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Hi Sifted Reader,

The dust has settled on our first ever Sifted Sessions in Tallinn — yesterday we brought together a former president, the region's top founders and a host of unicorns. If you missed it, don't worry: we’re running more events across Europe this year, so keep your eyes peeled. 

Meanwhile, our reporter Miriam Partington has been brunching with Cindy Gallop — and talking all about sex. Plus...

• Meet the creator of Elon Musk's favourite video game 
• April's hottest seed investments
• How to grow ... without a growth team

— Amy, fintech reporter & Tom, digital editor

When Cindy Gallop said the words “come on my face” in a TED Talk about the dangers of online porn in 2009, the internet erupted.

Since then, the founder and CEO of so-called social sex site Make Love Not Porn has been building a business in an area investors still shy away from — it's only raised $3m in 13 years. 

Zendesk for Startups has the resources you need to grow your startup — from customer support to a sales CRM — and it’s free for six months!

Read more and apply here. 

Although April was a month of fewer rounds for Europe's seed-stage companies, the money kept on flowing with a number of big cheques.

The UK dominated, followed by Germany and France — the three countries typically rake in the top seed investments each month.

But which two countries did better than usual?

Funnily enough, Tesla CEO Elon Musk's favourite video game is all about world domination. 

It's called Polytopia, is designed in a tiny studio in Stockholm and has more than 600k monthly users. 

Tim Smith sat down with Felix Ekenstam, the game’s creator, to talk designing a smash-hit game.

But why did he never really want to grow the team?

Series A funding has skyrocketed — the average global Series A round has increased from less than $6m to more than $18m over the past decade.

From the focus on numbers to the importance of deeper relationships with investors, it's not just the amount of capital that has changed in that time. 

Find out how Series A has changed here.   

According to Napala Pratini, cofounder of healthtech Habitual, growth is an "everyone thing" rather than something that can be passed off to a single person or team. 

From bagging yourself a good adviser to trying not to take slower growth personally, there are things you can do to make growth easier and more collaborative, without hiring a growth team.  

Here are Pratini's 5 golden tips. 

What are the signs your product build isn’t quite right? In our next Sifted Talks, we ask the experts how to strategise and evolve to master the art of the pivot.

See you on May 11.

 💰 A new early-stage venture fund comes to Germany. It's called 10x Founders, has just launched with €160m and will invest in pre-seed to Series A startups in Europe. It's also backed by 200 entrepreneurs who together have invested in 300 startups over the last decade, including DeliveryHero, TIER and Volocopter.

💸 Kevin scores a $65m Series A. The Lithuanian fintech that provides advanced A2A (account-to-account) payment infrastructure to replace costly card transactions bagged some serious funding in a round led by Accel, with participation from Eurazeo and all existing investors.  

🤑 Scalapay bags another $27m. It's an extension on the fintech's $497m Series B fundraising round back in February — which made it Italy's first unicorn — and it's come courtesy of Poste Italiane, one of the largest payment card issuers in Europe.

🏦 Meet Klarna's little brother, B2B BNPL. We've all come to know the consumer-facing buy now, pay later sector pretty well. But what happens when you apply the concept to businesses? High returns, that's what. But it's not without its risks: we spoke to the new fintechs in the space and their investors to find out what it takes to succeed. 

📗 The iPhone inventor tells you how to make things worth making. Tony Fadell — the engineer who helped invent the iPhone — has a new book out. Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making draws on his more than 30 years of experience in leadership, design, startups, decision-making and mentorship at companies like Apple and Google, and sounds like a startup founders' dream. He recently spoke to Sifted about his deeptech scouting mission and why he won't be investing in the metaverse. 

Amy O'Brien
Fintech Reporter

Get in touch with her at amyobrien@sifted.eu
Or @Amy_EOBrien

Tom Nugent

Digital Editor

Get in touch with him at tomnugent@sifted.eu 
Or @TJNugent92

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