Mike Butcher
@mikebutcher.bsky.social
Founder & Editor, @pathfounders.bsky.social | Formerly @TechCrunch | [email protected] | Signal: mikebutcher.04 | Pathfounders.com | linkedin.com/in/mikebutcher | Speaker / Moderator | Founder: TheEuropas, Techfugees, TechVets | (MBE)
Reposted by Mike Butcher
Freeda raises €3.4m to catch design errors before they hit the construction site
The Paris startup is using AI to scan complex construction plans for costly mistakes. The round was led by Frst VC.
By Amelia Isaacs
@AmeliaKIsaacs
pathfounders.com/p/freeda-rai...
The Paris startup is using AI to scan complex construction plans for costly mistakes. The round was led by Frst VC.
By Amelia Isaacs
@AmeliaKIsaacs
pathfounders.com/p/freeda-rai...
Exclusive: Freeda raises €3.4m to catch design errors before they hit the construction site
The Paris startup is using AI to scan complex construction plans for costly mistakes, cutting verification time from hundreds of hours to just 48
pathfounders.com
November 6, 2025 at 7:45 AM
Freeda raises €3.4m to catch design errors before they hit the construction site
The Paris startup is using AI to scan complex construction plans for costly mistakes. The round was led by Frst VC.
By Amelia Isaacs
@AmeliaKIsaacs
pathfounders.com/p/freeda-rai...
The Paris startup is using AI to scan complex construction plans for costly mistakes. The round was led by Frst VC.
By Amelia Isaacs
@AmeliaKIsaacs
pathfounders.com/p/freeda-rai...
Reposted by Mike Butcher
This VC fund raised $75m and runs on AI agents — no analysts needed pathfounders.com/p/dvc-davido... by @ameliakisaacs.bsky.social
This VC fund raised $75m and runs on AI agents — no analysts needed
The husband-and-wife team behind Davidovs Venture Collective is rethinking venture capital and giving a network of limited partners from top tech companies the chance to invest like megafunds do.
pathfounders.com
October 14, 2025 at 11:55 AM
This VC fund raised $75m and runs on AI agents — no analysts needed pathfounders.com/p/dvc-davido... by @ameliakisaacs.bsky.social
Reposted by Mike Butcher
Super delighted and excited to see the (soft) launch of @mikebutcher.bsky.social pwrd @pathfounders.bsky.social !
Everybody follow, great things are definitely on the way!
Everybody follow, great things are definitely on the way!
October 7, 2025 at 9:35 PM
Super delighted and excited to see the (soft) launch of @mikebutcher.bsky.social pwrd @pathfounders.bsky.social !
Everybody follow, great things are definitely on the way!
Everybody follow, great things are definitely on the way!
Today, I am soft-launching @pathfounders.bsky.social, a new tech media brand to offer informed reporting, analysis, and opinion on the top tech startups and VC firms across Europe, Silicon Valley, and globally.
Read more here:
pathfounders.com/p/welcome-to...
Read more here:
pathfounders.com/p/welcome-to...
Welcome to Pathfounders
It's high time we had a new tech media brand.
pathfounders.com
October 7, 2025 at 3:39 PM
Today, I am soft-launching @pathfounders.bsky.social, a new tech media brand to offer informed reporting, analysis, and opinion on the top tech startups and VC firms across Europe, Silicon Valley, and globally.
Read more here:
pathfounders.com/p/welcome-to...
Read more here:
pathfounders.com/p/welcome-to...
Geez, there are SO MANY Michael Jackson Sora / AI deepfake videos now. I should think his estate must be planning a several billion-dollar law suit.
October 6, 2025 at 11:15 AM
Geez, there are SO MANY Michael Jackson Sora / AI deepfake videos now. I should think his estate must be planning a several billion-dollar law suit.
While ya’ll get excited about Meta’s new Glasses: “One mother said her Instagram account was set to private, but the posts were automatically cross-posting to Threads where they were visible.”
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
Parents outraged as Meta uses photos of schoolgirls in ads targeting man
Exclusive: Instagram pictures of girls as young as 13 were posted to promote Threads site ‘as bait’, campaigner says
www.theguardian.com
September 20, 2025 at 7:13 AM
While ya’ll get excited about Meta’s new Glasses: “One mother said her Instagram account was set to private, but the posts were automatically cross-posting to Threads where they were visible.”
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
Today’s defection to Reform is Danny Kruger, that former Tory MP who is a bastion of anti-establishmentarianism!
