But a new trend seems to be gaining steam in Europe: VCs adding a CEO or operator title alongside their investor role, and doing both at the same time. 

Judith Dada, general partner at Visionaries, for example, has made that move this month, taking a role as co-CEO at AI startup Langdock, while Carmen Alfonso Rico, who founded UK-based angel investment firm Cocoa, announced she’s joining her portfolio company, British chip startup Fractile, as VP of business operations. Both are retaining investment roles at their firms.

Joining host Freya Pratty to discuss the trend is senior reporter Anne Sraders. The pair chat about why these moves are happening now and whether they could bring up issues for the firms further down the line. They also discuss further changes at Visionaries, as a number of partners transition from their full-time investment positions to entrepreneurial roles. 

Sign up to Sifted's weekly newsletter about VC here: https://sifted.eu/newsletters

This episode was brought to you by HSBC Innovation Banking.

The French AI darling is reportedly raising a €3bn Series D round at a valuation of around €20bn. Last week, Sifted broke the news that the EU’s €5bn Scaleup Fund, managed by EQT, is in talks to lead or co-lead the round.

This week on the podcast, senior reporter Daphné Leprince-Ringuet joins host Freya Pratty to discuss the EU Scaleup Fund’s potential involvement and who else might get in on the deal. And, as Mistral increasingly positions itself more like Europe’s answer to Palantir, Freya and Daphné discuss how the new positioning will play into the pricing of its latest round. 

Read our reporting on the round here: https://sifted.eu/articles/e5bn-scaleup-fund-mistral-eqt

Sign up to our free daily newsletter here: https://sifted.eu/newsletters

Then, hours later, he quit.

This week on the podcast, reporter Maya Dharampal-Hornby joins host Freya Pratty to discuss the curious tale of Yann LeCun’s shortly-lived firm, Extelligence Invest. The pair chat about where Extelligence was going to invest, who was involved and why Yann might have left the fund.

The former Meta chief AI scientist still has a lot on his plate. Earlier this year, he raised $1bn for his Paris-based world models startup AMI Labs, after targeting $500m. He also advises London and Luxembourg-based VC firm Hiro Capital.

Read our reporting on Extelligence here: https://sifted.eu/articles/yann-lecun-new-vc-firm

Sign up to our daily newsletter here: https://sifted.eu/newsletters

But will she keep her role under the country's new prime minister?

There is one area her views diverge from those of Andy Burnham, widely tipped to be the country's new leader: autonomous vehicles. While Burnham's team is reported to have reservations about the technology, Kendall has thrown her support behind the British companies building it.

"We should be backing British companies in this technology, because if we don't, we'll end up reliant on US companies," she tells host John Thornhill on this week's episode of the Sifted podcast.

The pair also discuss whether the brief of AI and online safety minister Kanishka Narayan is too big, the challenge of unlocking more growth capital for British tech companies — and why she'd "love to stay" in her role.

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The €5bn fund, which is yet to deploy a cent of capital, has already been through a hotly contested race to find a manager (Swedish firm EQT came out on top), and now it's caught up in a political tussle over whether the UK — which famously left the bloc back in 2016 — will get a look-in.

This week Sifted reported that France is pushing to block UK participation in the superfund, casting doubt on hopes that British startups could tap into the bloc's flagship late-stage investment vehicle.

On this episode of the podcast, host Freya Pratty is joined by news editor Martin Coulter to unpack France’s move to block the UK, ask whether it was “the MOST French move imaginable” and break down the quota system being discussed by EU officials as a compromise.

Read this week’s reporting here: https://sifted.eu/articles/eu-scaleup-fund-uk-france-blocked-eqt-british-business-bank

https://sifted.eu/articles/eu-scaleup-europe-fund-uk-france-block-reaction

https://sifted.eu/articles/scaleup-e5bn-uk-france

Sign up to Sifted free daily newsletter here: https://sifted.eu/newsletters

In this week's episode of the Sifted podcast, John Thornhill is joined by serial entrepreneur and investor Brent Hoberman. Brent, who cofounded Lastminute.com in 1998, is one of the UK’s most experienced and best-connected operators. Today, he runs the early-stage VC firm Firstminute Capital and Founders Forum, a global community of entrepreneurs that co-hosts London Tech Week.

John and Brent discuss Keir Starmer's resignation as UK prime minister — less than two years after Labour's landslide 2024 election victory — and whether Andy Burnham, the former mayor of Greater Manchester who looks set to collect the keys to 10 Downing Street in the coming weeks, is likely to bring a new era of socialist politics to the country. Brent also shares how he's changed his mind on "LLM wrapper" companies, the rising scale of ambition on show at London Tech Week and what it is actually like taking a business public.

Disclaimer: Brent is a personal shareholder in Sifted. 

Sign up to our Daily and Deeptech newsletters here: https://sifted.eu/newsletters

US AI giant Anthropic announced it had been ordered by the US government to suspend access to its most advanced AI models for foreign nationals. In response, Anthropic cut access to all customers, including those in the US, to ensure compliance. 

The move is the first example of the US activating a so-called digital “kill switch” with the potential to disrupt or turn off access to technologies that European organisations heavily depend on to run critical services. 

The restrictions may prove temporary but they’ve caused a big reaction in Europe.

On this week’s episode of the Sifted podcast, host Freya Pratty chats to senior reporter Daphné Leprince-Ringuet about what happened, why it matters and what Europe should do next.

