Looking for something great to watch at home? Streaming subscribers are spoiled for choice between Hulu, Netflix, HBO Max, Disney+, Apple TV, Prime Video, Shudder, Paramount+, Peacock, and more. And that’s before you even look at the vast libraries of movies and television programs within each streamer!
Don’t be overwhelmed or waste an hour scrolling through your services to determine what to watch. We’ve got your back, whatever your mood. Mashable offers watch guides for all of the above, broken down by genre: comedy, thriller, horror, documentary, and animation, among others. But if you’re seeking something brand new (or just new to streaming), we’ve got you covered there, too.
SEE ALSO:
The ultimate Christmas movie streaming list for 2025
Mashable’s entertainment team has scoured the streaming services to highlight the most buzzed-about releases of the week and ranked them from worst to best — or least worth your time to most watchable. Whether you’re looking for the final chapter of Netflix’s major series, a buzzy conspiracy theory sci-fi, the steamiest show of the season, or a jaw-dropping animated epic, we’re here for you.
13. Five Nights at Freddy’s 2
The killer animatronics of your nightmares return in Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, based on Scott Cawthon’s hit horror game franchise. This time around, Freddy Fazbear, Bonnie, Chica, and Foxy aren’t the only animatronics in play. There’s also their “toy” versions to contend with, along with Marionette, Mangle, and Balloon Boy. That’s certainly no fun for security guard Mike (Josh Hutcherson), but it’s plenty of fun for game fans.
Like the first film, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 was a box office smash, but critics didn’t take too kindly to it, with Mashable’s Entertainment Editor Kristy Puchko writing in her review that, “like the first one, this sequel has just a deadly amount of talking, with too little scares, jokes, or surprises.” — Belen Edwards, Entertainment Reporter
Starring: Josh Hutcherson, Elizabeth Lail, Piper Rubio, Matthew Lillard, Skeet Ulrich, Wayne Knight, Mckenna Grace, and Teo Briones
How to watch: Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is now available on digital.
12. The Carpenter’s Son
Ever wonder what Jesus got up to between his birth in a manger and being the leader of apostles? Or maybe you’ve been curious what it was like for Joseph to be the mortal father to the son of God? Well, writer/director Lotfy Nathan gets into both of these stories with The Carpenter’s Son.
Following Joseph, Mary, and Jesus as they try to live a modest and good life while ducking the temptations of Satan, The Carpenter’s Son is a gnarly religious horror offering. It not only explores a surreal look into teen Jesus’s early understandings of his identity, power, and passion, but also co-stars Nicolas Cage as an embattled Joseph. It’s a wild one, so maybe don’t gather the whole family for a watch. — Kristy Puchko, Entertainment Editor
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Noah Jupe, Souheila Yacoub, Isla Johnston, and FKA twigs
How to watch: The Carpenter’s Son is now available on digital.
11. Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere
The Bear star Jeremy Allen White unleashes his inner Bruce Springsteen in this musical biopic from writer/director Scott Cooper. Instead of focusing on the Boss’ career as a whole, Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere zeroes in on the making of Springsteen’s sixth studio album, Nebraska, which he recorded sparsely on a four-track in his bedroom. The film parallels the production with Springsteen’s struggles with depression, crafting a solemn portrait of the musician.
While White turns in an admirable performance as Springsteen, the rest of the film pales in comparison, hitting standard biopic beats like troubled childhoods and the flashes of genius that lead to a great song. As I wrote in my review, “While the film’s music remains classic as ever, and while White does an admirable job channeling Springsteen, Deliver Me From Nowhere fails to deliver anything revelatory about the actual emotions behind the music.” — B.E.
Starring: Jeremy Allen White, Jeremy Strong, Paul Walter Hauser, Stephen Graham, Odessa Young, Gaby Hoffmann, Marc Maron, and David Krumholtz
How to watch: Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere is now on digital.
10. The Copenhagen Test
Simu Liu jumps into a world of espionage and secrets in Peacock’s new thriller The Copenhagen Test. He plays Alexander, an intelligence analyst for the U.S. government who learns that unknown forces have hacked his eyes and ears, giving them access to everything Alexander witnesses. To discover the truth behind his hackers’ motives, as well as their identities, he’ll have to keep up a nonstop performance in order to fool them. But who can he truly trust? And does the shadowy agency he works for truly have his best interests at heart? Find out in this slick spy series with a light sci-fi twist. — B.E.
Starring: Simu Liu, Melissa Barrera, Sinclair Daniel, Brian d’Arcy James, Mark O’Brien, and Kathleen Chalfant
How to watch: The Copenhagen Test premieres Dec. 27 on Peacock.
9. Die My Love
Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson unlock their most unbridled animal instincts in Die My Love, a formidable, hypnotic, powerful drama from We Need to Talk About Kevin director Lynne Ramsay. The pair are Grace (Lawrence) and Jackson (Pattinson), a loved-up couple who can’t keep their hands off each other. They move into Jackson’s rural family home, surrounded by forest and a long walk to his mother Pam’s (Sissy Spacek) house. With the arrival of their child, Jackson’s work schedule means Grace is often home alone, an isolation which she initially celebrates but eventually resents — even hates. And here, Lawrence follows Grace to the brink.
