Sifted - Who’s working for Mistral?

Good morning there,

Today we’re bringing you details on one European startup that’s reaching for the skies, and another that’s crashed down to earth.

The first is Paris-based Mistral, which remains Europe’s highest-profile company building generative AI models to rival OpenAI. French tech reporter Daphné Leprince-Ringuet analyses where the startup finds its talent. Hint: It poaches a lot from big tech.

Then, in less positive news, there’s German flying taxi company Lilium, which recently filed for insolvency after failing to secure fresh funding. Now a slew of US law firms are encouraging shareholders to get in touch, alleging the company may have misled investors.

Elsewhere today:

• Which fintechs are winning the battle for Gen Z?
• Babylon founder Ali Parsa launches AI assistant for doctors as new startup emerges from stealth

— Tim Smith, news editor

How to build a data-centric company

Research found that organisations that took a data-driven approach fared best over the past few years — but how? Our guide offers actionable insights on building the right data infrastructure, fostering a data-centric culture and utilising AI responsibly. If you’ve been struggling to turn data into results, this one’s for you.

🏥 Babylon founder Ali Parsa is launching an AI assistant for clinicians, as his secretive new healthtech emerges from stealth. 

• Quadrivia — a UK and Jersey-registered company — has also secured pre-seed investment from Swedish investor Norrsken, confirming Sifted reporting last week. 
• The AI assistant will help clinicians with admin tasks, patient interactions, decision-making, chronic and post-operative care and continuous monitoring, in multiple languages. 
• “[The AI assistant] is just at the beginning of its journey and we know the huge amount it still has to learn and get right,” Parsa said in a statement. “Our hope is to create an affordable personal clinical assistant with comprehensive capabilities across the care spectrum to help all clinicians and their patients.”

👩‍⚖️ Electric air taxi startup Lilium, which recently filed for insolvency after failing to secure capital, may face legal action for allegedly misleading shareholders.

• At least nine US law firms are urging shareholders who have lost money to get in touch to learn about how they might recover losses. They claim the German startup overstated the progress of its fundraising activities and failed to disclose its imminent insolvency.
• Lilium was founded in 2015 and raised $426m from investors including Atomico, Earlybird and Tencent, before listing on the Nasdaq via a SPAC in 2021. Since then, its share price has trended downward by 93% and it has failed to meet the milestones it set out at IPO, such as achieving revenue of €240m by the end of 2024.

🇩🇪 German startup plancq has been selected to lead a €20m project to build a 1,000-qubit quantum computer at the Liebniz Supercomputing Centre (LRZ) in Garching, near Munich.

• The quantum computer will be built using a technique known as “neutral atoms” that involves using lasers to trap single atoms to make qubits (stores of quantum information). It will be integrated into LRZ’s high-performance computing infrastructure.
• The project is the second government-funded initiative plancq has been awarded; in April 2023, it was selected for a €29m contract with the German Aerospace Centre.
• The news of the LRZ project comes three months after the startup raised a €50m Series A led by European Family Office CATRON Holding and Germany’s state-backed deeptech and climate tech fund (DTCF).

📉 The number of German VCs which have made a deal in 2024 has fallen by almost 40% compared to 2023. In Europe it's down 30%; in the US it's 25%, reported Handelsblatt, citing data from PitchBook.

👀 Gen Z, which includes people from 12 to 27 years old, is projected to become the wealthiest generation ever. According to a report by consumer intelligence company NielsenIQ, by 2030 Gen Z will contribute more wealthy people than Millennials to every region in the world.

• But insiders tell Sifted it’s inherently tough to build a monetisable fintech catering to a demographic that’s only just starting to build wealth. Still, that hasn’t stopped fintechs like financial superapp Revolut, AI fintech Cleo and Birdwingo, an investment app for teenagers founded in 2022, from joining the race for Gen Z cash.
• But who stands to win the race for Gen Z money? And what are the difficulties they might encounter along the way? Tom Matsuda has the story here.

🙌 Founder to investor: How to start investing your personal wealth. (Paid for and produced by Citi Private Bank)

🇫🇷 Paris-based Mistral is as buzzy as ever — and regularly features at the top of Sifted rankings of fastest-growing startups by headcount. But who exactly has joined its ranks? Sifted analysed 105 LinkedIn profiles showing a permanent position currently held at Mistral to find out where the scaleup is getting its best talent from. 

