The 2025 Forbes U30 Europe Technology list features founders like Black Forest Labs’ Frederic Boesel and Jonas Muller, who are advancing AI, alongside innovators like Vivenu’s Simon Hennes, who’s transforming event ticketing with tech-first solutions. By Thomas Brewster, Zoya Hasan and Iain Martin It’s been little over a year since Freiburg, Germany-based Black Forest Labs launched in 2024, but it’s made big waves in a short amount of time. Its AI is now the text-to-image generator integrated into the $6 billion (valuation) Mistral Al’s Le Chat, and it raised over $31 million in a seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz in August. Led by 28-year olds Frederic Boesel and Jonas Muller—along with their over 30 cofounders—the company is positioning itself to be a big mover in AI, making the base models underpinning powerful image generation widely accessible. As Andreessen Horowitz wrote after investing, the Black Forest Labs team “could accelerate innovation across a wide range of fields.” Sebastian Nevols for Forbes For nearly a decade, Forbes has highlighted young entrepreneurs for our annual 30 Under 30 Europe Technology list, with the help of nominations from the public. To be considered for this year’s list, all candidates had to be under the age of 30 as of April 8, 2025, and never before named to an 30 Under 30 North America, Asia or Europe list. After months of reporting by Forbes editors, candidates were evaluated by a panel of judges including founder of London-based unicorn Faculty, Dr. Angie Ma; partner at Silicon Valley-based IVP, Eric Liaw; EQT Growth partner Carolina Brochado and Under 30 alum and Chainalysis cofounder Jonathan Levin. This year’s cohort is full of founders who’ve made waves in AI just a year or two after founding. Caoimhe Murphy, 29 left another Forbes Under 30 alum, Synesthesia, in 2024 to cofound Anam, which creates AI avatars for customer service and sales. It’s already attracting top tier clients like Spotify and German multinational Henkel. Sweden’s Lovable, founded in 2023 by 24-year-old Fabian Hedin lets users spin up working apps with just some text prompts. And Georgina Steele, 29, founded U.K.-based Maiven last year, which developed AI that can flag potential breaches of environmental law. Others members of this year’s list are making big impacts by disrupting older industries. Featured honoree Simon Hennes, the 27-year-old cofounder of Vivenu, says his ticketing platform is taking a tech-first, white label approach to event ticketing, giving organisers control over how they sell tickets and handle customer information. It’s a different strategy to the major industry players like Ticketmaster, but Hennes thinks a fresh take on an old market is the way to shake things up. “There are lots of Goliaths out there, right?” he told Forbes. “There are big, big companies with massive funding, with thousands of people in seed with a big history, and decades of providing these services. It's not easy to compete with them, but at the same time, it doesn't change the fact that your mission is important and people buy into it.” Investors are confident that such bold approaches will pay off, and the companies on the Technology list have collectively raised more than $300 million in recent years. Among the companies who’ve scored big rounds, Vivenu has raised $60 million, Black Forest Labs $30 million and Lovable $20 million. Not that fundraising is everything. The mission comes first. Hennes says that his company doesn’t yet need more funding as it’s a profitable business. Still, he wants to double headcount and revenue growth over the next year. “Our mission is to become the largest ticket provider globally, right? So we have a long term mission. It's not a short-term mission, it's not a mid-term mission. It's a long term mission.” The same will go for many of this year’s Under 30 Europe group. They may have made big splashes in no time at all, but the road ahead will be long and, with some luck, prosperous. This year’s list was edited by Thomas Brewster, Zoya Hasan and Iain Martin . For a link to our complete 30 Under 30 Europe Technology list, click here, and for full 30 Under 30 Europe coverage, click here. 30 UNDER 30 RELATED ARTICLES

