Startup Europe — The Sifted Podcast
Startup Europe is Sifted's weekly podcast about the founders, operators and investors shaping European tech. Host John Thornhill interviews the people building some of the continent's most exciting startups, while Freya Pratty talks with Sifted's own journalists about the companies they have been reporting on. Each episode goes behind the headlines to explain how these businesses work, how they raise money and where they are heading. It is aimed at anyone following the European startup and venture capital scene.
Episodes
Meet Aaron Rosenberg: The man DeepMind researchers call before they quit
With former DeepMind researchers raising record sums for their own startups, few investors are better placed than Aaron Rosenberg. Once Demis Hassabis’s deputy and later head of strategy and operations at Google DeepMind, he now leads Canadian firm Radical Ventures’ UK presence and runs a 70+-member London alumni group on WhatsApp for the lab’s former staff.On this episode of the Sifted Podcast, A
Harry Stebbings on 996 regrets, political ambitions and building a personal brand
Harry Stebbings needs little introduction. The founder of 20VC has built a venture and media empire, and a reputation for punchy takes.Among the most memorable: London is overrun by phone snatchers, the best founders have experienced some form of childhood trauma and people should be working 9am to 9pm, six days a week.Recorded live at Sifted Summit in October, this conversation sees Harry sit dow
Nick Clegg on Europe, AI and big tech
Few people have seen tech policy from as many angles as Nick Clegg. He spent five years as the UK’s deputy prime minister, then seven inside Meta as president of global affairs, defending Silicon Valley to the regulators he used to sit alongside.At Sifted Summit, Clegg sat down with Sifted founder and FT innovation editor John Thornhill to talk about where all of that leaves Europe.As AI reshapes
Who are Europe’s fastest-growing companies?
This week at Sifted we launched the Sifted 250 — a ranking of the 250 fastest-growing startups by revenue-growth across the continent, as well as a new research report.London-based wellness marketplace Healf was crowned winner, followed by body scanning startup Neko Health and Ghent-based security management platform Aikido. Notion Capital, Accel, YC, BpiFrance and Balderton topped the investor ra
Is New York warming to European tech?
Senior reporter Anne Sraders has just spent two weeks in New York, and one thing was impossible to miss: AI was everywhere. From subway ads to investor breakfasts, it was the only conversation in town."Everyone wants to find the next Anthropic for every other domain," Abby Meyers of Bain Capital Ventures told Anne. And some US investors are looking to Europe's neolabs, from Yann LeC
Does Europe have a voice in AI safety?
Last week, the resignation of Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon catapulted the discussion over AI safety into the mainstream. A thread he posted on X quickly garnered millions of views.“The consensus is that the next year or two is crunch time for humanity,” Coxon later told tech publication Wired. “From [my former colleagues’] perspective, this is when Anthropic and its competitors decide the fate
Is Mistral's monster fundraise a win for European sovereignty?
There's been talk all summer about who would fund Mistral's next round. This week it was confirmed: €3bn at a €21bn valuation, co-led by Samsung, the EU's Scaleup Europe Fund and US growth firm PSG Equity. A year ago Mistral was worth €11.7bn.Mistral has always pitched itself as Europe's sovereign alternative to US AI giants like OpenAI and Anthropic. With few European investor
Why Legora isn't building its own model
Legora has had a busy year. The Swedish legal AI firm raised $550m in March, led by Accel, and has made five acquisitions since January.The company is often pitted against its US rival Harvey. But while the two are comparable in many ways, they diverge on some key things, including whether to build their own AI models. Harvey has launched one ; while Legora says training a frontier model doesn&apo
Are the Nordics really on fire?
There’s a lot of talk at the moment about the momentum in the Nordic tech scene. Companies like legal AI firm Legora and vibe coding startup Lovable continue to bring in megarounds. But is the momentum spread across the region, or just confined to Stockholm? The Swedish capital has brought in the majority of funding in the region, thanks to Legora and Lovable, among others.This episode of the Sif
Domyn CEO Uljan Sharka: ‘We're a few quarters away from $1bn ARR’
This week on the podcast, host John Thornhill is joined by Uljan Sharka, the founder and CEO of Italian AI unicorn Domyn.Uljan migrated from his home country Albania to Italy back in 2008 — without knowing a word of Italian. He soon developed a fascination with tech, later working for Apple in Silicon Valley. In 2016, he launched Milan-based Domyn, a company developing AI models and agents for ent
European fintech has a culture problem
Sifted's fintech reporter Damisola Sulaiman makes her first Sifted podcast appearance to discuss her recent reporting on the culture at Danish fintech Pleo.Interviews with seven former employees revealed a company transformed by the leadership overhaul. They described a tougher management culture, internal friction among executives and growing internal concerns that Pleo’s product is losing g
VCs are taking on operator roles. Why?
