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Hi there Sifted reader,

Summer holidays are over and the rain has returned... but so have juicy startup news and funding scoops. Keep 'em coming.

This week, we covered early Revolut employee Alan Chang's $78m raise for his new renewable energy startup and NFT trading game Sorare's massive NBA deal. (Hear those stories discussed on the latest episode of the Sifted pod too.) 

Also from the Sifted newsroom:

• Cazoo exits EU and makes more layoffs
• Startups harnessing the power of algae
• Norwegian startups to watch
• How to write the perfect follow-up email

— Kai, reporter & Amy, editor

The used car marketplace has announced it's pulling out of Spain, Germany, France and Italy, as losses hit £243m for the first six months of 2022 — double what they were the six months before.

Cazoo will lay off 750 staff — in addition to the 750 job losses the company announced in June — and now focus solely on the UK market.

Freya Pratty has the story.

Revenue leak is the loss of revenue that results from breakdowns in your revenue process. See what factors contribute to your leak and how much you stand to lose with Clari’s revenue leak assessment.

Find out here.

The algae market is expected to be worth $8.3bn by 2028 — and don't some startups and investors know it.

Why? Because the slimy green stuff is really good at absorbing CO₂, grows super fast and can be used to produce everything from biofuels to food.

Sifted looks at three startups doing very cool things with algae.

You've met Siri and Alexa. Now meet Scarlett — an AI assistant that its producers, Barcelona- and London-based games startup Go Games, say is far better than any other on the market.

And you know what? After testing all the assistants out with some pretty tricky questions, we think we agree.

Here's why.

It can be pretty frustrating when you send over an email and pitch deck to a VC you want to work with and you hear nothing back from them.

So how should founders follow up on emails to VCs — and when should you cut your losses and move on?

Here are the dos and don'ts of follow-ups.

The familiarity of home soil is a comfort blanket for all businesses. But to strategically and sustainably grow, is it time to take the leap across borders? We’ll ask the experts how to go global on September 21.

Join our upcoming Sifted Talks.

🧀 Revolut big cheese raises $78m. Alan Chang, the neobank's third employee and ex-chief revenue officer, and Charles Orr — another early team member — have raised a huge first funding round for their renewable energy company Tesseract. The round was led by Balderton and Lakestar, and the startup says it wants to disrupt the energy sector the way neobanks shook up banking.

🏀 Sorare lands huge NBA deal as it continues US expansion. The blockchain-based fantasy sports game's newest partnership with the National Basketball Association opens it up to two billion basketball fans worldwide, and marks its third deal with a major US sports league. 

🇳🇴 10 Norwegian startups to watch. It's not (so far!) been an extremely active tech sector — despite producing unicorns like grocery delivery startup Oda and tablet manufacturer Remarkable — but experts tell us there's a new generation of Norwegian startups worth getting to know. Meet them here.

💰 How to prepare for an acquisition. Sifted spoke to Timothy Armoo — who sold his influencer business Fanbytes for an undisclosed eight-figure sum — to get his hot take on getting ready to be acquired. Here's what you need to consider.

📲 The startup helping over 1m disabled people go online. 1bn people in the world live with some form of disability — but there's very little accommodation made for them in the online world. That's where French startup FACIL’iti comes in with its mission to make the internet accessible to all. Éanna Kelly finds out how.

💸 The slow rise of intersectional VC — and why it’s important. $100bn was raised by European startups in 2021, a record year for funding, but women founders picked up just 1.1% of that. So how can that huge gap be closed? Sifted spoke to diverse founders and investment firm Morgan Stanley to find out. (Sponsored by Morgan Stanley.)

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 at @amyrlewin

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