“Grace’s journey will make you squirm, perhaps cackle. But in her messy quest for something beyond being boxed in, she offers a radical freedom to her audience,” Mashable Entertainment Editor Kristy Puchko writes in her review. “In the discomfort of watching her bicker, battle, and act out, an excitement of possibility burns. Where could this lead, not just for her — but for us? Will you walk away from Die My Love rattled? Feeling recognized? Or dared to be reborn?” — Shannon Connellan, UK Editor
Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Robert Pattinson, LaKeith Stanfield, Nick Nolte, and Sissy Spacek
How to watch: Die My Love debuts on MUBI Dec. 23.
Mashable Top Stories
8. Bugonia
Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone team up once again for Bugonia, a conspiracy caper that remakes Jang Joon-hwan’s Save the Green Planet! with a script by The Menu‘s Will Tracy. Stone and Lanthimos’ Kinds of Kindness collaborator Jesse Plemons plays Teddy, a conspiracy theorist who believes an alien race lives among us, one of which is big pharma CEO Michelle Fuller (Stone). So, Teddy and his cousin Don (Aidan Delbis) kidnap her for a tête-à-tête about who she is, what the plans are, and whether the human race is worth saving.
Critics have been divided on Bugonia, especially around its bleak marathon run of topics. Mashable entertainment editor Kristy Puchko writes in her review, “Bugonia, despite having a sensational cast and clear vision for its world, lacks profundity in its smorgasbord of hot topics. Environmentalism, oligarchy, the manosphere, healthcare for profit — all of these make for a dizzying brew from which Teddy and Michelle arise on opposing sides.”* — S.C.
Starring: Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Aidan Delbis, Alicia Silverstone, Stavros Halkias
How to watch: Bugonia is available for rent or purchase on Prime Video and Apple TV and arrives on 4K UHD, Blu-ray, and DVD on Dec. 23.
7. Ne Zha II
The highest-grossing film of 2025 might be one you missed in theaters. Now, you can catch up with this jaw-dropping animated epic in the comfort of your own home. But trust us, you’re going to want to watch Ne Zha first. Based on Chinese mythology, both films have a lot of narrative ground to cover. But the animated awesomeness of the sequel makes the first film worth the time investment.
SEE ALSO:
‘Ne Zha II’ review: A24’s animated fantasy epic is a must-see, but a warning…
Ne Zha II follows the continued misadventures of the eponymous anti-hero, a boy born with the powers of a demon, who befriends a dragon/boy named Ao Bing, born with the powers of a heavenly spirit. In the first film, they battle before becoming unexpected friends. In the second, they have to share Ne Zha’s body to complete a battle-centric quest to restore Ao Bing’s physical form. Meanwhile, the dragons are conspiring to overthrow their king, while a horrid threat faces Ne Zha’s homeland. All these threads make for a movie that includes monster battles, slapstick, tragedy, and gross-out gags. It can be dizzying, but also, incredible. — K.P.
Starring: Crystal Lee, Griffin Puatu, Aleks Le, Michelle Yeoh, and Vincent Rodriguez III
How to watch: Ne Zha is now streaming on Peacock, Netflix, Prime Video, and HBO Max, and Ne Zha II is now streaming on HBO Max.
6. 100 Nights of Hero
Julia Jackman’s 100 Nights of Hero was one of the best films we watched out of the BFI London Film Festival this year, and now it’s coming to streaming. Based on Isabel Greenberg’s graphic novel, this visually magnificent, queer, feminist fairy tale is a triumph of production design with a hype-worthy appearance by Charli XCX. It follows Cherry (Longlegs‘ Maika Monroe), a noblewoman in a medieval patriarchy whose arranged marriage to Jerome (Limbo‘s Amir El-Masry) is yet to be consummated — and she’s on a literal deadline. Jerome leaves on business, but not before a bet with roguish lord Manfred (The Idea of You‘s Nicholas Galitzine) that his friend cannot seduce his wife in his absence. Luckily, Cherry has a fierce protector in her maid, Hero (Nosferatu‘s Emma Corrin).
“At its whimsical heart, 100 Nights of Hero is a story of women’s courage and resilience, of pursuing knowledge and passion beyond the perilously high fences of patriarchy,” I wrote in my review. “It’s a dazzling world of suppressed queer identity and desire, of male bravado and paranoia, and of the power of storytelling itself. Jackman has crafted us a topical treat, finely dressed in splendour and social commentary. It’s nothing short of heroic.” — S.C.
Starring: Emma Corrin, Maika Monroe, Amir El-Masry, Nicholas Galitzine, Charli XCX, Richard E. Grant, Felicity Jones, and Varada Sethu
How to watch: 100 Nights of Hero is available to rent or purchase on Prime Video starting Dec. 23.
