Europe’s answer to TBPN is here and ready to go live five days a week from 27 July.
Luke Knight and Ronan Chambers launched the London-based European Technology Network (ETN) last October, breaking down tech trends and news during a two-day-a-week live stream. The show is currently streaming live on X and YouTube and has garnered more than 5 million views.
On Monday, the network announced a $1.6 million round from top players in the media ecosystem, including Powerhouse Capital, Axel Springer SE (which owns Business Insider and Politico), one of the co-founders of popular media publication LADbible, and angel investors from OpenAI and DeepMind. With this fresh capital, the network is announcing its largest expansion to date.
Now it’s moving to a big studio in Kings Cross (where all of London’s hot AI startups are located), expanding the team (currently eight), launching a newsletter and, starting today, moving to a five-day-a-week live broadcast schedule that will soon see Knight and Chambers interview George Robson (a Sequoiaka partner and minister SequoiKa). consultant to Anthropic and Microsoft).
Speaking to TechCrunch, Knight and Chambers said ETN has already become a hot stop on the press tour for European startups – they spoke to Synthesia’s founder, Legora’s CFO, Granola’s founder and Kanishka Narayan, the UK’s first AI minister. They’ve even had American investors stop by the show when they’re in town, including one from Andreessen Horowitz.
“ETN was born out of a big hole in the industry,” Chambers told TechCrunch. “It centers around rhythm.” He said the current media ecosystem in the UK can’t keep up with how fast the tech scene is moving. For example, so far this year, London startups have raised $14.7 billion according to Dealroom. Six companies have raised more than $500 million: Wayve, Superintelligence, ElevenLabs, Recursive, Ineffable Intelligence and Isomorphic Labs, the last three of which were founded by DeepMind alumni.
“These are things that have never happened before in Europe,” Chambers continued, referring to the speed at which capital flows through the ecosystem. As the show became more popular, Chambers said they were getting about 70 spots a week from guests who wanted to come on the show. They would try to cram 12 interviews into two hours, twice a week, but it ended up being too much. “We needed an outlet that could move at that pace,” he said of both interest in the show and how fast Europe’s tech ecosystem is moving, “which is why we’re going from two days a week to five days a week.”
The five-day format will be quite similar to the two-day format. There will be a live show from 12 p.m. UK time to 3pm, breaking down the trending stories and then for two hours, they’ll have guests on the show talking about whatever they want. Chambers said they also want to start hosting discussions, roundtables and a Shark Tank-style pitching session on the show.
“We want to make it as useful to the ecosystem as we can,” Chambers said. “There needs to be more conversation around AI in Europe. There needs to be more conversation around venture capital and cash flow into the ecosystem. There needs to be more conversation around the amazing things that are happening in the tech ecosystem and our role is to be the stage where people can shout about all the amazing things they’re doing.”
The show makes its money from advertising dollars, like most media outlets, and big-name sponsors already include prediction market Polymarket, blockchain company Base and AI audio darling ElevenLabs.
When asked about TBPN’s influence on them, Knight and Chambers said they do see John Coogan and Jordi Hays, founders of TBPN (which was recently sold to OpenAI for a nine-figure sum), as pioneers of this new media technology ecosystem. The show became a place for tech guests to show up and chat with friendly faces, announcing new product releases, hiring or funding news. “My thought was, if we can have an ITV and a BBC, why not have a regional version of that?” Chambers continued.
Europe is a big place, however, with more than 40 countries and more than 200 languages spoken (24 of which are recognized by the European Union). Chambers said that although ETN will be reporting from London, he and Knight are making an effort to bring in visitors from across the continent. In addition to bringing visitors to the studio, they also travel to the hottest tech conferences across Europe. For example, they have broadcast from the Panathenaic Conference in Athens and from inside the Louvre in Paris for the RAISE AI Summit.
“You have all these different cultures, these different minds coming together and creating different products,” Chambers said. “You get a taste of what he does [Europe] a superpower.”
With all that, they said they would never cast an American founder if he wanted to come on the show. “It’s a European technology network, but we think it’s huge [global] opportunities,” Chambers said. Knight added to this, noting how often the talks pit the European tech ecosystem against that of the US
“We’re optimistic globally,” Knight said. “We’re pushing global prosperity from Europe. Wherever you want to go and build your company, wherever is the best place to go and build that company, go and do that, and we’ll call you to go and do that.”
He and Chambers don’t necessarily see themselves as journalists. Rather, they consider themselves tech savvy curious about what’s going on and why. They also do not see themselves as replacing traditional media and instead intend to work alongside these publications. “We rely on traditional media,” Chambers said, adding that’s how they find much of the news they talk about on ETN.
Overall, the duo hope to help document the stories coming from the new wave of European success, from ElevenLabs in London to Lovable in Stockholm, to help the next generation understand that technology is a way to drive a nation forward.
Discussing the impact of European success stories, Chambers said: “It’s starting the next generation to the point where it’s not cool anymore to finish university and go into banking or consulting. People want to leave university and go straight into building a startup, and I think that’s great.”
This piece has been updated to clarify who invested in the company and when the show came out.
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