Hello Sifted reader,

Founders and startup operators: we need you for our latest community project. After a bumpy 2022 in European tech, we want to know what your predictions for 2023 are.

Are you concerned about recruiting top talent? Is hitting profitability your number one headache? Do you think fundraising is going to get trickier? Take our (anonymous) five-minute survey and let us know. We'll publish a piece featuring the results in the new year.

Also from the Sifted newsroom:

🤔 The market for IPOs is dead — or is it? The stock prices of Europe's tech darlings have fallen off a cliff this year. Swedish software company Sinch and music platform Spotify have seen their share prices plummet, and telehealth giant Babylon's stocks have dropped so far the company was in danger of being delisted by the New York Stock Exchange.

But not everyone's been put off the public markets. Sifted spoke to three startups which have IPO'd in the last month or are planning to soon, to find out why.

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😎 N26 alumni have created more startups than those from Wise, Revolut and Klarna. That's according to a new report by VC firm Accel and data platform Dealroom — which analysed over 300 unicorns in Europe and Israel. Employees from 203 of them have created 1,018 new startups between them. Can you guess which scaleups are the most prolific founder factories — and which cities the startup flywheel is spinning fastest in?

📈 What happens to stock options if you’re laid off? Options are a great way for startups to attract top talent, but what happens to those shares if you leave or are laid off? Sifted spoke to the experts to find out everything you need to know.

🏦 The fintech rounds of 2022 featuring female founders. Women make up just 6.5% of all fintech founders and a third of the top management positions at Europe's neobanks. But despite the uneven landscape, a big chunk of the most high-profile fintech rounds this year went to female-founded startups. Here are the ones you should know.

🙈 Despite the NFT implosion, artists still believe. Amid a global crypto crash NFTs aren't the hot tickets they once were. But artists still have hope — and some say they haven’t found any other income streams as valuable as NFTs. Here's why cartoon monkeys (might) be here to stay.

💰 The UK’s most active impact investor has a fresh £50m to deploy. UK innovation foundation Nesta has launched a new fund to back early-stage impact startups. Half the money will be spent on direct investments, with it writing cheques between £500k and £1m, and the other on its startup incubator Mission Studio, a joint venture with company builder Founders Factory.

📲 Want to raise more cash for your startup? Post on LinkedIn. That's according to new research, which suggests the most-followed CEOs on Twitter and LinkedIn raise 20% more cash than their more social media shy counterparts.

Buckle up for a financial storm: Here’s how to stay safe. The economic downturn is in full swing with a recession just over the horizon — so what impact will this have on the fintech sector? Join our free Sifted Talk as our panel of experts from Anthemis Group, Enfuce, Plaid and a super exciting stealth startup will dive into the future of fintech and share how to navigate a financial storm.

Join us virtually on December 7.

Every week, editor Amy Lewin and deputy editor Eleanor Warnock step into the Sifted studio to get down with all the gossip, news and cool stuff happening in startup Europe. In the latest episode, they hear about what the crypto crash means for European startups, find out how the Theranos scandal has impacted home care and dig into mayhem at tech conference Slush.

Like the show? Why not check out our one-on-one interview specials:

Index Ventures' partner Danny Rimer on crypto, layoffs, inflation pay rises and irrational founders.
Ready Player Me's Timmu Tõke on the metaverse, identity and advice for Mark Zuckerberg.
EQT Growth partner Carolina Brochado on the advice she's giving portfolio companies now and the craziest thing she did to win a deal (which she didn’t ultimately win).