Startup Europe — The Sifted Podcast

This week on the podcast we are joined by Cherry Ventures general partner Sophia Bendz — formerly global marketing director at Spotify — who talks us through what she's seeing across the European early-stage startup ecosystem in a challenging market.She tells us about the AI effect on young companies launching today, how founders can look after their mental health in today

Andreessen Horowitz is one of the world’s best known — and biggest — VC firms, with over $35bn in assets under management, over 500 employees and a portfolio including Airbnb, GitHub, Instacart, Instagram, Lyft, Slack and Wise.But for a long time it merely dabbled in investing in Europe.So it was big news last year when the firm announced it was opening a London office — it

This week Sifted editor Amy Lewin is joined by one of London’s best-known VCs Hussein Kanji, founding partner at Hoxton Ventures. He reflects on the kinds of big returns he won, and missed out on, by making early bets on companies like Deliveroo, Darktrace and Babylon.

Oscar Pierre is one of, if not the, best-known entrepreneurs in Spain. His delivery company Glovo — which was bought by its bigger, listed competitor Delivery Hero in 2022 — is one of the country’s big international success stories, and now Pierre is using his experience (and financial resources) to help Spain’s next generation of entrepreneurs.He’s also still running Glo

Startup Europe is back for our new-look podcast, where we'll be focussing exclusively on longer form interviews with some of the biggest names in European tech.Last year we brought you conversations with founders, operators and investors behind companies like Wise, Monzo, Figma, Delivery Hero and Kry and we have a whole load more for you in 2024.This week it's Roxanne Var

What do Lidl, Auchan, Sephora and Flink have in common? They’re all customers of RELEX Solutions, one of Finland’s four private tech companies.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 Jo

This week we discuss:01:51 Hyme raises €8m for technology that could halve cost of storing energy05:12 Xlinks raises $25m from TotalEnergies for 3,800km cable from the Sahara to the UK07:46 Thought Web3 was over? This VC just raised €15m to back startups in the sector19:27 Why Stability AI is launching a subscription fee

This week we discuss:01:05 Micromobility giant Tier lays off 22% of its workforce in push for profitability, Unicorn edtech Multiverse to lay off nearly a third of US employees05:34 GenAI biotech Cradle raises $24m Series A led by Index Ventures08:55 The top takeaways from Atomico’s State of European Tech report20:13 Why hasn't EIF announced a single investment from its €3

Sonya Iovieno knows European tech’s secrets. As head of venture and growth at HSBC Innovation Banking, where she works with thousands of VCs, startups and scaleups in the UK and Nordics, she has a view on who’s done an undisclosed down round, who’s been trimming headcount and who’s set up a “hunting line” for future acquisitions.And she also knows what it’s like to go

This week we discuss:Nordic merger between online grocers Oda and MathemIt ain’t Easee: How Norway’s EV rising star fell foul of regulatorsHow Sequoia-backed e-bike refurbisher Upway raised $30m in a micromobility slowdownGrocery 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 tal