‘Europe’s Palantir’ on listing in Europe

Good morning there,

While it may seem like fintechs reporting full-year profitability have become the norm on Sifted’s pages — not every company has got there yet. 

Philip Belamant, CEO of UK buy now, pay later player Zilch, told me last week that while it recorded its first profitable quarter this year, it’s still loss-making as of its latest publicly available annual financial statement. Yesterday, German neobank N26 announced its first profitable quarter too, but full-year profitability also eludes the fintech. 

As a younger business founded in 2018, it’s perhaps expected of Zilch. But N26 is one of the oldest in a cohort of European neobanks which includes Revolut, Monzo and Starling (all of which are profitable on an annual basis and have been able to cash in on a period of historically high interest rates).

N26's financial results are its first since German regulators lifted a limit on the neobank's customer acquisition numbers earlier this year.

“It is quite a change in the company that after two and a half years of being restricted on growth, we are going back to growth,” CEO Valentin Stalf said at a press conference, admitting that the company had “always hoped to get out of the growth cap much earlier than [it] did in the end.”

Elsewhere today:

• ‘Europe’s Palantir’: France’s ChapsVision on listing in Europe, acquiring 27 companies and Big Data
• €1bn Nato Innovation Fund’s founding and managing partners depart a year after launching fund
• Smart ring maker Oura hits a $5bn valuation after raising $75m

— Tom Matsuda, fintech reporter

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🪖 The €1bn NATO Innovation Fund (NIF), which invests in defence and dual-use startups and officially launched just over a year ago, has seen a big shakeup in its ranks: founding partner Thorsten Claus and managing partner Andrea Traversone have both left the fund. 

• Claus left in July, and Traversone departed in September, according to their LinkedIn accounts. Three of the five person founding team remain.
• Amalia Kontesi, head of communications for the NIF, confirmed the departures, adding the firm wishes the pair the “best of luck in their future endeavours and are grateful for their deep commitment to our mission.”
• When asked about plans to replace Traversone as managing partner, Kontesi said the NIF had “nothing to report on this front”.

📈 German neobank N26 reported its first-ever profitable quarter in Q3 after regulators lifted a limit on customer numbers imposed on the company in 2021 for failing to apply effective money-laundering controls.

• In preliminary financial results published yesterday, the Berlin-based startup also forecast a 40% rise in gross revenue across 2024 to €440m, as a result of increased customer activity. It didn't disclose its expected losses across the same period. 

💰 Smart ring maker Oura has hit a $5.2bn valuation after raising a $75m Series D from US continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) giant Dexcom.

• The two companies also announced a strategic partnership to integrate products including Dexcom’s CGMs and Oura’s app and ring — which track users' sleep, physical activities and health data. 
• The news follows a shopping spree for Oura as the company has looked to continue its expansion beyond just sleep tracking.
• Sifted’s Europe editor Mimi Billing is interviewing the company’s cofounder Petteri Lahtela on the Founder stage at Slush today. If you’re there, drop her a line. 

💸 Europe’s best-funded nuclear fusion startup Tokamak Energy has raised $75m as it looks to commercialise its tech. Sifted reported in January that the UK-based company had raised $50m, which Tokamak says is part of the same round (which totals $125m). East X Ventures and Lingotto Investment Management led the round.

🏃‍♀️ Secretive Paris-based H Company, which made headlines last May for closing an eyebrow-raising €220m seed round, has released its long-awaited first product — an AI agent called Runner H, which is available in private beta for developers to test.

• Runner H can turn “instructions into precise actions”, the startup said in a LinkedIn post, by combining a large language model (LLM) with a visual language model (VLM) that can perceive and interact with graphical and text elements.
• In August, three of H’s five cofounders left the startup — just three months after announcing the seed round. It left DeepMind alum Laurent Sifre and Charles Kantor, a former Stanford University computational mathematics researcher, to lead the company.

❌ Several Starling Bank staff have resigned after new CEO Raman Bhatia ordered hybrid workers to attend the office at least 10 days per month, The Guardian reported.

• The policy shift has caused dissatisfaction among employees, who took to the company’s internal Slack channel to voice concerns about the availability of desk space and its impact on work-life balance, according to the British newspaper.

🇫🇷 French startup ChapsVision, also known as ‘Europe’s Palantir’, launched five years ago to provide made-in-Europe software that can analyse masses of sensitive and confidential data. Now, the startup is profitable, boasts revenues of €200m and has acquired 27 companies — it's also a perfect candidate for a Euronext listing, founder Olivier Dellenbach tells French tech reporter Daphné Leprince-Ringuet.

👀 UK-based buy now, pay later fintech Zilch is considering a secondary share sale, as a wave of fintechs make the same move. It’s also riding on a high after achieving its first profitable quarter.

• CEO Philip Belamant told Sifted last week that a secondary share sale would enable the company to clean up its cap table ahead of an IPO — and make a bunch of its employees happy. 
• Fintech reporter Tom Matsuda sat down with Belamant to chat about the fintech’s upcoming product plans, its decision to “pause” US operations and its profitability push in the run-up to its IPO.

This story first appeared in Sifted’s fintech newsletter, which drops the latest news, analysis and deals from the sector into inboxes every Tuesday. Not signed up yet? You can do that here.

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London-based Descyle, which focuses on metal recovery and recycling methods using deep eutectic solvents, raised £10.2m in Series A funding. BGF and Vorwerk Ventures led the round and were joined by investors including Cisco Investment, Kadmos Capital, Nesta, TSP Ventures, Green Angel Ventures and CPI Enterprises.

Amsterdam-based Tract, a SaaS platform focused on enhancing sustainability in agricultural supply chains, raised $11.2m in funding from investors including Archer Daniels Midland Company, Cargill, Louis Dreyfus Company, Olam, The Working Capital and Rabo Investments.

Edinburgh-based Cytomos, which is developing a benchtop cell analyser for labs, raised £5m in funding. Archangels led the round and was joined by investors including Old College Capital, Scottish Enterprise and British Business Bank.

Amsterdam-based Firsty, an app that users can use to connect to mobile data in any country, raised €5.1m funding from investors including Speedinvest and Dutch Founders Fund.

Zurich, Switzerland-based Calvin Risk, an AI risk management software, raised $4m in seed funding. Join Capital led the round and was joined by investors including Seed + speed Ventures.

Aachen, Germany-based IonKraft, which develops plasma-based barrier coatings to replace non-recyclable barrier solutions in the packaging industry, raised €3.5m in funding. M Ventures and TechVision Fund led the round and were joined by investors including High-Tech Gründerfonds.

London-based Heim, a software platform that focuses on at-home clinical care delivery, raised £2.2m in funding. Heal Capital led the round and was joined by investors including Form Ventures, Portfolio Ventures and Houghton Street Ventures.

Turku, Finland-based Serviceform, which specialises in lead generation services for real estate and car sales websites, raised €2.45m in funding from investors including Virta Equity, Backingminds, Gorilla Capital, and Lasse Järvinen.

Sofia-based Cloud Office, which helps businesses digitise their processes to cloud services, raised €2m in funding. Eleven Ventures led the round.

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