Startup Europe — The Sifted Podcast

If 2025 was the year of the AI agent, what will 2026 be? Which companies will make headlines — for all the right, or all the wrong, reasons? And will optimism around Europe’s startup ecosystem continue to mount, or will geopolitical tensions throw spanners in the works? On this episode of the Sifted Podcast, news editor Martin Coulter joins editor Amy Lewin to discuss what they think will be the b...

When NATO announced plans to launch a €1bn innovation fund back in 2022, heads turned. €1bn? To invest in defence and security? Backed by 24 countries? At the time, most European VCs were still incredibly wary of backing defence companies — and nothing like this had ever been attempted before. Three years on, host Amy Lewin is joined on the Sifted Podcast by Dame Fiona Murray, current chair and fo...

When Markus Villig founded Bolt 12 years ago, it was one of dozens trying to take on Uber. Today, it’s the only major European ride-hailing company left — worth €7.4bn and expanding across taxis, scooters, car rental and delivery. This week, Europe editor Mimi Billing sits down with Markus to discuss why it’s now almost impossible to build a new ride-hailing network, why he thinks Europe is sleepw...

Kanishka Narayan, the UK’s AI minister, joins us on the Sifted Podcast hot off the heels of the big reveal of UK chancellor Rachel Reeves’ latest budget, which announced some fairly positive moves for Britain’s entrepreneurs — as Amy and Kanishka discuss in this episode. In his role as AI minister — which he’s had for just two months — Kanishka holds some pretty chunky responsibilities: including...

Few founders have the know-how — or the guts — to take on Apple. But Carl Pei, founder and CEO of London-based startup Nothing, is one of them. Nothing makes smartphones and earphones at a fraction of Apple’s price, has shipped millions of units, raised $200m in September at a $1.3bn price tag — and is now exploring AI-native devices and apps. In this episode, host Amy Lewin sits down with Carl to...

It’s that time of year again: Atomico’s State of European Tech report has landed. In case you don't have the time to wade through its mammoth 183 charts, this week host Amy Lewin is joined by senior reporter Miriam Partington to bring you the report’s most surprising findings, with a focus on talent. And it paints a rosy picture: respondents say it’s getting easier to recruit and retain top-t...

This week it's another special episode from the Sifted Summit, with senior reporter Kai Nicol-Schwarz sitting down with serial entrepreneur Alex Depledge — founder of Resi and Hassle.com, and now entrepreneurship advisor to UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves. Alex shares her experience of navigating government and trying to make changes for the UK's tech sector, and discusses how to tackle the...

This week, Daphné Leprince-Ringuet is joined by head of research Jonathan Sinclair and senior reporter Kai Nicol-Schwarz to unpack the state of AI in Europe. Funding for European AI-native companies has nearly doubled to €8.9bn this year, and acquisitions hit a record high of 18 last month — all while valuations continue to climb. But do the numbers tell the full story? The trio digs into insights...

This week host Amy Lewin sits down with Erin Platts, CEO of Octopus Ventures. Erin joined Octopus at the beginning of this year after a two decade stint at Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), where she oversaw UK operations throughout its dramatic collapse in 2023. Erin walks Amy through the climactic weekend that SVB went under, revealing what really happened behind the scenes as industry partners scrambl...

This week it’s another special episode recorded live at the Sifted Summit, with host Amy sitting down with Sequoia Capital’s Luciana Lixandru. Luciana, who established the legendary Silicon Valley firm's presence in Europe in 2020, discusses the continent’s “ Act Two ”, and ambitions to build $100bn companies. She talks about what Sequoia looks for in founders, how to build a defensible AI bu...

This week it's the first in a series of special episodes recorded in front of a live audience at the Sifted Summit, and we're kicking off with a bang: a fireside discussion between former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Sifted's founder and editorial director John Thornhill. They discuss the ongoing AI revolution, with Eric arguing that the technology is actually undervalued today, and...

This week the Sifted Podcast comes to you live from Italian Tech Week, where Amy sat down with Milda Jasaitė, the head of second-hand marketplace Vinted's new investment arm: Vinted Ventures. It's fairly unusual in Europe for a startup like Vinted, that's only been profitable for a couple of years, to launch a venture arm but, as Milda explains, it's a trend that's far mor...

