The ETN live show expansion into a five-day-a-week broadcast schedule arrives alongside a $1.6 million seed round that draws in some of the most recognisable names in European media and tech investment. Announced on Monday, the raise brings in Powerhouse Capital, Axel Springer SE, a co-founder of LadBible, and angel investors connected to both OpenAI and DeepMind.
ETN, the European Technology Network, is a live tech talk show founded by Jordan Knight and Alex Chambers, based in London. The pair built it as a daily forum for founders, investors, and policymakers to discuss the rapidly accelerating European technology scene.
The funding round did not go quietly. According to Sifted, the raise was oversubscribed. Chambers told the publication: ‘By the end of the round, we were actually turning people away. We hadn’t planned to raise as much as we did, but it became incredibly oversubscribed.’ Before the announcement, ETN had already surpassed 5 million views across YouTube and X.
From Two Days to Five: The ETN Live Show Expansion
The capital will fund a move into a larger studio in King’s Cross, a team expansion from its current eight people, a new newsletter, and the shift to five broadcast days per week. The daily show runs from noon to 3pm UK time, with two hours of guest interviews following a news breakdown segment.
The volume of interest had made the previous format unsustainable. Chambers said ETN was fielding around 70 pitches a week from prospective guests, trying to cram 12 interviews into two hours, twice a week. ‘We needed an outlet that could move at the pace of that,’ he said.
Upcoming guests include George Robson, a partner at Sequoia, and former UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, now a senior adviser to both Anthropic and Microsoft. ETN has already hosted the founder of Synthesia, the CFO of Legora, the founder of Granola, Kanishka Narayan (the UK’s first AI Minister), and a visitor from Andreessen Horowitz.
Chambers frames the whole project around speed. ‘ETN was born out of a gaping hole in the industry,’ he said. ‘It’s centered around pace.’ London startups have raised $14.7 billion so far this year, according to Dealroom. Six companies have raised more than $500 million each: Wayve, Superintelligence, ElevenLabs, Recursive, Ineffable Intelligence, and Isomorphic Labs, the last three of which were founded by DeepMind alumni.
An Influential Backer and a Reshaping Media Landscape
The presence of Axel Springer as an investor carries weight beyond its cheque. The German media group owns Business Insider, Politico, BILD, WELT, and Morning Brew, among others. As of 29 April 2025, Axel Springer completed a corporate restructuring under which KKR and CPP Investments became majority shareholders of its classifieds businesses, repositioning the group as a family-owned transatlantic media company focused on digital journalism. Its bet on ETN fits that repositioning.
Sponsors already on board include prediction market Polymarket, blockchain company Base, and ElevenLabs, which is also one of the six London startups to have raised more than $500 million this year.
Knight and Chambers are candid about the model they admire. They point to TBPN, the US live tech talk show co-founded by John Coogan and Jordi Hays, as a pioneer. OpenAI acquired TBPN, with Fidji Simo, OpenAI’s chief executive of applications, announcing the deal and confirming the show would maintain editorial independence within OpenAI’s Strategy organisation, reporting to Chris Lehane. Axios reported that TBPN was profitable with no outside investors, was on track to generate $5 million in ad revenue in 2025, and had hired former Postmates and HQ Trivia executive Dylan Abruscato with a target of tripling revenue to $15 million in 2026. According to the Wall Street Journal, as cited by RockWater, TBPN was on track for more than $30 million in revenue in 2026, a run-rate built in approximately 17 months with zero outside investment. The snippet reported the acquisition price as a nine-figure sum, according to some accounts.
‘My thinking was, if we can have an ITV and a BBC, why wouldn’t we have a regional version of this?’ Chambers said.
The pair are also clear about what ETN is not. They do not consider themselves journalists and do not see the show as a replacement for traditional media. ‘We rely on traditional media,’ Chambers said, describing it as the source of much of the news they then discuss on air. The plan is to layer debate, roundtables, and a Shark Tank-style pitching format on top of the existing interview structure.
Whether the European tech ecosystem can sustain a programme of this ambition depends partly on the capital continuing to flow. Chambers puts the cultural case plainly: ‘It riles up the next generation to the point where it’s no longer cool to finish university and go into banking or consulting.’ With Sunak booked and Sequoia watching, the guest list will be the first real test of that thesis.
