What's UpNext
What’s UpNext: Signals from the Global Startup Circuit
The F1 Circuit of the Startup Ecosystem. Tracking founders, momentum, and signals as they emerge.
Latest
Flashpoint POV
Why Retail Media Keeps Failing Smaller Retailers and How Cruxo Is Built to Fix It
Brands and retailers across Central and Eastern Europe have been handed retail media solutions that start three stages ahead of where they actually are. Jakub Spryngl and his co-founders left Procter & Gamble to build Cruxo, the platform that meets them where they are.
UpNext World Tour
GITEX Africa: Sovereign Systems Replace Infrastructure Narratives
GITEX Africa 2026 confirmed that African tech has moved past infrastructure storytelling into deployment at scale. Sovereign digital strategies and cross-border fintech are now live products, not roadmaps.
Flashpoint POV
A Wearable That Finally Tracks Female Hormones in Real Time
Estonian founder Kerli Luks spent years as a doctor watching women navigate hormonal health on incomplete data. Her company Muun Health is building the first continuous hormone monitoring device.
What's UpNext
What’s UpNext: Signals from the Global Startup Circuit
The F1 Circuit of the Startup Ecosystem. Tracking founders, momentum, and signals as they emerge.
Flashpoint POV
Why Medicines Cost Thirty Times More in Some African Markets and What Kapsule Is Doing About It
Pharmaceutical companies have spent decades circling African markets, unable to act without reliable data. David Chen built Kapsule to fix that, pooling health records from hospitals, pharmacies, and insurers across Africa into a single compliant platform.
Flashpoint POV
The Money Was Always There. Governments Just Couldn’t See It.
Carolina Valadas used mobile money daily in West Africa before she joined Sharp Vision.. Founded by Cyril and Christophe Casanova, the Paris-based RegTech now manages €5 billion in annual flows across six jurisdictions, tripling tax revenues for the governments it serves.
Flashpoint POV
Managers Can’t Lead While They’re Buried in Coordination
After 25 years in mobile and banking technology, Finnish founder Kristian Luoma identified the real obstacle to leadership, the coordination tax consuming 40% to 70% of every manager’s week. In Parallel is built to remove it.
Flashpoint POV
Every EV in Every Driveway Is a Grid Asset. Emulate Is the Infrastructure Utilities Need.
Shwan Lamei's co-founder proved at MIT that coordinated residential devices behave like a grid-scale battery. Emulate is the production-grade platform giving utilities real control over EVs, heat pumps, and batteries already in their customers' homes.
What's UpNext
What’s UpNext: Signals from the Global Startup Circuit
The F1 Circuit of the Startup Ecosystem. Tracking founders, momentum, and signals as they emerge.
UpNext World Tour
CIX Startup Awards: Canada Bets on Infrastructure
Capital in this year’s CIX cohort is shifting from SaaS to hard infrastructure. Defense tech, climate systems, and regulated health ventures now define the highest-conviction bets, pointing to longer-cycle, capital-intensive builds.
UpNext Ecosystem Tour
Synapse Competition: Medical Device Founders Build for Buyers, Not Labs
Medical device hardware is moving from research validation to commercialization readiness. Ontario's life science pipeline now produces founders who can articulate regulatory pathways and buyer economics before raising capital.