Episode
Max Buchan, CEO of Valarian: BREAKING: Valarian raised $50m Series A
- Podcast
- Scaling Europe
- Published
- Jul 14, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 1316
- Processing state
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Summary
Valarian has raised a $50m Series A led by NEA, just over a year after a $20m Seed. The company built Acra, an infrastructure layer that lets organizations run sensitive AI systems securely on any cloud, from public cloud to on-prem or the edge. Max Buchan is Founder and CEO of Valarian. The company signed $43m in contracts in its first quarter alone and expects to do about $100m this year. The Scaling Europe show is presented by Deel. Check them out here: https://get.deel.com/ruynb7o4lfjk Sponsors: Chargebee: https://www.chargebee.com/events/beelieve/london/2026 SurrealDB: https://surrealdb.com/ Airwallex: https://www.airwallex.com/uk?utm_source=other&utm_medium=partner_referral&utm_campaign=v01_emea_multi_ib_dg_prtmk_mofu_scalingeurope Timestamps: 0:00 - Introduction 0:16 - Valarian's $50m Series A led by NEA 2:06 - What Acra actually does 2:51 - Enterprise and defence customers 4:52 - Why sovereignty matters to customers 6:44 - Where the growth is coming from 7:49 - Inside the Series A round 9:37 - UK government support and new investors 11:38 - Plans for the next 6 to 12 months 16:09 - The biggest risk: hiring and execution 18:01 - Bringing on a new head of revenue