European female-founded startups have raised 9.7 billion euros so far in 2026, nearly matching the full-year total from the previous year, with deep-tech categories leading the growth.
Aspire Circle and Aspire Impact have launched a dedicated ESG performance framework for the fast-moving consumer goods sector, aiming to standardise how FMCG companies measure and report sustainability outcomes.
Belgian clean-energy startup Octave.energy has raised 10 million euros in Series A funding to expand its profitable battery storage and energy-management platform across Europe's increasingly constrained power grids.
Project Rise, the global philanthropic initiative of the Dawoodi Bohra community, has launched a Vision for Children eye-health programme targeting 20,000 children in and around Kolkata.
Less than 1 percent of total venture capital raised in Africa in 2025 went to female founders, according to industry data, prompting renewed calls for founders to combine grants and equity strategically.
India has committed more than $150 million through the India-UN Development Partnership Fund and the India-Brazil-South Africa Fund to support climate resilience initiatives across developing nations.
Meta has released Muse Spark 1.3, an upgraded AI agent emphasising improved coding capability, instruction-following and longer-running autonomous task execution.
The United Nations observed the first-ever International Day of the World's Indigenous Women and Girls on September 5, recognising their role in preserving culture, biodiversity and community knowledge.
Elon Musk's tunnelling venture The Boring Company has reached a $20 billion valuation as it seeks to raise $4 billion in new funding, extending investor appetite for Musk-affiliated infrastructure ventures.
Gimlet Labs has raised $300 million led by Andreessen Horowitz, reaching a $3 billion valuation just six months after its previous round, as investors bet on AI compute orchestration software.