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Venture capital investment into Europe’s tech industry plunged by half in 2023 as investors continued to reel from the effects of high interest rates, according to data from venture capital firm Atomico.

However, artificial intelligence was a standout category that saw continued mega funding rounds.

Atomico’s “State of European Tech” report, published Tuesday, showed that overall funding for European venture-backed companies is projected to decline 45% in 2023 from a year ago.

Total venture funding for European tech companies will reach $45 billion this year, Atomico expects. That’s down from $82 billion in 2022, which is itself down from $100 billion the previous year.

Atomico said that this year was a case of correction and a reversal to the pre-pandemic years which saw a wild rise in valuations and funding levels as the tech industry secured record amounts of capital flows.

Tom Wehmeier, head of data insights at Atomico, told CNBC that where Europe stood out was that the region is actually up on the past three years compared to its U.S., Chinese, and other international counterparts.

“There has been this reset after an overheated and unsustainable period of growth in 2021 and early 2022,” Wehmeier told CNBC. “Now you see that new reality is embedded and green shoots are starting to emerge.”

U.S. and Asian institutional investment into European tech faded in a big way, Wehmeier said, as “tourist” funds like Tiger Global and Coatue, who flooded the market in 2020 and 2021, retreated in the last year or so as macroeconomic headwinds caused them to get cold feet.

Whereas the U.S. has declined 8% and China slipped 9% for overall venture funding since 2020, Europe has seen investment levels grow 19% in the same time period, in a sign of resilience for the region.

Green shoots

Still, tech has benefited from a rush of interest in artificial intelligence.

Companies like Aleph Alpha, Mistral, and DeepL have raised hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of capital from investors at high valuations thanks to the hype swirling around OpenAI, which is behind the wildly popular ChatGPT chatbot.

According to Atomico, AI was the biggest pull for fundraising rounds amounting to $100 million or more, with 11 AI companies bagging these so-called “megarounds.”

At seed stage, AI was the buzziest space for investors, attracting 11% of all funding rounds worth $5 million or less, Atomico said.

Meanwhile, Europe is the top hub for global AI talent, with the number of highly-skilled AI roles rising 10-fold over the past decade and outstripping the U.S.

Climate tech was another standout sector, according to Atomico. Funding into companies in the carbon and energy space accounted for 27% of all capital invested in European tech in 2023, three times more than in 2021.

According to Atomico, the combined value of all private and publicly listed tech companies in Europe topped $3 trillion in 2023, regaining that level after slumping well below it in 2022.

Last year, the European tech sector saw $400 billion wiped off its overall market capitalization.

IPO window remains closed

There have been virtually no IPOs of significant scale in Europe this year.

Arm, the British chip designer, went public in the U.S., and its performance has been lackluster since. Company shares are up from its debut price, but the performance of Arm, and other recently listed tech firms like Instacart and Klaviyo, haven’t convinced other tech leaders to pursue stock listings.

Still, Wehmeier said there’s now a healthy pipeline of companies looking to tap the public markets. Late-stage companies like Klarna, Revolut and Monzo are looking closer to the IPO gates than they’ve ever been.

Meanwhile, mergers and acquisitions activity remained muted compared to earlier years. Deal transaction value reached $36 billion in 2023, with the majority of exits being smaller, sub-$100 million value deals, Atomico said.

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Hinge Health opens at $39.25 per share after pricing IPO at top end of range

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Hinge Health opens at .25 per share after pricing IPO at top end of range

Hinge Health signage outside the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) during the company’s initial public offering (IPO) in New York, US, on Thursday, May 21, 2025.

Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Shares of Hinge Health popped in their debut on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday after the digital physical therapy company raised about $273 million in its IPO.

The stock opened at $39.25, rising 23% from its $32 IPO price. Hinge sold 8.52 million shares in the offering, while the total offering was for 13.7 million shares, with the balance being sold by existing shareholders.

Hinge, founded in 2014, uses software to help patients treat acute musculoskeletal injuries, chronic pain and carry out post-surgery rehabilitation from anywhere.

The San Francisco-based company filed its initial prospectus in March and updated the document earlier this month with an expected pricing range of $28 to $32.

Wall Street and the digital health sector have been watching Hinge’s debut closely, as it will shine some light on investors’ appetite for new health-tech solutions.

The broader tech IPO market has been in an extended drought since late 2021, when soaring inflation and rising interest rates pushed investors out of risky assets. Within digital health, it’s been almost completely dormant. Hinge is leading the charge, with virtual chronic care company Omada Health filing to go public earlier this month.

