In this episode of Upside, Dan Bowyer, Mads Jensen of SuperSeed and Lomax Ward of Outsized Ventures unpack a week where geopolitics, AI arms races and Europe’s tech momentum took over the headlines.
A new oil shock triggered by tensions around the Strait of Hormuz threatens global energy flows and raises the spectre of another inflation cycle with direct consequences for venture capital and startup funding. At the same time, the economics of modern warfare are shifting rapidly, with cheap drones and fast-iteration defence technology reshaping how conflicts are fought and who builds the tools.
Against that backdrop, Europe delivered a surprisingly strong week for tech: France produced the continent’s first $1B seed “Instacorn”, Revolut finally secured its UK banking licence, and new proposals could finally push Europe closer to unified capital markets.
Meanwhile in AI, the race for chips, coding platforms and infrastructure continues to accelerate, from Nvidia’s looming announcements at GTC to Meta building its own inference silicon and the meteoric rise of AI coding startup Cursor.
This isn’t just a tech news cycle.
It’s energy markets, AI infrastructure, and European innovation ecosystems moving at the same time.
What’s covered
• The Strait of Hormuz oil shock and its ripple effects on venture markets
• Ukraine’s emergence as a real-time defence innovation ecosystem
• The shifting economics of warfare: cheap drones vs expensive missiles
• Europe’s first $1B AI seed round and the rise of frontier labs in Paris
• Yann LeCun’s new “world models” bet and the next frontier in AI
• Capital markets integration and whether Europe can finally unify funding
• Cursor’s $50B trajectory and the future of AI coding platforms
• The AI chip war: Meta’s inference silicon vs Nvidia’s dominance
• AI layoffs and whether productivity narratives are masking pandemic over-hiring
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