Read our reporting on the ban here: https://sifted.eu/articles/anthropic-kill-switch-european-sovereignty

Sign up to Sifted's free newsletter here: https://sifted.eu/newsletters

Launched in 2020 by VC firm Phoenix Court and London Business School, the educational programme aims to train new generations of VC talent — whether they are experienced investors or simply exploring new career paths.

Anu began her career in Sheffield in 2012, where she joined a fund and later went into the British Business Bank. After nearly five years, she moved to the LP side, where she personally deployed over £365m into funds, before moving to Atomico where she led its fund of funds strategy.

The pair discuss what LPs want from Europe’s VCs now, how far away a Newton Venture’s fund might be and the dangers of Europe’s re-emerging “boys’ club mentality”.

Sign up to Sifted’s daily newsletter here: https://sifted.eu/newsletters

Read John’s article about the needs for reinventing VC: https://sifted.eu/articles/vc-needs-to-reinvent-itself

Find out more about Newton Venture Program here: https://newtonprogram.vc/

This podcast was brought to you by HSBC Innovation Banking.

There was a fresh bout of anxiety after US AI giant Anthropic announced its latest funding round — which, at $65bn, is nearing the amount raised by the entire European ecosystem last year.

But there’s also growing pushback against the doom and gloom. This week, VC firm Balderton launched its “Built in Europe” campaign, aimed at celebrating the continent’s successes and reshaping the way the ecosystem portrays itself. 

On this week’s episode of the Sifted podcast, host Freya Pratty chats to senior reporter Daphné Leprince-Ringuet and news editor Martin Coulter about whether European tech is finally shaking off its inferiority complex and if a new, more confident narrative can help the ecosystem better compete on the global stage.

Sign up to our daily newsletter here: https://sifted.eu/newsletters 

Carissa's latest book, Prophecy: Prediction, Power, and the Fight for the Future, describes how ancient oracles, medieval soothsayers and modern-day AIs all tend to tell the powerful what they want to hear. What does that mean, for example, when we apply AIs to hiring and firing decisions at our companies or VCs?

John and Carissa also explore whether tech giants are capable of meaningful self-regulation and what it would look like to build AIs that work for people rather than surveil them.

Sign up to Sifted's Daily and Deeptech newsletters here: https://sifted.eu/newsletters

Earlier this week, the EU chose Swedish investment firm EQT to manage its new €5bn Scaleup Europe Fund after a closely-watched race among the region’s top firms like the UK’s Atomico and France’s Eurazeo.

On this week’s — somewhat emergency — episode of the Sifted podcast, host Freya Pratty chats to senior reporter Anne Sraders about the selection process to run the fund, when it will begin deploying and which lucky companies might be backed. 

Fresh off an interview with EQT investors, the pair also dig into how the firm wants to manage the fund, their reaction upon hearing the news — and whether there could be a second scale-up fund on its way soon.

Sign up to our daily newsletter here: https://sifted.eu/newsletters

James discusses how the acquisition came about, including his meeting with the cofounders before the company even existed. 

James also shares about his new gig as chair of the Sovereign AI Unit, a £500m initiative launched by the UK government earlier this year. He talks through its investments to date — which include Isomorphic Labs, Ineffable Intelligence and Callosum — and responds to the backlash it has received.

The pair also discuss AI's public perception problem, James's biggest investment miss and whether Europe is ready to seize the moment in the race for AGI.

For quarterly updates of the Sovereign AI Unit’s progress, check out James’ blog: https://www.jameswise.com/author/james-wise/

Sign up to the Sifted Daily Newsletter here: https://sifted.eu/newsletters

The LLM builder and OpenAI rival has released new products that go head-to-head with some of Europe's buzziest AI companies like Loveable and Legora, raising questions about the defensibility of businesses built on top of third-party models.

Freya and Martin also discuss how Europe's fintechs are scrambling for access to Anthropic's new model Mythos and a possible deal with chip maker Fractile, an Oxford spinout that's winning support from the UK government.

Sign up to Sifted's Daily and Deeptech newsletters here: https://sifted.eu/newsletters

Yes, women have historically been left out of clinical trials, but there are logistical reasons as to why, Hertility CEO Helen O’Neill tells host Amy Lewin. “ Collecting data from women on the third day of their menstrual cycle at scale is actually feasibly and technically very difficult to do.”

Helen is more familiar with these difficulties than most: Hertility has built a diagnostic testing system to support women through their fertility journeys, and provides onward clinical care — from telemedicine gynecological appointments and ultrasounds to IVF and egg freezing.

The result? Hertility, Helen says, can diagnose endometriosis with 98-99% confidence in eight days — the same condition which takes on average nine years to diagnose via the UK's National Health Service (NHS).

In this episode of the Sifted podcast, Helen shares how she’s building a foundational model for women’s health, why Hertility “started off trying to be a baguette and has twisted itself into a pretzel for every investor” and why it’s important to demystify the “homogeneous idea of women’s health”.

Wolt began life delivering restaurant food to customers in Helsinki, before steadily expanding into groceries, medicine, electronics and offering services like revenue-based financing. It was acquired by American delivery giant DoorDash in May 2022.

Marianne and Amy discuss how European superapps can compete globally, Wolt’s newest partnership with Dott and why the company posts all vacancies externally.