VCs taking on interim roles at their portfolio companies is something that’s happened for a long time — as is VCs making the permanent switch to the operator side. 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 mo
Inside Mistral’s monster fundraise and Palantir-like repositioning
Mistral’s latest fundraise has got the ecosystem chattering. 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 Fu
Yann LeCun launched a new VC fund — then quit. What happened?
Last Friday, Europe’s tech ecosystem was abuzz with the news AI godfather Yann LeCun was launching an AI VC firm.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 migh
Liz Kendall: ‘I’d love to stay as UK tech secretary’
Liz Kendall was appointed as the UK's Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology just under a year ago. 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
Should the EU block the UK from its €5bn superfund?
The UK is home to the third-highest number of unicorn startups in the world. Does it make sense to lock it out of the EU's new Scaleup Fund?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
Brent Hoberman on UK tech post-Starmer: 'Are we going to tax everyone to high hell?'
While the UK's tech scene booms, political uncertainty looms.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 communi
What the Anthropic shutdown means for Europe
Late last week, the European tech ecosystem got a glimpse of a future many had worried about. 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-call
Newton Venture Program CEO Anu Adebajo on Europe’s ‘zombie funds’
This week on the Sifted Podcast, host John Thornhill is joined by Anu Adebajo, former Atomico partner and, as of February this year, CEO of the Newton Venture Program.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 ca
‘Built in Europe’: Can Balderton’s new campaign spark Europe’s vibe shift?
It’s been a curious fortnight in European tech.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 continen
Carissa Véliz on the dangers of predictive AI
In this episode of the Sifted podcast, host John Thornhill sits down with Carissa Véliz, AI ethicist, philosopher and associate professor at Oxford University to explore how algorithms and data are reshaping our lives and workplaces. 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
EQT has won the EU's €5bn superfund. Now what?
The competition that captivated European VC has concluded.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 sel
James Wise on why the Sovereign AI Unit criticism is wrong – and the one company he wishes he’d backed
This week on the Sifted Podcast, host John Thornhill is joined by James Wise, partner at Balderton Capital. Since joining the firm in 2012, James has led investments in second-hand shopping platform Depop, AI agent maker Convergence and bank payment fintech GoCardless — as well as AI frontier lab Prior Labs, which was acquired by German software giant SAP earlier this month.James discusses how the
Anthropic vs European AI
On this episode of the Sifted podcast, associate editor Freya Pratty sits down with news editor Martin Coulter, to unpack how Silicon Valley giant Anthropic is making big waves in European tech.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 busine
Hertility CEO Helen O’Neill on building a foundational model for women’s health
With over 700k women in the UK waiting for gynecological care, why is half the population still so underserved by its health system?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 techni
Wolt CEO and Slush chair Marianne Vikkula on building a superapp, leadership lessons and Slush’s secret sauce
On this episode of the Sifted podcast, host Amy Lewin is joined by Marianne Vikkula, CEO of delivery giant Wolt — one of Europe’s only ‘superapps’ — and chair of Slush, the iconic European startup conference. 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
Could Europe become a world leader in robotics?
What do hazardous inspections, fighting and cooking crêpes have in common? All three are tasks that robots are now capable (ish) of performing.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, ho
Project Europe CEO Kitty Mayo: ‘Harry Stebbings is like our head of state and I’m prime minister’
Last year, Kitty Mayo was catapulted into the public eye when she took the helm of Project Europe. The accelerator, launched to much fanfare by Harry Stebbings and about 200 entrepreneurs, has a bold mission: to support and invest in founders under the age of 25 to build Europe’s next €100bn companies.But, one year on, what’s it achieved? What’s been the most unexpected challenge? What will Kitty
Tiny VC partner Philipp Moehring on when to take money off the table
European seed rounds are ballooning. Last month Yann LeCun’s AMI Labs picked up $1bn at a $3bn valuation while David Silver’s Ineffable Intelligence was reported to be raising $1bn at a $4bn valuation. “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 s
OpenAI's Laura Modiano on hackathons, Lovable and how startups can partner with the tech giant
Within a relatively short space of time, Laura Modiano has come to play a fairly unique and valuable role in Europe’s startup scene. 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
Meet the 100 fastest-growing startups in the UK and Ireland
This week at Sifted we launched our third UK and Ireland Leaderboard — a ranking of the 100 fastest-growing startups by revenue-growth across these two countries, as well as a new research report, in partnership with law firm Marriott Harrison. 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 leas
Hélène Huby, CEO of The Exploration Company: 'Only the crazy people change the world'
Hélène Huby, founder and CEO of spacetech startup The Exploration Company, is not afraid to take risks — or fail.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 compa
SaaSpocalypse: What’s next for Europe’s SaaS scaleups and investors?
