Sifted - Poolside raises $500m

Good morning there,

If you're getting ready for day two of Sifted Summit, see you there! If you've seen the Sifted team posting all over social media and you've got FOMO — it's not too late to join us. You can save 50% with code DAY2 (valid only for day two tickets). Get your ticket here. I dig into the top takeaways from day one below. 

Elsewhere today:

• AI startup Poolside raises $500m
• German autonomous trucking startup Fernride is eyeing defence applications, says cofounder
• The neurotech and mental health startups currently fundraising

— Daphné Leprince-Ringuet, French tech reporter

/A message from our sponsor Infobip

👀 Anne Boden, founder of UK neobank Starling, is working on her next big thing — although she told the Sifted Summit yesterday that she’s unlikely to be a sole founder again. (Or an angel investor, or a VC or a politician.) 

• “I’ve started a couple of things, and figured out they’re not going to work and stopped them,” she said, adding that she’s been looking into ideas in AI, healthtech and publishing. 
• “I’m going to try to find five companies over the next five years and hope that at least one of them can turn into a £10bn company. And I’m going to try to find those businesses that I have a huge commitment to and feel that they can actually do something about changing the world.”
• What won’t she be doing? Getting cocky. “Second-time founders can be really arrogant,” said Boden. “​​It’s easier for them to raise money, they’re overconfident and that makes people make stupid decisions, and that’s why I’m not rushing, I’m learning, I’m out there listening to what people have to say.”

🇫🇷 AI startup Poolside, which is building AI models that can create software code, has raised a $500m Series B. Bain Capital Ventures led the round; VC firm DST Global, as well as a number of enterprises such as Nvidia, HSBC Ventures, LG Technology Ventures and eBay Ventures, also invested.

🥼 Google DeepMind and BioNTech are building AI lab assistants that will help researchers plan and better predict the outcome of scientific experiments, the Financial Times reports.

“I still think it is the best time ever to be a founder in Europe.”

There’s heaps of free coffee, a hotly-anticipated side event at an iconic London nightclub and I’m wearing a full-Sifted-pink jumpsuit: in other words, Sifted Summit has officially kicked off. 

For two days, thousands of founders, startup operators and investors are gathering in the UK capital, in the words of one attendee, “to keep [their] finger on the pulse of the ecosystem”. 

As is often the case with European tech conferences, the mood is optimistic. Kicking things off yesterday morning, General Catalyst investor Alexandre Momeni said: “I still think it is the best time ever to be a founder in Europe.”

Despite a rough couple of years, in which funding for European startups dropped nearly 50% to $63bn in 2023, according to Dealroom data, the pieces remain in place for success, said Momeni. 

“The fundamentals in Europe haven’t changed,” he said. “It’s a very attractive place for talent, there is more capital than ever and now we have companies with a certain scale, so we can believe that we’ll have a few public outcomes.”

It doesn’t mean these are easy times for founders. Mike Turner, a partner at law firm Latham & Watkins who specialises in early-stage and growth tech companies, said during a panel: “Going into 2024, we thought Q1 and Q2 would be a bit choppy, and then normal again. That has simply not happened [...] the return to normality is being pushed to some point in 2025.”

The rocky geopolitical context and regular reminders that Europe is falling behind the US and China on innovation and productivity — as outlined in a recent report from former Italian prime minister Mario Draghi — certainly aren’t helping morale.

But hope for European tech is still strong. From the abundance of high-quality talent to the action of some governments in favour of startups, there are indicators that the region is starting to tick the right boxes. 

“The running dialogue for a while has been that the US thinks Europe lacks a level of drive,” said UK healthtech Berry Health founder Fredua Akosa on a panel. “But we’re seeing entrepreneurs, investors and governments are really going for it.”

It’s not all about the big picture. What’s actually on founders’ minds is more likely to concern their next fundraise, talent acquisition strategy or debating Paul Graham’s ‘founder mode’ vs ‘manager mode’ — at least judging by how busy Sifted Summit’s ‘Startup Life’ stage has been (‘the fun one,’ according to one attendee).

“The market is so tough so you want to focus on making the company great,” said parcel delivery startup Hived founder Murvah Iqbal during a panel. And as Starling Bank founder Anne Boden reminded the audience: “Entrepreneurship is really, really hard… Nothing comes without pain.” 