Get tickets to Sifted summit here: https://summit.sifted.eu/2026-tickets

In 2025, equity investment into European robotics startups more than doubled, reaching €1.45bn — and in the first quarter of this year, European robotics startups raised €522m.

But what’s triggered this uptick?

On this week’s episode of the Sifted podcast, host Amy Lewin is joined by editors Éanna Kelly and Tom Nugent to discuss the booming sector. The trio dig into whether Europe’s robot makers are moving fast enough, and whether everyday consumers will have robots unloading their dishwashers anytime soon.

Sign up to Sifted's Daily and Deeptech newsletters here: https://sifted.eu/newsletters

But, one year on, what’s it achieved? What’s been the most unexpected challenge? What will Kitty do differently with the  second fund? And who’s really in charge?

On this episode of the Sifted Podcast, Kitty sits down with host Amy Lewin to discuss all the above, plus: 

• The most telling questions on Project Europe’s application form
• Who makes the best mentors to founders
• Why 996 is “outdated”
• Why she’s stopped trying to be likeable 
• Why more women shouldn't wait to play before a "perfect system" comes along

This podcast was brought to you by HSBC Innovation Banking.

“Thankfully, the billion dollar seed round is not the standard across Europe — yet,” Philipp Moehring tells host Amy Lewin on this episode of the Sifted podcast. “That would be concerning.”

Philipp started microfund Tiny VC with Andy Chung almost a decade ago to invest in the hottest companies in Europe before anyone else. Its portfolio of 450+ startups includes self-driving car company Wayve, AI-powered video creator Synthesia, legal tech Lawhive and workflow automation platform N8n. 

But unlike many VCs, Tiny doesn’t join boards, or lead rounds and doesn’t really ‘do’ media. It last raised a third £53m fund in 2023, and was crowned 20VC’s ‘top European microfund’ earlier this year.

This week on the podcast, Philipp and Amy discuss:

• How VC will change over the next 10 years
• When Tiny takes money off the table 
• Why young people make awesome founders
• Anxiety-inducing LinkedIn posts
• And, for better or worse, the return of the tech bro

Laura, who leads OpenAI’s startup team in Europe, hops from city to city, attending hackathons, events and dinners with Europe’s leading AI companies and investors.

This week she sits down with host Amy Lewin to discuss what the best startups have in common, how she’s automated her work and what she looks for as an angel investor.

This podcast was brought to you by HSBC Innovation Banking.

The timing was fortuitous, given all the ‘Londonmaxxing’ going on at the moment. The capital looks set to have a very strong first quarter of 2026, at least in comparison to its usual competitors Paris and Berlin, with a lot more deals done and equity raised.

On the podcast this week, Amy discusses the findings of the leaderboard — along with why London is ‘in’ again with the tech crowd and why Fuse Energy’s Alan Chang is an amusing person to interview — with her colleagues from Sifted’s Intelligence team, Éanna Kelly and Jonathan Sinclair. 

Read Sifted's interview with Sovereign AI Unit's Joséphine Kant here: https://sifted.eu/articles/josephine-kant-sovereign-ai-unit

Her company, which is only five years old, builds reusable and refillable vehicles to carry cargo to and from space stations in low-Earth orbit — and beyond. 

It’s already (semi-) successfully sent cargo into space — and back — at a fraction of the cost, and time, achieved by other companies. 

On this episode of the Sifted podcast, Hélène shares The Exploration Company’s roadmap for 2026, including fundraising plans for a “significant amount of money” to build a high-thrust rocket engine. 

Hélène and Amy also get into: 

• Why the space industry is set to more than double in value over the next decade 
• Collaborating in space during a decidedly antagonistic geopolitical moment
• Contracts in the works 
• The ideal funding roadmap for a deeptech company 
• Dealing with very public failure as a CEO 
• And Hélène’s hopes and dreams for Europe’s space future 

So will Europe’s VC-backed SaaS giants survive the AI area? And what about the VCs who’ve heavily backed them?

In this episode of the Sifted Podcast, host Amy Lewin is joined by senior reporters Freya Pratty and Anne Sraders to unpack what the rise of AI means for Europe’s VC-backed software companies — and the investors who’ve poured billions into them.

Read more here: https://sifted.eu/articles/european-vc-saaspocalypse

Yes, some European AI watchers say. Attention is shifting to so-called “world models” — systems designed to build internal representations of how the world works, rather than simply predicting the next word in a sentence. 

A number of prominent researchers, including former Meta chief AI scientist Yann LeCun, have argued this approach could overcome some of the limitations of today’s LLMs — and have launched startups to prove it.

On this week’s episode of the Sifted Podcast, host Freya Pratty is joined by senior reporters Daphné Leprince-Ringuet and Anne Sraders to unpack the hype around world models. What exactly are they? What real-world applications might they unlock? And with researchers like LeCun choosing to base new ventures in Europe, could this be an area where the continent builds a competitive edge in the global AI race?

Sign up to our AI and deeptech newsletter here: https://sifted.eu/newsletters

That’s the question posed on this week’s episode of the Sifted Podcast by Judith Dada, general partner at European VC Visionaries Club, newsletter author, mother and setter-upper of numerous side projects. 

Judith started her career in venture almost a decade ago at La Famiglia, the Germany-based early-stage investor, which later went on to merge with US megafund General Catalyst. She’s now come full circle, joining forces with La Famiglia founding partner (and fellow former Sifted podcast guest) Rob Lacher at Visionaries.  

