Hello Sifted reader,

If you're a founder, how often are you expected to prioritise your wellbeing over work? If you're a VC, are you putting pressure on your portfolio companies to be “on” at all times and grind out red-eye shifts?

According to new research by VC Balderton on startup working culture (which we get into below), your answer is likely "hardly ever" and "yes".

From the Sifted newsroom today:

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💰 Notion Capital closes its fifth fund at €300m and appoints new female GP. The UK-based early-stage SaaS and fintech investor will make around 20 deals, typically at Series A. Tickets normally range between €3m-10m, but can reach €20m.

🚗 Bolt hires ex-Revolut CFO as new finance chief. Mikko Salovaara, who quit the neobank just two months ago for "personal reasons", has joined the mobility company as it aims to hit profitability in the next 12 months, before setting sights on an IPO.

🩺 Daniel Ek’s Neko Health raises €60m Series A. Lakestar led the round for the Spotify founder's body-scanning healthtech, with participation from Atomico and General Catalyst. It plans to use the cash to expand across Europe.

💭 82% of founders think that working long hours is an inevitable part of the job — and 71% say there's an expectation to prioritise work over their wellbeing.

That's according to new research from VC firm Balderton, which surveyed 230 founders to highlight attitudes towards startup working culture. Other findings include:

84% feel there is an expectation that entrepreneurs must always work long hours to be successful.
But 83% of founders feel that the quantity of time spent at work doesn't always lead to success: at some point, they reckon there are diminishing returns that come from just working more.
90% agree that entrepreneurs put pressure on themselves to work long hours, and 57% work long hours most or almost all of the time.
51% of respondents say that investors or board members expect founders to always be available.
81% think that VCs can help to encourage a culture where entrepreneurs look after their wellbeing for the benefit of the company.

🔭 European deeptechs can now get a slice of CERN. A new programme from the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, called CERN Venture Connect, is looking for 10-20 deeptech startups at Series A or below to create new businesses based on everything from lasers and cryogenics to (if you have a good enough use case) its 27km-long Large Hadron Collider.

🚙 BlaBlaCar's route to success. The French mobility unicorn was nearly derailed by a botched international expansion, a risky M&A strategy and betting big on the Russian market before being undercut by the Ukraine war. But after all that it's arrived at an unlikely destination — revenues doubled in 2022, it’s on track to have a positive Ebitda this year and the company is raising expectations that it could be the global tech champion Europe desperately craves.

🔔 WeWork's ex-CMO returns to Denmark to bag the IPO he couldn't with Adam Neumann. After 20 years in the US, Robin Daniels is returning home to take up the chief business and product officer role at Danish scaleup LMS365 — which has the goal of going public in the next few years.

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Keeping it in the family — what exactly are family offices? And what can they offer a startup?

🤖 Why Rishi Sunak's AI summit can't miss the boat. Keeping the conversation between an "elite group of household names" like OpenAI and Google won't do anything for the UK's ambitions of becoming an AI superpower — to really move the needle founders need to be part of the conversation, argues Christopher Brennan, cofounder of Overtone.

☀️ Solar panels to keep your gadgets fully charged. Swedish startup Exeger has designed bendable solar strips that can be attached to devices like headphones and portable speakers — and after taking a bruising during Covid, the company now has global aspirations.

🌳 Europe's 15 fastest-growing climate tech startups.

🌎 International expansion 101 — got your sights set on world domination? Here's what you should know before dipping your toes into new markets.

➡️ Action vs measurement: Why startups need concrete solutions to address new ESG laws. (Sponsored by Microsoft Entrepreneurship for Positive Impact)

🧬 9 biomanufacturing startups to watch, according to VCs.

Startups highlighted included:

♻️ The UK's FabricNano, which is building a cell-free way of manufacturing alternatives to fossil fuel-based plastics, chemicals and fabrics.
🍄 German startup Mushlabs, which uses mycelium, the root structure of mushrooms, to create plant-based meat alternatives.
🧬 UK-based Eden Bio, a machine learning platform for precision fermentation companies to create proteins.

Read the full list here.

B2B SaaS rising 100 — our latest ranking

We’ve listed 100 B2B SaaS startups across Europe and Israel that will likely join the ranks of the $1bn-plus valuation startups. Our cohort is backed by more than 860 investors, angels and accelerators.

Who made the cut?

💰 Series A+

Germany's EGYM, a platform for health and fitness businesses to access gymtech, software and services, has raised a $225m Series F led by US-based Affinity Partners.
Belgian embedded insurance provider Qover has drummed up $30m in Series C funding from Kreos Capital, Anthemis, Alven and Zurich Global Ventures.
German startup ChargeX, which provides charging points for electric vehicles, has raised a €11.5m Series B from UVC Partners.

💰 Pre-seed and seed

Germany-based Numarics, which offers an AI-powered business accounting platform, has secured €10.2m in seed funding.
Kinnu, a UK-based learning platform powered by AI, has raised £5.1m in seed funding led by LocalGlobe and Cavalry Ventures.
Eaze, a German cognitive behavioural therapy app for sleep coaching, has raised €1.7m is pre-seed funding led by Redstone and EnjoyVenture.
Belgian menstrual health startup Guud has raised €1.7m in seed funding.
ChipFlow, a UK-based startup building software to help businesses design custom semiconductors, has secured €1.4m in a pre-seed round from Fontinalis Partners, Fuel Ventures, InMotion Ventures and APX.

💰 Undisclosed

Quantum Delta NL, an initiative to boost the quantum ecosystem in the Netherlands, has raised €60.2m from The National Growth Fund.
UK-based uMed, a platform connecting clinical researchers with patients through GPs, has raised £9.8m.
Reyedar, a Dutch startup developing a new method to diagnose age-related degenerative diseases like Parkinson's, has secured €3m.
UK-based Distil.ai, a data platform for e-commerce businesses to analyse customer behaviour and target marketing, has raised £1.1m led by Mercia Ventures.