A product can be valuable enough for users to want it and still be impossible for the organisation around them to buy.

Greg Lawton, CEO and Co-Founder of Nodes & Links, calls the missing condition company commercial fit: when the company behind the product can pass security, legal, procurement and operational scrutiny.

Enterprise adoption depends on several decisions. User enthusiasm may prove the product solves a real problem, but wider deployment requires management, budget holders, IT, security and procurement to assess value and risk. One unresolved objection can outweigh months of internal support.

Founders can design pilots around the evidence and approvals needed for expansion, while investors can distinguish commercial readiness from a product still confined to one team. A signed pilot is a milestone, not proof of scalable revenue.

Once a company can navigate procurement consistently, the credentials, relationships and delivery capability it has built can also become a barrier to competition.

In our latest episode, Greg explains how Nodes & Links built that maturity, why enterprise growth is a milestone-attainment game and how to map every necessary “yes” and possible “no”.

We have also shared additional resources on understanding enterprise buying journeys, designing pilots for expansion and assessing the path from customer interest to repeatable revenue.

Elsewhere in this edition, you’ll find updates from across the ecosystem. We’re also introducing a snapshot of Europe’s latest funding rounds to give you a quick read on where capital is moving and what companies are building next.

With 💖
David & Andreas

Enterprise sales depends on the full buying process around the product. These resources show how to map the stakeholders behind the decision, earn trust in risk-sensitive organisations and run account planning and deal reviews that move opportunities towards approval.

A signed pilot can demonstrate interest without proving that a company is ready for repeatable enterprise growth. These resources help investors assess customer fit, procurement readiness and whether early adoption can survive risk reviews, internal handovers and wider deployment.

→ Startup funding rounds

Europe can build global AI leaders, yet slower consumer access could leave the US to capture the learning curve for personal agents.

In this episode of This Week in European Tech, Dan Bowyer, Mads Jensen and Priyanka Savjani of SuperSeed examine ElevenLabs’ rise, UK venture, AI safety and the economics shaping the next generation of AI companies.

The founders working the longest hours may feel capable of pushing harder even as sustained overwork brings them closer to a wall.

In this talk, Itxaso del Palacio, General Partner at Notion Capital, draws on the firm’s Negative Split research and lessons from endurance sport to explain how pacing, recovery and strong support networks sustain long-term performance.