Table of Contents Table of Contents Kill Tony: Kill or Be Killed (2025) The Madness (2024) Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (1993-1995) This month on Netflix, Charlie Brooker returns for more social nightmares with Black Mirror season 7. For the first time in series history, Brooker did a sequel, USS Callister: Into Infinity, the follow-up to the Emmy-winning USS Callister from season 4. The other notable show coming in April is You season 5, the final run for serial killer Joe Goldberg. While Black Mirror and You will dominate the most popular list for all of April, more shows are ready to be watched at the click of a button. Some underrated offerings include a stand-up comedy special, a conspiracy thriller, and a children’s TV show. Recommended Videos We also have guides to the best new shows to stream, the best movies on Netflix, the best movies on Hulu, the best movies on Amazon Prime Video, the best movies on Max, and the best movies on Disney+. Related Netflix Tony Hinchcliffe has been hosting Kill Tony for nearly 12 years. The stand-up comedy variety show has gained a cult following over the years. It started in small comedy rooms and has since grown to some of the world’s most famous arenas, like Madison Square Garden. After Hinchcliffe stole the show at The Roast of Tom Brady, Netflix got into business with the comedian for three Kill Tony specials, with the first being Kill or Be Killed. If this is your first Kill Tony episode, here is the format. Hundreds of comedians drop their names into the Bucket of Destiny. If a comedian’s name is called, they get to perform stand-up for one minute onstage. Then, Hinchcliffe, co-host Brian Redban, and a panel of comedians conduct an interview that typically leads to a roast. The jokes are quick, the laughs are abundant, and the craziness never stops. That’s Kill Tony in a nutshell. Watch Kill Tony: Kill or Be Killed on Netflix. The Madness (2024) Amanda Matlovich / Netflix Colman Domingo is having a moment. In the past three years, Domingo has won an Emmy for his performance on Euphoria, received two Oscar nominations for Best Actor (Rustin, Sing Sing), and signed on to be in the cast of Steven Spielberg’s next movie. Despite the busy schedule, Domingo still found some time to headline The Madness, a conspiracy thriller series that aired in November. Muncie Daniels (Domingo) is an author and rising star in media. Right before his career is about to take off, Muncie discovers the dead body of a white supremacist in the Poconos. Much to his dismay, Muncie is framed for murder and becomes the top suspect. Now, Muncie goes into survival mode, doing whatever he can to stay alive. The Madness is a throwback to the ’70s political thrillers that fed into people’s paranoia. Watch The Madness on Netflix. It’s morphing time. Admittedly, this pick is not for everyone. You likely had to be a child when Mighty Morphin Power Rangers aired in the early ’90s. However, the Power Rangers came back in a big way in 2023 with Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always, a special to honor the 30th anniversary of the show. Now, go back to the beginning and see the origins of the teenagers who became superheroes in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. In the city of Angel Grove, five teenagers — Jason Lee Scott (Austin St. John), Zack Taylor (Walter Emanuel Jones), Billy Cranston (David Yost), Trini Kwan (Thuy Trang), and Kimberly Hart (Amy Jo Johnson) — are recruited by the wizard Zordon to become Power Rangers. The teens agree and get to work on saving the world, mainly from the villainous Rita Repulsa (Machiko Soga). It’s children’s television, but you’ll be surprised by how well the action holds up for a kids show. Watch Mighty Morphin Power Rangers on Netflix. Editors’ Recommendations

DO THE MATH OpenAI continues naming chaos despite CEO acknowledging the habit OpenAI's brand new "GPT-4.1" has a funky name but reasonable performance for the price. Benj Edwards – Apr 14, 2025 4:53 pm | 4 Credit: Maskot via Getty Images Credit: Maskot via Getty Images Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only   Learn more On Monday, OpenAI announced the GPT-4.1 model family, its newest series of AI language models that brings a 1 million token context window to OpenAI for the first time and continues a long tradition of very confusing AI model names. Three confusing new names, in fact: GPT‑4.1, GPT‑4.1 mini, and GPT‑4.1 nano. According to OpenAI, these models outperform GPT-4o in several key areas. But in an unusual move, GPT-4.1 will only be available through the developer API, not in the consumer ChatGPT interface where most people interact with OpenAI's technology. The 1 million token context window—essentially the amount of text the AI can process at once—allows these models to ingest roughly 3,000 pages of text in a single conversation. This puts OpenAI's context windows on par with Google's Gemini models, which have offered similar extended context capabilities for some time. At the same time, the company announced it will retire the GPT-4.5 Preview model in the API—a temporary offering launched in February that one critic called a "lemon"—giving developers until July 2025 to switch to something else. However, it appears GPT-4.5 will stick around in ChatGPT for now. So many names If this sounds confusing, well, that's because it is. