Europe’s $1 Billion AI Fund

👋 Good morning/evening (wherever you are). It’s Tuesday.

Big news out of Europe this week:

Cathay Innovation just closed a $1 billion AI fund — the largest AI-dedicated venture fund ever raised in the EU.

Fund III is all-in on vertical AI, backing startups transforming healthcare, finance, energy, and consumer tech. 14 investments are already in, with half based in Europe.

It’s a major signal: AI in Europe is shifting from regulation to acceleration.

Switching gears:

Kling 2.1 is coming — here’s one of my favorite video clips so far, it’s amazing (posted on LinkedIn).

OK let’s keep going ↓

Here’s what you should know:

• Anthropic launches voice mode for Claude

  Voice mode allows you to have complete spoken conversations with Claude on your iOS and Android devices. This feature enables you to speak to Claude and hear responses through voice.

• Sign in with ChatGPT

  OpenAI is testing a sign-in feature that lets users log into third-party apps using their ChatGPT account, and is now gauging developer interest.

• Meta shuffles AI team to compete with OpenAI and Google

  In an internal memo sent Tuesday and seen by Axios, chief product officer Chris Cox laid out the new structure, which will see efforts divided into two teams: an AI products team, headed by Connor Hayes, and an AGI Foundations unit, co-led by Ahmad Al-Dahle and Amir Frenkel.

• WordPress has an AI team

  WordPress AI Team: a dedicated group focused on accelerating and coordinating artificial intelligence projects across the WordPress ecosystem.

The numbers:

• Salesforce to acquire Informatica for $8B to strengthen its AI-powered data tools and cloud integration platform.

• Cathay Innovation launched a $1B Fund III to back vertical AI startups across digital health, fintech, mobility, energy, and consumer tech.

• Series X Capital, reportedly backed by Google’s innovation arm, is raising a $500M fund to invest in advanced AI ventures.

• Pallet raised $27M Series B to scale its AI logistics workforce, CoPallet, which cuts costs by automating manual workflows.

• Sweep secured $22.5M Series B to expand its AI infrastructure layer for compliance, operations, and internal tooling.

• SpAItial raised $13M seed to build AI-native 3D foundation models that reason in space and time, with applications across entertainment, robotics, and digital twins.

• Secro raised $10M Series A to grow its AI-driven trade finance platform, streamlining global transactions for logistics and shipping.

• Data Sutram raised $9M Series A to expand its AI platform that helps enterprises detect fraud and meet compliance in India’s financial sector.

Thought starters:

• IndieWire’s Future of Filmmaking Summit: How to Survive and Thrive in the Age of AI

• Google CEO Sundar Pichai on the future of search, AI agents, and selling Chrome

• Apple’s triple threat: tariffs, AI troubles and a Fortnite fail

Meme of the day:

Thanks for reading,

Eddie

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