In the AI era, it should be easier than ever for people to build new businesses. We want to build the services that enable this. This is important for ensuring that people broadly share in the prosperity created by superintelligence.
Europe's freelance market has been expanding steadily, but the post-layoff acceleration is notable. According to a 2024 report from Malt, the number of highly skilled freelancers in tech across the EU grew by 18% year-over-year, with a sharp uptick among professionals who had been in full-time roles for five or more years before making the switch.
According to Dealroom's 2024 European Tech report, mentions of "AI" in European startup pitch decks increased by over 200% between 2022 and 2024. VC funding for AI-adjacent startups surged, even as overall funding in Europe contracted. The signal was unmistakable: if you want capital, you need to speak the language of artificial intelligence.
The problem Finperks is solving is structural. The prepaid market is large and growing but operationally fragmented: a bank that wants to offer brand-funded cashback to retain customers, or an HR platform looking to distribute Germany's €50-per-month tax-free employee benefit known as the Sachbezug, currently has to navigate multiple providers across multiple functions.
The electronic version of the money used in the 21-nation currency area would be available to use free of charge in shops, online or from person to person. Supporters say it would let Europeans make online payments without relying on US payment systems -- as Europe ramps up efforts to break its dependence on foreign firms including US giants such as Visa and Mastercard. Critics fear it would allow governments to surveil citizens' payments or even cut them off from the money supply.
Roll forward to 2025 and it has been far from a good year on the markets for the owner of Talabat (Gulf, North Africa), Glovo (Europe, Africa) and Foodpanda (South-east Asia). Delivery Hero's share price fell to a low of €16.05 ($18.94) in November, from a high of €31.39 ($37.05) nine months earlier, a nearly 50% drop. Competition from the Chinese giant, Meituan, and regulatory fines for poor employment practices in the cutthroat world of moped and cycle delivery weighed on share price performance.
Marketers have spent decades optimising for blue links on a search results page. Now every CMO conversation starts with the same question: 'How do we look in ChatGPT?' People ask an AI assistant and get a short list of recommended options. If your brand isn't in that answer, you're effectively invisible, even if you did everything 'right' in SEO. Kime exists to make that visibility gap measurable and give teams a way to act on it.
As the race to dominate AI accelerates, Europe's most prominent AI startup is betting that geography - not just technology - can be a competitive advantage in its home market. Arthur Mensch, the CEO and cofounder of French AI company Mistral, said the company's edge in Europe over Silicon Valley rivals like OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic isn't about having dramatically smarter models.