On this week’s Newsroom episode, where we ask our journalists what they’re hearing as they report on Europe’s tech industry, Amy's joined by senior reporter Anne Sraders. Anne reports on one of the continent’s most hyped sectors: defence tech, a market that is booming as governments put large sums of cash behind plans to rearm in the face of increasing Russian aggression. Meanwhile, Amy has b...

This week Amy is joined by Zoe Hewitt, VP of talent at legendary Silicon Valley VC firm Sequoia, where she helps its portfolio companies find and hire talent based in Europe. That makes her one of the continent's best informed people as to what is going on with tech talent today, in a world where startups and scaleups are ripping up the hiring rulebook, as AI changes the art of company buildi...

Ever fancied hearing Brad Pitt speak flawless Mandarin? That’s the kind of trick Synthesia’s hyper-realistic video avatars can pull off. The London-based unicorn, which uses generative AI to make videos for corporate training and internal comms, has been a big hit among enterprise users — its customer list includes more than 80% of the Fortune 100, and it hit $100m ARR in April this year. It seems...

Mike Turner, partner at law firm Latham and Watkins, has a bird’s eye view of Europe’s startup ecosystem: which sectors are on the up and which are on the down; which VCs play nice and which don’t; and why more and more founders are getting edged out of their companies. On this week’s episode of the podcast, Mike sits down with host Amy to discuss why climate tech's monetisation model remains...

It’s pretty fun being the frontman of the world’s fastest-growing company, says Anton Osika. But being swarmed by enthusiastic users, opportunistic investors and beady-eyed journalists can occasionally have its downsides. It’s no surprise everyone wants a piece of Lovable founder and CEO Anton. Last month, just eight months after its launch, Lovable was crowned Europe’s newest unicorn when it rais...

If you work at a tech startup, AI is a boon and a bane, empowering tiny teams to build at scale while wiping out entry-level jobs and flooding LinkedIn with “AI slop.” In this week's episode of the Sifted podcast, Amy is joined by senior reporter Miriam Partington, to discuss how founders and operators at Europe's fastest-growing companies are using AI. She shares what she's hearing...

Germany-based defence tech Quantum Systems is one of Europe's leading makers of military drones, having completed thousands of missions in Ukraine and signed contracts with governments around the world. The company raised a €160m Series C in May 2025, hitting unicorn status, and is seeing its revenue double year on year. On this week's episode of the Sifted Podcast, host Amy sits down wi...

You might be forgiven for thinking Europe had just two big drone makers — Germany’s Helsing and Quantum Systems — given how many headlines both attract. But there’s a third defence tech unicorn on the continent: Lisbon-based surveillance drones maker Tekever. Its drones are used all over the world — by the European Maritime Safety Agency to survey the coastline around Europe and by the UK Home Off...

Barcelona-based Factorial has come a long way since its early days as a software startup offering free HR services. The business management platform is now used by more than 13k companies for everything from expense tracking to project management. It’s also scaling fast, with more than 1,300 employees and €110m in fresh funding from General Catalyst under its belt, which it raised in March.  That...

Revolut is Europe’s most valuable private tech company — and is set to become even more so soon, with a fundraise in the works which would see it valued at a reported $65m.  The digital bank manages to churn out new features at breakneck speed — from pet insurance to travel bookings, and now mortgages and mobile plans — despite having over 50m customers around the world. The secret? Its “new bets...

Supercell is one of Europe's leading video game companies — with enduring hit titles like Clash of Clans and Brawl Stars under its belt. But, as CEO and cofounder Ilkka Paananen explains on this episode of Startup Europe — the Sifted Podcast, developing new and popular games is a tough business. He sits down with Amy Lewin to explain how Supercell tries to foster creativity by empowering its...

Once upon a time, Mistral was Europe’s buzziest tech company — raising a huge €105m seed round in 2023 to build GenAI models and compete with the likes of OpenAI. But as the sector's matured, and we’ve seen application-focused AI startups like app maker Lovable and defence tech Helsing rise to the top of the hype pile, how is the Paris-based startup living up to its early promise? The company...

If you work in tech, you’re likely in one of two camps: thinking about using AI agents, or already deploying tens of them. That’s why Emma Burrows cofounded Portia AI, a platform which helps businesses build and use AI agents securely, in-house — and which secured £4.4m in a seed round led by General Catalyst back in April. Emma's no stranger to a breakneck sector: before founding Portia, she...