Financial Times:
PitchBook: European VC investments rose 5% YoY to a post-pandemic high of €66B in 2025; AI-related deals accounted for 35%+, or €23.5B, up from €17.7B in 2024  —  Soaring valuations as venture capital flows to groups tied to continent's security and economic sovereignty

Leila Abboud / Financial Times:
French President Emmanuel Macron says the US could retaliate against EU countries, including France and Spain, over plans to ban children from social media  —  French president calls on bloc to take the necessary steps to become a true global economic power

Tamara Djurickovic / Tech.eu:
Paris-based online corporate event booking marketplace Naboo raised a $70M Series B led by Lightspeed with participation from Notion Capital, ISAI, and Ternel  —  Naboo plans to expand beyond corporate events into broader procurement use cases, using AI to automate booking, payments …

Maxwell Zeff / Wired:
A court filing in the iyO-OpenAI trademark case reveals OpenAI won't use the name “io” for its AI device, which isn't expected to ship before February 2027  —  A court filing in a trademark lawsuit reveals OpenAI won't use the name “io” for its AI hardware device, which isn't expected to ship until 2027.

Sam Schechner / Wall Street Journal:
As OpenAI prepares to retire GPT-4o on February 13, sources say it was scrapped partly because OpenAI struggled to contain 4o's potential for harmful outcomes  —  ChatGPT's 4o model was beloved by many users, but controversial for its sycophancy and real-world harms linked to some conversations