Female-founded startups across Europe and the UK secured approximately €24 million in fresh capital last week. This is a sharp contrast to the previous week’s remarkable performance when women-led ventures crossed the €100 million mark.
The lower figure highlights the fluctuations that are common in the funding landscape, especially for female founders who continue to face barriers despite growing investor recognition. Nevertheless, this week’s funding rounds still showcase the steady presence of women at the forefront of entrepreneurship, tackling issues across health, sustainability, and advanced technologies.
What stands out is not only the resilience of these founders but also their ability to attract strategic backers even in a quieter week. The latest deals reinforce a broader narrative of momentum building around female-led innovation.
UnderTheDoormat (UK)
Founder/s: Merilee Karr
Founded year: 2014
Recent funding: €6M
Short-term rental (STR) company UnderTheDoormat offers a range of services through its three business units: Veeve, Hospiria, and TrustedStays. The company aims to create a regulated and scalable short-term rental ecosystem, unlocking opportunities for real estate developers, small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and hosts.
The company’s recent $7 million (nearly €6 million) funding was led by Oman Tourism Development Company (OMRAN Group), with support from Smedvig Capital and other existing investors. The funding will be used for international expansion and to support the development of its technology platforms, namely the property management system Hospiria and the B2B accommodation platform TrustedStays.
Double Dutch Drinks (UK)
Founder/s: Joyce de Haas, Raissa de Haas
Founded year: 2015
Recent funding: €5.2M
Founded by twins, Double Dutch Drinks creates award-winning premium mixers with inventive natural flavour pairings like pomegranate-basil and cranberry-ginger. Launched after experimentation and incubation at UCL, the brand now supplies over 45 countries, gracing elite venues such as Soho House, The Four Seasons, Etihad Airways, and even Formula One paddocks.
Double Dutch secured a £4.5 million (nearly €5.2 million) funding round, primarily from the de Carvalho family. The infusion will fuel UK expansion, bolster their premium presence in hospitality, launch low-sugar product innovations, and drive bold digital marketing initiatives.
MyWayDigitalHealth (UK)
Founder/s: Debbie Wake
Founded year: 2017
Recent funding: €3.5M
A self-management and education support platform, MyWay Digital Health provides a range of solutions covering diabetes, cardiovascular health, weight management, and hypertension, with many implemented across the NHS and wider healthcare market.
Foresight Group has invested £3 million (nearly €3.5 million) into the digital healthcare solutions provider to go towards the development of AI-enabled products and to support commercial expansion in the global market.
Arivin Therapeutics (Finland)
Founder/s: Chris Jonkergouw, Ekaterina Osmekhina, Katarzyna Leskinen, Tuula Heinonen
Founded year: 2023
Recent funding: €3M
A biotech spin-off from Aalto University and the University of Helsinki, Arivin Therapeutics develops innovative, next-generation therapies to fight drug-resistant bacterial infections. The company targets high-priority Gram-negative pathogens to improve treatment efficacy and outsmart resistance.
In a €3 million seed round led by Michiel Seerden, Arivin also secured support from angel and private backers, plus non-dilutive funding from Business Finland. The investment will accelerate the development of their wound-infection therapy, scale up their Fast-P rapid screening platform, expand lab operations, and grow their team toward first patient trials.
TrustNXT (Germany)
Founder/s: Sebastian Adank, Ariane Scheer-Danielsson, Andreas Reich
Founded year: 2024
Recent funding: €1.6M
German computer vision and cybersecurity startup TrustNXT is developing a software platform for comprehensive manipulation protection for visual data. It combines cryptography, computer vision and patented trust technology to ensure the authenticity of image and video data. This looks to prevent manipulation effectively and provides for reliability at every step.
The company raised €1.6 million in pre-seed funding from D11Z.Ventures and High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF). The capital will be used to scale a deeptech solution that protects images and videos in security-critical B2B applications from AI-based manipulation and cyberattacks.
MeetGeek (Romania)
Founder/s: Dan Huru, Raluca Stefania Risnoveanu, Alexandru Ionut Mindru
Founded year: 2021
Recent funding: €1.6M
Romanian startup MeetGeek is building Agentic AI that actively participates in meetings, transforming conversations into structured data and actionable outcomes, integrated with CRMs, project management tools, and workflows.
The startup landed a €1.6 million funding round led by Early Game Ventures and Inspire Capital to scale its AI meeting assistant into a category-defining AI workspace.
Lapee (Denmark)
Founder/s: Gina Périer
Founded year: 2019
Recent funding: €800K
A Danish sanitation startup Lapee is known for its viral pink urinals for women and gender non-conforming people who squat to pee. The startup’s mission is not only to scale globally, but to foster a broader conversation about inclusive design and gender equity in public spaces.
Lapee recently has secured €800k in investment and launched an equity crowdfunding campaign to invite its global community to become co-owners. The recent funding round is backed by a mixture of VC and business angels, with the largest cheque coming from Best Nights VC, the investment arm of Jägermeister. The decision to team up with an investor within the same events industry ecosystem is seen as a major strategic win by the team.
mypaperwork (Austria)
Founder/s: Maggie Childs, Vít Lichtenstein, Benjamin Wolf
Founded year: 2024
Recent funding: €470K
Founded by an international team with roots in the USA, Czech Republic, and Austria, mypaperwork simplifies residence and work permits in Europe. The company launched its first commercial product, the “RWR+ Card Application Assistant”, created to help more than 80,000 Ukrainians in Austria apply for the RWR+ residence card.
Angels United, a joint venture led by Karl Büche, Markus Ertler, Hermann, Niki Futter, and Michael Edtmayer, provided a £500K (nearly £470K) pre-seed funding. With the new funding, the team will expand its capabilities, broaden the product offering, and prepare for market entry into the Czech Republic in Q4 2025, followed by further European markets in 2026.
Sonrai Analytics (UK)
Founder/s: Darragh McArt, Deva Senevirathne.
Founded year: 2018
Recent funding: NA
Belfast-based healthtech startup Sonrai Analytics applies AI and deep learning to develop applications and interfaces to enable health, biotech and pharma organisations. Its discovery platform enables client data management, including AI-driven imaging workflows and biological interpretation capabilities, which allows research teams to make faster, more accurate decisions.
has raised fresh capital in its latest funding round led by Beach Equity Investments, a private equity company in the UK. The value of the raise was undisclosed.
Ark Climate (Germany)
Founder/s: Michael Frohlich, Bosse Ruth Bosse
Founded year: 2023
Recent funding: N/A
Ark Climate offers a software platform designed to support local governments in implementing effective climate protection strategies.
It has been awarded an R&D grant from the German ministries of finance and research. The funding will help us further develop their software. The company will deepen its scientific and data-driven insights on local climate action to support policymakers in taking the right decisions for effective climate protection.
