Hello Sifted reader,

In this week's Sifted pod Amy and Eleanor find out about France’s plans to save the metaverse and the startup creating a "Fifa experience for amateur players" in Germany.

Plus... how well do you know your real tech moguls from the parodies? We’ve put together a quiz comparing quotes from Spotify’s Daniel Ek with TV show Succession’s Lukas Matsson — can you tell who said what?

From the Sifted newsroom:

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Bar chart showing the top sectors in Europe for seed funding in April

📉 Seed funding in April — how much was raised, who bagged the largest round and which deals caught Sifted's eye?

🇸🇪 Sweden tops the money charts for advanced materials funding in Europe — our latest briefing tells you who's deploying the cash, the startups to watch and the trends you need to follow.

🦍 Gorillas cofounder raises €1.5m for a new virtual restaurant franchise — and another former cofounder and CTO is on the cap table too.

💰 HV Capital closes ninth fund of €700m — the German VC will write cheques of €500k-5m across 30-40 seed to Series A investments and €10m-60m across 10-15 investments up to Series C.

🔍 The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is opening a review into the implications of the development of AI foundation models — such as the language model that powers ChatGPT. It'll look into how competitive the market is and will be, what the risks are for consumers and will offer guiding principles for the future.

😬 Will London become an IPO hotspot? The UK's financial regulator is hoping so, as it unveiled planned changes to the London Stock Exchange's listing rules — but investors aren't convinced.

👩‍⚖️ Stability AI swerves copyright infringement allegations in response to Getty lawsuit — founder Emad Mostaque believes that generative AI technology is protected by “fair use”.

⚒️ After bagging half a million users and £8m from investors global recruitment platform Jobbatical changed almost every element of its business, onboarded the likes of Personio, N26 and Twilio and reached hockey-stick growth — here's what founder Karoli Hindriks learned from pivoting when times were good.

🌳 10 climate tech soonicorns to watch in 2023.

🇬🇧 11 UK startups to watch — according to Balderton, Octopus Ventures, Northzone and AlbionVC.

👀 20 Nordic startups you need to know about.

🤗 How to care for carers — Stephanie Leung, cofounder of care tech platform KareHero, shares her top tips.

Managing employee morale in a downturn — the do’s and don’ts

Operating in a downturn comes with a whole host of challenges — but boosting employee morale should remain a priority. On our Downturn Survival Guide podcast, EQT Ventures’ Polly Barnes and Instabee’s Alexis Priftis reveal their top tips for motivating your employees.

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💰 Series A+

Hackajob, a tech recruiting platform from London, has raised a $25m Series B from investors including AXA Venture Partners.
Spread, a German information platform for engineering teams, has raised a $16m Series A.

💰 Pre-seed & seed

Frantic Games, a Turkish mobile games development studio, has raised $2.4m.
Pluria, a Romanian remote and hybrid work platform, has raised $2m.
Ukrainian startup Osavul, which is developing an AI-powered solution to fight disinformation online, has raised $1m in seed funding.

💰 Undisclosed

Kreditz, a Swedish open banking platform for financial services companies, has raised €10m.
Spanish pet tech startup Barkibu, which offers pet insurance and AI-powered preventative healthcare services, has raised $5m.
Sitenna, a UK-based startup providing software for telecom companies, has raised £2.7m.

🤝 Business development manager. Do you have 2-3 years' experience selling media or events sponsorship, are you a relationship-building guru and are you hungry to win business deals? Then this is the job for you.

📝 Editorial intern. There’s a week left to apply and you don’t need any formal qualifications. We’re just after people who are curious and eager to learn — and have a keen interested in startups and tech.

📢 Commercial marketing manager. We want someone to make sure we’re selling to the most active and relevant clients in the industry. If you’ve got previous experience in a commercial marketing role and have some knowledge of the UK media advertising market, step this way.

📈 Startup Analyst — MBA summer internship. Come spend the summer with Sifted mapping the European tech ecosystem, digging into the latest market trends and whipping up investor-grade Intelligence briefings.