Good morning Sifted reader,

Yesterday, Iliana Ivanova had a strange kind of job interview. The Bulgarian MEP has been nominated to become the EU’s new commissioner for innovation and research — and she pitched her big ideas for the role to her peers on Tuesday. These include inviting more non-EU countries to join Horizon Europe, the EU’s €95bn research programme — welcome news for the UK and Switzerland.

In other people news, we have two new joiners at Sifted!

Cristina Gallardo joins us from Politico to cover tech sovereignty and Iberia; she’s in London for now but will be moving to Spain in the next few months. If you want to buy her a coffee, here is her email.
Orlando Crowcroft is our new commissioning editor, based in London. If you have an opinion piece you’d like to pitch us, read this guide first and then send him an email. He’s a friendly chap.

Elsewhere:

– Amy Lewin, editor

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🇪🇺 The EU’s innovation commissioner, Mariya Gabriel, is on her way out — and fellow Bulgarian Iliana Ivanova is likely to take her seat. EU lawmakers will vote on her appointment next week and, if she gets the job, she’ll oversee the implementation of the EU’s strategy for startups and the New European Innovation Agenda, and be responsible for the troubled European Innovation Council, the EU’s equity investment arm.

😙 The man who blew the whistle on Wirecard has started a whistleblowing platform of his own. He’s hoping it’ll help other whistleblowers safely raise concerns about their companies.

🇫🇷 Scoop: Earlybird, the German VC, has lost both members of its French investment team less than two years after opening its Paris office. Salomon Aiach and Cécile Treboit are leaving the firm, sources tell Sifted, and it’s unclear when they’ll be replaced.

🇫🇷 Founders Future, a French VC, is raising a new €150m fund to invest in AI and climate startups across Europe.

💰 Antler, the company builder and VC, is also raising a new €150m fund. It’ll invest it in Nordic startups and has closed €50m so far. Partner Kristian Jul Røsjø says the accelerator has seen a five-time increase in applications from former startup employees since the downturn began and mass layoffs began last year.

💸 And also in the Nordics, VC firm Unconventional Ventures has raised more than half of a €30m fund to invest in startups with diverse founders. LPs include Atomico and the Export and Investment Fund of Denmark.

🇪🇸 Spain is launching a national agency to oversee AI called AESIA. It’ll be based in A Coruña and will make Spain the first European country to have an AI oversight agency.

🇬🇧 In other AI x government news, the UK gov has set out five objectives for its AI Safety Summit, which will take place later this year. Noteworthy: “appropriate measures which individual organisations should take to increase frontier AI safety”.

🥼 And, finally, the UK’s Labour Party has a new shadow science, innovation and tech minister: Peter Kyle.

Funding for B2B startups increased in 2022

August was a predictably slow month for early-stage funding.

Just 138 pre-seed and seed deals got done — a 37% drop from July
Funding at pre-seed and seed reached €322m — less than this time last year, when it hit €368m
The biggest deal by a long way was Paris-based Poolside AI’s $126m round, which put France well and truly in the top spot

Find more data — and other notable early-stage fundraisings — here.

The University of Dundee has been named the UK’s top university for spinout success, according to a new report from Octopus Ventures. The ranking is based on factors such as the number of patents filed, spinouts created and portfolio exit value.

The £2.2bn IPO of AI drug discovery company Exscientia in 2021 — one of the largest ever UK university exits — played a big role in Dundee making the top spot.

10 former Babylon employees now running their own startups.

10 hydrogen startups to watch, according to investors.

5 lessons for startups looking for Series A funding.

4 healthtech trends powering the transformation of medicine (sponsored by Haleon Re/Wire Health Studio).

Has the fintech bubble popped?

Download our new report to find out

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Butternut Box, the UK-based fresh dog food company, has raised £280m from General Atlantic. L Catterton, an existing investor, also participated. The company, which was founded in 2016 and operates in the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium and Poland, declined to say how much of the round was debt vs equity.

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Nuventura, a Berlin-based climate tech startup, has raised a €25m Series A led by Mirova. The EIC Fund has also chipped in.
Caeli Energie, a French startup that makes greener air conditioners, has raised €10m in equity and debt. It’s developed a patented technology that it says is five times more energy-efficient than the best aircons currently on the market.
Munich’s e-mobilio, a platform that helps drivers choose and then buy electric vehicles (and all the kit that comes with them), has raised a €9.5m Series A led by SET Ventures.
Atomico has led a $6.5m seed round into Opna, a startup that wants to help carbon removal projects get financed.

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Belfast startup Enzai has raised $4m to help companies use AI safely. Cavalry led the round, with Seedcamp also participating.
Jude, a bladder health startup, has raised a $4.2m seed. The UK company sells bladder care items — supplements, underwear, pads — and has a free community for customers.
Orange Quantum Systems, a Dutch startup that builds quantum chip test equipment, has raised €1.5m in pre-seed funding. It says it can reduce the cost of testing qubits.