5. The Life of Chuck
Catch one of the best — and most underrated — films of the year when Mike Flanagan’s The Life of Chuck hits Hulu this week. Based on the novella of the same name by Stephen King, the film introduces viewers to Chuck Krantz (Tom Hiddleston), an accountant who’s got some serious dance moves. To say more about the plot would be to spoil much of The Life of Chuck’s impact, so try to go in as blind as possible. (But definitely go in!)
From Doctor Sleep to Gerald’s Game, Flanagan has proven time and again that he can adapt the hell out of a Stephen King novel. That’s no different with The Life of Chuck, which Mashable Entertainment Editor Kristy Puchko called “glorious” in her review, writing, “It’s incredible. This is a movie that contains so much that it just shouldn’t work. It’s easy to imagine an iteration that fell too hard into the darkness, or depended too intensely on treacly sentimentality, or relied on its dashing star power to gloss over some underwritten turns. But The Life of Chuck is masterfully told.” — B.E.
Starring: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Tom Hiddleston, Annalise Basso, Benjamin Pajak, Karen Gillan, Mia Sara, Matthew Lillard, Carl Lumbly, Samantha Sloyan, Harvey Guillén, Jacob Tremblay, Kate Siegel, and Mark Hamill
How to watch: The Life of Chuck premieres Dec. 26 on Hulu.
4. Love Lies Bleeding
Rose Glass, the writer/director who awed critics in 2020 with her stunning religious horror film Saint Maud, has blessed us with a follow-up that is as scorchingly sexy as it is deeply unsettling.
SEE ALSO:
‘Love Lies Bleeding’ Interview: Kristen Stewart on the female gaze vs. the male gaze.
Set against a merciless desert town, Love Lies Bleeding stars Kristen Stewart as a surly loner who manages a rundown gym. Things begin to look up when a perfectly permed and righteously ripped bodybuilder (Katy O’Brian) rolls into her squalid realm. Their attraction is instant, their loyalty is potentially lethal. So when they run afoul of a local kingpin (Ed Harris, wearing a mangy skullet), this noir thriller veers into a place of jaw-dropping violence and grievous vengeance, with a climax that is as outrageous as it is exhilarating. As I wrote in our review, “There are movies that grab you by the throat. There are movies that punch you in the gut. Love Lies Bleeding is both, and I fucking love it.”* — K.P.
Starring: Kristen Stewart, Katy O’Brian, Jena Malone, Anna Baryshnikov, Dave Franco, and Ed Harris
How to watch: Love Lies Bleeding is now on MUBI.
3. Heated Rivalry, Season 1 finale
It seems like just yesterday that Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie) were suggestively swapping a water bottle in Heated Rivalry‘s premiere episode. Now, the internet fan-favorite series wraps up its first season after a six-episode run full of hockey, angst, and tons of no-holds-barred sex scenes. Consider this your sign to get caught up on all things Hollanov before the finale blows up social media. — B.E.
Starring: Hudson Williams, Connor Storrie, François Arnaud, Christina Chang, Dylan Walsh, Ksenia Daniela Kharlamova, Sophie Nélisse, and Callan Potter
How to watch: Heated Rivalry is now streaming on HBO Max, with the finale airing Friday, Dec. 26.
2. Pluribus, Season 1 finale
One of the best shows of 2025, Vince Gilligan’s Pluribus has kept viewers hooked with its tale of Carol Sturka (Rhea Seehorn), the most miserable woman Earth, and the alien virus hive mind that’s taken over the world. By the end of Pluribus‘ penultimate episode, Carol had begun a romantic relationship with Zosia (Karolina Wydra), one of the Others. But the imminent arrival of fellow survivor Manousos (Carlos-Manuel Vesga) in Albuquerque could upend the fragile balance Carol has reached.
So what can fans expect from the finale? Will Carol’s meeting with Manousos renew her desire to save the world? Will we learn how the Others can be defeated? Tune in to find out — and maybe pour yourself a tall glass of milk while you’re at it. — B.E.
Starring: Rhea Seehorn, Karolina Wydra, and Carlos-Manuel Vesga
How to watch: The Pluribus Season 1 finale is now streaming on Apple TV.
Best of Streaming this week: Stranger Things, Season 5: Volume 2
The Stranger Things farewell tour continues with the release of Season 5, Volume 2, which will hopefully answer some of our most pressing questions from Volume 1. What’s next now that Will (Noah Schnapp) has powers? What does Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) have planned for the kidnapped children of Hawkins? Will Max (Sadie Sink) and Holly (Nell Fisher) escape from Vecna’s mindscape? And how will Eleven’s (Millie Bobby Brown) lost sister Kali (Linnea Berthelsen) figure into things?
Season 5 got off to an overstuffed but undeniably exciting start, so look forward to more jaw-dropping Upside Down action as the Duffer Brothers keep upping the ante. Plus, more episodes means more time with Stranger Things‘ beloved characters, who remain the show’s highlight through and through. As I wrote in my Volume 1 review, Stranger Things‘ “flashy battles and lore bombshells can get the blood pumping, but it’s the characters who have kept viewers coming back for many, many years. Knowing we’ll be saying goodbye to them only makes these episodes sweeter, exhaustion be damned.” — B.E.