Visionaries’ portfolio includes plenty of companies that are on a tear right now — Lovable, Black Forest Labs, N8n, Solve Intelligence and Tandem Health — and their thesis, that Europe is in a fantastic position to shape the next wave of disruption in business, seems more relevant than ever.

Amy and Judith sit down to discuss whether legacy SaaS companies can survive in this AI era, why Europe is in “a state of emergency” and what we can do about it, and when Visionaries will raise a new fund.

Sign up to Sifted's daily newsletter: https://sifted.eu/newsletters

Check out Judith's newsletter: https://dadalogue.substack.com/

This episode was sponsored by HSBC Innovation Banking.

This week Amy Lewin sits down with VP of talent at European VC Creandum Michelle Coventry, who spends a lot of time advising super fast-scaling companies on how to build out their teams and what, exactly, the scaling playbook should look like in the age of AI. 

The pair discuss how hiring is changing, what happens when buzzy European companies scale in the US, when exactly startups should bring in senior talent and what founders should know before they set their pay. 

Read highlights from Creandum’s founder compensation report here: https://sifted.eu/articles/founder-salaries-2025/ 

Sign up to the Sifted daily newsletter: https://sifted.eu/newsletters/

We’ve already had five new unicorns born, €5.2bn raised, a $1bn acquisition and Sifted’s landed several scoops revealing that some of the continent’s most interesting investors — the likes of Plural and QuantumLight — are raising big new funds.

To discuss the bumper start to 2026, host Amy Lewin is joined by contributing editor Éanna Kelly, who spends his days sussing out which companies are fast on the rise, which investors are getting in on the buzziest deals and which ecosystems and sectors are hotting up.

They also cover the 26 startups Sifted will be watching especially closely (and why) and what investors tell us they have planned for the next 12 months.

Read Sifted Predicts here: https://sifted.eu/studio/sifted-predicts-european-tech-2026

Explore Sifted Pro here: https://sifted.eu/sifted-pro

Sign up to the Sifted Daily here: https://sifted.eu/newsletters 

This week on the Sifted Podcast, host Amy Lewin is joined by Linda Rottenberg, founder of global tech network Endeavor, one of the world’s most influential communities of high-growth entrepreneurs.

For nearly three decades, Linda has backed founders long before they hit the mainstream, including Bending Spoons’ Luca Ferrari and ElevenLabs’ Mati Staniszewski. Endeavor is built on a simple idea: that world-class entrepreneurs can come from anywhere — not just Silicon Valley. Today, Endeavor supports more than 3,000 entrepreneurs across 50+ countries, whose companies include over 90 unicorns. 

Amy and Linda discuss what Europe’s most successful founders have in common, why investors should be looking beyond the usual hotspots and how Endeavor Catalyst, the organisation’s investment arm, is backing companies at the scale-up stage as it raises a new fund.

This week, host Amy Lewin is joined by senior reporters Daphné Leprince-Ringuet and Freya Pratty to dig into the fast-moving — and expensive — world of AI infrastructure, from data centres and GPUs to energy and political power plays.

The conversation also explores the risks of overbuilding, parallels with failed battery gigafactories and the unresolved tension between Europe’s dreams of “sovereign AI” and reliance on Nvidia. Plus: what does all this mean for climate tech and local communities  — and is AI infrastructure the safest bet investors can make, or the next bubble waiting to burst?

Sign up to Sifted's AI newsletter here: https://sifted.eu/newsletters 

On this episode of the Sifted Podcast, news editor Martin Coulter joins editor Amy Lewin to discuss what they think will be the big topics this year in European startups and VC — and what you, our dear listeners, should be watching out for. 

They cover: 

• If — or when — the AI bubble will burst
• Which shiny sectors will attract a lot of venture funding 
• What the year might hold for ‘sovereign’ tech startups
• Which tech billionaire might run for president (in Europe)
• What developments are likely to be in store for the VC industry 

This episode was produced by Maya Dharampal-Hornby.

Further reading: 

• A spacetech IPO, a robot decacorn and a (European) entrepreneur running for president: Sifted’s predictions for European tech in 2026
• Sign up to Sifted’s Daily newsletter 

Three years on, host Amy Lewin is joined on the Sifted Podcast by Dame Fiona Murray, current chair and former vice-chair of the Nato Innovation Fund (NIF), to take stock of how the experiment is playing out.

Since becoming operational in 2023, the fund has faced significant scrutiny. Four of its original founding partners have left, one of them pursuing legal action over a compensation dispute, while former chair Klaus Hommels stepped into a new role last September following questions around potential conflicts of interest.

Amy and Fiona discuss these controversies, as well as what the fund is actively looking to invest in today, the structural challenges facing Europe’s defence tech startups and what still needs to change if European nations are to build long-term technological resilience in an increasingly unstable world.

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 sleepwalking into a “disaster” on self-driving cars and physical AI, and how he’s helping shape Estonia’s defence tech landscape.

Markus also explains why founders should engage more with politicians, what Europe needs from a single capital market — and his experience as the youngest board member of any US public company, thanks to buy now, pay later giant Klarna.

In his role as AI minister — which he’s had for just two months — Kanishka holds some pretty chunky responsibilities: including ensuring that the UK seizes upon the opportunities AI presents to us — and leverages tech for growth.

In this episode of the Sifted Podcast, Amy asks Kanishka if he thinks the UK is moving fast enough on adopting and regulating AI, what the biggest risks the technology poses to the nation are and where he thinks the government should put its resources to have the most positive impact on the tech sector.

