Edtech 

Edtech's biggest threat? Kids

🚀 Scale globally with M12 — Microsoft's venture fund 🚀

M12 invests in early-stage enterprise software companies. The team provides support beyond capital, offering product integration opportunities, additional sales power and access to the Microsoft ecosystem to help your startup scale globally.

Intrigued? Find out more about M12. [Sponsored post]

 Talent 

What's happening to the talent market?

 Diversity 

Finally, some data on diverse founders 

 Recruitment 

Raising $30m to grow... slowly

🎭 Which corporates are going beyond 'innovation theatre'? 🎭

Corporate innovation is often a bit like the emperor's new clothes; all show and no substance. 

But some companies have cracked it — and innovation advisory firm Mind the Bridge reckons it knows who they are.

Find out what good looks like. [Sponsored post]

News that matters

🇫🇷 France is deciding whether to launch a home-made Covid tracking app. But will parliament give it the green light? Marie Mawad in Paris investigates.

Plus, there's been a funding round bonanza...

🚕 Uber, watch out. Bolt, the Estonian mobility company, has raised $100m. It's now valued at €1.7bn but isn't in tip-top health; it saw revenues drop by 75% mid-March.

🚛 Scandit, a Swiss barcode scanning platform, has raised $80m. Contactless logistics solutions like this are all the rage now, the Scandit CEO tells VentureBeat.

💊 Exscientia, an Oxford-based drug discovery company, has raised $60m. It uses AI to design and develop drugs (including Covid-19 treatments), and speed up the time it takes to bring new drugs to clinical trial. Find more on what Exscientia is up to in this piece from our Maija Palmer.

☎️ Aircall, a French platform which helps companies like Glovo, Mindful Chef and Natwest manage customer support and sales calls, has raised €60m. It wants to make 100 hires by the end of the year.

👗 Otrium, a Dutch retail tech platform, has raised €24m. It helps clothing brands sell collections that would otherwise go unsold — a pretty pressing problem for most retailers right now.

🏥 Medwing, a German healthcare jobs platform, has raised €28m. It matches health workers with employers — some for permanent roles, others for shifts — and works with an impressive 80% of Berlin's hospitals.

📬 Delivery! Milkman, a Milan-based logistics platform, has raised €25m from investors including the Italian post service. It helps companies like Zara, Coop and Nespresso offer customers same-day delivery.

Sifted Suggests 

👍 Tricky French stock options. How healthtech startup Alan is making its team's equity actually worth something. (For more on Alan and its fascinating company culture, read our profile here.)

📸 How to get media attention. Sifted's Amy Lewin joins journalists from The Financial Times, Fast Company and The Sunday Times to discuss how editorial teams are thinking in the 'next normal'. Sign up here (and apologies for the broken link on Monday!)

👊 Can quantum-inspired supercomputers crack the Covid-19 drug challenge? Sifted's Maija Palmer takes a look.