Hello Sifted reader,

With Amy away at climate tech conference HackSummit in Switzerland this week, Tim stepped in to host the Sifted pod alongside Eleanor. They're joined by the "father of Alexa" and find out how generative AI is impacting healthcare.

Plus... athlete, connector or intellectual — which type of VC are you?

Also from the Sifted newsroom today:

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Bar and line chart showing the number of deals and total funding for climate fintechs in several European countries so far this year.

📈 Solar energy is having its time in the sun. Investment in the sector increased from $1.9bn in 2021 to $2.1bn in 2022, and solar energy usage last year rose 25% across the EU as installation costs came down. The latest Sifted Briefing digs into the leading countries for solar funding, the startups to watch and the most active investors.

📉 Vertical farms and plant-based meats are out of vogue, however. Europe’s sustainable food startups brought in a record level of funding last year — $1.9bn — but funding is shifting from once much-hyped vertical farms and plant-based meats to cell-based alt meats and precision agriculture.

Who is he?

William Tunstall-Pedoe — the "father of Alexa"

What's he known for?
Tunstall-Pedoe founded AI startup Evi, which he sold to Amazon in 2013 and now powers the tech giant's voice assistant Alexa.

What is he doing now? Running AI startup UnlikelyAI, which raised $20m last year in a round led by Octopus Ventures and Amadeus Capital Partners. The startup is still in stealth, so he can't share what it's actually building. He chatted to Sifted about generative AI concerns, god-like artificial general intelligence and what he’s working on now.

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❌ Revolut CFO quits — Mikko Salovaara's resignation follows a string of senior departures from the neobank’s UK team last year. He says the decision was down to "personal reasons".

💬 "In the fintech space, if any company that raised in 2021 were to raise next week, I’d say the market standard right now is a 50% to 70% devaluation" — Eric Demuth, the CEO of Austrian crypto trading platform Bitpanda, thinks some fintechs are currently clinging on to price tags double what they're actually worth.

👉 12 female-founded startups to watch, according to VCs.

🏥 12 startups tackling cancer to watch, according to VCs from Verve Ventures, MMC Ventures, High-Tech Gründerfonds and Sofinnova Partners.

🤝 How to hire neurodiverse talent — Joseph Williams, cofounder and CEO of inclusive recruitment platform Clu, shares his top tips.

💳 As inflation spikes, where can credit cards innovate next? (Sponsored by Paymentology.)

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💰 Series A+

DiogenX, a French biotech developing a treatment for diabetes, has raised €27.5m in Series A funding.
Endurosat, a Bulgarian spacetech startup developing satellites, has raised $10m in Series A funding.
Delta Diagnostics, a Dutch microchip maker, has raised a €5.3m Series A.

💰 Pre-seed & seed

Saha Robotik, a Turkish robot last-mile delivery startup, has raised $3m.
Polyloop.io, a Belfast-based startup that's created a digital tool to improve data-driven decision making in the public sector, has raised £1.3m.
Thrive Beer, a Belgian company that's developed a "sports recovery beer", has raised €1m.

💰 Undisclosed

ecoRobotix, a Swiss agritech startup providing robotic solutions to farmers, has raised $48.3m.
Voltfang, a German startup developing energy storage solutions for residential homes, has raised €5m.
Doublepoint, a Finnish startup building touch-based interfaces for smartwatches, has raised $3.3m.