Newsletter - April 2026

Welcome to the 26th edition of the AFI Ventures’ newsletter.

As a reminder, AFI Ventures (fund managed by Ventech) is an impact VC fund that invests in pre-seed/seed startups with a strong environmental and social ambition, producing a systemic change. We invest once a month in France & Europe tickets ranging from €250K to €500K.

Each month in this newsletter, you’ll find:

1. 🔍 A focus or key resources on an impact-related theme

2. 📰 Our Top must-read articles on the impact ecosystem

3. 🌱 Even more news from the AFI: portfolio updates, and (new) where we’ve been spotted (at events) & where you can catch us next, plus a job board featuring open roles at our amazing startups.

More insights, more opportunities, more ways to connect. Let’s dive in! 💚

April was a rich month for the AFI team on the conference circuit with two events that stood out for the quality of founders and conversations: HackSummit in Lausanne and Energy Tech Summit in Bilbao.

HackSummit — Lausanne, April 22–23

Hard tech, high conviction. Three panels, three consistent signals.

In critical minerals, the moat isn’t the technology, it’s land access. With Europe sourcing only 5% of strategic materials locally against a realistic target of 30%, and virtually no domestic mining industry, the race to secure terrain is very much on.

In AI for materials, the closed-loop physical lab is the real defensible asset: without in-house experimentation and data collection, you’re optimizing an algorithm with no ground truth.

In agri-robotics, the winning pitch isn’t “autonomous tractor”, it’s “guaranteed harvest” for farmers facing a 30% labor shortfall. The software moat alone erodes with every foundation model release; the defensibility is in hardware and vertical integration.

Across all three, the same structural tension surfaced: Europe’s innovation pipeline is strong, but Series B+ capital for deep tech hardware remains thin. Tickets above €50M with a hardware risk profile have very few natural buyers on this side of the Atlantic ; and US expansion timelines are creeping into more founder roadmaps than before. The question is no longer whether European deeptech can produce world-class science. It’s whether it can finance and scale it before the window moves.

Energy Tech Summit — Bilbao, April 15–16

AI and energy are now one agenda. The integration of the Compute Summit into ETS this year made that official: you can’t build AI at scale without solving energy, and vice versa.

Execution speed is what moves capital, not ambition: the consistent investor message was that permitting, funding pace, and fragmented markets remain the real friction points separating European climate ambition from actual scale.

System coordination is the core bottleneck: powering AI is no longer a supply problem, it’s a coordination problem across the entire value chain, from generation to grid edge to consumption. By 2035, an estimated 30% of grid capacity will sit at the low/medium-voltage edge, largely unmonitored today, with a $400B+ investment gap to close.

📥 If you’re an entrepreneur and want to start a project, please send us an email at dealflow@afi.ventures.

The EU launched its AccelerateEU plan on April 22 to accelerate the clean energy transition, estimating €24B in additional fossil fuel costs in the first 30 days of the Iran conflict alone, said European Commission.

The EIB and Commerzbank signed a €2B agreement to finance grid expansion across Germany and the EU, as grid investment becomes a critical bottleneck for renewables integration, said EIB.

Private fusion raised $1.6B over the past 12 months, but SPACs and side businesses are dividing the ecosystem on whether public listings distract from the core mission, said TechCrunch.

56% of European fleet managers plan to add EVs within two years, with TCO now favoring electric over diesel for most use cases — though heavy logistics remains a challenge, said La Tribune.

Europe is warming twice as fast as the global average, per the 2025 Copernicus State of the Climate report — 95%+ of the continent recorded above-average temperatures in 2025, said European Commission.

The EU 2040 Climate Law entered into force on April 7, enshrining a legally binding -90% net GHG target by 2040 — the anchor for all EU climate legislation over the next 15 years, said European Commission.

The IEA chief called the Iran conflict’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz the “greatest global energy security challenge in history” — 13M barrels/day lost, Europe facing an imminent jet fuel crunch, said CNBC.

The EIB highlights how slow European approval processes are hampering RNA biocontrol commercialisation versus rapid US market uptake, said EIB.

Chiral phonons can transfer orbital angular momentum to electrons without magnets, opening the door to “orbitronics” — a new paradigm for data processing beyond charge and spin, said ScienceDaily.

I4CE finds a growing gap between green reindustrialisation announcements and reality in France: batteries, green steel, and eSAF projects stuck before final investment decision, said I4CE.

China threatened the EU with “counter-measures” over the Industrial Acceleration Act, which would require strategic-sector companies to source components from Europe to qualify for public funding, said Le Monde.

