Northzone Uncapped: Our 2025 in data

14 countries

Where we’ve backed startups

Our Transatlantic ambition has never felt stronger than in 2025, when we backed companies in 14 countries (and 17 cities) across Europe, North America, and the Middle East. Unsurprisingly, many of our investments were focused near our offices in London, New York, Stockholm, Berlin, and Amsterdam. But we also backed exciting new companies in San Francisco, Barcelona, Oslo, Prague, and even the small German city of Freiburg, home to Black Forest Labs.  

AI, Fintech & Healthcare

Our most popular sectors

Just as the world keeps listening to Taylor Swift and Bad Bunny, we often come back to familiar turf to find opportunities for investing. AI, and its most novel applications, captured our attention, whether that’s in groundbreaking visual intelligence (Black Forest Labs), foundational models for robotics (Genesis AI), or AI for in-house lawyers (GC AI). In fintech, 2025 saw us explore exciting new frontiers in SME finance (Finom), AI-enabled debt collection (Murphy), and cross-border payments (Lorum). Healthcare captured our attention too, with new investments in chronic condition care (Berry Street), health information management (Predoc), and healthcare supply chain (Clarium). The common theme across all sectors is that AI touches everything, and we expect referring to ‘AI or ML startups’ will soon become as redundant as referring to ‘internet startups’ in the mid-00s. 

Check out all our new investments and follow-ons.

6 acquisitions

(3 acquired + 3 acquiring)

M&A is firmly back on the table in 2025, as evidenced by our three portfolio companies that were acquired this year. Thirty Madison joined forces with US healthcare startup Remedy, which aims to become the US’s leading digital health platform. Fubo’s long-anticipated acquisition by Disney was confirmed in November, marking a huge milestone for the live sports streaming platform. Kriya, meanwhile, was acquired by Allica Bank, the UK’s fastest-growing business bank. Our portfolio companies were also on the hunt for acquisitions: TrueLayer acquired Zimpler to expand its open banking network, Stream acquired pensions tech firm Zippen, while Zopa acquired Rvvup to bolster its retail finance offering.  

$105 million

Our biggest seed round to date (Genesis AI)

Against the backdrop of rapid advancements in AI and pressure to scale faster than ever, funding rounds have ballooned in 2025. We invested in our largest-ever seed round for Genesis AI ($105M), a startup building foundational models for robotics. Even at seed, mega-rounds ($100M+) are increasingly the norm, not the exception. This pressure is also driving up the size of Series A rounds: at one time, averaging between $5M and $20M, but now regularly dwarfing that. In our own portfolio, we saw CuspAI and Tandem Health raise $100M and $50M at Series A, respectively. Looking at the bigger picture: while the size of rounds might be increasing, overall deal count is not keeping up. Fewer, bigger funding rounds mean that competition for capital is heating up.

14 months

Black Forest Labs’ time to unicorn status

Startups are now reaching billion-dollar valuations at lightning speed. The timeline to unicorn status has now shortened from roughly nine years to approximately five. For AI and ML companies, this is now less than 4 years. Black Forest Labs, which we backed at Series A last year and again at Series B this December, achieved that just fourteen months after its launch. The visual intelligence company is currently valued at $3.25 billion.

$1 billion

TrueLayer’s total payment volume over Black Friday weekend

Over the past decade, TrueLayer has built a Europe-wide open banking payment infrastructure to rival Visa and Mastercard’s duopoly over payments. In 2025, pay-by-bank has confidently hit the mainstream, as reflected in TrueLayer’s announcement that it processed more than $1 billion in payments over the Black Friday weekend, reaching over 20 million users on its network. This marks their first ‘billion-dollar weekend’…the first of many, hopefully.

92%

Spring Health’s powerful mental health impact

Since launching in 2016, Spring Health has quickly become the most comprehensive mental health solution for employers. The platform, which matches users to tailored mental health care, now reaches 20 million customers across 4000 companies globally. This December, Spring Health published its latest clinical outcomes in the Online Journal of Public Health Informatics (OJPHI), which found that 92.3% of its users reliably improved or recovered from depression or anxiety.

500 million shares

Spotify Wrapped’s best-ever year

Everyone’s pre-Christmas ritual is marked with familiar touchpoints. That first time you hear Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas. Your first bite of a mince pie. Your first sip of mulled wine. And now, that moment you open your Spotify Wrapped. We couldn’t write our own annual round-up without paying homage to our portfolio company’s now ubiquitous marketing campaign. In 2025, Spotify celebrated its best-ever Wrapped campaign, engaging 200 million users and seeing 500 million shares in its first 24 hours.

$19 billion

Klarna’s market cap after its IPO

2025 will be a year to remember for Klarna. After its much-awaited IPO on the New York Stock Exchange in September, Klarna reached a $19 billion market cap. The flexible payments platform went on to have one of its best-ever quarters in Q3, adding 27 million new users and 235,000 new merchants. Other Klarna 2025 highlights include the launch of its payment card and its own stablecoin. Our portfolio already has one IPO in the works for 2026 (Einride), and we’ll be eagerly awaiting other announcements in the new year…