PLD Space has secured an €11mn loan to help fund the development of a liftoff site for its partially reusable Miura 5 rocket, which is set to become Europe’s first privately developed satellite launcher — unless one of its competitors gets there first.  The loan will help the Spanish startup construct the launch facility, located at Europe’s primary spaceport in French Guiana and estimated to cost around €16mn overall. PLD Space launched its first, smaller rocket, Miura 1, from Spain last year. However, for a bigger orbital launcher like Miura 5, the company needs a facility with specific capabilities. These…

This story continues at The Next Web

Amsterdam-headquartered Nebius, which builds full-stack AI infrastructure for tech firms, has secured $700mn in a private equity deal led by Nvidia, Accel, and asset manager Orbis.  The funding comes in the form of a private placement — when a company sells stocks directly to a private investor instead of on the public market. The deal will see Nebius issue 33.3 million Class A shares at $21 apiece.   Nebius, which is the rebranded European arm of “Russia’s Google,” Yandex, is investing more than $1bn across Europe by mid-2025 as it seeks to cash in on booming demand for AI computing power.…

This story continues at The Next Web

British startup SatVu has secured £20mn (€24mn) to fuel the development of its hyper-accurate thermal imaging satellites that act like a thermometer for the whole planet.  The cash injection includes £10mn (€12mn) in equity from Spanish VC Adara Ventures and British tech-focused fund Molten Ventures. The remainder comes from an insurance payout, the startup said.  The funding will propel the launch of two new satellites in its HotSat constellation, which are scheduled to liftoff next year. The probes — HotSat-2 and HotSat-3 — will replace HotSat-1, SatVu’s first satellite, launched in 2023.  When HotSat-1 launched it was fitted with the…

This story continues at The Next Web

It’s been a tough year for air taxi startups. The UK’s Vertical Aerospace is running short of cash, while Germany’s Lillium faces bankruptcy. Targets for commercialisation keep getting extended. Investors are hesitant to commit. The reason for all the struggles is pretty simple. Building, certifying, and commercialising brand-new aircraft designs like electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft (eVTOLs) is complex, notoriously expensive, and depends on lengthy regulatory processes.  That’s partly why German startup Vaeridion is pursuing a simpler, potentially cheaper, route to electric flight using an aircraft it calls the “microliner”.  “The microliner looks like a regular plane and it…

This story continues at The Next Web

The Dutch labour market is experiencing a persistent talent shortage, according to a new salary survey report. The research also flags that when it comes to hiring in 2025, artificial intelligence, automation, and machine learning are expected to be among the hottest functional areas companies are most likely to recruit talent for next year. In line with this, a recent study by Indeed found that over the past year, job postings mentioning generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) or related phrases have increased dramatically across the US and Europe. In Germany, for example, there has been a 3.9x increase, France has…

This story continues at The Next Web