“Education: University of Oxford (2000), University of Oxford, The University of Edinburgh, Eton College”
“Education: University of Oxford (2000), University of Oxford, The University of Edinburgh, Eton College”
September 15, 2025 at 1:07 PM
Today’s defection to Reform is Danny Kruger, that former Tory MP who is a bastion of anti-establishmentarianism!
“Education: University of Oxford (2000), University of Oxford, The University of Edinburgh, Eton College”
“Education: University of Oxford (2000), University of Oxford, The University of Edinburgh, Eton College”
Reposted by Mike Butcher
Anthropic are doing something very smart: Employing their own team to test how their technology might be misused.
This is in a huge contrast to many large tech companies that simply hope they can get away with never being regulated - and so don't bother with ...
fortune.com/2025/09/04/a...
This is in a huge contrast to many large tech companies that simply hope they can get away with never being regulated - and so don't bother with ...
fortune.com/2025/09/04/a...
Inside Anthropic’s ‘Red Team’—ensuring Claude is safe, and that Anthropic is heard in the corridors of power | Fortune
Unique among AI labs, Anthropic’s Frontier Red Team reports to its policy chief and has a mandate to publicize the dangers it finds.
fortune.com
September 11, 2025 at 2:40 PM
Anthropic are doing something very smart: Employing their own team to test how their technology might be misused.
This is in a huge contrast to many large tech companies that simply hope they can get away with never being regulated - and so don't bother with ...
fortune.com/2025/09/04/a...
This is in a huge contrast to many large tech companies that simply hope they can get away with never being regulated - and so don't bother with ...
fortune.com/2025/09/04/a...
Today’s Big Story: Mistral is on fire
• There’s been lots of speculation about Mistral’s upcoming fund-raise. Today it's been confirmed that it’s raised a €1.7B Series C round ($1.99 billion) led by ASML. Most of the major tech news outlets have the story, except for TechCrunch. (I wonder why?!).
• There’s been lots of speculation about Mistral’s upcoming fund-raise. Today it's been confirmed that it’s raised a €1.7B Series C round ($1.99 billion) led by ASML. Most of the major tech news outlets have the story, except for TechCrunch. (I wonder why?!).
September 9, 2025 at 10:40 AM
Today’s Big Story: Mistral is on fire
• There’s been lots of speculation about Mistral’s upcoming fund-raise. Today it's been confirmed that it’s raised a €1.7B Series C round ($1.99 billion) led by ASML. Most of the major tech news outlets have the story, except for TechCrunch. (I wonder why?!).
• There’s been lots of speculation about Mistral’s upcoming fund-raise. Today it's been confirmed that it’s raised a €1.7B Series C round ($1.99 billion) led by ASML. Most of the major tech news outlets have the story, except for TechCrunch. (I wonder why?!).
[Breaking] There’s been lots of speculation about Mistral’s upcoming fund-raise, much of it wrong. Today it's been confirmed that it’s raised a €1.7B Series C round ($1.99 billion) led by ASML. Reuters reported that ASML 1.3 billion euros of that amount.
www.linkedin.com/posts/mikebu...
www.linkedin.com/posts/mikebu...
There’s been lots of speculation about Mistral’s upcoming fund-raise, much of it wrong. Today it's been confirmed that it’s raised a €1.7B Series C round ($1.99 billion) led by ASML, which transla...
There’s been lots of speculation about Mistral’s upcoming fund-raise, much of it wrong. Today it's been confirmed that it’s raised a €1.7B Series C round ($1.99 billion) led by ASML, which translates ...
www.linkedin.com
September 9, 2025 at 7:17 AM
[Breaking] There’s been lots of speculation about Mistral’s upcoming fund-raise, much of it wrong. Today it's been confirmed that it’s raised a €1.7B Series C round ($1.99 billion) led by ASML. Reuters reported that ASML 1.3 billion euros of that amount.
www.linkedin.com/posts/mikebu...
www.linkedin.com/posts/mikebu...
Reposted by Mike Butcher
You probably have never heard of him, but he’s one of Europe’s most influential billionaires: Daniel Křetínský, a Czech businessman who built his fortune on coal – all the while receiving hundreds of millions of euros for green subsidies. In this episode, our journalists unpick his vast empire.
Podcast | A billionaire’s hidden empire built on coal and post cards
You probably have never heard of him, but he’s one of Europe’s most influential billionaires: Daniel Křetínský, a Czech businessman who built his fortune on coal – all the while receiving hundreds of ...
www.ftm.eu
September 3, 2025 at 8:52 AM
You probably have never heard of him, but he’s one of Europe’s most influential billionaires: Daniel Křetínský, a Czech businessman who built his fortune on coal – all the while receiving hundreds of millions of euros for green subsidies. In this episode, our journalists unpick his vast empire.
