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One of Iberia’s leading tech conferences — South Summit — got a royal welcome this week.

King Felipe VI of Spain welcomed a delegation of 30 tech leaders from the conference to his private residence, Palacio de la Zarzuela, in a show of support for the event and the local ecosystem. Guests included the founders of Portuguese HR company Remote and Spanish jobs platform Jobandtalent, as well as investors from SoftBank and Google for Startups.

The dress code had to be relaxed from one of jackets and ties though, after few of the delegation missed the memo to pack something other than a hoodie and jeans, making for an informal atmosphere at the Palace.

Responding to questions and comments from the guests, the King pontificated on everything from the ethics of AI and brain computer interfaces, to the gender funding gap in tech. The founder of a company using methane to make diamonds even gave his majesty a cow fart-forged precious stone as a royal gift.

From the Sifted newsroom today:

• Arrivals founder has been quietly selling his shares
• Ukraine's hot new tech sector is military drones
• Altman v. food: OpenAI founder backs fermented meat startup

Zilch UK has open roles in London — from a senior ops engineer to a UX designer.

🚚 Vehicle startup Arrival promised many things. Its electric vans were going to be not only greener than petrol and diesel rivals, but also way less expensive.

They'd be “be as easy to manufacture and as cheap to buy and run in Mumbai as Manchester,” the company's founder, Russian (former) billionaire Denis Sverdlov once said. Its business model — which involved building "pop-up microfactories" around the world — would be “as scalable as McDonald's or Starbucks”.

It was an idea that brought in $518m from the likes of BlackRock, BNP Paribas and Hyundai, before the company floated on the Nasdaq with a $13bn valuation in 2021, the largest ever listing for a UK tech company at the time. 

But, eight years after it was launched, Arrival is yet to put a van on the road. And today, the company is, by its own admission, teetering on the edge of survival.

🍔 OpenAI founder Sam Altman has pitched in to the $30m Series A round for alt meat startup Uncommon, which is making cell-based "bacon" and "pork belly" products. Balderton and LowerCarbon also invested.

🛡 The European Investment Fund is setting up a €200m defence tech fund, according to a letter to fund managers seen by Sifted. It will "support private equity and venture capital funds which target investments in defence and security technologies having dual-use applications" — as in, they have civilian use cases too. Expect an announcement at the end of this month.

✈️ Sustainable jet fuel startup raises $23m. Oxccu, an Oxford University spinout working on developing e-fuels made by capturing CO2 with hydrogen, raised from investors including United Airlines, oil majors Aramco Ventures and Eni and VCs Clean Energy Ventures and Kiko Ventures. But can the fuel actually make flying green?

Want to get more than 120,000 eyeballs on your product? We've got sponsorship space for you in July. Get in touch here.

🤖 “The fairy would get frustrated, the kids got frustrated. It was just a mess.” Hamburg-based Oxolo looked set to crash when its AI fairy avatar failed to account for one problem: the AI couldn't understand kids. But after pivoting to AI-made ecommerce videos instead, it's turning heads in VC land.

🇺🇦 Ukraine's hot new tech sector: military drones. Readily available government grants and contracts means business is booming for Ukrainian drone-building companies. But what will happen when the war is over?

💻 13 edtech startups to watch, according to VCs

👥 What's a chief of staff — and does your startup need one? Zed Tarar, chief of staff at Builder.ai, shares his tips.  

➡️ IPO 101: how to prepare to go public. 

🤝 How to nail customer interviews — Murat Yiğen, product lead at delivery company Wolt, shares his tips.

Generative AI, quantum computing and spacetech (to name a few) — all deeptech sectors that are having a moment. Meet five of the leading early-stage startups in the sector on June 27 at our subscriber-exclusive pitch event, where they’ll show off their cutting-edge tech and business models.

💰 Series A+

• SustainCERT, a Luxembourg-based climate impact verification service, has raised a $37m Series B round. 
• France's Ringover, which provides cloud communications, has closed a €20m Series B round from Orange Ventures, Bpifrance and Expedition Growth Capital.
• Life insurance startup Life5, formerly known as Getlife, has secured €10.7m in Series A funding. 

• Insify, a Netherlands-based insurance provider for small and medium businesses, has added an additional €10m to its Series A round from investors like Munich Re Ventures and Accel, to bring its total Series A funding to €25m.

• Foodomarket, a UK-based B2B food marketplace for the hospitality industry, has raised £9.5m in Series A funding led by Alven Capita. 

• Source.ag, a Dutch startup using AI to help greenhouses grow climate-resilient food, has raised an additional $4m in Series A funding, bringing its total to $27m. 

💰 Pre-seed and seed

• Spanish startup Graphext, an interface to help teams build AI-powered predictive models, has drummed up an additional $4.6m in seed funding, bringing its total round to $7m. 

💰 Undisclosed

• Payrail, a platform to help companies build and manage more stable global payment services, has raised $14.4m from EQT Ventures, General Catalyst, Andreessen Horowitz and HV Capital. 
• Smiler, a Dutch platform connecting photographers with visitors to tourist hotspots, has raised $8.5m from Octopus Ventures. 
• Fazla, a Turkish company that reduces supply chain waste by recycling surplus products, has raised $6m.
• Bucket, a Danish platform for product teams to launch new features, has raised $5.7m from investors including Project A and Creandum.

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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