Hyped: Global - 16 July 2025

Your weekly dose of the best Startup, Innovation and Tech stories from across the Globe.

Author

Dickie Currer
July 16, 2025

For more stories like this in your inbox every week subscribe here

And for our newly launched Slack Community where you can connect with Startup, Innovation and Tech enthusiasts from across the world, join us here

The top stories from Europe and the UK this week

TL;DR:

France: UK to double down on investment in French Starlink competitor

The UK Government just announced a €163m investment into French satellite group Eutelsat, Europe’s only serious competitor to Elon Musk’s Starlink. 

The publicly-listed company has raised a total of €1.5bn in the past month, from investors including the French government and Indian multinational Bharti Space. 

While the company has less than a tenth of the number of satellites in the sky as its US rival, its shares have soared following concerns that Trump may shut off Ukraine’s access to Starlink after a spat with president Volodymyr Zelensky earlier this year. 

‌Why should you care: The first six months of 2025 have seen technological sovereignty pushed to the top of the agenda in Europe. Threats to roll back on commitments to the region from US president Donald Trump have left governments scrambling to bolster key digital infrastructure — much of which is provided by companies HQ’d on the other side of the Atlantic.

Everything you need to know about ANZ Tech & Innovation

TL;DR:

Australia: Funding for Female Founders down to 0.5% in Q2 according to report 

The shocking statistic was released this week in the the Cut Through Quarterly Report, which has now become the industry standard for the state of Funding in the Australian Startup ecosystem.

The report also highlighted that funding in Australia in general is trending downward after positive signs of recovery from the country’s funding winter. Here’s the key takeaways from the report Clint Eastwood style:

The Good

  • Investor sentiment is high with 90% of respondents rating current deal flow as “good” or “excellent and just 3% thinking valuations will trend downward in 2025

  • AI Startups were second by deal count, entering the top 5 for the first time

The Bad

  • Just $812 million was raised across 76 announced rounds, a two year low which also ends 3 straight quarters of incremental growth

  • Sub $5million rounds slumped to an 18 month low and late stage investing was almost non-existent 

The Ugly

  • Female-founded teams endured one of their worst quarters on record, attracting less than 0.5% of total dollars, and just 11 announced deals involving a woman founder at all. 

  • Strip out Airwallex, and only $29 million flowed to mixed-gender teams.

Why should you care: For a country as progressive culturally as Australia, the State of funding for Female founded businesses is quite frankly abhorrent. These statistics serve as a reminder that no matter how a culture may seem to be at parity, there often still lies below systemic barriers stopping that from being the reality.

Subscribe here for weekly updates about Australia & Aotearoa New Zealand in your inbox

The world’s most succesful Female Founder, Canva’s Mel Perkins is from Australian

The top stories from the African continent this past week

TL;DR:

Morocco:  to roll out 5G ahead of the African Cup of Nations in November

Morocco is rolling out the red carpet for 5G. The country’s National Telecommunications Regulatory Agency (ANRT) just opened the tender process for 5G licences, targeting a commercial launch in November 2025, just in time for AFCON, the continent’s biggest football tournament

The rollout plan is ambitious: reach 25% population coverage by the end of 2025/early 2026, and expand to 70% by 2030, the year Morocco co-hosts the FIFA World Cup. They’ll start with major cities and economic and innovation hubs — places that need the speed and low latency first — before branching out.

This fits into the bigger Digital Morocco 2030 agenda. Beyond mobile, the plan includes connecting 6,300 public offices to fibre by 2026 and expanding to 5.6 million homes by 2030. It’s a nationwide digital overhaul, prepping the Kingdom for the future.

Why should you care: Only a handful of African countries have 5G and deployments are rolling out unevenly. Countries like Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa launched 5G earlier, while some are still in trial stages or awaiting licences. Coverage and speeds vary widely, but the pace is steadily picking up nationwide, showing the ambition of Morocco’s plan.

Want to hear more about African Tech? We highly recommend our good friend Caleb Maru’s Tech Safari newsletter, you can subscribe here 

North Africa’s 3rd biggest country will play host to it’s biggest football tournament later this year

India, China, South East Asia and everything in between

TL;DR:

Singapore: eSim provider Airalo becomes SEA’s newest unicorn after $220million raise  

Founded in 2019 by Ahmet Bahadir Ozdemir, Abraham Burak, Duran Akcaylier, Airalo offers  low-cost data bundles helping travellers to stay connected across the globe. With data packages purchased and managed through the app. 

Airalo now serves over 200M travelers across over 200 destinations (including our Founder Dickie’s when he recently travelled to China) and previously raised a $60 million Series B back in 2023.

This Series C round was led by CVC, through its CVC Asia Fund VI with Peak XV Partners and Antler Elevate closing it out. The funds will be used to help develop an Airalo business solution targeting B2B customers.

Why should you care: This is Singapore’s 34th Unicorn, impressive figures for a country with less than 6 million people!

SEA’s newest unicorn is currently changing the way we connect overseas!

The biggest news out of the US plus the rest of North and South America

TL;DR:

USA: Nvidia becomes world's first $4 trillion company

Shares in the chip-maker, founded by Jensen Huang, rose by as much as 2.4% to $164 last Wednesday, as the company continues to benefit from the ongoing surge in demand for the tech that powers Artificial Intelligence.

The US-based company reached a market value of $1tn for the first time in June 2023, and has continued to climb rapidly since.

The company reported a total revenue of $44.1bn in the first quarter, marking a 69% jump from a year ago along with a profit of 81 cents a share.

Why should you care: Nvidia's continually rising value is a sign of Wall Street's faith in AI growth, despite the turbulence surrounding Trump's economic policies.

Source: BBC News

For more stories like this: 

If you enjoyed this newsletter, please reply by letting us know or even better share it with your friends or community!

Until next week, travel safe