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman acknowledged OpenAI's habit of terrible product names in February when discussing the roadmap toward the long-anticipated (and still theoretical) GPT-5. "We realize how complicated our model and product offerings have gotten," Altman wrote on X at the time, referencing a ChatGPT interface already crowded with choices like GPT-4o, various specialized GPT-4o versions, GPT-4o mini, the simulated reasoning o1-pro, o3-mini, and o3-mini-high models, and GPT-4. The stated goal for GPT-5 will be consolidation, a branding move to unify o-series models and GPT-series models. So, how does launching another distinctly numbered model, GPT-4.1, fit into that grand unification plan? It's hard to say. Altman foreshadowed this kind of ambiguity in March 2024, telling Lex Friedman the company had major releases coming but was unsure about names: "before we talk about a GPT-5-like model called that, or not called that, or a little bit worse or a little bit better than what you’d expect..." GPT-4.1 feels exactly like that "called that, or not called that" model—a significant iteration, but apparently not the generational leap worthy of the GPT-5 moniker, further fragmenting the lineup before the promised consolidation. Also, it's worth noting that Altman said in February that GPT-4.5 would be the company's "last non-chain-of-thought model." But apparently, plans have changed. Is 4.1 better than 4.5? Yes and no In some key ways, 4.1 is greater than 4.5. It makes us wonder if OpenAI has been using LLMs to name its products, owing to the famous example last year where ChatGPT commonly reported that the numerical value "9.11" was greater than "9.9". Jokes aside, the confusing naming strategy is matched by equally puzzling performance claims. OpenAI positions GPT-4.1 as a clear advancement over GPT-4o, particularly in coding and following complex instructions (you can see the full benchmarks on OpenAI's site). The new model family also brings that massive 1 million token context window—about four times larger than GPT-4o's capability. Notably, unlike the multimodal GPT-4o (where "o" stood for "omni"), the announcement for the GPT-4.1 family makes no mention of audio input or output capabilities, suggesting a focus on text and image inputs with text output, as AI expert Simon Willison noted in his blog. Compared to the soon-to-be-retired GPT-4.5 Preview, the picture becomes far more complicated. While GPT-4.1 scores significantly better on the SWE-bench Verified coding benchmark (54.6 percent versus 38.0 percent for GPT-4.5) and generates code diffs more reliably, OpenAI's benchmark data reveals GPT-4.5 still performed better on academic knowledge tests, instruction following, and several vision-related tasks. (SWE-bench Verified is an industry benchmark that aims to evaluate how well AI models can understand and modify real-world software repositories to fix bugs or implement new features—essentially measuring how useful the AI would be to actual software engineers in production environments.) This raises the question: Why retire a seemingly more capable model in the API? OpenAI explains that GPT-4.1 delivers "improved or similar performance on many key capabilities at much lower cost and latency." In other words, GPT-4.1 hits a practical sweet spot—good enough performance for most API use cases, but delivered faster and cheaper than the more resource-intensive GPT-4.5 Preview. GPT-4.5 is very slow and very expensive. The new models come with lower prices compared to their predecessors. GPT-4.1 costs $2 per million tokens for input and $8 per million tokens for output, representing a 26 percent cost reduction for median queries compared to GPT-4o. GPT-4.1 mini is priced at $0.40 for input and $1.60 for output per million tokens, while GPT-4.1 nano costs just $0.10 for input and $0.40 for output per million tokens. In comparison, GPT-4.5's pricing was off the charts--costing $75 per million input tokens and $150 per million output tokens through the API. So 4.1 is an upgrade over 4o that almost matches 4.5 but costs far, far less to run. Got that? The API-only strategy So another question remains: Why create a model that outperforms GPT-4o in important ways but not offer it to ChatGPT users? According to OpenAI, many improvements from these research models "have been gradually incorporated into the latest version of GPT-4o" in ChatGPT, with more features planned for future updates. Essentially, ChatGPT's GPT-4o has become a constantly evolving "brand" model that absorbs capabilities from the company's various research models over time. This creates a two-track system: developers using the API get specific, consistent models with clearly defined capabilities, while regular ChatGPT users receive a single model that