Starring: Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Finn Wolfhard, Millie Bobby Brown, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Natalia Dyer, Charlie Heaton, Noah Schnapp, Sadie Sink, Joe Keery, and Maya Hawke
How to watch: Stranger Things Season 5, Volume 2 premieres Dec. 25 at 8 p.m. ET on Netflix. The series finale premieres Dec. 31, also at 8 p.m. ET.
(*) denotes a blurb came from a prior list.
Topics
Streaming
Watch Guides
Source link
#Whats #streaming #week #Dec
![This former notorious red-light district is now one of the world’s top AI hubs | TechCrunch
What every U.K. AI startup wants to know these days is, how can I get office space in King’s Cross?
The area is so hot that a VC firm allegedly recently won a deal by promising a founder office space in the neighborhood. “We stop at nothing to win deals [for] and to support” founders, “including helping them source office space when needed,” the firm told me when asked about the rumor, declining to confirm or deny any details.
The neighborhood’s popularity began back in 2016 when DeepMind — then newly acquired by Google — moved in. Soon after, a flood of AI startups followed, wanting to be around the Google DeepMind magic. Today, they hope to take advantage of the cluster of AI talent there.
This has transformed King’s Cross into one of the world’s top AI hubs, rivaled only by San Francisco and Beijing. Around London, it’s known by the sobriquet “Knowledge Quarter,” as it’s home to names like OpenAI, Meta, Isomorphic Labs, Cusp AI, Wayne, Recursive, and, a little farther down the road, Synthesia and Anthropic. The European Technology Network (ETN) just moved into a glossy new office nearby, while University College London sits around the corner.
Mixed in with the new developments are trendy food spots like Hoppers and BAO. Hop a train from King’s Cross, and founders can be in Cambridge in 45 minutes to source talent or can be in Paris in two hours to strike a deal.
Who would have guessed that a little more than 20 years ago, this was one of the seediest areas in London?
“In the ’80s, crack and heroin made the area a major narcotics market,” Hussein Kanji, an investor at Hoxton Ventures, said, recalling syringes in tree trunks and gangs patrolling the streets. “In 1982, the local church was occupied by the English Collective of Prostitutes for 12 straight days.” Then, in the early 2000s, a real estate developer had a dream and, well, “now it is the AI hotbed of the United Kingdom,” Kanji said. “What a change.” Around 18 months ago, his portfolio company BioCorteX moved from the neighborhood Holborn to the Jellicoe building in King’s Cross, hoping to be near the action. “Lots going on in London right now,” Nik Sharma, co-founder of BioCorteX, told me. “Lots of hyperscalers moving in.” That includes, reportedly, Jeff Bezos’ AI company Prometheus, which is also said to be in talks to move into the Jellicoe.
There are around 3,600 AI startups in London, which, together, have raised around .1 billion out of the .8 billion raised in the city since late July, according to Dealroom. Since the start of June, AI-related startups have leased more than 1 million square feet of office space in London, according to the real estate firm Knight Frank. With that, prime rents in King’s Cross have risen 18% over the past three years, Chris Dunn, a commercial insight associate at the firm, told me. That percentage represents only the largest leases encompassing at least 10,000 square feet, like the ones OpenAI and Prometheus are signing. The shorter deals go for even more, he said, and now the vacancy rate for conventional office space is just 0.9%. “Demand has outstripped supply,” he continued.
Today, one of the big topics of the area is sovereignty. It was a wake-up call for many when Anthropic shut off access to Mythos and Fable this summer, leaving some in the ecosystem to conclude: “We’d better look after ourselves,” Saul Klein, co-founder of the VC firm Phoenix Court, told me.
Phoenix Court is located in the King’s Cross area and has three portfolio companies in the vicinity, including Olix (which just announced a .3 billion valuation), Early Health and CoMind. Robin Klein, co-founder of the firm, said the shutdown of Fable and Mythos access was a “small but sharp reminder that Europe can’t simply rent its AI capabilities and capacity; it needs to build and hold some of its own.” King’s Cross, he said, is where much of this building is actually happening.
“The bigger question,” he continued, “is whether the U.K. builds the infrastructure, compute, energy, capital, to make this self-reliance durable, rather than just hosting outposts of U.S. labs.”
Image Credits:Phoenix Court
Top founders want to stay
Simon Kohl, founder of Latent Labs, has offices in King’s Cross and San Francisco. The London office, at the moment, is growing faster, and he’s more bullish than ever on the ecosystem, he said. “The mood right now feels less like London trying to catch up and more like London becoming one of the default places to start a serious AI company,” he said. Look around and you are likely to see Wayve testing its autonomous cars. Founded in 2017 by co-founder Alex Kendall, the unicorn is one of London’s biggest success stories.
“Ten years ago, building a frontier AI company from London felt like an unusual choice,” Kendall told me. “Now it feels like an obvious one.” Wayve moved into King’s Cross in 2018 looking for a space that could double as a garage — “a rare combination in Central London,” Kendall said. He has watched the ecosystem mature around him — and it’s now evident that a startup can stay in London, raise serious capital, hire world-class AI talent, and remain globally competitive, he said. Down the street from Anthropic’s new 158,000-square-foot office is the AI agent builder Sierra and the AI video platform Synthesia.
