry sectors, its franchise model avoids the heavy capex of traditional plants, while modernising local machine shops and reducing supply chain risks.
Ascension — UK
Ascension is extracting rare earth elements (REEs) from volcanoes. A spinout from the University of Oxford, the company uses geothermal energy to capture critical minerals from volcanic brines — avoiding the energy and chemical intensive processes that exist in today’s supply chains.
With China controlling more than 90% of global REE processing, Ascension has created a cleaner, more secure alternative for Europe’s growing demand for critical metals. Founded by Motoaki Sumi, a former entrepreneur-in-residence at Oxford Science Enterprises and product lead at now bust British EV manufacturer Arrival.
Milvus Advanced — UK
Spun out of the University of Oxford, Milvus has created a process that converts low-cost, abundant metals like copper into high-value critical materials — providing a faster supply of critical metals at a fraction of the cost. By upcycling widely available feedstocks, it can also reduce the environmental impact of mining.
Sandra Malmberg, partner at EQT Ventures
Terralayr — Switzerland
Terralayr is building an “energy flexibility as a service” platform. It develops, owns and digitally operates grid-scale battery projects in Germany, aggregating capacity virtually across a 5GW pipeline. The company recently secured €77 million to accelerate rollout.
By unlocking long-duration storage that smooths the intermittency of renewables, it removes a critical bottleneck to Europe’s coal-to-clean transition and could become the “AWS of battery capacity.”
ARX Robotics — Germany
ARX is aiming to mass-produce modular unmanned ground vehicles that can be adapted for uses ranging from frontline logistics to disaster relief. It has opened Europe’s largest autonomous robotics factory, scaling dual-use land drone production that bolsters European sovereignty and is already supplying systems to Ukraine at a critical moment.
Fractile — UK
Fractile is building an AI inference chip to run large language models and transformers 100x faster at one-tenth the cost of GPUs. Its compute architecture has the potential to slash both energy consumption and latency, offering Europe a homegrown alternative to Nvidia at a time when resilient, low-carbon AI infrastructure is of growing strategic importance.
Marc Bouchet, investment associate at TDK Ventures
Mimic Robotics — Switzerland
Mimic is developing robotics hardware and software which makes it faster and easier for customers to automate complex manipulation tasks. In an increasingly de-globalised world, this is essential for improving the cost and efficiency of manufacturing processes. Its dexterous robotic hand hardware bridges the embodiment gap between humans and robots.
Neura Robotics — Germany
Neura is building advanced robot arms and humanoids that integrate intelligence and sensing to make them more flexible and easier to use by non-expert customers. These are robotic assistants that are built to collaborate with humans in a natural way and automate tasks with low cost and less complexity.
Lace Lithography — Norway
Lace Lithography is developing the next generation of semiconductor fab technology that enables chips to be made smaller, more powerful and more power efficient. As compute needs fight to keep up with growing AI demands, this is an important space.
Tom Henriksson, general partner at OpenOcean
Oura — Finland
Oura is a strong entrant for healthtech startups in Europe, leading the global smart ring category with a strong focus on sleep and activity tracking. Based in Finland, the company has scaled rapidly, now generating hundreds of millions in revenue and reaching a $5.2bn valuation in its Series D.
Flux Computing — UK
Flux is building optical processors to power the next generation of AI infrastructure. Led by a young Peter Thiel Fellow and a deeply technical founding team, the UK-based company has already raised a significant pre-seed round.
Louis Fearn, principal and sustainability lead at InMotion Ventures
Cylib — Germany
Cylib’s innovative recycling technology enables the recovery of valuable materials like lithium, nickel and cobalt from spent batteries with high efficiency and a reduced environmental footprint compared to traditional methods.
By establishing a strong European ecosystem for battery recycling, Cylib aims to contribute directly to the continent’s supply chain resilience, lessening dependence on overseas raw material sources and promoting a sustainable lifecycle for crucial battery components.
Nova Carbon — France
Nova Carbon produces high-performance sustainable carbon fibre composites from recycled carbon fibre. With less than 30% of the world’s virgin carbon fibre coming from Europe, the continent has an opportunity to play a key part in producing this material that is increasingly relevant in Europe’s industrial, automotive and aerospace sectors. Virgin carbon fibre is known to be costly and highly carbon-intensive to produce, giving a cost-competitive and fully recycled alternative, such as Nova Carbon, an edge.
Silana — Austria
Silana is revolutionising garment manufacturing with its advanced sewing robots, a critical technology in the face of increasing global supply chain complexities. Its robots automate the labour-intensive sewing process, offering a pathway to localised production within Europe.
By enabling faster, more cost-effective and sustainable domestic production, Austria-based Silana’s technology has the potential to enhance the resilience of the European apparel industry, providing a buffer against external economic pressures and fostering a more agile and responsive supply chain within the continent.
Andreas Riegler, general partner at APEX Ventures
SemiQon — Finland
SemiQon builds silicon-based quantum processors for the million-qubit era. Based in Finland, SemiQon’s mission is to realise the promise of quantum computing by delivering scalability through powerful, resilient and cost-effective quantum processors.
The company’s technology builds on decades of development and know-how from the semiconductor industry, making its quantum integrated circuits and other components commercially competitive and well-suited for mass-manufacturing.
SemiQon’s first-in-the-world cryo-optimised CMOS forms the basis for its quantum chips and has wide-ranging applications in quantum, space and beyond.
Equal1— Ireland
Equal1 is developing the world’s first fully integrated quantum system on a chip. By combining quantum and classical computing elements into a single silicon chip, Equal1 dramatically reduces quantum computers’ size, cost and power requirements.
This innovative approach makes quantum technology more accessible and scalable, paving the way for practical applications across various industries. Its unique architecture eliminates the need for bulky cryogenic systems, enabling room-temperature operation.
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