In this episode, host Amy Lewin sits down with Carl to explore how Nothing is approaching prototyping new devices, why Europe has struggled to produce globally successful hardware startups and what a future of personalised phones might actually look like.

Carl also shares how spending time in China taught him the hardware ecosystem’s secrets, why India represents one of the biggest opportunities of our lifetime and which early-stage founder he has on his radar.

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-tier talent in Europe, and the continent’s pool of senior tech tech employees has grown faster than the US over the last decade.

But do founders actually feel that shift on the ground? And how much appetite is there to finally fix Europe’s long-lamented market fragmentation? And why, a decade on, is the gender funding gap showing no signs of closing?

Read Atomico’s report, here: https://www.stateofeuropeantech.com/

Read our top highlights, here: https://sifted.eu/articles/state-european-tech-report-2025

Read about the Mistral and SAP partnerships, here: https://sifted.eu/articles/france-germany-partnership-mistral-sap

Read about why VCs are ditching the boardroom for operator life, here: https://sifted.eu/articles/vcs-becoming-operators

If you would like to sponsor the podcast, please email commercial@sifted.eu

Alex shares her experience of navigating government and trying to make changes for the UK's tech sector, and discusses how to tackle the exodus of startup talent from the country. Her and Kai get into how to unlock more late stage capital for high-growth companies, how pension funds can play a bigger role and how the UK government is bringing in business experience to help guide policy.

Want to sponsor the podcast? Email commercial@sifted.eu to express your interest.

PLUS: Take our listener survey here: https://form.typeform.com/to/WbVxsSv7 (T&Cs apply)

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 from Sifted’s inaugural AI ranking, alongside recent reporting, to explore questions like: Should France still be considered Europe’s AI hub? Why do 95% of GenAI pilots fail at big corporations? And when is the AI bubble going to burst?

Read the report here: https://sifted.eu/rankings/ai-100-2025

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Plus take our listener survey here: https://form.typeform.com/to/WbVxsSv7

Erin walks Amy through the climactic weekend that SVB went under, revealing what really happened behind the scenes as industry partners scrambled to keep startups’ cash safe.

The pair also dig into the state of venture in the UK, including the ups and downs faced by Octopus Titan, the £1.4bn listed fund that’s shed almost £600m in value since 2021 — and how Erin plans to steady the ship.

They also discuss her views on the Mansion House Accord, her role on the UK government’s industry taskforce and why Octopus Ventures has experienced such high churn in recent years.

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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 business and why she believes London is becoming the centre of Europe’s AI renaissance.

Luciana and Amy also discuss the resurgence of robotics, why fintech still matters and how founders can balance building in Europe with winning in the US.

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They discuss the ongoing AI revolution, with Eric arguing that the technology is actually undervalued today, and why "industrial" bubbles can actually be a good thing after they burst. He also talks about what the rest of the world can learn from Ukraine when it comes to automation in the defence sector, and about how Europe can compete on the global stage in the new AI economy.

PLUS: Take our listener survey here: https://form.typeform.com/to/WbVxsSv7 (T&Cs apply)

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 more common in the US.

They discuss why a relatively young startup needs an investment arm and the kinds of companies that Milda is looking to back.

They also get into how being representing her nation as an ice hockey player makes her a better professional, what can be done to get more women into senior leadership positions and onto company boards — and how Lithuania's startup scene is shaping up.

PLUS: Take our listener survey here: https://form.typeform.com/to/WbVxsSv7 (T&Cs apply)

This podcast was brought to you by HSBC Innovation Banking, the bank built for innovation.

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 been at Resilience, a conference full of startups, soldiers and spies who are all figuring out which new technologies will be assisting Europe’s militaries in the coming years.

They discuss why the VC herd is flocking around drone startups — and where they could be looking instead; the companies trying to future proof European supply chains; and just how likely it is that significant public money will flow into innovative startups, rather than the big primes.

PS. Please take our short-and-sweet listener survey here.

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 building.

Zoe knows where top talent wants to work, how to spot a future founder, what 'the office of the CEO' really means and which roles are most in-demand (and highly remunerated!)

In this episode she unpacks why management layers are thinning, how the role of CEO is changing and gives her tips for founders and tech employees wondering how to future-proof themselves in a fast-changing world of work.

PS. Please take our short-and-sweet listener survey here.

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 to be a pretty solid business model — and investors certainly like it. But where will the company take its technology next, how safe are its avatars from deepfake misuse and when might it brave an IPO?

CEO Victor Riparbelli isn’t shy about sharing his views on that front, recently declaring the London Stock Exchange a “complete disaster.”

On this week’s episode, host Amy and senior reporter Kai Nicol-Schwarz put Synthesia’s avatars to the test, dig into its move into agentic AI and ask what, if anything, could go wrong for the AI unicorn.

Sign up to our deeptech and AI newsletter here: https://sifted.eu/members/login?newsletter=deeptech

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On this week’s episode of the podcast, Mike sits down with host Amy to discuss why climate tech's monetisation model remains unknown, the growth in strategic buyers’ M&A activity and how European governments will react to sovereign wealth funds turning up on startups’ cap tables.

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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 raised $200m at a $1.8bn valuation, and hit $100m ARR. 

On this week’s episode of the podcast, Anton sits down with host Amy to discuss the company's push into enterprise, hiring mistakes he’s made and the challenges of building Europe’s startup du jour in public.

