The European Commission unveiled its technological sovereignty package on June 3, grouping Chips Act 2.0, the Cloud and AI Development Act, and an EU Open Source Strategy into a single legislative push. The same day, Grenoble-based Quobly closed a €115 million Series A to bring silicon-based quantum computers to paying customers by end of 2026. Two different timescales, the same underlying question: whether Europe can build the infrastructure stack it keeps legislating around.
Startups & Funding
Quobly closes €115M to put silicon qubits into commercial hands
Grenoble-based Quobly secured a €115 million Series A on June 3, led by Bpifrance and STMicroelectronics, with the European Innovation Council Fund, Air Liquide Venture Capital, and several specialist investors joining. CEA and CNRS remain shareholders from the spin-out, giving the round structural depth beyond a standard VC syndicate.
Quobly builds silicon-based quantum processors on FD-SOI 300mm wafers, the same fabrication format as conventional chips. The substrate choice routes directly into existing European semiconductor manufacturing, through partnerships with STMicroelectronics, Air Liquide, Soitec, and Orano.
The company plans to deploy its first commercial quantum system via cloud by end of 2026, transitioning to HPC infrastructure integration in 2027. That is one of the more specific commercial timelines in European quantum hardware.
Factorial reaches €2.1B on €129M Series D
Barcelona-based Factorial closed a €129 million Series D on June 3, led by General Catalyst with Atomico and Four Rivers participating. The round takes the HR software company to a €2.1 billion valuation. Factorial now serves over 16,000 businesses and has repositioned as an AI-first platform, building autonomous agents into HR workflows.
General Catalyst is committing up to €465 million more through its Customer Value Fund structure, and Factorial is opening a Munich office as part of its Germany expansion. Spanish product, German market, American capital: the axis is a clear map of where European SaaS growth is currently being financed.
PLD Space commits €35M to its Kourou launch complex
Spain's PLD Space announced on June 1 that it is investing €35 million in its launch complex at the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou. It is the first private operator to deploy capital at this scale at the ELM-Diamant site, which handled Ariane's first flights. Civil works are in their final phase, with completion expected this summer.
The inaugural test flight of the reusable MIURA 5 orbital vehicle is targeted before end of 2026. European commercial launch capacity has been constrained since Ariane 5 retired and Ariane 6 has stayed below commercial demand. PLD Space is betting that a private operator can fill some of that gap, if the schedule holds.
Products & Technology
EU Tech Sovereignty Package: chips, cloud, and open source in one move
The Commission's June 3 package contains three proposals. Chips Act 2.0 adds faster permitting, an EU semiconductor excellence label for regional clusters, and deeper supply chain cooperation with allied partners. The Cloud and AI Development Act targets tripling EU data centre capacity within five to seven years, with expedited permitting and priority grid connections for centres using European-manufactured chips or meeting sustainability benchmarks.
An EU Open Source Strategy rounds out the package. None of it is in force yet. Both legislative proposals require Council and Parliament negotiation.
The practical signal is in the CADA permitting design. Data centres built with European-sourced chips or lower energy footprints would get preferential treatment in grid access and approvals. For founders and operators building European infrastructure, that is a structural incentive that did not exist before this week.
Euro-Office launches June 9
A consortium of European software companies, including IONOS, Nextcloud, Eurostack, XWiki, and OpenProject, releases Euro-Office 1.0 on June 9. The browser-based suite covers document editing, spreadsheets, presentations, and PDF editing, with support for DOCX, XLSX, PPTX, and Open Document formats. The first target audience is public authorities, education, and regulated sectors, not consumers.
Euro-Office is a direct response to software dependency concerns that sharpened after US policy volatility in early 2025. Launching is the easy part. The harder test is whether any significant public administration commits to it as a primary productivity layer rather than a pilot installation.
Climate & Energy
Encosa brings €25M battery storage to the German Mittelstand
Munich-based Encosa closed €25 million in seed funding on June 1, led by Realyze Ventures with Bayern Kapital and several pre-seed investors reinvesting. The company offers SMEs a single-contract solution for commercial and industrial battery storage: planning, financing, installation, and ongoing operations in one package. Payback periods run 18 months to five years depending on energy consumption profile.
Germany's Mittelstand is among Europe's most energy-intensive business segments and has been largely underserved by battery storage infrastructure built for utilities. Encosa removes the procurement friction for companies that lack the internal capacity to manage a storage project independently.
The commercial test is whether it can scale installations fast enough to justify what is a substantial seed round for this model.
Research & Deep Tech
ERC opens €210M supergrant competition to attract researchers leaving the US
The European Research Council launched its first ERC Plus Grant competition on June 2, part of the "Choose Europe for Science" initiative announced by Commission President von der Leyen at the Sorbonne in May 2025. Grants run up to €7 million per project over seven years, targeting researchers of any nationality willing to relocate to Europe. Around 30 grants are expected in this inaugural round.
US federal research funding has contracted sharply since early 2025. Multiple European universities have reported an increase in enquiries from American researchers looking to move. The gap between interest and actual relocation has historically been large.
The ERC Plus Grant is a financial instrument designed to close that gap. The competition results will be one of the cleaner indicators of whether the "Choose Europe" positioning is converting into concrete research relocations.
(ERC)
Quobly's 300mm silicon bet tests whether quantum can route through existing European fabs
Quobly's technical choice is worth isolating. Building silicon qubits on FD-SOI 300mm wafers places quantum hardware on the same manufacturing substrate as conventional chips at STMicroelectronics and Soitec, two companies already running at production scale in Europe.
If the approach holds under commercial conditions, European quantum would not require a separate fabrication ecosystem. It would inherit one.
That is what the €115 million is testing. The answer will not be visible until the systems are running and yielding under real workloads.
One to Watch
Euro-Office: procurement, not launch, is the real test
Euro-Office ships June 9. The technology covers the feature set. The question is whether European public administrations integrate it into live procurement decisions in 2026 or treat it as a sovereignty statement that gets piloted and parked.
Watch for: German federal IT framework decisions naming Euro-Office as a qualifying alternative, any European Commission signals on internal adoption, and GitHub contribution velocity in the weeks after launch. If contributions arrive from public institutions rather than individuals, that is a qualitatively different signal than a grassroots open-source project.