Laura Gonzalez Florez, Synthesia’s chief of staff and head of people, says the company moved into its glossy new office building a year ago to accommodate its growing team. They were drawn to the area for the same reason as everyone else: “It’s very close to the airport … very close to where a lot of investors are,” she said.
Image Credits:Synthesia
Around two-thirds of Synthesia’s engineers are remote, Gonzalez Florez said, letting the company tap into an affordable, international, and diverse talent pool and helping it scale faster. “From London, we can hire and work, without any problem, people from anywhere, from Slovenia to Portugal,” she said.
Unsurprisingly, London’s AI boom is also causing a talent war.U.K. AI job postings have skyrocketed in the past few years, per data from PwC. When Anthropic announced it moved into town earlier this year, it listed, for example, a salary range of £260,000 to £630,000 for a machine learning research engineer when the average salary in London for the same role is around £102,000. Some founders in the U.K., like those in Silicon Valley, are being forced to raise more and bigger rounds to keep up.
“The real test is whether more globally significant AI companies are founded, funded, and scaled from the U.K., while continuing to attract the world’s best talent to build them here,” Zain Ali, founder of the King’s Cross-based AI legal firm Centuro, told me. “If that continues to happen, King’s Cross won’t just be an AI hub. It’ll become one of the U.K.’s most important strategic assets.”
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.#Thisformernotorious #redlight #districtis #nowone #worlds #top #hubs #TechCrunchUK](https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/DM9A2852.jpg?w=680 "This former notorious red-light district is now one of the world’s top AI hubs | TechCrunch
What every U.K. AI startup wants to know these days is, how can I get office space in King’s Cross?
The area is so hot that a VC firm allegedly recently won a deal by promising a founder office space in the neighborhood. “We stop at nothing to win deals [for] and to support” founders, “including helping them source office space when needed,” the firm told me when asked about the rumor, declining to confirm or deny any details.
The neighborhood’s popularity began back in 2016 when DeepMind — then newly acquired by Google — moved in. Soon after, a flood of AI startups followed, wanting to be around the Google DeepMind magic. Today, they hope to take advantage of the cluster of AI talent there.
This has transformed King’s Cross into one of the world’s top AI hubs, rivaled only by San Francisco and Beijing. Around London, it’s known by the sobriquet “Knowledge Quarter,” as it’s home to names like OpenAI, Meta, Isomorphic Labs, Cusp AI, Wayne, Recursive, and, a little farther down the road, Synthesia and Anthropic. The European Technology Network (ETN) just moved into a glossy new office nearby, while University College London sits around the corner.
Mixed in with the new developments are trendy food spots like Hoppers and BAO. Hop a train from King’s Cross, and founders can be in Cambridge in 45 minutes to source talent or can be in Paris in two hours to strike a deal.
Who would have guessed that a little more than 20 years ago, this was one of the seediest areas in London?
“In the ’80s, crack and heroin made the area a major narcotics market,” Hussein Kanji, an investor at Hoxton Ventures, said, recalling syringes in tree trunks and gangs patrolling the streets. “In 1982, the local church was occupied by the English Collective of Prostitutes for 12 straight days.” Then, in the early 2000s, a real estate developer had a dream and, well, “now it is the AI hotbed of the United Kingdom,” Kanji said. “What a change.” Around 18 months ago, his portfolio company BioCorteX moved from the neighborhood Holborn to the Jellicoe building in King’s Cross, hoping to be near the action. “Lots going on in London right now,” Nik Sharma, co-founder of BioCorteX, told me. “Lots of hyperscalers moving in.” That includes, reportedly, Jeff Bezos’ AI company Prometheus, which is also said to be in talks to move into the Jellicoe.
There are around 3,600 AI startups in London, which, together, have raised around .1 billion out of the .8 billion raised in the city since late July, according to Dealroom. Since the start of June, AI-related startups have leased more than 1 million square feet of office space in London, according to the real estate firm Knight Frank. With that, prime rents in King’s Cross have risen 18% over the past three years, Chris Dunn, a commercial insight associate at the firm, told me. That percentage represents only the largest leases encompassing at least 10,000 square feet, like the ones OpenAI and Prometheus are signing. The shorter deals go for even more, he said, and now the vacancy rate for conventional office space is just 0.9%. “Demand has outstripped supply,” he continued.
Today, one of the big topics of the area is sovereignty. It was a wake-up call for many when Anthropic shut off access to Mythos and Fable this summer, leaving some in the ecosystem to conclude: “We’d better look after ourselves,” Saul Klein, co-founder of the VC firm Phoenix Court, told me.
Phoenix Court is located in the King’s Cross area and has three portfolio companies in the vicinity, including Olix (which just announced a .3 billion valuation), Early Health and CoMind. Robin Klein, co-founder of the firm, said the shutdown of Fable and Mythos access was a “small but sharp reminder that Europe can’t simply rent its AI capabilities and capacity; it needs to build and hold some of its own.” King’s Cross, he said, is where much of this building is actually happening.