It’s not going to be the total end of human moderation. The AI will simply flag to human moderators the content it can’t make a decision about. But yes, overall this is a good development.
AI replacing jobs is generally (and understandably) framed as a bad thing, but if LLMs mean huge numbers of poorly-paid people no longer have to spend their days watching the most abusive, graphic and violent content the world has to offer, that feels like a good thing
www.ft.com/content/d277...
www.ft.com/content/d277...
TikTok to lay off hundreds of UK moderators as it shifts to AI
Moves comes despite Online Safety Act requirements on dangerous material
www.ft.com
August 22, 2025 at 12:36 PM
It’s not going to be the total end of human moderation. The AI will simply flag to human moderators the content it can’t make a decision about. But yes, overall this is a good development.
Reposted by Mike Butcher
The former president of the European Commission still holds office at his old headquarters, where he regularly receives prominent guests. According to the Kazakh government, he also offered help as go-between. Jean-Claude Juncker himself denies this, claiming that he is “immune” to influence.
Former EU boss keeps office in von der Leyen’s building – and allows his guests to lobby in secret
Years after stepping down as head of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker still meets with lobbyists and foreign diplomats in the Berlaymont, the EU executive’s seat in Brussels. He holds regu...
www.ftm.eu
August 21, 2025 at 7:01 AM
The former president of the European Commission still holds office at his old headquarters, where he regularly receives prominent guests. According to the Kazakh government, he also offered help as go-between. Jean-Claude Juncker himself denies this, claiming that he is “immune” to influence.
Completely missed in this story is that Northern Data is one of Europe’s very few sovereign cloud data centre players. That it could be sold to a US company should ring alarm bells amongst those interested in European resilience.
siliconcanals.com/rumble-propo...
siliconcanals.com/rumble-propo...
US-based Rumble, backed by Tether, proposes $1.17B acquisition of German AI cloud company Northern Data - Silicon Canals
Rumble announces its intention for a share swap with this company backed by Tether, which could potentially reshape AI cloud ambitions.
siliconcanals.com
August 15, 2025 at 12:52 PM
Completely missed in this story is that Northern Data is one of Europe’s very few sovereign cloud data centre players. That it could be sold to a US company should ring alarm bells amongst those interested in European resilience.
siliconcanals.com/rumble-propo...
siliconcanals.com/rumble-propo...
Good time to do a UK/European version of the Internet Archive before it all gets deleted by the Whitehouse.
August 12, 2025 at 9:46 PM
Good time to do a UK/European version of the Internet Archive before it all gets deleted by the Whitehouse.
Any European startups need this data? It’s about to go up in smoke.
Head of NASA Sean Duffy intends to destroy a satellite that collects key data on carbon dioxide and plant health, by causing it to burn up in the atmosphere. The U.S. Dept of Agriculture and private agriculture firms use the data to forecast crop yield, drought conditions and more.
Why a NASA satellite that scientists and farmers rely on may be destroyed on purpose
The Trump administration has asked NASA staffers to draw up plans to end at least two satellite missions that measure carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, according to current and former NASA employees.
www.npr.org
August 8, 2025 at 8:33 AM
Any European startups need this data? It’s about to go up in smoke.
The revenge of the working classes? 🤣🤷♂️
Prices for hotels and Airbnbs in Edinburgh have soared as a run of sold-out Oasis concerts coincides with the annual Fringe arts festival, heaping pressure on the Scottish capital’s strained accommodation market. on.ft.com/45qv4Q6
August 8, 2025 at 8:31 AM
The revenge of the working classes? 🤣🤷♂️
Startups are working out how to attach LLMs to Excel. This is significant because analysts have to do repetitive, mechanical work in financial modelling, which LLMs could do almost instantaneously. www.linkedin.com/posts/mikebu...
• What’s the news? | Mike Butcher ✍️
• What’s the news?
Startups are working out how to attach LLMs to Excel. This is significant because analysts have to do repetitive, mechanical work in financial modelling, which LLMs could do almost...
www.linkedin.com
August 7, 2025 at 7:09 AM
Startups are working out how to attach LLMs to Excel. This is significant because analysts have to do repetitive, mechanical work in financial modelling, which LLMs could do almost instantaneously. www.linkedin.com/posts/mikebu...
Wealth of five richest men doubles since 2020 as five billion people made poorer in "decade of division," says Oxfam www.oxfam.org/en/press-rel...
