VC investment in AI agents, which promise to do your work for you, have surged this year in Europe.
Sifted counted 65 European AI agent deals in Q1; these “digital labour” providers have raised €1bn so far in 2025, tracking ahead of the €1.7bn haul from this sector in 2024.
Themes scoring big with investors include specialised agents for legal functions, agent “orchestration” platforms that manage multiple systems and enterprise-grade agents.
The biggest agent deal so far in Europe this year is Synthesia’s €175m Series D raise in January. The London-based AI company, which lets businesses produce lifelike video avatars, aims to introduce “real time” features to its product this year, founder and CEO Victor Riparbelli told Sifted earlier this month.
Someone watching a corporate sales video, for example, could ask questions directly to the avatars on screen. Another example would be characters in an employee onboarding video who could directly quiz recruits on what they’ve learnt.
The second biggest AI agent deal in Q1 was the €172m raised in January by New York- and London-based ElevenLabs, which is developing “conversational” agents that turn written material into audio.
Another hefty raiser was London legaltech Luminance, which banked $75m in February for technology that helps legal teams write and negotiate contracts. Founded in 2015, this was the oldest company with agent technology to raise in Q1.
Agents, which can be activated with natural-language instructions, are more advanced than AI “copilots” and assistants. They’re designed to handle everyday tasks — from approving expenses to contract writing — with minimal human supervision.
Proponents of the technology say agents will bring major productivity benefits, but some worry they’ll reduce employment opportunities for juniors and (later) for more advanced workers.
The three youngest European agent startups to raise in Q1 were all founded this year in London. They are Beem, created by a 16 year old founder to take on the grunt work of organising inboxes and calendars; Merx, which aims to help companies manage customer deliveries; and Synthax, which is developing agents to tackle admin on behalf of doctors.
The UK hosted the biggest — and most overall — agent deals in Q1. Y Combinator, EQT and Antler were the most active investors of agent technology in the quarter, with four deals apiece. The rise in agent deals is also partly explained by a re-badging effort by some companies, which have embraced the “agent” tag to keep up with the tech obsession of the moment.
Q1 AI agent funding by country
- 1) UK: €459m
- 2) Germany: €126.2m
- 3) France: €51.1m
- 4) Sweden: €41.4m
- 5) Switzerland: €31.5m
- 6) Netherlands: €21.3m
- 7) Norway: €13.6m
- 8) Italy: €13.6m
- 9) Poland: €12m
- 10) Denmark: €9.5m
All 65 deals
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/65-ai-agent-startups-raised-q1/
