February 2026 brought a fresh wave of momentum for female founders across Europe. Despite the funding chill, women-led teams landed investments in healthcare, climate tech, deeptech, and AI, outpacing both January and last February in deal count and capital raised.
Even in a tough market, female-led startups are gaining ground.
More women are stepping into the investment arena, fueling the rise of female-led innovation. The UK alone has a £310 billion opportunity waiting to be unlocked by women founders. Just imagine the impact if even a slice of that goes to startups like the ones below. Climate tech and deeptech are especially in the spotlight, as investors double down on gender-diverse portfolios.
For instance, SlateVC just closed a €132 million fund to back the next generation of energy-efficiency and climate-tech scale-ups. That’s right in line with the missions of several founders featured here: proof that women building in high-impact sectors are finally getting more of the resources they deserve.
In collaboration with Female Foundry and the Female Innovation Index,TFN continues to celebrate women entrepreneurs shaping Europe’s tech future.
Lassie
Founder/s: Hedda Båverud Olsson, Sophie Wilkinson, and Johan Jönsson
Founded year: 2020
Total funding: $110M
Lassie, started in 2020 in Stockholm by Hedda Båverud Olsson, Sophie Wilkinson, and Johan Jönsson, is a pet insurer focused on prevention, turning insurance into a daily health app for dogs and cats.
The app provides local insurance, AI claims processed in about 6 minutes with photo uploads, preventive education, activity tracking, rewards for premium discounts, and an online health product store.
It operates in Sweden, Germany, and France, insures over 250,000 pets, makes over $100 million in annual recurring revenue, has 25% daily active users compared to the industry’s 8-9%, and partners with Lidl for rewards and Tractive for GPS tracking.
In February 2026, Lassie raised $75 million in a Series C funding round led by Balderton Capital (existing investor since 2023). Other participants included Felix Capital, Inventure, Passion Capital, and Stena Sessan, one of Europe’s largest insurtech rounds last year.
Biorce
Founder/s: Pedro Coelho, Diogo Pisoeiro, Clara Bernardes, and José Faria
Founded year: 2022
Total funding: $61.4M
Biorce, started in 2022 in Barcelona by Pedro Coelho, Clara Bernardes, José Faria, and Diogo Pisoeiro, is an AI biotech startup transforming clinical trials.
Their platform, Aika, uses machine learning trained on hundreds of thousands of past trials to assist pharmaceutical companies, biotechs, and CROs with protocol design, feasibility checks, regulatory preparation, and patient recruitment.
In February 2026, Biorce raised $52 million in a Series A funding round led by DST Global Partners. Participants included Norrsken VC, YZR Capital, Mustard Seed Maze, and angel investors such as Arthur Mensch, Albert Nieto, Paulo Rosado, and Nik Storonsky.
Heywa Labs
Founder/s: Milena Nikolić and Martín Sturla
Founded year: 2025
Total funding: $5M
Founded in 2025 in London by former Google leaders Milena Nikolić and Martín Sturla, Heywa Labs develops Generative UX (GenUX), an adaptive AI layer that creates dynamic, visual, interactive experiences, such as tappable cards and stories, rather than long text or lists of links.
Its main consumer app, Heywa, offers visual search and discovery for planning, travel, cooking, and curiosity. It uses AI to create personalised, engaging interfaces that update in real time.
In February 2026, Heywa Labs raised $5 million in a seed funding round led by Cherry Ventures. Participants included Openseed VC, Pareto, Plug & Play, Ventures Together, and angels.
Sitegeist
Founder/s: Dr. Lena-Marie Pätzmann, Julian Hoffmann, Nicola Kolb, and Claus Carste
Founded year: 2025
Total funding: $4.4M
Sitegeist, a 2025 TUM spin-out from Prof. Matthias Althoff’s robotics institute, was founded in Munich by Dr Lena-Marie Pätzmann, Julian Hoffmann, Nicola Kolb, and Claus Carste. It develops modular AI robots that automate concrete removal and renovation on unstructured sites.
Unlike model-dependent robots, these use perception, AI decision support, and adaptive control to work on deteriorated concrete in existing structures. The initial focus is on bridges, tunnels, and infrastructure, with pilot partnerships involving contractors.
In February 2026, Sitegeist raised €4 million in a pre-seed funding round led by b2venture and OpenOcean. Participants included angels like Alexander Schwörer, Mario Wettengel, Verena Pausder, Lea-Sophie Cramer, Andreas Kupke, Sven Degener, Inga vom Holtz, and Paolo Oppelt.
Lateral
Founders: Laura Ashforth and Steven Mendel
Founded: 2025
Total funding: $3.3M
Lateral was founded in 2025 in London by insurtech execs Laura Ashforth and Steven Mendel. The company focuses on active seniors aged 60 and over, providing integrated health and financial well-being products.