There was a lot of handshaking in the queues for the food trucks; one startup operator told me they managed a five-minute chat with a couple of VCs between two panels, while a founder said they sat through all the AI-themed talks to get up to speed on how the technology could take their company a step further. See you there for Day Two?

— Daphné Leprince-Ringuet, French tech reporter

🪖 Munich-based Fernride, which is retrofitting freight trucks with autonomous systems to operate in container yards, is thinking about getting into defence, the startup’s cofounder tells Sifted. 

• Defence tech has been a hot area for VCs and startups of late. Fernride’s autonomous trucks could help save lives delivering goods to the battlefield, cofounder and CEO Hendrik Kramer says.

✍️ Red tape is hampering Germany’s appeal as a top startup hub, say founders and investors.

• Registering a company, receiving investment and even accounting and payroll can be nightmarish, founders tell Sifted. Their qualms about bureaucracy matter for a country that's eager to cement its position as a top startup hub and encourage world-class companies to be built in Germany.
• “The pain of setting up a German company and of receiving investment affects Germany’s competitiveness because many people who have had a German company and have exited don’t want to go through that again,” says Steven Renwick, cofounder of Tilores. “If I were to set up another company, I’d set up a UK limited [entity].”

🧠 The neurotech and mental health startups currently fundraising. 

💳 How can Europe’s fintechs work with — and learn from — the UAE?(Sponsored by Key Capital)

👀 20 business leaders creating step-change in their industries. (Paid for and produced by Airwallex)

☘️ In data: The benefits of decarbonising your company. (Sponsored by BCG X)

• The mental health scene — and its distant cousin neurotech — are taking steps up the money ladder. 
• Mental health support apps are not merely “nice-to-haves” but “must-haves” for a lot of companies now. 
• Neurotech — aka tech that records or alters brain activity — is far more complicated, of course. Scattered funding has ended up in the pockets of a few big startups. 
• Many will have heard of Elon Musk’s Neuralink — the company dwarves other neurotech startups, having already absorbed hundreds of millions from VCs. Neuralink announced the first successful human trial of its brain chip in February, which allowed a paralysed patient ​to play Mario Kart with his mind.
• Founders hope their neuro-creations could eventually allow humans to merge with AI — an idea that probably sounds fanciful, right now, to brain experts.
• Most companies share the (slightly more modest) goal of influencing brain activity in order to treat conditions such as depression and Parkinson’s disease.

Discover the sector's newest startups in our neurotech and mental health tech briefing.

Stand out on Sifted’s France Leaderboard

Apply to feature among the fastest-growing startups on our France Leaderboard for 2024. Don’t miss out this year — apply below for the chance to gain unparalleled exposure and recognition of your startup’s success. 

Join us for an exclusive breakfast in Barcelona.  As part of Norrsken's Impact Week, connect with fellow early-stage founders over coffee and a light breakfast in central Barcelona on November 7, featuring insights from Sifted senior reporter, Freya Pratty, and founder of climate risk platform Mitiga and local VC, Alejandro Marti. Apply to attend.

Barcelona, Spain-based Mitiga Solutions, a climate risk management platform, raised €8m in Series A funding. Elaia led the round and was joined by investors including Kibo Ventures, Creas Impacto and Faber.

London-based Ameba, an AI-based supply chain management platform, raised $7.1m in seed funding. Hedosophia led the round and was joined by investors including Visionaries Club and Anamcara.

Paris-based DinMo, a customer data platform for mid-market companies, raised €5m in funding. 468 Capital led the round and was joined by investors including Big Bets, Seedcamp, Motier Ventures and Financière Saint James.

Vienna-based Fynk, AI contract management software, raised $3.5m in seed funding. 3VC and 10x Founders led the round.

Amsterdam-based Plumery, a digital banking platform, raised $3.3m in funding from DN Capital and QED Investors.

Vilnius-based Amlyze, a regtech for compliance management, raised €2.35m in seed funding. Practica Capital led the round and was joined by investors including Firstpick, Coinvest Capital, NGL and Advanzia Bank.

Amsterdam-based My Way, an app for drivers to find parking spaces, raised €2.5m in funding from investors including Michiel Rexwinkel.

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