“The bigger question,” he continued, “is whether the U.K. builds the infrastructure, compute, energy, capital, to make this self-reliance durable, rather than just hosting outposts of U.S. labs.”
Image Credits:Phoenix Court
Top founders want to stay
Simon Kohl, founder of Latent Labs, has offices in King’s Cross and San Francisco. The London office, at the moment, is growing faster, and he’s more bullish than ever on the ecosystem, he said. “The mood right now feels less like London trying to catch up and more like London becoming one of the default places to start a serious AI company,” he said. Look around and you are likely to see Wayve testing its autonomous cars. Founded in 2017 by co-founder Alex Kendall, the unicorn is one of London’s biggest success stories.
“Ten years ago, building a frontier AI company from London felt like an unusual choice,” Kendall told me. “Now it feels like an obvious one.” Wayve moved into King’s Cross in 2018 looking for a space that could double as a garage — “a rare combination in Central London,” Kendall said. He has watched the ecosystem mature around him — and it’s now evident that a startup can stay in London, raise serious capital, hire world-class AI talent, and remain globally competitive, he said. Down the street from Anthropic’s new 158,000-square-foot office is the AI agent builder Sierra and the AI video platform Synthesia.
Laura Gonzalez Florez, Synthesia’s chief of staff and head of people, says the company moved into its glossy new office building a year ago to accommodate its growing team. They were drawn to the area for the same reason as everyone else: “It’s very close to the airport … very close to where a lot of investors are,” she said.
Image Credits:Synthesia
Around two-thirds of Synthesia’s engineers are remote, Gonzalez Florez said, letting the company tap into an affordable, international, and diverse talent pool and helping it scale faster. “From London, we can hire and work, without any problem, people from anywhere, from Slovenia to Portugal,” she said.
Unsurprisingly, London’s AI boom is also causing a talent war.U.K. AI job postings have skyrocketed in the past few years, per data from PwC. When Anthropic announced it moved into town earlier this year, it listed, for example, a salary range of £260,000 to £630,000 for a machine learning research engineer when the average salary in London for the same role is around £102,000. Some founders in the U.K., like those in Silicon Valley, are being forced to raise more and bigger rounds to keep up.
“The real test is whether more globally significant AI companies are founded, funded, and scaled from the U.K., while continuing to attract the world’s best talent to build them here,” Zain Ali, founder of the King’s Cross-based AI legal firm Centuro, told me. “If that continues to happen, King’s Cross won’t just be an AI hub. It’ll become one of the U.K.’s most important strategic assets.”
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.#Thisformernotorious #redlight #districtis #nowone #worlds #top #hubs #TechCrunchUK")
![This former notorious red-light district is now one of the world’s top AI hubs | TechCrunch
What every U.K. AI startup wants to know these days is, how can I get office space in King’s Cross?
The area is so hot that a VC firm allegedly recently won a deal by promising a founder office space in the neighborhood. “We stop at nothing to win deals [for] and to support” founders, “including helping them source office space when needed,” the firm told me when asked about the rumor, declining to confirm or deny any details.
The neighborhood’s popularity began back in 2016 when DeepMind — then newly acquired by Google — moved in. Soon after, a flood of AI startups followed, wanting to be around the Google DeepMind magic. Today, they hope to take advantage of the cluster of AI talent there.
This has transformed King’s Cross into one of the world’s top AI hubs, rivaled only by San Francisco and Beijing. Around London, it’s known by the sobriquet “Knowledge Quarter,” as it’s home to names like OpenAI, Meta, Isomorphic Labs, Cusp AI, Wayne, Recursive, and, a little farther down the road, Synthesia and Anthropic. The European Technology Network (ETN) just moved into a glossy new office nearby, while University College London sits around the corner.
Mixed in with the new developments are trendy food spots like Hoppers and BAO. Hop a train from King’s Cross, and founders can be in Cambridge in 45 minutes to source talent or can be in Paris in two hours to strike a deal.
Who would have guessed that a little more than 20 years ago, this was one of the seediest areas in London?
“In the ’80s, crack and heroin made the area a major narcotics market,” Hussein Kanji, an investor at Hoxton Ventures, said, recalling syringes in tree trunks and gangs patrolling the streets. “In 1982, the local church was occupied by the English Collective of Prostitutes for 12 straight days.” Then, in the early 2000s, a real estate developer had a dream and, well, “now it is the AI hotbed of the United Kingdom,” Kanji said. “What a change.” Around 18 months ago, his portfolio company BioCorteX moved from the neighborhood Holborn to the Jellicoe building in King’s Cross, hoping to be near the action. “Lots going on in London right now,” Nik Sharma, co-founder of BioCorteX, told me. “Lots of hyperscalers moving in.” That includes, reportedly, Jeff Bezos’ AI company Prometheus, which is also said to be in talks to move into the Jellicoe.