changes behind the scenes. Developers can select precisely which model fits their needs and cost requirements, choosing between 4.1, 4.1 mini, 4.1 nano, 4o, and other variants. Meanwhile, consumers get whatever version of GPT-4o OpenAI decides to push out. But it won't make the naming simpler. As one Hacker News commenter astutely observed, "I need an AI to understand the naming conventions that OpenAI is using." Benj Edwards Senior AI Reporter Benj Edwards Senior AI Reporter Benj Edwards is Ars Technica's Senior AI Reporter and founder of the site's dedicated AI beat in 2022. He's also a tech historian with almost two decades of experience. In his free time, he writes and records music, collects vintage computers, and enjoys nature. He lives in Raleigh, NC. 4 Comments

Alex Canizares, a senior government contracts lawyer at Perkins Coie, moved to a new firm. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images 2025-04-15T01:37:10Z Save Saved Read in app This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? Alex Canizares, a senior government contracts lawyer at Perkins Coie, moved to a new firm. Perkins sued over Trump's order that required its contractor clients to disclose their relationship. He said his move to Vinson & Elkins was in the works before Trump's order. A top lawyer in the government contracts section of a law firm targeted for investigations by President Donald Trump over its work with Democrats moved to a new firm.Alex Canizares, the second-most senior lawyer on the government contracting team at Perkins Coie, joined Vinson & Elkins on Monday, the firm announced. Public records show Canizares has worked for clients including Booz Allen Hamilton and security contractors that work with the State Department.His move comes just over a month after Trump signed an executive order that described Perkins Coie as a security threat, suspended the security clearances of its personnel, and required that federal contractors disclose whether they work with the law firm. A few days later, Perkins convinced a judge to pause the order, but it said key clients had already told the firm to stand down, and it worried about losing their business.Canizares was the vice-chair of the government contracts team at Perkins and will be the cohead of Vinson's government contracts group. He told Business Insider that his move to Vinson was in the works for "several months" and that he was laying the groundwork for it before the executive action targeting Perkins Coie came down on March 6."There's a lot of changes underway in the new administration focused on procurement," he said. Vinson & Elkins "saw me as someone who could come in and help really grow and expand on certain areas that are aligned with what the firm is trying to do."The Department of Government Efficiency, a White House office linked to Elon Musk, has pressed federal agencies to end contracts and slash staff that it deems wasteful or inconsistent with Trump's priorities. Big government contractors, including Accenture, Deloitte, Leidos, and Booz, are among those whose contracts have been singled out for termination.Trump has taken executive action against several Big Law firms. Some, like Perkins Coie, have sued the administration, while others have cut deals with Trump — sometimes even before they've been named in an executive order. The settling firms have agreed to devote pro bono time to some of Trump's preferred causes and committed to stopping DEI initiatives.Hugh Simons, a former business leader at a major law firm who is now a consultant, told Business Insider that he expects more partners at law firms targeted by Trump's executive orders will try to move. Clients are worried that even if judges formally halt Trump's orders against the firms, they will face blowback, Simons said."It's weeks, not months," for the pace of lawyer moves to pick up steam, he said in an interview on April 10. "I would love to be wrong. This is just an awful, awful thing."Canizares said he represents contractors accused of wrongdoing by whistleblowers and in challenges to federal contracting decisions, among other situations. He expects that the Trump administration's cutback on contracts could lead to more work, though some clients are seeking ways short of a lawsuit to reduce the risk of financial loss."I do expect that there's gonna be a wave of claims that come out of the terminations that we're seeing," he said.A representative for Perkins Coie didn't respond to a comment request on Monday evening. The firm said in a court filing last month that its government contracts team had 13 people working on 69 matters. Recommended video