AI researchers built a database of 67,573 magnetic compounds, uncovering 25 high-temperature materials that could replace rare-earth magnets in EVs, said ScienceDaily.

OpenAI launched GPT-Rosalind, its first life sciences frontier model, covering genomics, protein engineering, and drug discovery and already deployed with Amgen, Moderna, and Thermo Fisher, said Euronews.

Amazon launched a national GLP-1 management program through Amazon One Medical, integrating primary care, prescriptions, and same-day pharmacy delivery, said CNBC.

The FDA approved Otarmeni, the first gene therapy for genetic hearing loss — restoring hearing in 80% of treated children, offered free of charge to US patients, said WSJ.

Nova Carbon announces a strategic partnership with Safran to valorize the aerospace group’s carbon fiber production scrap. Nova Carbon’s proprietary mechanical realignment process reconstructs fiber tows into high-performance technical textiles without degrading mechanical properties, where conventional recycling methods fall short. A first industrial site with 200 tonnes/year capacity is planned for 2028. Learn more

DiappyMed announces the CE marking of EkiYou® V2 at the SFD Congress in Lyon (March 31 – April 3), its next-generation insulin dosing therapy for adults living with type 1 and type 2 diabetes treated with basal-bolus injections. This milestone builds on the recent €5M raise and Sanofi partnership, as the company accelerates toward reimbursement by the French national health insurance in 2026. Learn more

Co-Reactive officially opened its demonstration plant this month, marking the transition from lab to continuous industrial operation. The plant converts CO₂ and mineral by-products into carbon-negative construction materials at scale, a critical proof point before the company moves to first-of-a-kind industrial sites targeting cement and steel facilities from 2027. Learn more

VorteX-io has deployed two new micro-stations on the Paraná River (Paraguay/Argentina border), as part of the EU-funded SEED-FD project. The stations provide real-time hydrological data (water levels, surface velocity, discharge) to improve flood and drought forecasting in one of South America’s most hydrologically challenged river basins. Learn more

Estuaire has been welcomed as a new ACI EUROPE member, joining the European airports association representing 600+ airport operators across 58 countries. The membership deepens Estuaire’s integration into the airport sustainability ecosystem as non-CO2 emissions reporting becomes mandatory under new EU aviation regulations. Learn more

💼 New format!
Here is the Notion view giving you a clear overview of all open positions across our portfolio.

Special mentions to Stokelp, Co-Reactive and Ed.ai, currently on a strong hiring ramp with multiple roles open. More than 50 open roles this month!

👉Accessible here

Don’t hesitate to reach out to the teams to unlock great opportunities.

• Energy Tech Summit – April 15–16, 2026, Bilbao ⚡ Europe’s #1 climate tech event, bringing together 1,500+ startups, investors, and corporates across energy infrastructure, AI x energy, and climate hardware. Charles and Constantin attended to connect with the broader energy transition ecosystem.

• CDL-Paris SuperSession – April 16, 2026, Paris 🧪 Final session of the 2025/26 Creative Destruction Lab Paris season at PariSanté Campus. Axel was there to meet founders and mentors across the cohorts.

• 0100 Europe – April 21–23, 2026, Amsterdam 💼 A key conference for private equity and venture capital professionals across Europe. Charles was there to meet investors and discuss trends shaping the European venture landscape.

• HackSummit – April 22–23, 2026, Lausanne 🌱 Europe’s leading climate hard tech conference, gathering 800+ founders, investors, and operators around industrial renaissance and food sovereignty. Sarah attended to meet deeptech founders building at the frontier of European competitiveness.

• Climate Drinks – May 5 2026, Paris 🌿 AFI Ventures, Contrarian and Hexa are co-hosting an intimate, curated evening bringing together founders and investors active in climate. The whole AFI team will be there.

• HTGF Family Day – May 11–12, 2026, Berlin 🚀 One of Europe’s leading VC portfolio days, bringing together ~1,300 founders, investors, and ecosystem partners from HTGF’s portfolio. Constantin will be there to connect with the German deep tech ecosystem.

• Deep Tech Momentum – May 20–21, 2026, Berlin 🔬 Europe’s #1 deep tech marketplace, gathering 3,000+ corporate leaders, investors, and founders across energy, defence, advanced materials, space, and AI. Constantin will attend to meet deep tech founders.

🗣️ Feel free to reach out if you’d like to connect onsite!

• Charles Fourault - charles@afi.ventures

• Constantin de Chaudenay - constantin@afi.ventures

• Sarah Laznowski - sarah@afi.ventures

• Axel Chaumel - axel@afi.ventures

Don’t hesitate to reach out if you’re an impact entrepreneur or just interested in any of these topics. 🍃