Good morning Sifted reader,

It has been a slow year for startups. Now we’re all back to school, will things start picking up? Or will we simply see more startups run out of runway and more VCs struggle to raise funds?

I’ll be getting answers — or at least, smart opinions — on those topics this Thursday, when Hussein Kanji, partner at Hoxton Ventures, joins me for a 30-minute conversation over lunchtime. It’ll be hosted online, for free, so listen in!

Elsewhere:

– Amy Lewin, editor

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Back in the early 2000s, three enthusiastic business school students had an idea.

They were invited to pitch their company, then called Kreditor, to hundreds of their university’s partners. And they were told, like so many other entrepreneurs, that their business “would never make any money”.

Fast-forward two decades and the founders have stopped wearing grey suits and slicking back their hair — and their startup, now called Klarna, has made a whole lot of money.

It’s also inspired new generations of students to think about starting companies, rather than taking the well-trodden path into banking or management consulting — and turned their university, the Stockholm School of Economics, into quite the startup factory.

🌱 Is it all over for vertical farming startups? In 2020, vertical farming startups attracted £500m in VC funding. But the industry has struggled: Sifted has found at least 15 European vertical farming startups that have gone kaput in the past few years. What went wrong?

⛵️ I was stuck on a boat for 48 hours with dozens of VCs and founders. Here’s what happened when Sifted’s deputy editor Eleanor spent a weekend sailing from Copenhagen to Oslo — and wasn’t allowed to ask what anyone did for a job.

🛁 23 wellbeing hacks that founders and VCs swear by. From practising gratitude to scrapping screens before bedtime, here’s how to cope with the stress of the startup scene.

👩‍💼 How to hire a chief marketing officer. Lauren Berkemeyer, CMO at insurtech YuLife, shares her top tips.

📑 The great unsubscribe: What’s next for subscriptions and recurring revenue? (Sponsored by Stripe)

👥 Board members 101. Your board can act as a sounding board for strategic decisions and a hub of expert knowledge. But “as with any partnership, it can both build you up or break you down,” says Jessica Schultz, partner at VC Northzone. So, how do you ensure you pick the right people for your board?

😇 Europe’s top 10 most active angel networks.

For more stories like these, sign up to our weekly newsletter on the VC industry, Up Round, written by Sifted editors Amy and Eleanor.

Funding for B2B startups increased in 2022

Business-to-business (B2B) funding accounted for 80% of total investments in Europe in 2022, bringing in $66.8bn compared to business-to-consumer funding of $16.1bn.

Capital efficiency has helped fuel B2B’s rise in Europe. The continent’s startups cope with limited capital far better than their US counterparts, generating 2.4 times the revenue per dollar.

B2B has even attracted the attention of B2C-focused VCs who — given struggles in the consumer tech sector — are diversifying their portfolios, as our latest Sifted Briefing reveals.

📣 Plus, if you’re on the lookout for up-and-coming B2B startups, come along to our next pitch event. Join us virtually on September 5 at 12:30pm BST to meet Legal Nodes, Vespia, Contilio, Bitskout and MATSUKO. RSVP here.

Sifted Summit partnerships selling out!

This month, we welcomed HSBC Innovation Banking as a new major partner for Sifted Summit. 🎉 Interested in being involved in the event this too and meeting the 3,000-strong audience? Give the team a shout for partnership opportunities. Join them as a partner.

💰 Series A+

Berlin-based fintech Ivy, which allows customers to transfer money directly to merchants without the need for a credit card, has raised a $20m Series A led by Valar Ventures.

💰 Pre-seed and seed

Belgium-based Cikisi, a SaaS platform that automates market intelligence, has raised a €2.7m funding round led by Angelwise.
Helsinki-based Measurlabs, which offers laboratory tests for any materials, products and chemicals, has raised €2.5m in seed funding led by VentureFriends.
Dental tech startup Mimetrik, a spinout from the University of Leeds developing AI-powered 3D dental scanners, has raised £2m led by UK investor Northern Gritstone.

💰Undisclosed

Icelandic startup SNERPA Power has raised €2.2m in funding for its SaaS platform, which helps power-intensive industries improve energy efficiency and sustainability.
Amsterdam-based Yummygums, which sells vitamin gummies directly to consumers, has raised €1.2m from angels and the Dutch bank Rabobank.

If you’d like to submit a deal, get in touch.