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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 about how the technology is hurting trust in brands, how engineering teams are being totally re-shaped and about why we're going from "an era of specialism to an era of generalism" in the talent market.

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On this week's episode of the Sifted Podcast, host Amy sits down with Quantum Systems’ CEO Florian Seibel to hear about what peace in Ukraine will mean for the growing defence tech industry, what the future holds for unmanned vehicles and why he thinks Europe could take a leaf out of China's book when it comes to long-term planning.

Seibel, not one to mince his words, calls out the people and investors jumping on the defence tech hype, and explains how working in a war zone and competing against enemy Russian drones has been the ultimate motivator for innovation.

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 Office to keep an eye on the English Channel, by the Spanish police and Brazilian Navy and — unsurprisingly — in Ukraine.

Tekever was founded way back in 2001 and bootstrapped for its first 21 years, but in May this year raised €70m in a round led by Baillie Gifford and the Nato Innovation Fund. It also announced plans to invest £400m to build drones in the UK alongside the country’s Royal Air Force — and create thousands of jobs.

On this episode of the Sifted Podcast, host Amy Lewin and senior reporter Freya Pratty discuss why Tekever’s investors are so bullish on the company, how it compares to competitors and what else is on its roadmap.

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 means CEO and founder Jordi Romero has a job on his hands finding ways to keep momentum up. He’s also just onboarded 300 people in six months.

What does he look for in those new hires? A “willingness to work”. What doesn’t impress him? “Logos and CVs”.

In this week’s episode of the Sifted podcast, host Amy asks Jordi where AI is helping (and where it’s not), how the “unusual” General Catalyst deal came about and whether an IPO is on the horizon.

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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 team”: small, startup-like squads tasked with testing and scaling new products fast.

On this episode of Startup Europe — the Sifted Podcast, fintech reporter Tom Matsuda joins host Amy Lewin to dig into how this team works — and whether the strategy is paying off. They also discuss the status of Revolut’s UK banking licence, the latest on its long-awaited IPO and what it’s like working with cofounders Nikolay Storonsky and Vlad Yatsenko.

He sits down with Amy Lewin to explain how Supercell tries to foster creativity by empowering its game development teams by giving them maximum autonomy, and by taking the fear out of failure through celebrating the lessons learnt with less successful game releases.

Paananen also lays out why he's bullish on European tech, how AI will change gaming and how VCs can help his industry grow even more.

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 has won some big clients, announced partnerships with giants like Nvidia and grown substantial annual revenues, but do they justify its $6bn valuation?

On this episode of Startup Europe — the Sifted Podcast, senior reporter and French tech correspondent Daphné Leprince-Ringuet tells host Amy Lewin what the company is focused on today and whether she thinks it’s moving fast enough against ever-increasing competition.

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 was UK chief technology officer at payments giant Stripe, and previously built out the ecommerce stack at Charlotte Tilbury.

In this week’s episode of the Sifted podcast, Emma joins editor Amy Lewin to talk about what AI agents can and cannot do, the very real risks they pose to junior engineering jobs — and why she doesn’t feel ‘mum guilt’.

Key moments:

0.00: Intro and about Portia AI

3.00: How companies are using AI agents

9.00: Impact of AI agents on junior engineers

15.07: What AI Emma uses to code

16.00: Transition from Stripe to founding a company

19.15: Being a female founder in AI

22.40: On 996 and hustle culture

24.30: Emma's angel investing

25.40: General Catalyst relationship

27.30: The AI Act

33.00: Quick fire questions and outro

Defence is top of the agenda for many policymakers and investors at the moment, and four-year-old Helsing has been crowned the poster child for the rising European defence tech wave. 

But, despite all that, the Munich-based company is remarkably secret about what it actually does. 

On this episode of the Sifted podcast, defence tech and VC reporter Anne Sraders and editor Amy Lewin share what they know of the rather mysterious company's products and clients, what murmurings they've heard from defence experts and investors and discuss what they think Helsing will do with all that money in the bank.

Key moments: 

00:00: Intro to Helsing
02:47: What does Helsing actually do?
06:02: Shifting attitudes to defence tech
08:49: Challenges and criticisms facing Helsing
12:06: What will Helsing do with €600m?

And being in the black gives it plenty of opportunities to expand further, via new product development, acquisitions — and by becoming a fully-licensed bank.

In this episode of the Sifted podcast, CEO Alexandre Prot joins Amy to talk about how soon Qonto might apply for a banking licence, how it's using AI to tackle fraud and what lies ahead on the path to an IPO.

Key moments:

02:30 Acquisition strategy 
14:05 Becoming a ban
19:24 Secondaries and fundraising plans
22:57 IPO?
25:37 Challenges ahead 
28:14 Fraud and AI
35:45 What Alex would do differently building Qonto again 

But the (profitable) company is swiftly becoming far more than a marketplace: it also has its own shipping infrastructure, a payments business and — as of recently — a venture arm.

Despite that, CEO Thomas Plantenga is far from complacent: “If we really want to make secondhand first choice, then everything that we have needs to be a lot better.”

“The only thing that protects you is if you consistently improve what you have, because if you don’t, somebody’s going to see an opportunity to do things better than you do. And if somebody else is delivering more value to users than you, then you don’t deserve the position you’re in.”

