News & InsightsPerspectives from the frontier
Insights from the CVT team on deep tech, cybersecurity, and the founders we back.
The Builder's Chair: Maximilian Fischer on Building Factory AI That Works Councils Actually Trust
In this Builder's Chair interview, Almetra's CEO on signing a customer before the product existed, why privacy is an architecture decision not an afterthought, and what 'advanced automation' actually means for a shop floor.
AI Agents Are Exploitable. Here Is the Control Stack Taking Shape.
As agentic AI moves into production, the security field is catching up — from identity debt and runtime authority to adversarial testing and human-approval trails. Here is what is being built, and where we think the gaps still are.
The Builder's Chair: Joseph Saunders on Protecting the Software You Can't Simply Reboot
In this Builder's Chair interview, RunSafe Security's CEO on moving from national-security analytics to embedded cybersecurity, the engineering challenge behind 'no recertification needed', and why making memory exploitation economically unattractive matters for everyone.
Heitor Benfeito on the Mentor Bench at Techstars Startup Weekend Porto 2026
Heitor Benfeito joined the mentor bench at Techstars Startup Weekend Porto, alongside four teams building from scratch over 54 hours.
Critical Ventures Invests in Humanos, the Human Authorization Layer for the Age of AI
Critical Ventures leads investment in Humanos, a Lisbon-based startup building the infrastructure that keeps humans in the loop when AI systems make decisions that matter.
Why We Invested in Humanos
The human-authorization layer that sits above the agents — so AI acts only when it’s allowed to.
Drone Swarms Are Getting Smarter. The Software Underneath Has to Keep Up.
As autonomous systems take on more of the decision-making in modern defence, the technology holding them together is shifting from GPS and radios to onboard intelligence and hardened software.
The Builder's Chair: Lancelot Convert & Clément Poiret on Why Edge AI Needs to Learn While It Runs
In the third Builder's Chair interview, Rhizome Labs' co-founders on the neuroscience-to-AI crossover, the on-device bet that makes cloud dependency a liability, and why deliberate direction matters more than speed in a noisy market.
João Brito Joins Critical Ventures as Venture Partner
João Brito is joining Critical Ventures as Venture Partner, bringing more than 25 years of experience running critical systems engineering divisions across space, aerospace, defense, railway, automotive, medical, and science.
The Builder's Chair: Felix Nagy & Harold de Vries on Why the Whole Attack Surface Beats Point Solutions, and What Stops the Big Players From Catching Up
In the second Builder's Chair interview, Hackurity's co-founders on the gaming infrastructure business that became a crash course in offensive security, why threat actors don't respect vendor silos, and the co-founder dynamic that makes the partnership work.
The Builder's Chair: Michal Ukropec on Dark Factories, Nine Years Without Funding, and Why Industrial AI Needs Evidence, Not Promises
In the first instalment of our founder interview series, twinzo's CEO on building a product 10 years ahead of the market, the one asset AI can't commoditize, and what separates a manufacturer that's ready for a digital twin from one that isn't.
Edge AI Is Leaving the Demo Stage, and Funding Is Following
Real-time inference, on-device learning and data-privacy pressure are pushing AI compute out of the cloud and onto the hardware sitting next to the problem.
The AI on Your Factory Floor Is Getting Worse, and Almost Nobody Notices
A research team funded by Lisbon believes it has found a way to keep on-device AI models fresh and accurate — without sending your data anywhere or retraining the entire model from scratch.
Why 2026 Is the Year Physical AI Left the Pilot Stage on the Factory Floor
Labor shortages, not cost-cutting, are what's finally pushing manufacturers to automate — and the technology has caught up.
48,000 Attacks in Thirty Days
Hackurity's June threat intelligence report puts specific numbers to the enterprise attack surface — 48,957 threat events, 2,207 attacker IPs, 142 exploit attempts. The patterns are more repetitive than the headlines suggest.
Critical Ventures Invests in Almetra to Bring AI Intelligence to the Factory Floor
Critical Ventures backs Almetra, a Berlin-based startup using AI and computer vision to make the human side of manufacturing finally visible — measurable, improvable, and ready for what comes next.
Staying Alive: Uncensored Survival Analysis with Tabular Foundation Models
Rhizome Labs researchers show how Tabular Foundation Models can perform zero-shot survival analysis — handling censored data through an iterative Buckley-James-inspired imputation loop, with no survival-specific training required.
Critical Ventures Brought Its Ecosystem Together in Lisbon for a Day That Delivered
On 22 June, around 100 investors, founders, advisors and corporate partners spent the day together at the Beato Innovation District — not at a conference, but at something more deliberate.
Thoughts on the AI Disruption
AI is changing the world faster than any technology cycle in living memory — and nothing is going to stop it. Here is how we read the disruption, and why we invest in the critical-systems layer the new world will depend on.
The World is changing and we might not be ready for it… or are we?
AI is going through a major up-tide. The recent news that Anthropic's Claude found thousands of zero-day vulnerabilities — some hidden for 27 years — in hours, not months, is more relevant than you might think.
The Security Crisis Hitting Investors' Business
As an investor in Hackurity, their latest white paper on cybersecurity risks in VC and PE is a wake-up call for the whole industry. The data is overwhelming.
Why We Invested in Almetra
AI for the factory floor that turns raw production into measurable, repeatable gains.
Why We Invested in Rhizome
AI that keeps learning at the edge — on the device, in real time, where the cloud can’t reach.
Strengthening Europe's Defense Manufacturing: Why Intralogistics Is the New Front Line
As NATO members accelerate rearmament and defense budgets hit record highs, the bottleneck isn't engineering — it's what happens inside the factory walls. Twinzo's real-time digital-twin platform is turning intralogistics into a strategic advantage for Europe's defense manufacturers.
Why We Invested in Hackurity
Advanced penetration testing across the whole attack surface — applications, networks, embedded systems and the deep web, tested continuously and autonomously.
Why We Invested in RunSafe Security
Cyber-hardening for the systems you can’t patch on a Tuesday — vehicles, weapons, fielded infrastructure.
Why We Invested in Kirontech
Turning medical data into knowledge — and making health insurance markets efficient enough to be sustainable.
Why We Invested in Twinzo
A live, walk-through replica of the factory floor — powered by data nobody else owns.