There are around 3,600 AI startups in London, which, together, have raised around .1 billion out of the .8 billion raised in the city since late July, according to Dealroom. Since the start of June, AI-related startups have leased more than 1 million square feet of office space in London, according to the real estate firm Knight Frank. With that, prime rents in King’s Cross have risen 18% over the past three years, Chris Dunn, a commercial insight associate at the firm, told me. That percentage represents only the largest leases encompassing at least 10,000 square feet, like the ones OpenAI and Prometheus are signing. The shorter deals go for even more, he said, and now the vacancy rate for conventional office space is just 0.9%. “Demand has outstripped supply,” he continued.
Today, one of the big topics of the area is sovereignty. It was a wake-up call for many when Anthropic shut off access to Mythos and Fable this summer, leaving some in the ecosystem to conclude: “We’d better look after ourselves,” Saul Klein, co-founder of the VC firm Phoenix Court, told me.
Phoenix Court is located in the King’s Cross area and has three portfolio companies in the vicinity, including Olix (which just announced a .3 billion valuation), Early Health and CoMind. Robin Klein, co-founder of the firm, said the shutdown of Fable and Mythos access was a “small but sharp reminder that Europe can’t simply rent its AI capabilities and capacity; it needs to build and hold some of its own.” King’s Cross, he said, is where much of this building is actually happening.
“The bigger question,” he continued, “is whether the U.K. builds the infrastructure, compute, energy, capital, to make this self-reliance durable, rather than just hosting outposts of U.S. labs.”
Image Credits:Phoenix Court
Top founders want to stay
Simon Kohl, founder of Latent Labs, has offices in King’s Cross and San Francisco. The London office, at the moment, is growing faster, and he’s more bullish than ever on the ecosystem, he said. “The mood right now feels less like London trying to catch up and more like London becoming one of the default places to start a serious AI company,” he said. Look around and you are likely to see Wayve testing its autonomous cars. Founded in 2017 by co-founder Alex Kendall, the unicorn is one of London’s biggest success stories.
“Ten years ago, building a frontier AI company from London felt like an unusual choice,” Kendall told me. “Now it feels like an obvious one.” Wayve moved into King’s Cross in 2018 looking for a space that could double as a garage — “a rare combination in Central London,” Kendall said. He has watched the ecosystem mature around him — and it’s now evident that a startup can stay in London, raise serious capital, hire world-class AI talent, and remain globally competitive, he said. Down the street from Anthropic’s new 158,000-square-foot office is the AI agent builder Sierra and the AI video platform Synthesia.
Laura Gonzalez Florez, Synthesia’s chief of staff and head of people, says the company moved into its glossy new office building a year ago to accommodate its growing team. They were drawn to the area for the same reason as everyone else: “It’s very close to the airport … very close to where a lot of investors are,” she said.
Image Credits:Synthesia
Around two-thirds of Synthesia’s engineers are remote, Gonzalez Florez said, letting the company tap into an affordable, international, and diverse talent pool and helping it scale faster. “From London, we can hire and work, without any problem, people from anywhere, from Slovenia to Portugal,” she said.
Unsurprisingly, London’s AI boom is also causing a talent war.U.K. AI job postings have skyrocketed in the past few years, per data from PwC. When Anthropic announced it moved into town earlier this year, it listed, for example, a salary range of £260,000 to £630,000 for a machine learning research engineer when the average salary in London for the same role is around £102,000. Some founders in the U.K., like those in Silicon Valley, are being forced to raise more and bigger rounds to keep up.
“The real test is whether more globally significant AI companies are founded, funded, and scaled from the U.K., while continuing to attract the world’s best talent to build them here,” Zain Ali, founder of the King’s Cross-based AI legal firm Centuro, told me. “If that continues to happen, King’s Cross won’t just be an AI hub. It’ll become one of the U.K.’s most important strategic assets.”
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.#Thisformernotorious #redlight #districtis #nowone #worlds #top #hubs #TechCrunchUK](https://i0.wp.com/techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/DM9A2852.jpg?w=680&ssl=1 "This former notorious red-light district is now one of the world’s top AI hubs | TechCrunch
What every U.K. AI startup wants to know these days is, how can I get office space in King’s Cross?
The area is so hot that a VC firm allegedly recently won a deal by promising a founder office space in the neighborhood. “We stop at nothing to win deals [for] and to support” founders, “including helping them source office space when needed,” the firm told me when asked about the rumor, declining to confirm or deny any details.
The neighborhood’s popularity began back in 2016 when DeepMind — then newly acquired by Google — moved in. Soon after, a flood of AI startups followed, wanting to be around the Google DeepMind magic. Today, they hope to take advantage of the cluster of AI talent there.
This has transformed King’s Cross into one of the world’s top AI hubs, rivaled only by San Francisco and Beijing. Around London, it’s known by the sobriquet “Knowledge Quarter,” as it’s home to names like OpenAI, Meta, Isomorphic Labs, Cusp AI, Wayne, Recursive, and, a little farther down the road, Synthesia and Anthropic. The European Technology Network (ETN) just moved into a glossy new office nearby, while University College London sits around the corner.
