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Hi Sifted reader,

Has your mental health ever suffered because of work? If the answer's yes, you're in the vast majority: in our latest community survey 87% of startup employees said their mental health had been impacted while working at a startup, and less than half felt supported.

Also from the Sifted newsroom:

• Tom Blomfield's angel investments: listed
• Europe's most active VCs at seed-stage
• How startup leaders can offer period support to staff

— Kai, reporter & Amy, editor

87% of startup employees say that working at a startup has negatively impacted their mental health, and less than half feel like they're supported, according to Sifted's latest community survey.

So why's the situation so bad? From burnout to bullying, our readers shared their experiences.

Here are their stories.

While pre-seed and seed funding might've dipped in recent times as a result of the downturn, the market's far from dried up.

New seed funds are emerging and across Europe VCs still have buckets of cash left in their coffers from the heady fundraising days of 2021.

So which investors have been most active at seed-stage (so far) in 2022?

90% of people experience cramps on their period and 75% experience premenstrual dysphoria — a condition that stops serotonin reaching the brain. It's no wonder that without support, even the highest performers struggle.

So how can startup leaders help?

Economic slowdowns are inevitable — so with funding harder to come by, how can you maintain growth and leverage the unexpected opportunities that come to light?

Find out on Aug 31.

Since parting ways with Monzo last year, fintech's golden boy Tom Blomfield has been busy.

Over the last 12 months he's backed 26 startups, in sectors ranging from fintech and healthtech to edtech and deeptech. So we thought it was high time we rounded them all up.

Here's where Blomfield's putting his money.

🇺🇦 90% of Ukrainian startups need financial support to survive the war. And nearly half of them need it in the next three months, a new report by the country's startup association TechUkraine found. While the IT sector remarkably continues to grow, the majority of the country's startups are beginning to run out of fuel, and 37% of teams have reduced in size since Russia's invasion. 

🍃 The 36 most promising impact startups in Europe. Swedish impact VC and coworking space Norrsken boiled down more than 500 nominations to create a top 100 — 36 of which are from Europe. It features an eclectic mix of companies, from major multinationals to shiny new startups. Here's who made the cut.

💰 The story of one startup’s "gruelling" road to acquisition. It's champagne time at rental platform Fat Llama after its acquisition by Swedish rival Hygglo went through. But the road to exit was far from easy, following two sets of acquisition processes over the last 18 months, including one that fell through days before completion. Here's how they finally got to the finish line.

🧐 Running a corporate venture client unit as a startup founder. Head of logistics company Maersk's venture client unit Camilla Ley Valentin is a former founder who knows a thing or two about the challenges of working with slow-moving corporates. Here's how she's using that experience to improve the process.

Kai Nicol-Schwarz

Reporter

Get in touch with him at kai@sifted.eu 
Or @NicolSchwarzK

Amy Lewin

Editor 

Get in touch with her at amy@sifted.eu
Or tweeting @amyrlewin

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