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A few weeks ago Alex Karp, the combative, whirly-haired CEO of US data giant Palantir, delivered a few blunt truths to a European audience in The Hague. If Europe wanted to defend its societal values, preserve its sovereignty and remain relevant, he said, it finally had to “get serious” about tech. “If you want a fair society you’re going to need some modicum of a better software culture.” 

Uncomfortable though it is to hear, Karp is right. Europe has made extraordinary progress over the past decade in building a flourishing startup ecosystem. But, as we all know, Europe’s weakness remains its inability to turn promising national and regional players into world champions. That’s where the seriousness is required.

The answers are obvious, if elusive. The EU needs to turn the single market from a rhetorical talking point into a functioning daily reality, enabling startups to sell to 447m people without friction. National governments must ease the cost of doing business and tweak procurement policies to favour home-grown startups. And Europe’s pension funds, which hold more than €9.7tn in assets, should allocate a bigger share to growth capital.

As a report last week from the industry body for German PE and VC showed, it is absurd that North American pension funds are bigger investors in German startups than Germany’s own pension funds.

Startups battling the current tech downturn can’t do much to change macro policy in Europe. But we can all draw insights and inspiration from each other, as we hope to do at our Sifted event in Berlin on Thursday. Please come and join us; we promise there will be some serious conversation about European tech. 

— John Thornhill, founder and editorial director

Together with top AI researchers and leading philosophers, 300 guests of the Sana AI Summit Stockholm on May 31 will find out. There's now a waitlist for physical seats, but all registered guests will receive recordings.

🇬🇧 The UK government has requested a meeting with Revolut in the "next couple of weeks" — that's as the neobank awaits a decision from the regulator on its banking licence application. A person familiar with the matter told Sifted CEO Nik Storonsky and chairman of the board, Martin Gilbert, will most likely be the representatives. 

💸 Heartfelt announces first close of new €80m fund. The German fund has been launched by the managers of APX, a Berlin-based fund backed by publisher Axel Springer and Porsche — it has €40m so far, will write €100k cheques at the earliest stage and will look to back a startup a week. 

🦷 Patient21 raises healthtech's biggest round of 2023. The German scaleup, which offers dentistry software, drummed up a €100m Series C made up of 70% equity and 30% debt. 

🇷🇴 FlowX.ai raises Romania’s biggest ever Series A. The startup, which helps big companies digitise internal processes, secured $35m in a round led by London-based VC Dawn Capital.

— but progress is (slowly) being made. That's according to a new report by executive search service Erevena, which also looked into the gender split of board chairs, compensation and ethnic diversity.

2022 saw funding for productivity startups dip compared to the year before. But the cash raised still far outstrips the total for any year prior to 2021 — Sifted's latest Briefing digs into the startups shaping the future of work, including an early-stage market map, most active VCs and notable angels.

🌊 A truckload of CEE growth-stage companies are about to hit the road in search of more moolah — and that means local VCs are trying to pull together funds big enough to back them, or risk missing out. 

🤑 Hopin's founder is richer than Ed Sheeran — but who else from European tech made the 2023 Sunday Times Rich List?

🔧 How to build a scalable company with no-code tools — Murvah Iqbal, founder of parcel delivery service Hived, shares her top tips.

😋 Hungry for the food of the future? From volcano microbes that can make alternative proteins to cacao-free chocolate, here are the highlights from the latest episode of the Sifted Podcast.

Sifted’s DACH event of the year is this week!

We’re connecting more than 300 DACH startups, investors and operators on Thursday to explore how they’re navigating an era of tech reset. On the guest list: Enpal, Formo, Babbel, Ada Health, EQT Ventures and more — you won’t want to miss this one.

There's still time to register — book now.

Navigating pre-seed funding in 2023

Hear from Pocketlaw and Debite on May 24 as they explore the latest fundraising options and how to find the right investors for your startup.

RSVP for free.

Sadia Nowshin

Editorial Assistant

Get in touch with her at

sadia@sifted.eu

She tweets from 

@sadianowshin_

Tom Nugent

Digital Editor

Get in touch with him at

tom@sifted.eu

He tweets from 

@TJNugent92

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