“Health care is tough, absolutely, but we’re very different from any of the digital health companies that have come before,” Hinge CEO Daniel Perez told CNBC’s “Money Movers” on Thursday. “Our technology is actually automating the delivery of care itself, and that’s why a lot of investors have been so interested in Hinge Health.”

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Perez and Hinge’s Executive Chairman Gabriel Mecklenburg co-founded the company after experiencing personal struggles with physical rehabilitation. Perez broke an arm and a leg after he was hit by a car, and Mecklenburg tore his anterior cruciate ligament during a judo match. Both men went through about 12 months of physical therapy.

At the IPO price, Hinge was worth about $2.6 billion, though that number could be higher on a fully diluted basis. That’s down significantly from a private market valuation of $6.2 billion in October 2021, the last time the company raised outside funding.

Hinge has raised more than $1 billion from investors including Insight Partners, Tiger Global Management, Coatue Management and Atomico.

Ben Blume, a partner at Atomico, said Hinge’s ability to scale has “truly set them apart.” The firm led Hinge’s Series A funding round in 2017.

“Hinge Health has grown into a clear category leader, improving the lives of people who are living with chronic pain,” Blume said in a statement to CNBC. “Their success is a testament to the power of mission-driven innovation.”

Hinge is trading on the NYSE under the ticker symbol “HNGE.”

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Snowflake shares soar to highest level in over a year as revenue tops $1 billion for first time

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Snowflake shares soar to highest level in over a year as revenue tops  billion for first time

Snowflake Inc. signage on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York, US, on Jan. 2, 2025.

Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Snowflake shares jumped 12% on Thursday, climbing to their highest level since early last year after the data analytics company reported better-than-expected quarterly results.

Revenue in the fiscal first quarter of 2026 jumped 26% to $1.04 billion from $828.7 million a year earlier, and topped the $1.01 billion average LSEG estimate. It’s the first time the company, which went public in 2020, has recorded more than $1 billion in sales in a quarter.

Adjusted earnings per share of 24 cents exceeded the 21-cent average analyst estimate, according to LSEG. Snowflake reported a net loss of $430 million, a loss of $1.29 a share, widening from a loss of $317 million, or 95 cents a share, a year earlier.

Snowflake has been adding artificial intelligence services into its cloud-based data analytics platform, which the company said in its earning release late Wednesday has helped it reach 11,000 customers.

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Analysts at Cantor highlighted the significance of two new $100 million deals that closed in the quarter after slipping from the prior period, noting that “churn concerns were abated.”

The firm reiterated its buy recommendation on the stock, writing that it has “confidence Snowflake should continue to execute on a beat-and-raise strategy as the year progresses and continue to show leverage in the model.”

With Thursday’s rally, Snowflake shares are up 29% for the year, while the Nasdaq is down close to 2%.

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Snowflake is right at the center of today's AI revolution, says CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy

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OpenAI, Oracle and NVIDIA will help build Stargate UAE AI campus launching in 2026

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OpenAI, Oracle and NVIDIA will help build Stargate UAE AI campus launching in 2026

OpenAI CFO on UAE partnership: It's 'OpenAI for countries'

Technology giants OpenAI, Oracle, Nvidia and Cisco are joining forces to help build a sweeping Stargate artificial intelligence campus in the United Arab Emirates.

“AI is the most transformative force of our time,” said Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang in a release Thursday. “With Stargate UAE, we are building the AI infrastructure to power the country’s bold vision – to empower its people, grow its economy, and shape its future.”

The announcement confirms previous CNBC reporting on the project.

During his Middle East tour last week, President Donald Trump and the U.S. Commerce Department announced a slew of new AI deals, including the UAE Stargate project slated for Abu Dhabi.

The project, in collaboration with Emirati firm G42, will span 10 square miles and include a 5-gigawatt capacity.

As part of the deal, OpenAI and Oracle are slated to manage a 1-gigawatt compute cluster built by G42. The project will include chips from Nvidia, while Cisco Systems will provide connectivity infrastructure.

The companies said an initial 200-megawatt AI cluster should launch next year.

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OpenAI said in a release that the project “reinforces OpenAI’s commitment to strengthening U.S. infrastructure while helping allies gain access to transformative AI responsible and securely.”

The latest project marks the first international iteration of the Trump administration’s multi-billion dollar joint AI infrastructure project announced in January between OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank. At the time, the companies committed $100 billion to the project and an additional $500 billion over the next four years.

OpenAI said in February that it was weighing data center campuses in 16 states as part of the deal.

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