Its main product, the Lateral Health Plan, provides private healthcare coverage, nurse-led care navigation to help users understand diagnoses and treatments across NHS and private care, preventive wellbeing benefits, and transparent pricing.
This model complements the NHS and serves the UK’s 14 million-plus over-60s market, which traditional insurers often avoid due to perceived high risk.
In February 2026, Lateral raised £2.5 million in a seed funding round led by Augmentum Fintech, with participation from Triple Point and TinyVC.
Nyxium
Founder/s: Thiri Shwesin Aung and Paul Seurin
Founded year: 2025
Total funding: $3.2M
Founded in 2025 in Liverpool, UK, by Harvard and MIT alumni Thiri Shwesin Aung and Paul Seurin, Nyxium develops an AI platform that supports site selection, permitting, development, and operations for critical infrastructure, including nuclear, renewables, energy storage, data centres, mining, and manufacturing.
The platform combines geospatial intelligence, regulatory data, reinforcement learning, and AI decision-making to evaluate sites, identify risks such as power lines, land rules, and grid limits, and produce permit-ready documents.
This reduces timelines by up to 75% (from 12-24 months to just a few months) and saves up to $5 million per project. It has already secured a six-figure contract with Kentucky’s Nuclear Energy Development Authority and is in talks with more than 50 organisations.
In February 2026, Nyxium raised £2.4 million in a pre-seed funding round led by Visionaries Tomorrow (Iris ten Have). Participants included EWOR, with the round equivalent to $3.3M.
Demoboost
Founder/s: Anna Decroix, Igor Zesiuk, and Kamil Smuga
Founded year: 2025
Total funding: $3.2M
Demoboost, launched in 2019 in Warsaw by Anna Decroix, Igor Zesiuk, and Kamil Smuga, is a platform that automates scalable, data-rich product demos for B2B SaaS sales, presales, marketing, customer success, and channel teams.
It creates interactive demos (guided tours, videos, live sandboxes, mobile) in minutes using AI, down from weeks or hours. It also personalises at scale and captures buyer interactions to prioritise leads, boost conversions, and inform revenue intelligence.
In February 2026, Demoboost raised €2.8 million in funding co-led by Digital Ocean Ventures and RIO (Rafał Brzoska’s family office), with B-Value.
pleasefix.ai
Founder/s: Séverine Nolf (CEO) and Maxime Lahy(CTO)
Founded year: 2025
Total funding: $2.1M
Founded in 2025 in San Francisco, with engineering in Brussels by former McKinsey consultants Séverine Nolf and Maxime Lahy, pleasefix.ai is an AI platform that automates repetitive tasks for finance and strategy teams using Microsoft Office tools such as Excel and PowerPoint.
Users simply describe tasks in plain English (for example, “fix this slide” or “update data from CapIQ/Pitchbook”), and the AI completes them ten times faster, with full audit trails for compliance, all without needing new software or changes to workflows.
In February 2026, pleasefix.ai raised $2.1 million in a pre-seed funding round led by Pitchdrive. Other investors included Syndicate One, Entrepreneurs First (EF), Transpose Platform, 100IN, and finance industry angels.
Tattvam AI
Founder/s: Bragadeesh Suresh Babu (CEO) and Lannan Jiang
Founded year: 2025
Total funding: $1.7M
Tattvam AI, founded in 2025 in Bengaluru/London by IIT Madras alumnus Bragadeesh Suresh Babu and Lannan Jiang, builds an AI reasoning layer that automates custom semiconductor chip design workflows, including RTL generation, verification, floorplanning, timing closure, and power optimisation.
Unlike LLMs that lack structural understanding, its models reason from first principles about circuits, constraints, and trade-offs, compressing multi-year processes into weeks and slashing costs.
In February 2026, Tattvam AI raised $1.7 million in a pre-seed funding round led by Seedcamp. Participants included EWOR, Entropy Industrial Ventures, Concept Ventures, and angel Stan Boland (ex-Icera/Element 14).
Ark Climate
Founder/s: Ruth Bosse (CEO) and Dr Michael Fröhlich(CTO)
Founded year: 2023
Total funding: N/A
Ark Climate, founded in 2024 in Munich by Ruth Bosse and Dr Michael Fröhlich, creates a cloud-based platform that helps municipalities plan, implement, and track climate action toward net-zero.
The software creates greenhouse gas inventories (BISKO, GHG, GPC standards), models emissions scenarios, evaluates mitigation measures, manages projects with customizable action catalogues and progress indicators, and shows public dashboards.
In February 2026, Ark Climate raised €2.1 million in a pre-seed funding round led by Satgana. Participants included another.VC, Voyagers Climate Fund, Federal Ministry of Research, and angels like Danilo Jovicic-Albrecht (Vialytics), Philipp Moeser (DigitalService), Florian Schwenkert & Piran Asci (KoRo), Wladimir Nikoluk (Novata), Hanns Koenig (Aurora Energy Research).