In this week’s episode of the Sifted podcast, host Amy asks Thomas what’s next for Vinted, how does it plan to stay three steps ahead of the pack and what are its exit plans.

Key moments: 

2:53 - Vinted's key businesses

4.00 - Vinted's userbase

7.30 - Secondhand market globally 

9.00 - How can Vinted improve?

13.00 - About the logistics business

18.14 - About the payments business

25.06 - Thomas' stance on competition

27.30 - About Vinted Ventures

31.03 - M&A strategy 

33.26 - What does Vinted Ventures wants to invest in?

35.24 - What could go wrong at Vinted?

38.18 - Advice for CEOs

41.09 - Vinted's exit

Rob unpacks the challenges of defence procurement, why Europe has less than a year to get serious about its military capabilities and how VCs can do more than just write cheques in this space.

He also shares why Visionaries  doesn’t have an AI investment thesis, why new general partner Judith Dada is the 'single best person' he could have hoped to team up with — and the deals he still kicks himself for missing.

Key moments:

01.48: Lovable

06.30: Visionaries Club's relationships with other funds

12.24: Investing in defence companies

29.59: Challenges and opportunities for SaaS companies

39.39: Building a brand in VC

42.45: Quickfire questions

The company hit $50m in annual recurring revenue earlier this year — just 12 months after launching — and recently poached a team member from 20VC. Not bad for a startup most people hadn’t heard of this time last year.

But how’s Lovable actually growing so fast? What’s its CEO Anton Osika really like? And is the hype justified?

On this experimental 13-minute episode of the Sifted podcast, editor Amy Lewin grills Europe editor Mimi Billing on what she’s found out.

The London-based note-taking startup is growing fast, with users increasing 10% week on week, and last week announced a $43m Series B at a $250m valuation — just a year after launching. 

But the 20-person team faces stiff competition — there are plenty of other ‘knowledge work’ tools out there — and there’s a lot to discover about how we all really want to use AI in our day-to-day lives. 

On the latest episode of the Sifted podcast, editor Amy asks Granola cofounder and CEO Chris Pedregal: What could the road ahead look like for a company like Granola? Why’s it being built in London? And what’s life like as a founder of a ‘hot’ AI startup?

This podcast was brought to you by HSBC Innovation Banking, connecting you with what's next.

Dinika explains why she thinks deeptech is 'back', why Europe is having a moment — and what impact tariff turmoil is having on her portfolio companies.

She also shares how she made the jump from general manager at Uber to angel investing and then VC — and talks us through how she ensured she made partner within just three years of joining Cherry Ventures.

All of that, plus who Dinika would swap places with for a day and the most valuable piece of advice she's been given in her career to date.

This podcast is brought to you by Vanta.

Vanta is the fast, frictionless way for growing companies to get compliant, stay secure, and earn and maintain the trust of vendors and customers.  Head to Vanta.com/sifted to learn more. 

Tom and his two cofounders have launched four startups before Motorway, with three resulting in successful exits, and one having to shut its doors. Tom and Amy discuss what he's learnt from that one failure, and what's now going right at Motorway, as the company takes on the formidable challenge of disrupting a huge and slow-changing automotive industry.

This podcast is brought to you by Vanta. 

Vanta is the fast, frictionless way for growing companies to get compliant, stay secure, and earn and maintain the trust of vendors and customers.  Head to Vanta.com/sifted to learn more. 

On this episode of the Sifted Podcast, he tells Amy why he believes he can rise above the competition and scale a huge business in what is the frothiest market of the moment, as well as why Lithuania is a startup hub to watch and why a trip to Davos is worth it for founders.

Jeannette’s investments include companies like HR platform Deel, logistics startup Forto, HR tech unicorn Personio, defence unicorn Helsing and AI unicorn Mistral. She also sits on Helsing and Mistral’s boards, giving her a front seat at two of Europe’s most closely-watched and exciting companies. 

She sat down with Sifted editor Amy Lewin to discuss how to fund ambitious deep tech ideas, how Europe can make the most out of AI to improve productivity and how that merger between two VC firms has been working out.

Before joining Aria, Gur was a programme director at ARPA-E, the US government’s Advanced Research Projects Agency, which was established to develop new cutting-edge technologies to generate, store and use energy. He’s also been a founder — starting two companies in Silicon Valley

We discuss what technologies he’s most excited about today, covering topics from neuroscience to “programmable plants” to fight climate change.

Martin’s portfolio includes some of the continent’s big winners, like car sharing platform BlaBlaCar, digital bank Revolut, digital health provider Kry, HR platform Personio and delivery company Deliveroo — and some of its big failures, including energy supplier Bulb which went bust in 2022. 

On this month's episode of Startup Europe — the Sifted Podcast, we dig into what Martin has learnt from his time helping some of Europe's startup success stories scale, and some of the less fortunate company stories.

We hear about what he believes makes a great founder, improving stock options at European startups and why Revolut would probably IPO in the US.

He’s also still running Glovo, largely independently of its new parent company. The business has 20m customers in 1,500 cities across 26 countries, including Spain, Italy, Ukraine, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan — and might consider further expansion soon, Pierre tells Sifted. On its app, you can order everything from a Burger King to groceries to flowers, from both independent high street businesses to big global chains.

It’s raised more than €1bn from investors and employs over 4,000 people, while working with around 65,000 riders.

