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When it launched a decade ago, French search engine Qwant aimed to offer an alternative to Google that would protect users’ privacy and promote European tech sovereignty. Government officials were all over it, showering the company with political support and more than €50m in public funds. 

But the good times didn't last. Losses started mounting up, and critics began to raise questions over its cosy ties to officials and its technical dependence on US and Chinese tech giants. 

With just €10.5m in the bank as of July 2022 and auditors warning that it was running out of money to cover its debts and expenses, it embarked on a desperate attempt to raise more capital.

That led to a new plot twist: one of France’s most notable entrepreneurs, OVHcloud founder Octave Klaba, announced he wanted to acquire it, and he's got plans to take on Google's entire suite of online services.

Also from the Sifted newsroom:

• How to deal with the emotional cost of scaling a startup
• 45% of European startups still have no female board members
• The quiet offshore fund used by Abramovich to back UK tech 

We listed 100 B2B SaaS companies from across Europe and Israel that we think are likely to earn $1bn+ in valuations. See who made the cut in our new report — launching today.

That's the percentage of European startups that still have no female board members, according to a new report by ESG_VC — an initiative helping startups to measure and improve their ESG performance — and the British Venture Capital Association.

So why is startup Europe still a boys' club — and what has to happen to move the needle on progress? 

Who is he? Russian billionaire and ex-owner of English football club Chelsea, Roman Abramovich, who's currently sanctioned by the UK government.

Why does he matter? Abramovich has long been described as a backer of Moscow-based firm Impulse VC, which rarely pops up visibly on cap tables and so has been hard to trace. The exact nature of Abramovich’s link to the firm was also never spelled out.

Why is he in the news? Documents leaked from Cypriot law firm Meritservus Ltd and seen by Sifted have revealed the name under which Abramovich's money has actually flowed: a British Virgin Islands-based entity called Innes Worldwide Holdings Limited, of which he was named as the ultimate beneficiary. In the weeks following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Abramovich transferred assets out of his direct ownership to protect them from sanctions. Sifted was able to identify Innes as a shareholder in four UK companies previously listed as Impulse investments in press releases or on its website. 

Finom, Floww, London Stock Exchange and Perivan have joined the line-up! They’re joining partners such as Latham & Watkins, Morgan Stanley and BT — make sure you get your ticket to meet them at Sifted Summit this October 4-5 at Magazine, London.

📲 If you're sick of being hit by extortionate roaming fees while you travel, German entrepreneur Hakan Koç has something for you. His new venture Betterroaming.com is aiming to make using your phone abroad cheaper with eSIMs, selling affordable roaming plans that work in 115 countries.

🎢 How to navigate the emotional cost of scaling a startup — Jing Ouyang, founder of Patchwork Health, shares his tips.

🏥 12 medical device startups to watch, according to VCs.

🦄 Europe's 2023 soonicorns. French business planning software maker Pigment tops the list of startups on the brink of crossing the $1bn threshold — have a gander at the full list here.

💰 Series A+ 

• France's Carthera — a Sorbonne University spinout building a medical device to treat a range of brain disorders — has bagged €37.5m in Series B funding.
• Dexory, a UK startup building autonomous robots for warehouse management, has secured $19m in Series A funding led by Atomico.
• Algorithmiq, which uses quantum computing to speed up the drug discovery proof-of-concept process, has raised a €13.7m Series A led by Inventure VC.  
• Czech startup Resistant AI, which uses AI and machine learning to offer financial crime protection for financial services, has raised an additional $11m in Series A funding from Notion Capital, bringing its total round to $27.6m.
• SuperScale, a UK-based platform offering resources to help the games industry grow revenue, has raised $5.4m in Series A funding.

💰 Pre-seed and seed

• UK startup Upp, which uses AI and machine learning to produce digital ecommerce marketing, has raised $10m in seed funding.
• German startup Colonia Technologies, which offers a B2B sharing platform for commercial vehicles, has announced a €6m seed round led by Octopus Ventures.  

• French startup Dust, which is using generative AI to build the operating system for smart teams, has raised €5m in seed funding led by Sequoia, with participation from XYZ, GG1, AIGrant, Connect Ventures, Motier VC, Remote First, Tiny Supercomputer and Seedcamp.

• Germany's hema.to, which is developing a way to use blood data analysis to personalise treatments, has announced a €3.6m seed round. 

• UK-based 32Co, which connects general doctors with specialist clinicians to bring local expertise to patients, has raised £2.2m in seed funding from Balderton.

• Finland's Steady Energy, which makes nuclear reactor-powered heating plants for residential use, has raised €2m in seed funding. 

• AIRMO, a German startup building space satellites to measure greenhouse gas emissions, has raised €5.2m in pre-seed funding.

• Employee management platform Jet HR, based in Italy, has secured €4.7m in pre-seed funding.

• The UK's carbon capture startup Greenlyte Carbon Technologies has secured an additional €4.5m in pre-seed funding, bringing its total funding to €8m. 

• Quantum battery maker Planckian, from Italy, has raised more than €2.7m in pre-seed funding. 

💰 Undisclosed 

• Switzerland's DePoly, which recycles plastics into raw materials, has raised $13.8m.  

Get the best of the rest of Sifted's coverage of European tech dropped into your inbox:

💳 Fintech — Every Tuesday Amy O’Brien drops the week's most exciting fintech scoops, hot deals and stats. Sign up here.

🛠️ Startup Life — Every Wednesday Miriam Partington and Anisah Osman Britton tell you how (and how not) to run a business. Sign up here.

🌴 Climate Tech — Every Thursday Freya Pratty shares where the money’s going, how the rules are changing and who the ones to watch are in Europe’s greenest sector. Sign up here.

🗣️ Up Round — Every Friday Amy Lewin and Eleanor Warnock give you a weekly snapshot of the latest VC funds, people moves, investing trends and industry goss. Sign up here.

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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