Last month, the US AI giant Anthropic released a new Claude tool for the legal industry, triggering a sell-off in publicly listed firms like Salesforce and reigniting concerns that AI-native startups could wipe out traditional SaaS giants.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 Lew
What are world models — and are they Europe’s winning AI bet?
The AI debate has been dominated by large language models used to power the likes of ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini. But could the next wave of AI look very different?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 pro
Judith Dada, general partner at Visionaries Club: 'I'm deeply troubled by what lies ahead for Europe'
Europe's in a state of emergency — but when will we all wake up and recognise that?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 inv
Creandum’s VP of talent Michelle Coventry: What it’s like being at the other end of Anton Osika’s WhatsApps
How do European startups like Lovable and Black Forest Labs find and hire top tier talent? 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 ha
The 26 startups to watch in 2026 — plus cities, sectors and investors on the up
It’s been a busy start to the year for Europe’s tech ecosystem.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 Ke
Endeavor CEO Linda Rottenberg: ‘Talent is everywhere. Opportunity and capital are not’
How do you spot Europe’s next unicorn founder before anyone else does? And where can investors still make outsized returns?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 mai
Is Europe’s AI infrastructure build-out heading for a gigafactory-style bust?
If you’ve been following the recent wave of data centre announcements across Europe, you’ll have noticed one thing: governments are suddenly obsessed with compute. Why is that — and how will France, the UK and others fare in the AI infrastructure arms race? Can startups really compete with Big Tech and is this a sector VCs can play in?This week, host Amy Lewin is joined by senior reporters Daphné
2026: The year the AI bubble bursts?
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 bi
NATO Innovation Fund chair Fiona Murray: ‘The threat from Russia is extremely real’
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 for
Bolt founder and Klarna board member Markus Villig on why Europe is sleepwalking into a 'disaster' on self-driving cars and physical AI
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 sleepwa
UK AI minister Kanishka Narayan: “The role I have is the best job going”
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 e
Nothing founder Carl Pei: ‘If you’re serious about hardware, you should spend time in China’
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
The State of European Tech 2025: Top talent, failing better and scaling faster
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-tie
How to stop the UK startup exodus, with entrepreneur and government advisor Alex Depledge
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 e
Can Europe build AI champions?
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 f
Erin Platts on SVB collapse and new role at Octopus Ventures: ‘There will always be churn’
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 scramble
How to build a $100bn company in Europe, with Sequoia's Luciana Lixandru
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 busin
Ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt: 'The AI bubble is a good thing'
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 w
Why Vinted moved into venture, with Milda Jasaitė
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 more
“90% of drone startups will fail in five years”: Europe's defence tech beyond drones
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 be
Sequoia VP talent Zoe Hewitt on what star talent looks like in 2025
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 buildin
Can anything stop Synthesia?
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 t
'Reverse acquihires are incredibly dangerous': Tech lawyer Mike Turner
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
Lovable’s Anton Osika on churn, calculating ARR and his newfound celebrity status
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 raise
How AI is transforming startups — for better or worse
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 a
Quantum Systems CEO Florian Seibel: ‘Having a dictator has advantages’
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 wit
Meet Europe’s ‘other’ defence tech unicorn: Tekever
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 Offic
‘We don’t need to raise capital to grow’: Factorial CEO Jordi Romero
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 me
The secret behind Revolut's product blitz
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 t
Supercell CEO Ilkka Paananen: "Europe doesn't need to become Silicon Valley"
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 g
Is Mistral worth $6bn?
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 h
The days of making easy money from coding are over, says former Stripe UK CTO turned founder Emma Burrows
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 w
Helsing: Challenges ahead for the defence tech unicorn
Defence tech unicorn Helsing — which raised a whopping €600m in June at a €12bn valuation — has swiftly become one of Europe's most intriguing and closely-watched startups. 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
Tackling financial fraud with AI: Qonto CEO Alexandre Prot
French fintech Qonto is a rare beast in startup land: it's actually profitable. Founded in 2016, the company provides banking and other financial services to 500,000 small businesses customers across eight European markets, helping them do everything from banking to accountancy, lending, savings, and as of recently, payment terminals.And being in the black gives it plenty of opportunities to
Vinted CEO Thomas Plantenga: ‘Vinted is not a company that’s going to exit’
Secondhand marketplace Vinted needs little introduction, with tens of millions registered users around the world who use its app to sell everything from clothes to furniture to even lava lamps.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 Pl
'Defence is where we can play all our superpowers': Visionaries Club’s Rob Lacher
This week on Startup Europe — The Sifted Podcast, Amy speaks with Rob Lacher, founding partner at early-growth VC Visionaries Club.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
What's so special about Lovable?
