Startup Europe — The Sifted Podcast

This week we discuss: Infarm quits Europe as vertical farming withers on the vine Checkout.com cuts internal valuation by another 15% EIF to set up a €200m fund for European defence tech Can e-fuel make flying green? Startups are trying An unknown Swedish startup’s €3bn bid to build a green rival to AWS

This week we discuss: 01:06 Monzo narrows losses slightly as lending book triples 04:06 Inside GetYourGuide: Germany’s $2bn travel experiences platform 07:41 US giant NEA backs Stockholm AI company Sana Labs 09:45 Did US hustle mentality ruin Typeform? 14:36 SaaS won’t save the planet, but a hardware-software duo just might 20:16 An OpenAI alum is building a robot butler for your home

This week it’s another longer form interview. We’re joined by Ophelia Brown, managing partner of Blossom Capital, a VC fund that’s backed the likes of payments company Checkout.com, crypto exchange Moonpay and HR platform Localize. She sat down with Sifted’s Amy Lewin to make her case for a crypto comeback, as well as giving some harsh words on the political mismanagement of the UK tech sector.

This week we discuss: 02:55 Mobility giant Bolt likely to acquire rival Tier in weeks 05:00 Northvolt to build German and US factories 10:13 ETH spinout ANYbotics raises $50m for AI-led robo workforce 13:54 Startup valuations continue to plummet in 2023 17:52 It’s not just the CFO who’s quit: Meet the people left with power at Revolut 23:26 A taster of the foods of the future Listen to Sifted&apos...

This week we discuss: 01:30 German startup Blinkist acquired by Australian content company Go1 05:39 Proposed EU net neutrality 'paywall' for internet access spooks founders 09:55 Micro-ticket investment platform Odin raises $3m following public launch 13:45 Outperforming doctors and dealing with hallucinations — how GenAI will transform healthtech 18:37  What the 'Father of Alexa&a...

This week we discuss: 01:20 Investors say new UK listing rules might not be enough to entice tech companies 05:24 German startup Prematch raises €2.4m to build 'Fifa for amateur football' 09:22 Mental health therapeutics startup HelloBetter raises €7m for further US expansion 14:17 Can France save the metaverse?

This week we discuss: 01:27 Northvolt to confirm US expansion plans within weeks, cofounder says 04:07 Leaked deck raises questions over Stability AI's Series A pitch to investors 08:16 The call for a CERN-like AI supercomputer 11:16 This startup has raised $31m to turn wood into glass 14:10 IV infusions and blood purification: Inside one of Europe’s first longevity clinics 20:30  Meet the st...

This week we discuss: Shareholder upheaval and a $630m debt burden: end of the road for Cazoo? How a corruption scandal has left dozens of Polish startups facing bankruptcy The Family Files: Inside France’s ugliest startup fight Toxic bosses and unhealthy cultures: Why Europe’s VCs are tired and burnt out

This week we discuss: 01:18  Checkout.com faces exec team exodus and makes layoffs ‘by stealth’ 05:30  ‘Mini-revolt’ as TravelPerk U-turns on remote work 08:26  Founders had to wait ‘far too long’ for EIC Fund cash, admits chair 11:09  YC alum SolarMente raises for subscription solar panel service 17:57  Coworking retreats and hiking holidays: Inside the biggest startup community you’ve never hear...

This week it’s another long form interview and we’re joined in the studio with Johannes Schildt from Stockholm-based digital healthcare provider Kry. After a tough 2022, the founder reflects on dealing with layoffs at the company, pausing operations in Germany and the challenges of working with disjointed healthcare systems. He also looks ahead to how exciting technologies like large language mode...

This week we discuss: 03:54: Starting to take off: German rocket maker Isar Aerospace raises $165m 06:43: Europe’s spacetech report 06:59: Climate tech Agreena raises €46m Series B to fight climate change with carbon sinks 09:52 Channel 4-backed fintech shuts down, searches for buyer 12:39: ‘We are super, super fucked’: Meet the man trying to stop an AI apocalypse 19:11: Gloria Bäuerlein closes on...

This week it's a longer form interview with Matt Clifford, founder of early stage investor and startup builder Entrepreneur First. He's also recently been appointed as an AI advisor to the UK government, so we brought him into the Sifted studio to ask him how the UK and Europe can have an AI strategy that moves the needle, as companies like Microsoft and Google increasingly dominate the...