• The short answer is Google and Meta: Sifted’s analysis found that, out of 32 employees working in science and research, nearly half have previously worked for one of the two US tech giants.  
• Two-thirds of the science team identified by Sifted attended one or several of three universities: Carnegie Mellon University in the US, as well as École Polytechnique and École Normale Supérieure in France. Half hold a PhD.
• Most of its employees (64%) are in technical roles, but business and sales functions are also growing, representing 22% of the profiles analysed. 
• Mistral declined to comment or confirm the numbers.

Final Call — Sifted’s Nordics Leaderboard! 

Applications close on Friday, November 15. Don’t miss out on gaining unparalleled exposure and credibility for your startup by featuring on our ranking of the fastest-growing startups in the region. 

🇬🇧 London. Startup Life reporter Anisah Osman Britton will be at the first UK event hosted by Businettes — the largest community for female entrepreneurs in France and Germany — today.

🇫🇮 Helsinki. Editor Amy Lewin and Europe editor Mimi Billing will be at Slush November 19-21. Joining them? Let Amy and Mimi know.

Basel, Switzerland-based Alentis Therapeutics, which is developing treatments for CLDN1+ tumours, raised $181.4m in Series D funding. OrbiMed, Novo Holdings and Jeito Capital led the round and were joined by investors including Frazier Life Sciences, Longitude Capital, Catalonia Capital, Piper Heartland Healthcare Capital, Avengo Bioscience Capital, RA Capital Management, Morningside Venture Investments, BB Pureos and Bpifrance.

Lyon, France-based Agicap, which provides tools for real-time cash flow data and treasury management, raised €45m in Series C funding. AVP led the round. 

London-based Northflank, a workload platform for software developers, raised $22.3m in funding (split between a $16m Series A led by Bain Capital Ventures and a seed round led by Vertex Ventures).

Berlin-based Quantune Technologies, which is developing miniature infrared laser spectrometers, raised €8.5m in seed funding. Point72 Ventures and Vsquared Ventures led the round. 

• The startup also received €5m in grant funding from the European Innovation Council and the Investment Bank of Berlin. 

Berlin-based Kugu, which helps real estate companies achieve their emissions targets, raised €8.5m in Series A funding from investors including Tengelmann Ventures, Gewobag ID, Michael Lowak (Germany G+E Getec former CEO) and Axel Müller (Qundis former board member). 

Amsterdam-based Etpa, a platform for short-term electricity market trading, raised €5.5m in funding. 4impact Capital led the round and was joined by investors including SET Ventures and ABN AMRO.

Vilnius-based Ligence, which automates reporting and measurements in echocardiography workflows, raised €3m in seed funding. Simpact Ventures led the round.

Tartu, Estonia-based Qminder, a customer service flow management platform, raised €3m in seed funding. Practica Capital led the round and was joined by investors including Metaplanet and BADideas.fund. 

London-based Tranched, which aims to simplify the asset-based financing process through blockchain technology, raised $3.4m in funding from investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Speedinvest, Kima Ventures, Blockwall, Ovni Capital, Alexandre Prot (Qonto CEO), Roxanne Varza (Station F director), Cyril Chemla (Processout cofounder) and Laurent Sarfati (Qonto former head of sales). 

Saarbrücken, Germany-based Mona AI, which uses AI tools to automate recruitment, raised €2m in seed funding. Earlybird led the round. 

Amsterdam-based Solaq, which is developing ‘air-to-water technology’ to address water scarcity, raised €1.4m in pre-seed funding from investors including Connect the Drops and New-TT.

• It also received subsidies from the Netherlands Enterprise Agency and the Provincie Noord-Holland.

Stockholm-based Nordic Air Defence, which is developing a drone interceptor platform for civilian and military use, raised €1.2m in funding. SNÖ Ventures led the round and was joined by investors including Noam Perski (Palantir Technologies executive VP), Jörgen Bladh (Northzone cofounder) and Jan Gurander (Volvo Group former CEO).

M&A

Paris-based Kaiko, an Eight Roads-backed crypto data company, has acquired crypto index provider Vinter, as 2024 shapes up to be a banner year for consolidation in European crypto.

• According to Dealroom data, 12 crypto companies were the target of acquisitions in Europe’s digital asset market compared to seven the year before. Those include landmark deals such as US trading app Robinhood’s acquisition of crypto exchange Bitstamp for $200m and news site CoinDesk’s purchase of CryptoCompare, a London-based digital assets data business. 
• Much of the acquisition activity has been bolstered by an expected uplift in demand for crypto-based financial instruments — the results of the recent US election are also widely seen as a stamp of approval on the institutionalisation of the sector. 

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

For more deals, analysis and M&A insight, become a Pro subscriber to receive our weekly Deals newsletter.