If you work in tech, you’ve probably heard about Lovable — the AI agent startup that's helping users make websites without writing a line of code.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 grow
'We haven’t made a pitch deck since we started the company': Granola CEO Chris Pedregal
If you’re in venture, it’s quite likely you’re already a Granola user, and if not, you’ve probably heard VCs bang on about how much they like it. 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
How to make partner in less than three years: Cherry Ventures' Dinika Mahtani
Today on Startup Europe — the Sifted Podcast, Amy is joined by Dinika Mahtani, London-based partner at European early-stage VC Cherry Ventures.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 V
Three exits and a failure: Motorway's Tom Leathes on how to disrupt big industries
On this episode of Startup Europe — The Sifted Podcast, Amy sits down with Tom Leathes, CEO and cofounder of used car marketplace Motorway. The company, founded in 2017, has helped more than half a million people sell their cars, and has raised $273m from investors like Index, Iconiq, LocalGlobe and BMW i Ventures.Tom and his two cofounders have launched four startups before Motorway, with three r
Nord's Tomas Okmanas on why he had to launch an AI startup
Tomas Okmanas is no stranger to scaling a company in a highly competitive space. When he launched NordVPN in 2012, the market was crowded with competitors, but today his company has 15m users, a $3bn valuation and a consistent stream of new features and products in development. Now, as if he wasn't busy enough, Tomas is launching a new startup — Nexos.ai, a platform that helps enterprises to
The 101 of angel investing with Jenny Tooth
To kick off 2025, we're talking "business angels": the people who take big bets investing their personal wealth into startups at their earliest stages, and without whom most companies would never get off the ground.So, how do you actually become an angel investor? How much money do you need to commit? How many investments should you be making? And how can the UK and Europe lay the g
Replacing fossil fuels: Proxima Fusion’s Francesco Sciortino on his mission to revolutionise clean energy
On 2024's last episode of the Sifted Podcast, Amy is joined by an entrepreneur on a very big mission. Munich-based startup Proxima Fusion is developing a nuclear fusion reactor — a technology which many hope could help solve the climate crisis by producing clean, cheap and abundant energy that could replace a lot of fossil fuel power.But the technical challenges are considerable.Nuclear fusio
Oura Ring founder Petteri Lahtela on fending off acquisition offers from Big Tech
Podcast host and Sifted editor Amy Lewin sits down with Petteri Lahtela, founder of smart wearable company Oura Ring, to discuss how the business has grown to making $500m in revenue, hitting profitability and selling more than 2.5m devices in the process.They discuss the big idea behind Oura, how Petteri has turned down multiple offers from buyers and how the company is well poised to pounce on t
General Catalyst’s Jeannette zu Fürstenberg on how to scale European moonshot ideas
This month we’re joined by Jeannette zu Fürstenberg, managing director at global VC firm General Catalyst and cofounder of La Famiglia VC — a Berlin-based early-stage investor which merged with General Catalyst last year.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 o
Mistral, DeepL and Kry investor Avid Larizadeh Duggan on where AI is creating value
Avid Larizadeh Duggan, senior managing director at Ontario-HQed growth-stage investor Teachers’ Venture Growth, is one of Europe’s first operator-turned-VCs.Her career in tech began with stints as a product manager at places like eBay and Skype, and has switched between operational and investing roles ever since. In 2021 she joined TVG, which is part of the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, one of t
Programmable plants and neurotech devices: Inside the UK government’s £800m “inventions” agency
This month we’re joined by Ilan Gur, CEO of the UK’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency (or ARIA), a government body set up last year to fund ambitious, breakthrough innovations.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
Climate tech’s growing pains with Pale Blue Dot’s Heidi Lindvall
She’s one of the three founders of Pale Blue Dot, a Malmö-based early-stage climate tech fund which launched in 2020 and backs pre-seed and seed-stage startups reducing and reversing the effects of climate change, in Europe and the US.Pale Blue Dot came along just ahead of the wave of climate tech funds which launched in Europe amid the tech boom. Its portfolio companies include Ember, a Scottish
