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Analysis Halfway through 2026, the picture for Europe’s female founders is becoming impossible to ignore. A March 2026 PitchBook report, in fact, found that women-led teams are now receiving their smallest share of venture capital in nearly a decade, set at just 1.2% of total funding. Even in AI, the sector which attracted a record $9.2 billion (€8.1 billion) in early 2026 venture funding, female founders captured only 12.9% of deal value.

Startups When C.H. Robinson’s stock dropped 14.5% in a single day this February, the panic wasn’t really about one company, but about whether AI was finally about to do to freight brokerage what it has already done to customer service and basic coding work. CEO Dave Bozeman’s answers to investors was reassuring, however – if predictable: scale and proprietary data, he told Reuters, would let large brokers absorb the technology faster than anyone else.

Startups Most dogs alive today never see the inside of a home. An estimated 75% of the world’s roughly 900 million dogs are strays, and the shelters that exist to help them are usually one missed donation away from running out of food – the single largest line item on any shelter’s budget, and the first thing cut when money is tight. Azerbaijani pet-care platform Dosty, however, has found a low-friction fix: turn the walk people are already taking – with or without pets – into shelter donations.

Analysis Boston Consulting Group and Anchorage Digital are urging banks to move digital assets “from experimentation to scale,” in a new report aimed squarely at the U.S. market. But for European lenders, the real test comes sooner: a hard Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) cut-off on July 1, and a euro-stablecoin race already underway.

News Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, faces a major European setback as its Greek Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) licence application reportedly nears rejection before the deadline. The EU’s MiCA transitional period is set to conclude on July 1, 2026. Under this new framework, any exchange operating in the Union must hold an authorized license from at least one EU member by that date; without it, firms cannot legally serve EU customers.

News The UK government plans to block under-16s from major social media platforms starting spring 2027 in a move that targets Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and X. It also brings a wider age-checking push that has already triggered privacy backlash. The country’s plan would effectively raise social media access age from 13 to 16, although the new limit emerged from data privacy rules – not child safety law.

Technology In a significant move toward consolidating the fragmented property technology landscape, real estate risk and compliance platform GetCovered has announced its acquisition of Revyse, an AI-powered vendor intelligence startup. This strategic acquisition marks the creation of the multifamily real estate sector’s first unified platform capable of managing operational risk across both residents and external vendors.

News The U.S. government has ordered Anthropic to suspend access to its two most powerful AI models, Fable 5 and Mythos 5, citing national security concerns. The fallout landed squarely on European users who had no warning – and no say. The directive, issued Friday, June 12, invokes export control authority to bar all foreign nationals from accessing the models – whether inside or outside the U.S., including Anthropic’s own foreign-national employees.

News The European Commission issued a €200 million fine to online retailer Temu for failing to assess and mitigate the risks posed by illegal and unsafe products on its platform. According to the Commission, EU consumers are “very likely to encounter illegal items on Temu.” The decision follows an investigation that found the company’s 2024 risk assessment did not meet the requirements set out under the Digital Services Act (DSA).

Analysis When the European Parliament’s IT team quietly switched off the AI features on staff devices earlier this year, the reason wasn’t speculative. The features were sending data to the cloud, and Parliament’s security team decided that was a risk they couldn’t accept for an institution that handles confidential legislative work.