On Startup Europe, The Sifted Podcast, editor Amy Lewin asked Pierre about his budding VC career, what’s going on in the southern Europe startup scene, the state of the food delivery market in 2024 — and if he’s thinking about his next move yet.

In the years since Station F opened in 2017, France has seen startup funding more than triple and the number of unicorns more than quadruple. 

And now Paris is at the centre of the Gen AI boom too. Mistral, PhotoRoom and Poolside are just a handful of the buzzy AI startups based there raising huge amounts of funding.

As an angel investor (and one of Sequoia’s most active scouts in Europe) with more than 60 deals under her belt now, Varza is also getting to place some bets in the sector. 

In the first episode of the Sifted podcast this year, editor Amy Lewin speaks to Varza about what’s on founders’ minds right now, Station F’s expansion plans and what she’s learnt so far as an angel investor. 

RELEX makes supply-chain and retail-planning software — which might sound boring, but it's extremely important when you consider how much inventory, especially food, is wasted due to poor planning.

Sifted sat down with cofounder Johanna Småros to talk about the company’s decades-long journey from academia to commercialisation, just how many millions of kilos of waste annually the company is helping to avoid and why RELEX’s engineers are tired of hearing about AI. 

• Nordic merger between online grocers Oda and Mathem
• It ain’t Easee: How Norway’s EV rising star fell foul of regulators
• How Sequoia-backed e-bike refurbisher Upway raised $30m in a micromobility slowdown
• Grocery delivery is back as Crisp raises €35m to scale next-day delivery
• $400k graduate salaries and gun-for-hire ‘SWAT teams’ — inside the wild AI talent market of 2023
• Why top AI talent is leaving Google’s DeepMind

If this sounds too good to be true, then head over to harperjames.co.uk and see for yourself. While you’re there, you’ll find 100s of resources to help your journey from startup to scaleup and beyond.

If this sounds too good to be true, then head over to harperjames.co.uk and see for yourself. While you’re there, you’ll find 100s of resources to help your journey from startup to scaleup and beyond.

If this sounds too good to be true, then head over to harperjames.co.uk and see for yourself. While you’re there, you’ll find 100s of resources to help your journey from startup to scaleup and beyond.

If this sounds too good to be true, then head over to harperjames.co.uk and see for yourself. While you’re there, you’ll find 100s of resources to help your journey from startup to scaleup and beyond.

See the pitch memo that raised €105m for four-week-old startup Mistral

A Human Genome Project for the nervous system? BIOS Health raises fresh funding

Nato launches tech accelerator to bring Silicon Valley ethos to Europe’s armies

Where to find Europe’s best AI engineers

Tony Blair thinks AI will save Britain, he’s just not quite sure how it should work

08:43 Wayve announces big breakthrough for self-driving cars

03:15 Presentation software startup Pitch laying off 30% of team

05:55 Vertical farming startup Infarm cuts 50 jobs

07:35 Northzone raises €1bn fund 

10:00 EQT raises €2.4bn growth fund

12:24 SunRoof raised €15m to build solar roofs

20:17 Inside Europe’s largest cannabis manufacturing facility

(05:10) Klarna’s valuation has plummeted — but people are still investing <link coming soon!>

(07:44) Elon Musk has $80m to fund a carbon removal startup

(12:35) What happens when you let 100 scientists run wild in a Belgian castle? Bootleg vodka and time travel

Please take our listener survey! You get a month's Sifted membership for free, and we'd love to learn more about our listeners:

bit.ly/siftedpodcast

(06:13) Cornerstone VC has just raised a £20m fund to back diverse early-stage UK founders

(09:37) Cera raises £260m, Europe’s biggest round ever in the elderly care sector

(12:12) A new wave of European fintechs are taking on the fractional ownership real estate model

(17:13)  What’s it like working as a food delivery rider in extreme heat?

(2:59) Take our listener survey for a month of free membership!

(03:05) Klarna’s valuation was slashed to $6.7bn

(6:15) The latest in big layoffs: Hopin has let go 29% of its workforce this month and Babylon is planning on cutting 100 jobs

(9:15) Glovo is raided by the European Commission amid concerns the company may have operated in a “cartel”

(16:48) Pollen is being accused of missing payroll and not refunding customers

05:00 — Kranus Health raises $6.5m to build the “viagra of digital therapy”

09:45 — Europe's top "digital nomad villages"

17:26 — How did travel booking site Omio rise from the ashes, after nearly being snuffed out by the pandemic

06:00 — Epoch Biodesign has raised $11m to grow its plastic-eating enzymes tech

09:38 — What's going on in European tech hiring?

11:32 — Fintech reporter Amy O'Brien discusses a rare interview with N26 CEO Valentin Stalf

15:46 — Nathan Benaich talks about his research into why European universities aren't producing top tech companies at the same rate as the US

Links:

https://sifted.eu/articles/proximie-softbank-80m-surgery/
https://sifted.eu/articles/epoch-biodesign-enzyme-plastic-waste/
https://sifted.eu/articles/uk-tech-job-listings-down/
https://sifted.eu/articles/n26-culture-fraud-valentin-stalf/
https://sifted.eu/articles/university-spinout-startups/

https://sifted.eu/articles/web2-web3-fintech/

https://sifted.eu/articles/felix-capital-600m-fund/

https://sifted.eu/articles/eu-fund-ukrainian-startups/

https://sifted.eu/articles/gorillas-hr-executives-layoffs/

https://sifted.eu/articles/femtechs-france-healthcare/

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