Good morning there,

Yesterday I asked you all to share your thoughts on what we should be covering more in this newsletter in 2024, and I certainly got some interesting ideas: from tracking the growth and diversity of angel investors to companies working on AI security. What else are we missing? DM or email me your thoughts.

Elsewhere today, we dig into the big trends that will shape healthtech this year, a new LLM for biotech and a scoop on a legaltech startup fundraise.

— Anne Sraders, senior reporter

So you want to run a green startup in 2024?

As climate tech rapidly grows, reaching a record $70.1bn in funding in 2022, there are plenty of differing opinions on how to build a startup in the sector. To cut through the noise, we asked sustainability founders, investors and operators for their best advice.

What's in store for healthtech in 2024? 

As European tech takes its first tentative steps into the new year following a choppy 2023, healthtech might not be in such a bad place. 

Sure, funding for digital health startups fell off a cliff the past 12 months, and the demise of one-time unicorn Babylon shook the sector. But healthtech’s movers and shakers see reasons to be cheerful.

Techbio companies raised as much last year as they did in 2022, and medtech investment remained well above any previous year before 2021.

Weight-loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy burst into the limelight and startups see huge opportunities to cash in on a predicted $100bn market. Generative AI is also beginning to see real world applications in sectors from elderly care to drug development. 

All this paints a picture of a European healthtech sector that may have had its wings clipped by the downturn but isn’t anywhere near needing emergency resuscitation. 

But what about the year ahead?

Julia Hawkins, partner at LocalGlobe, expects more proactive healthcare startups to enter the market in the next 12 months. 

“Advances in biomarker discovery, biosensors, material science and AI means detection and diagnosis are about to be transformed,” she tells Sifted.

Meanwhile, as startups begin to reach the end of their cash runways, Ashish Patel, managing director at Deutsche Numis, expects an increase in M&A deals.

“Several leading VC-backed companies are looking at M&A as a tool to bolt on sub-scale competitors, thus acquiring customers, geographical access and products or features in a capital-efficient manner,” he says.

And while digital health startups have borne the brunt of 2023’s bad tidings, there’s hope for the sector in the form of generative AI. 

“GenAI presents an unprecedented opportunity to directly jump from outdated legacy systems to cutting-edge technology,” says Johannes Blaschke, principal at Calm/Storm Ventures.

He expects private and public healthcare clinics to automate and streamline non-clinical administrative workflows at scale. 

“This shift may even hold the potential to reverse the digital health funding slump we have seen in 2023,” he tells Sifted.

— Kai Nicol-Schwarz, reporter

💰 Legaltech startup Robin AI has secured £18.1m in new funding, Companies House filings show. The round, which Robin AI confirmed to Sifted, featured Airbnb and Stripe backer Temasek, the Singaporean sovereign wealth fund. Robin AI last raised a $10.5m Series A in February 2023, backed by Plural and Tom Blomfield.

🤖 Executives from French unicorn Owkin, which uses predictive AI for drug discovery, are launching a new startup to build a large-language model (LLM) for biotechnology, Sifted has learned.

• Called Bioptimus, the company is developing a technology that can simplify large volumes of complex biomedical data, and therefore enhance existing AI models such as those currently used by Owkin.
• It will be led by Owkin’s current chief R&D officer and ex-Google researcher Jean-Philippe Vert, together with senior Owkin executives David Cahané and Eric Durand. 

👀 Klarna has added Sequoia partner Matt Miller to its board. Miller, a London-based investor who helps lead Sequoia’s European investments, will join Sequoia colleague Michael Moritz, who also sits on Klarna's board.

💸 HSBC is unveiling a new international payments app to take on the likes of Revolut and Wise. The bank’s new app, Zing, will begin in the UK before expanding to other markets.

💪 Prominent members of the tech elite have made no secret of their desire to live, if not forever, at least a lot longer. But the longevity sector has been slow to pick up in Europe. Will 2024 be the year that changes?

• In the third quarter of 2023, the US contributed to 65% of all deals in the longevity sector, but Europe is getting involved as well. France and Switzerland made up 23% of total deals, with the UK at 5%, according to a longevity investor report.
• This year we will see several longevity clinics opening up across Europe, and longevity expert Phil Newman says that the clinics are “a significant part of the longevity economy with companies hitting revenue quickly.”

📝 Want to apply for a grant for your startup? Write it yourself

🦄 Which startups could be CEE’s next unicorn?

🇪🇺 How EU funded projects can help AI startups (Sponsored by BonsAPPs Community).

👩‍🏫 How to get the most out of coaching, according to coaches and coachees (Sponsored by Microsoft Entrepreneurship for Positive Impact).

Cambridge-based Apollo Therapeutics, which is developing therapeutic programmes for oncology, inflammatory disorders and rare diseases, raised $33.5m in extended Series C funding. Patient Square Capital led the round and was joined by investors including M&G and Rock Springs Capital.

All I wanted for Christmas was NVIDIA GPUs...

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