🚀 𝐇𝐑𝐓𝐞𝐜𝐡 𝐅𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐇𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 | 𝐉𝐚𝐧𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟔 🌍

The year 2026 started of with a limited number of fundings announced - likely also due to holiday season. Similar to the last months of 2025, investments are again primarily in the benefits, learning and talent acquisition space.

Here are the details:

⬇𝐈𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬:

💵 Carol (IT) raised a €6.5M Series-A round led by Futura SGR and P101 plus an additional €2M debt financing. Carol's total equity raised thus exceeds €11 million since its founding. Specifically, the funds raised will be used for strategic M&A transactions to expand the healthcare services offering and accelerate inorganic growth. International expansion to the Spanish market is expected in 2026 to position Carol as a pan-European player in the healthcare employee benefits market. Additional investment is planned in insurance services, with the aim of introducing healthcare insurance and medical expense reimbursement solutions as additional benefits available to client companies' employees: https://financecommunity.it/carol-chiude-un-round-da-85-milioni-guidato-da-futura-sgr-p101-sgr-e-banca-sella/

💵 Agileday (FI) raised a €6.4M in Series-A round led by Newion, with participation from Specialist VC, Vendep Capital, and Business Finland. The company develops an AI-powered professional services automation (PSA) platform that combines talent, project allocations, timesheets, and financials into a single operating system. With the funding it intends to scale its technology, and accelerate international expansion across Europe and North America: https://www.finsmes.com/2026/01/agileday-raises-e6-4m-in-series-a-funding.html

💵 Sparkli (CH) raised a $5M Pre-Seed round led by Founderful to develop a new kind of learning platform designed specifically for children aged five to twelve. Founded by former Google Area 120, YouTube, and Search engineers, with Area 120 being Google’s internal incubator where employees build and test experimental startup-style products, the startup is emerging from stealth with an ambition that goes beyond digitizing textbooks or automating worksheets. The funding will be used to scale Sparkli’s multimodal learning engine and prepare for a private beta planned for early 2026: https://www.unite.ai/sparkli-raises-5m-pre-seed-to-build-an-ai-native-learning-engine-for-children/

💵 taalentfy (ES) raised a €1.5M unknown round Axon Partners Group and CaixaBank aimed at enhancing the link between education and the labor market through digital solutions targeted at both educational institutions and companies. The operation will allow the company to accelerate its growth plan, consolidate its business model, strengthen its operational structure and team - particularly in software development - and scale its AI-based employability and guidance technology in Spain and Latin America, covering the education, corporate, and public sectors: https://capital-riesgo.es/en/articles/taalentfy-closes-1-5-million-funding-round-with-axon-and-caixabank-to-connect-education-and-work/

Additional start-ups reported smaller or undisclosed funding including Talent2Go (DE).

🌎 Interesting global fundings include:

• DailyPay's (US) $195M in debt-financing for its on-demand pay platform and financial wellness solution.

• Preply's (US) $150M Series-D round for AI-enhanced language learning.

• Compa's (US) ~$35M Series-B round for AI-based compensation intelligence.

Let me know if I overlooked something in the comments below! 👇

Congrats to the startups, their teams and the founder including Lorenzo Granato, Jaakko Hartikainen, Lax Poojary, Alejandro González Mike Joszko and their teams as well as to the investors involved!