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Commuters in Stockholm could soon be enjoying a much more glamorous ride to work than taking the local bus, as electric ‘boat’ startup Candela plans its first pilot run in Sweden later this year. Mimi Billing has more on how — and if — this could change the face of public transport, below.

Elsewhere today, we look at data from the latest Sifted briefing that shows the number of European payments startup exits hit record highs last year, and data that shows Series B rounds got bigger in 2023, with one catch.

— Sadia Nowshin, editorial assistant 

A guide to scaling sales teams in fast growing companies

Our new Sifted Guide is here to help your startup better understand the challenge of growing your sales function — from what tech tools to invest in to how to keep salespeople happy and motivated.

— Mimi Billing, Europe editor

🌬️ Bill Gates-backed Mission Zero raised a £22m Series A led by 2150 for its direct air capture (DAC) tech —  machines which remove carbon from the air. 

• Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy, which led the seed round in 2020, also put in cash this time around, alongside World Fund, Fortescue and Siemens. 

• Mission Zero is taking a different approach from other DAC companies. Rather than running its machines and selling carbon credits based on the amount it removes, it sells DAC units to industries that need a steady supply of carbon, such as companies producing synthetic aviation fuel — or even the carbonated drinks industry.

✍️ 14 EU countries including Germany and France sent a letter to the European Investment Bank urging more investment into defence in light of Russian aggression, Bloomberg reported. The letter comes ahead of an EU meeting on security later this week.

• Defence tech has been an area of increasing interest among private venture capital investors as well — although institutional investors like LPs have remained largely on the sidelines, owing to ethical concerns and red tape. 

🙋‍♀️ The UK government has launched a new Invest in Women taskforce with £250m to deploy into female founders. The Department for Business and Trade is setting up the group. It is being led by Hannah Bernard, head of business banking at Barclays UK, the government’s small business minister Kevin Hollinrake and multi-exit entrepreneur and investor Debbie Wosskow.

• Part of its aim is to try and combat the gender disparity in startup funding across the country, which sees just 2% of total capital goes to female founders. 

Startups: here’s how to prepare for US expansion

Startups have chased the American dream since Google was in the garage — but every state has its own set of tax laws. How can startups navigate the hurdles and hoops? Tune in to our next Sifted Talks to hear Vertex, EY, Babbel and JamJar Investments discuss the operational dynamics of US expansion.

📈 European payments startup exits hit record high.

🧱 Scaling through chaos — how to build your scaleup leadership team.

Series B rounds got bigger in 2023 — but there’s a catch. New data from equity management platform Carta has revealed that the average round size for a Series B reached a record high average of £35m in 2023; it took a median time of 760 days, however, for those startups to raise the round after closing Series A (that's 85% longer since H1 2022). It's the biggest jump in timeline across all round sizes from pre-seed to Series B. 

• At the next rung down, the median Series A round dropped by 21% in H2 of 2023 year-on-year — to £6.5m.
• Arik Oslerne, head of Carta Europe, says this can pose difficulties for founders when combined with the extended timeline to Series B. "Right now, founders are being more conservative on cash burn than their peers in prior years — and the decline in Series A round sizes means investors are expecting founders to do more with less," he says.

Exeter, UK-based Senisca, which develops RNA senotherapeutics that target the process of cellular ageing, raised £3.7m in additional funding from investors including Emerging Longevity Ventures, QantX, R42 Group, Trend Investment Group, Apbex Ventures and Lifespan Vision Ventures.

Bordeaux, France-based RebrAIn, a neuro-surgery platform to help surgeons identify brain regions on which to use deep brain stimulation to treat Parkinson’s, raised €3.7m in seed funding. Karista led the round and was joined by investors including Nouvelle Aquitaine CO-Investissement.

Lisbon-based Vawlt, which develops SaaS solutions for long-term data storage, raised €2.15m in funding. Lince Capital led the round and was joined by investors including Basinghall Partners, Beta Capital, Armilar Venture Partners and Shilling VC.

Birmingham, UK-based Salinity Solutions, which is developing a method of water treatment using reverse osmosis that it says reduces the environmental impact of current methods, raised £1m from SQM Lithium Ventures.

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