The Last of Us season two premiere had story elements fans expected—tension, trauma, a time jump, infected-adjacent horrors, etc.—but it also featured the surprising sight of Joel (Pedro Pascal) getting some much-needed counseling from Gail, a therapist played by Catherine O’Hara. According to a new interview in Variety, co-showrunner Craig Mazin originally wanted to explore that idea in season one of the hit HBO series, but ultimately there wasn’t enough room to fit it in. When season two was being mapped out, he decided to bring it back. “In all closed economies, certain things would be valued more than others,” Mazin explained. “Let’s say you were good at fixing shoes—valuable. Let’s say you taught physics—probably not valuable anymore. What if you were a therapist? Extraordinarily valuable. Every single person has gone through a horror. There is no one who can say, ‘I’ve actually had a great time.’ I think that therapy is a fantastic mirror to say, not just, ‘Oh, what are you really thinking?’—I think therapy is best when you find out what people are refusing to talk about.” That last bit propels Joel and Gail’s interactions; she’s mourning a great loss that she blames Joel for, even though she knows he had no choice in his actions. She brings it up as a way to draw him out—to get him to talk about the bloody choice he made to save Ellie (Bella Ramsey) at the end of season one. Their back-and-forth conversation is styled as “a shootout” of words, according to Mazin. “I’ve sat in enough therapy sessions to know how things can turn on a dime, from laughing to crying to anger, because things are being exposed. I loved writing it. I loved shooting it. I loved editing it,” Mazin said. “It’s one of my favorite scenes so far among both seasons, in no small part, because I got to watch these two legends at the top of their game talk.” New episodes of The Last of Us arrive Sundays on HBO and Max. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

Nature, Published online: 14 April 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-01181-1Plans are taking off to use an unconventional technique to accelerate particles in a future collider.

Doctors in the U.K. have warned gynecologists of the risks of necrotizing fasciitis in the external genitalia after seeing several cases.

Ubisoft continues supporting its failed AAAA title Skull and Bones, unveiling plans for Skull and Bones Year 2, which includes four seasons of new content.Over the course of 2025, the company plans to add land combat, new PvP modes, the Kraken, more ships, new world tiers, item ascension, new factions, and a variety of other features.While some of the additions do sound interesting, many have pointed out that they expected them to be part of the game at launch and see them – land combat, for instance – as essential must-haves, not as "exciting updates" Ubisoft is presenting them as.Find out more: https://80.lv/articles/ubisoft-s-failed-aaaa-game-skull-and-bones-actually-gets-year-2-support/

Member-only storyUnveiling the Future of AI with Synthetic DataTransformative Applications and Privacy-First Innovations Revolutionizing Multiple Industries5 min read·Just now--Synthetic Data: A Revolution in AI Privacy and DevelopmentSynthetic data, generated through advanced machine learning, is reshaping AI with privacy-first innovations. This transformative tool bridges data gaps, ensuring privacy compliance while revolutionizing industries from healthcare to finance.A Moment That Changed EverythingI remember the day when my perspective on data privacy shifted. It was a bright morning, and I was sipping my coffee, scrolling through the news, when a headline caught my eye: “Major Data Breach Exposes Millions of Personal Records.” The article detailed how sensitive information had been compromised, affecting countless individuals. As someone deeply invested in technology and data, I felt a pang of concern. How could we protect privacy while still harnessing the power of data for AI development?This question lingered in my mind, and I began to wonder if there was a way to balance the need for data with the imperative of privacy. It was this pivotal moment that led me to explore the potential of synthetic data — a solution that promised to address these pressing concerns.Discovering the Power of Synthetic DataAs I delved deeper, I discovered that synthetic data could be a game-changer. Imagine creating data that mimics real-world information but doesn’t expose any personal details. This concept was not only fascinating but also incredibly practical. It offered a way to train AI models without risking privacy breaches.The market for synthetic data was growing rapidly, with predictions of it reaching $2.1 billion by 2028. This wasn’t just a trend; it was a movement towards a more secure future. Gartner’s estimate that 60% of data used in AI projects would be synthetic by 2024 further cemented its importance.The Challenge: Balancing Privacy and Data Needs