Mixed in with the new developments are trendy food spots like Hoppers and BAO. Hop a train from King’s Cross, and founders can be in Cambridge in 45 minutes to source talent or can be in Paris in two hours to strike a deal.
Who would have guessed that a little more than 20 years ago, this was one of the seediest areas in London?
“In the ’80s, crack and heroin made the area a major narcotics market,” Hussein Kanji, an investor at Hoxton Ventures, said, recalling syringes in tree trunks and gangs patrolling the streets. “In 1982, the local church was occupied by the English Collective of Prostitutes for 12 straight days.” Then, in the early 2000s, a real estate developer had a dream and, well, “now it is the AI hotbed of the United Kingdom,” Kanji said. “What a change.” Around 18 months ago, his portfolio company BioCorteX moved from the neighborhood Holborn to the Jellicoe building in King’s Cross, hoping to be near the action. “Lots going on in London right now,” Nik Sharma, co-founder of BioCorteX, told me. “Lots of hyperscalers moving in.” That includes, reportedly, Jeff Bezos’ AI company Prometheus, which is also said to be in talks to move into the Jellicoe.
There are around 3,600 AI startups in London, which, together, have raised around .1 billion out of the .8 billion raised in the city since late July, according to Dealroom. Since the start of June, AI-related startups have leased more than 1 million square feet of office space in London, according to the real estate firm Knight Frank. With that, prime rents in King’s Cross have risen 18% over the past three years, Chris Dunn, a commercial insight associate at the firm, told me. That percentage represents only the largest leases encompassing at least 10,000 square feet, like the ones OpenAI and Prometheus are signing. The shorter deals go for even more, he said, and now the vacancy rate for conventional office space is just 0.9%. “Demand has outstripped supply,” he continued.
Today, one of the big topics of the area is sovereignty. It was a wake-up call for many when Anthropic shut off access to Mythos and Fable this summer, leaving some in the ecosystem to conclude: “We’d better look after ourselves,” Saul Klein, co-founder of the VC firm Phoenix Court, told me.
Phoenix Court is located in the King’s Cross area and has three portfolio companies in the vicinity, including Olix (which just announced a .3 billion valuation), Early Health and CoMind. Robin Klein, co-founder of the firm, said the shutdown of Fable and Mythos access was a “small but sharp reminder that Europe can’t simply rent its AI capabilities and capacity; it needs to build and hold some of its own.” King’s Cross, he said, is where much of this building is actually happening.
“The bigger question,” he continued, “is whether the U.K. builds the infrastructure, compute, energy, capital, to make this self-reliance durable, rather than just hosting outposts of U.S. labs.”
Image Credits:Phoenix Court
Top founders want to stay
Simon Kohl, founder of Latent Labs, has offices in King’s Cross and San Francisco. The London office, at the moment, is growing faster, and he’s more bullish than ever on the ecosystem, he said. “The mood right now feels less like London trying to catch up and more like London becoming one of the default places to start a serious AI company,” he said. Look around and you are likely to see Wayve testing its autonomous cars. Founded in 2017 by co-founder Alex Kendall, the unicorn is one of London’s biggest success stories.
“Ten years ago, building a frontier AI company from London felt like an unusual choice,” Kendall told me. “Now it feels like an obvious one.” Wayve moved into King’s Cross in 2018 looking for a space that could double as a garage — “a rare combination in Central London,” Kendall said. He has watched the ecosystem mature around him — and it’s now evident that a startup can stay in London, raise serious capital, hire world-class AI talent, and remain globally competitive, he said. Down the street from Anthropic’s new 158,000-square-foot office is the AI agent builder Sierra and the AI video platform Synthesia.
Laura Gonzalez Florez, Synthesia’s chief of staff and head of people, says the company moved into its glossy new office building a year ago to accommodate its growing team. They were drawn to the area for the same reason as everyone else: “It’s very close to the airport … very close to where a lot of investors are,” she said.
Image Credits:Synthesia
Around two-thirds of Synthesia’s engineers are remote, Gonzalez Florez said, letting the company tap into an affordable, international, and diverse talent pool and helping it scale faster. “From London, we can hire and work, without any problem, people from anywhere, from Slovenia to Portugal,” she said.
Unsurprisingly, London’s AI boom is also causing a talent war.U.K. AI job postings have skyrocketed in the past few years, per data from PwC. When Anthropic announced it moved into town earlier this year, it listed, for example, a salary range of £260,000 to £630,000 for a machine learning research engineer when the average salary in London for the same role is around £102,000. Some founders in the U.K., like those in Silicon Valley, are being forced to raise more and bigger rounds to keep up.
“The real test is whether more globally significant AI companies are founded, funded, and scaled from the U.K., while continuing to attract the world’s best talent to build them here,” Zain Ali, founder of the King’s Cross-based AI legal firm Centuro, told me. “If that continues to happen, King’s Cross won’t just be an AI hub. It’ll become one of the U.K.’s most important strategic assets.”
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.#Thisformernotorious #redlight #districtis #nowone #worlds #top #hubs #TechCrunchUK")
Post Comment