Cambridge-based CuspAI, which aims to accelerate the design process of new materials using AI, has topped the first Sifted AI 100 — a ranking of the most promising European startups in the sector valued under $1bn.
“I was told recently we’re ‘the black hole for talent’ in Europe,” says Chad Edwards, cofounder and CEO of CuspAI, which is recruiting AI engineers and scientists across Europe as it aims to unlock trillion-dollar breakthroughs “in months, not millennia”.
The startup, which describes its founding group “is the most cited in the world”, is investigating several new materials, one of which is a molecular sponge that selectively absorbs carbon dioxide from the air.
The startup has also partnered with tech giant Meta to discover new materials to address climate change. Founded just over a year ago, CuspAI has 34 employees and raised a $100m Series A in September 2025.
Ranked second is London-based PhysicsX, founded by two former Formula 1 engineers, which uses AI to better design products, such as engine and drone components, for manufacturing and defence industries. The company has signed deals with major players like Rio Tinto and Leonardo Aerospace and employs more than 180 people between London and New York.
Third on the list is Germany’s Neura Robotics, which is building intelligent robots to work in warehouses and homes. Founder/CEO David Reger is launching “gyms” in China and Japan, where the company will train bots to perform everyday tasks, with the ultimate goal of building up skill levels.
“LLMs were fed a lot of data, it’s why ChatGPT is no.1,” Reger says. “But with physical AI, the data gap is much larger — and you’re not training robots on words and images, but more complex data, like audio streams and sensor information. With our gyms, we believe we’ll win in the long run.”
The ranking includes application layer AI, model makers, robot developers and various AI hardware players. Industrial, defence and dual-use AI are the most dominant categories, with eight companies each, followed by biotech/drug discovery startups and enterprise agents (six each).
A judging panel of Sifted journalists — which included Sifted’s editorial director and cofounder John Thornhill and editor Amy Lewin — ranked startups on a number of criteria, including money raised, difficulty of the challenge being taken on, quality of the backers, employee growth and overall momentum. Though some ranked startups are on the verge of $1bn valuations, we excluded unicorns.
Top 10 standout AI startups in Europe
1/ CuspAI — GenAI-driven search engine for new materials (UK)
2/ PhysicsX — AI to design products in manufacturing, defence (UK)
3/ Neura Robotics — Intelligent robots for warehouses and homes (Germany)
4/ Black Forest Labs — AI image generator (Germany)
5/ Cradle — AI to design and engineer proteins faster, more cheaply (Switzerland)
6/ PolyAI — AI voice agents (UK)
7/ Multiverse Computing — Compresses LLMs by 95% (Spain)
8/ Legora — AI to review contracts, draft letters and summarise cases (Sweden)
9/ Fyxer — Email tool to draft replies, organise messages and handle follow-ups (UK)
10/ Granola — AI notetaking tool (UK)
For interviews with the top startups and analysis exploring the factors that have propelled their rise, read Sifted's research report.
Strong showing for UK, Germany, France
The UK, Germany and France make up the majority of the ranking (76%), with the UK leading with 36 companies. London is home to 33 companies, followed by Paris with 15, Berlin with 12 and Munich with six.
Six companies on the list have raised rounds exceeding $100m: Spanish model compressor Multiverse Computing, French AI agent maker H Company, AI finance tool Xelix and chipmaker SiPearl, the UK’s PhysicsX and Germany’s Neura Robotics.
The ranked companies have raised a total of €4.4bn from investors. Seedcamp (12), Index Ventures and Y Combinator (both 10) have backed the most companies here.
Only one startup, London-based Humanoid, is bootstrapped, meaning it’s been funded by the personal wealth of founder and CEO Artem Sokolov.
This group is young, with an average launch year of 2022. Six companies were founded this year.
