Hello Sifted reader,

Grab a coffee and kick back with Wise founder and super angel (150+ startups and counting!) Taavet Hinrikus, who joins Amy and Eleanor on the podcast this week. They talk all things government, investing and why founders can be really difficult to work with.

Plus, browsers are soon binning third-party cookies, but can they ever be replaced? Join our Sifted Talks on March 1 and find out how to avoid being swept away with the crumbs.

From the Sifted newsroom:

A MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR MORGAN STANLEY

Morgan Stanley wants to help underrepresented founders

Morgan Stanley’s Inclusive Ventures Lab provides valuable expertise, connections and finance — specifically for ethnic minority and women founders.

Apply here

💵 Barclays plans for its government grant — from the person who led the bank's bid.

💰 The founders who’ve set up funds. What do successful founders do when they get bored of running their companies? Some launch their own funds. We've tracked down dozens of them.

🎤 "They're fucking stubborn. But you know, you can't have it all." — Taavet Hinrikus on angels vs VC, government and finding investor-founder fit.

💻 "Godfather of European computing" backs quantum startup. Hermann Hauser, founder of British chip manufacturer ARM, has taken a board seat at Germany's planqc and invested a "seven-figure" sum.

💸 How to spend your pre-seed cash. Should founders pump funds into scaling, marketing or R&D? Sifted asked founders and investors to find out.

🚛 5 European startups transforming supply chains, according to VCs.

🤖 Sifted's generative AI coverage. Who are the key players? Who's raising the big bucks? And which investors are most active? Sifted's GenAI roundup.

💼 The lowdown on Nordic startups. Average seed funding? €3.2m. Average Series A? €20m. Top country for funding in 2022? Sweden (€22bn). Read the full breakdown here. (Sifted Pro briefing)

The Sifted team is heading to Sweden on March 8 for Sifted Sessions \ Stockholm. Join us to schmooze with the likes of Klarna, Northvolt and Kry.

📱 How to build a personal brand on LinkedIn. Give yourself a headstart; be consistent; add images to your posts... but never links — your guide to becoming a LinkedIn pro.

🪖 Who are the few ‘real’ defence investors? The updated who's who of defence investing in Europe 2023.

— the amount you'll be coughing up for a bioengineered houseplant that cleans your air.

None of the world's 10 best-funded startups are based in Europe and the region has less than 10% the number of AI unicorns the US does.

But in 2022 and 2023 more European startups have exited than over the pond.

So just how far behind is European AI?

Series A

British-Ukrainian car financing startup Carmoola raised £8.5m in Series A funding from QED Investors and debt of up to £95m, funded by NatWest.
Indoor farming startup Source, based in Amsterdam, has raised $23m.
Metomic, a London-based cybersecurity startup, has raised $20m.

Pre-seed / seed

Resalis, an Italian startup developing therapies to treat metabolic disorders, has raised €10m.
Kita, a carbon credit insurance startup, has raised £4m in seed funding.
HBOX Therapies, a startup developing developing hyperoxygenation therapies, has raised €2.3m in seed funding.
Topolytics, a Scottish startup that aggregates waste data, has raised €1.7m.
Deus Robotics, a Ukrainian warehouse robotics startup, has raised $1.5m in seed funding.
French no-code startup Ottho has raised a €1.2m angel investment.
OOPKOP, a Dutch workplace mental health platform, has raised €1m.