ETN raises $1.6m to build Europe's tech media daily

ETN, a London-based tech media startup, has raised $1.6m in seed funding to become what founders Luke Knight and Ronan Chambers call Europe's answer to TBPN. The round, led by Axel Springer and Powerhouse Capital with angel backing from OpenAI and DeepMind employees, closed oversubscribed. The company has already hit 5 million views across YouTube and X.

The funding arrives less than a year after Knight and Chambers were scraping together cash for their first episodes. ETN has now relaunched with five live shows per week, up from two. The expansion reflects both investor appetite for European tech media and the founders' bet that the continent's startup ecosystem generates enough news to fill a daily format.

Where the money is going

Most of the capital has gone into a new studio near King's Cross, which Chambers describes as "state-of-the-art." The team has hired former Bloomberg chief of staff Alexandra Best, the former head of video production at Tottenham Hotspur, and four ex-TBPN employees. Two internship roles drew more than 300 applications in 48 hours.

Chambers says the team won't grow much larger. "We're a lean team, and everything we do is heavily AI-powered," he told Sifted. "When you compare us with the budgets of traditional media shows, we think we're building the next generation of what a newsroom can look like."

That's a deliberate contrast to legacy media operations. ETN is betting that AI tooling lets a small crew produce daily live programming at a fraction of traditional costs. Whether that model sustains editorial depth remains to be seen.

Why daily, why now

Chambers points to deal flow as the driver. "When we were going live twice a week, we were getting 60 to 70 story pitches every week," he said. "We couldn't keep up with the number of great stories coming out of Europe's ecosystem."

The numbers back up the claim. London startups alone have raised €13.4bn so far in 2026, according to Sifted data. A string of European AI companies have closed mega-rounds above $500m. There's more capital moving, more companies scaling, and more founders willing to talk publicly about it.

“We're taking this incredibly seriously because Europe needs more discussion around AI, and it needs that discussion to happen faster. We need something that moves at the pace of the ecosystem.”

— Ronan Chambers, Co-founder, ETN

The guest list so far

Over eight months, ETN has hosted founders from Synthesia, Granola, and Legora. UK AI minister Kanishka Narayan and F1 champion Nico Rosberg have appeared as guests. Former UK prime minister Rishi Sunak, now an adviser at Microsoft and Anthropic, is scheduled for this week.

The lineup suggests ETN is positioning itself as a platform for founders, investors, and policymakers to discuss European tech, not as a news outlet breaking stories. Chambers is explicit about the distinction: "Our relationship with traditional media has to be symbiotic. We're not trying to replace it — we're another layer on top of the ecosystem that traditional media has already built."

That's a smart positioning move. It lets ETN avoid the credentialing fight with established outlets while still attracting high-profile guests who want a different kind of exposure. The format is closer to a podcast-meets-broadcast hybrid than a newsroom.

What it signals for founders

For European founders, ETN's raise is a reminder that media and distribution are becoming investable categories again. Axel Springer's participation signals traditional media sees value in new formats. The OpenAI and DeepMind angels suggest AI-native production is taken seriously by people who know the tooling.

If you're building in Europe and haven't thought about your media strategy, now's the time. The pitch to ETN is apparently one of 60-70 per week — that's a lot of competition for airtime, but it's also a sign that founders are actively seeking these channels.

Chambers frames the ambition simply: "If we can inspire the next generation of founders by telling those stories, then we've done our job." Whether inspiration translates to sustained viewership is the open question.

Source: Sifted