This week we're doing a special episode looking at the Silicon Valley Bank crash, why it happened, why the tech sector was so exposed and how the government stepped in to help save the UK subsidiary of the business. We’re joined by special guests Dom Hallas, from UK tech lobby group Coadec, and Benedikt von Thüngen, cofounder of diagnostics startup Sanome which had 85% of its cash in SVB. We...

This week we’ve got a special episode focusing on Swedish tech. Sifted has been visiting the Nordic Nation for our Stockholm Sessions event, where we caught up with founders working in everything from electric-powered boats to a plan to build a metaverse-powered aquarium at the bottom of a real-life fjord. We were also joined by Klarna’s Sebastian Siemiatkowski, who gave an interview on what the m...

This week we discuss: 02:18  Revolut reports its first-ever year of profit 05:29  Klarna posts $1bn annual loss, its largest ever 09:55  Want to drive using mind control? 13:14  GitLab and Remote backer Inkef loses its sole LP 17:16  Wise and Monzo founders back legal generative AI startup’s $10.5m Series A 23:16  I’m not a billionaire — will I ever go to space?  

This week it's a long form interview with founder-turned-investor Taavet Hinrikus. He's half a year into his journey as a VC and says that his new fund Plural is going to do things differently. He came into the Sifted studio to tell us about why investor committees are useless, how you can't build a business on a four-day week and the biggest lessons he learnt from building Wise.

This week we discuss: 01:13 Lumai lands £1.1m grant to achieve ‘world’s fastest computation’ and power the AI revolution 04:16 German edtech Knowunity, a TikTok for kk, raises €9m Series A extension 07:15 New €3.75bn European Investment Fund pot to back late-stage VCs 08:40 Which investor has backed the most European unicorns? 10:25 Inside Daniel Ek's new boday scanning startup 15:10 Heart Ae...

In this special episode of Startup Europe, Sifted’s central and eastern Europe correspondent Zosia Wanat looks under the surface of some of the continent’s most resilient startups. Based on extensive interviews with Ukrainian founders, the episode reveals how people working in the tech sector — which is so vital to the country’s economy — have battled to keep their businesses alive. The podcast te...

This week we discuss: 01:59: Germany launches €1bn fund for climate and deeptech scaleups 05:33: ‘Good news for startups’ — UK government launches new Science, Innovation and Technology department 07:41: The French spacetech working with Elon Musk’s SpaceX 09:22: Sifted's in-depth spacetech report 10:17: Farming platform Wikifarmer raises €5m 14:12: Three quarters of LGBTQ+ founders hide thei...

This week we discuss: 02:33: PASQAL lands €100m after ‘world-first’ real-life quantum computer use 05:17: Renaissance Fusion raises €15m to develop clean nuclear energy technology 07:27: Monzo revenues surge more than twofold, putting it on track for 2023 profitability 10:42: Tech Nation shutting down as UK government controversially pulls key funding 14:55: France plans to use the startup downtur...

This week we're back with a longer form interview, digging into one of the most hyped tech sectors in recent times: speedy grocery delivery. After startups in the space raised millions in 2021 — shooting to massive valuations in a matter of months — the bubble has now somewhat burst, as the former superstar Gorillas was sold at a big loss to rival Getir at the end of 2022. Today we're as...

This week we discuss: Britishvolt goes into administration Cazoo's CEO steps down New technology to store vaccines at room temperature The startup cleaning up Elon Musk's space junk Dragon's Den star Steven Bartlett has a new startup StabilityAI's Emad Mostaque on OpenAI and lawsuits Digging into FTX's European investments

This week we discuss: 01:08: OXcan raises $3.7m to scale its cancer detection tech 04:35  Autonomous vehicles everywhere: Oxbotica raises $140m 07:54 Checkout.com's latest financial results 10:47 Employee healthcare benefits platform Peppy raises $45m for US expansion 17:28 ‘We can predict behaviour’: The former spook vetting founders on behalf of VCs This podcast is brought to you by Zendesk...

This week we discuss: 01:45 What are the new EU policies startups should watch out for in 2023? 08:26 Nuclear fusion: The bet that Europe should have won 18:21 Why are VCs getting so excited about generative AI? This podcast is brought to you by Zendesk for Startups. Zendesk helps startups build lasting customer experiences from day one. With the Zendesk for Startups Program, startups get Zendesk...

This week we're bringing you a longer form interview with Meri Williams, CTO at Pleo and formerly CTO at Monzo and Healx. Meri's got a reputation for being one of the best in the business at growing and sustaining technical teams at startups and scaleups, and in this episode she gave her opinion on Elon Musk firing half his tech team, how to get engineers to learn soft skills and how to...