August 1, 2025 at 8:10 AM
Wealth of five richest men doubles since 2020 as five billion people made poorer in "decade of division," says Oxfam www.oxfam.org/en/press-rel...
[Breaking]
Hot AI startup Lovable claims to have just crossed $100M ARR in 8 months. It also released an update which it claims will reduce error rates by 91%, in the shape of a new improved Lovable Agent.
substack.com/@mikebutcher...
Hot AI startup Lovable claims to have just crossed $100M ARR in 8 months. It also released an update which it claims will reduce error rates by 91%, in the shape of a new improved Lovable Agent.
substack.com/@mikebutcher...
Hot AI startup Lovable claims to have just crossed $100M ARR in 8 months, faster than many other startups of its size, such as OpenAI, Cursor and Wiz. | Mike Butcher ✍️
Hot AI startup Lovable claims to have just crossed $100M ARR in 8 months, faster than many other startups of its size, such as OpenAI, Cursor and Wiz. It’s also releasing an update which is claims wil...
www.linkedin.com
July 23, 2025 at 2:40 PM
[Breaking]
Hot AI startup Lovable claims to have just crossed $100M ARR in 8 months. It also released an update which it claims will reduce error rates by 91%, in the shape of a new improved Lovable Agent.
substack.com/@mikebutcher...
Hot AI startup Lovable claims to have just crossed $100M ARR in 8 months. It also released an update which it claims will reduce error rates by 91%, in the shape of a new improved Lovable Agent.
substack.com/@mikebutcher...
The UK’s @Channel4 @C4Dispatches has finally done a proper documentary on Trump.
www.channel4.com/programmes/t...
www.channel4.com/programmes/t...
Trump: Moscow’s Man in the White House?
What’s the truth about Trump and Putin’s relationship?
www.channel4.com
July 19, 2025 at 8:09 AM
The UK’s @Channel4 @C4Dispatches has finally done a proper documentary on Trump.
www.channel4.com/programmes/t...
www.channel4.com/programmes/t...
Breaking: The Browser Wars Begun, They Have. OpenAI’s Web browser will include a chat interface, and include agents. It is now ON with Google (because Chrome). Capturing data on users' is (Hey, Meta!) once again the name of the game.
www.reuters.com/business/med...
www.reuters.com/business/med...
Exclusive: OpenAI to release web browser in challenge to Google Chrome
OpenAI is close to releasing an AI-powered web browser that will challenge Alphabet's market-dominating Google Chrome, three people familiar with the matter told Reuters.
www.reuters.com
July 9, 2025 at 6:20 PM
Breaking: The Browser Wars Begun, They Have. OpenAI’s Web browser will include a chat interface, and include agents. It is now ON with Google (because Chrome). Capturing data on users' is (Hey, Meta!) once again the name of the game.
www.reuters.com/business/med...
www.reuters.com/business/med...
Reposted by Mike Butcher
Tell me your company has no Brits without telling me
The Ploopy Knob is an open-source control dial for your PC
The Ploopy Knob is an open-source control dial for your PC
A big scroll wheel for your PC.
buff.ly
July 4, 2025 at 2:33 PM
Tell me your company has no Brits without telling me
Mental health crisis incoming:
PEOPLE ARE LOSING LOVED ONES TO AI-FUELED SPIRITUAL FANTASIES
Self-styled prophets are claiming they have “awakened” chatbots and accessed the secrets of the universe through ChatGPT
www.rollingstone.com/culture/cult...
PEOPLE ARE LOSING LOVED ONES TO AI-FUELED SPIRITUAL FANTASIES
Self-styled prophets are claiming they have “awakened” chatbots and accessed the secrets of the universe through ChatGPT
www.rollingstone.com/culture/cult...
People Are Losing Loved Ones to AI-Fueled Spiritual Fantasies
Marriages and families are falling apart as people are sucked into fantasy worlds of spiritual prophecy by AI tools like OpenAI's ChatGPT
www.rollingstone.com
July 1, 2025 at 10:53 AM
Mental health crisis incoming:
PEOPLE ARE LOSING LOVED ONES TO AI-FUELED SPIRITUAL FANTASIES
Self-styled prophets are claiming they have “awakened” chatbots and accessed the secrets of the universe through ChatGPT
www.rollingstone.com/culture/cult...
PEOPLE ARE LOSING LOVED ONES TO AI-FUELED SPIRITUAL FANTASIES
Self-styled prophets are claiming they have “awakened” chatbots and accessed the secrets of the universe through ChatGPT
www.rollingstone.com/culture/cult...
Any startups here in Farringdon?
July 1, 2025 at 7:53 AM
Any startups here in Farringdon?