Sifted - What next for Northvolt?

Good morning there,

Peter Carlsson, the man who has led Swedish gigafactory Northvolt since its launch in 2016, resigned from the company on Friday, a day after it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the US. 

Carlsson told a press conference that it was “an unbelievably emotional day” and that he took responsibility for the situation the company was in. More on what’s next for Northvolt, and which investors and creditors have the most on the line, below.

Elsewhere today: 

• Most active French family offices 
• Defence tech startups need to meet the government ‘where they are,’ says founder of procurement marketplace startup
• All the new first-time VC funds this year: updated

— Freya Pratty, senior reporter

🪫What’s next for Northvolt? The Swedish gigafactory’s CEO Peter Carlsson resigned on Friday after the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the US last Thursday. The move followed Northvolt’s urgent hunt for a cash lifeline as losses mounted and production targets went unmet.

• Filing for Chapter 11 will give the company access to $245m in capital that will keep its operations running until early next year, and management will keep control of the company as it goes through a restructuring process. CFO Pia Aaltonen-Forsell, COO Matthias Arleth and restructuring officer Scott Millar will lead the process.
• The team will try to bring in new financing from existing shareholders or new investors. Whoever writes the new cheques is likely to wipe out a lot of the existing cap table. Northvolt’s current largest shareholders are Volkswagen and Goldman Sachs.
• According to its bankruptcy filing, Northvolt has $5.8bn in debts, and its largest creditors include shareholder Volkswagen, German state bank KfW and companies that supplied it equipment and components.
• We’ve analysed which investors and creditors have most on the line as Northvolt restructures, and what the Chapter 11 process looks like.

🇮🇪 Ireland’s state-backed tech accelerator, the National Digital Research Centre (NDRC), has confirmed it will shut in November 2025, prompting a strong backlash from some tech folk. 

• According to the NDRC, which was founded in 2006, the government has “concluded that the enterprise ecosystem has evolved significantly” and it will not extend the accelerator’s contract beyond next year. The statement added that until then “operations will continue as usual”.
• “It's a huge blow to Irish startups,” Conor McGinn, CEO of Akara Robotics, posted on X. Others on social media had stronger words. Phillip McKenna, cofounder of edtech SimpleStudy.ie, called the Irish government’s decision a “national tragedy”. In another X post, he said: “For context the NDRC is Ireland's ENTIRE pre-seed incubation ecosystem. It does not cost much to run!” 

🏦 UK neobank Revolut announced a slew of new products for 2025 on Friday as the fintech trumpets hitting 50m customers. They include an AI-powered “financial companion” that aims to guide customers towards better financial habits, and Revolut-branded ATMs using facial recognition technology for added security, which will launch in Spain first. 

• The fintech also confirmed previously reported plans to launch a mortgage product, which will roll out in Lithuania, Ireland and France next year. 2025 will also see Revolut bring a credit product to its B2B banking offering as well as a Klarna-style buy now, pay later payment option.

🌱 Vegan meal kit startup Allplants has made 65 members of staff redundant and appointed business advisory company Interpath as administrators. The news follows Sifted reporting that the company had filed legal documents to appoint administrators earlier this week.

• The company will continue trading for a short period to sell remaining stock but has ceased production at its manufacturing site, according to a statement from Interpath. It will then look to sell off its assets, including the Allplants brand.
• A “single-digit” number of employees remain at the company to help sell what remains of the business, according to an Interpath spokesperson.
• Since launching in 2016, Allplants has raised $81m, according to Dealroom, from investors including Molten Ventures, Felix Capital, Octopus Ventures, TriplePoint Capital, professional footballer Chris Smalling and former professional footballer Kieran Gibbs.

🇫🇷 The French family offices investing most in tech.

🙌 All the new first-time VC funds raised this year.

🪖 Many defence tech startups will say securing government or military contracts is one of their biggest challenges. One startup, A2I, is aiming to make the arduous process smoother. 

• A2I, which is launching today, aims to be the Amazon or Anduril for defence procurement, according to its founder Jon Williams, who spent more than 10 years in the British Royal Marines. It’s building a marketplace and platform to help startups and other companies bid for contracts with governments and other buyers.
• And unlike other defence tech founders, Williams doesn’t think asking the government to adapt is the answer: “You're never going to change them,” he tells Anne Sraders. “I talk about meeting the defence customer where they are, not expecting them to adapt their behaviours to be faster or take more risk.”

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Is European tech fed up with conferences?

If you weren’t one of the 13k attendees at Slush last week — or one of 71k at Web Summit the week before that — chances are you’ve come down with a bit of conference fatigue.

Judging by conversations I’ve been having, some founders and investors — who might usually be hyped to attend the hot events of the season — were dreading showing up to the major conferences this year. Some that went returned home feeling frazzled and over-stimulated, vowing to not go to another event until at least after the New Year. Others decided to skip the big ones altogether; it’s too far to travel, they said, and they don’t have the time, energy or will to spend three full days schmoozing.

Is it a sign that European tech is tiring of conferences?

“Big events are phenomenal — but only if you’re meticulously prepared and bring the required energy. I didn’t have the time to do it, and as an introvert, massive crowds aren’t where I shine,” wrote Agnieszka Walorksa, founder and CEO of fintech Mika, in a LinkedIn post explaining why she chose not to attend Slush and Web Summit this year.

Other founders say the sheer number of conferences and events in Europe makes it hard to decipher which ones will be most useful and worth the time and money spent (especially since some charge startups over €500 for a ticket). Founders and VCs told me that many conferences have gotten so big it can be hard to meet new and interesting contacts amid a sea of tens of thousands of people — which, in the end, is why most attend conferences in the first place. 

Stefano Bernardi, general partner at Unruly Capital, decided to skip Slush this year too: he’s travelled a lot already in 2024, he told me over the phone, and felt that going to yet another conference wouldn’t be the most productive use of his time. “This year, it felt unlikely that we’d find great new deals and unlikely that we’d have decent conversations with LPs because they’re all bombarded… and the best outcome is they say ‘Oh yeah let’s catch up once we’re back from Slush’. Given we’re not fundraising this year, it felt skippable,” he said. 

“I think when conferences become a bit too big, they lose their value,” he added. “Smaller, curated settings work better for conferences.” And new events are popping up to scratch that itch; take the newly-launched defence-themed Resilience Conference in London last month, and the ongoing appeal of the invite-only Founders Forum as well as its various spinoffs. 

Another issue many flagged is the content. I regularly hear there are just too many panels (and manels…) at conferences — and honestly, a lot of attendees aren’t bothered about them (though Slush-goers tell me the startup pitch sessions this year were completely packed out).

“These conferences are useless apart from the networking element,” a founder told our Europe editor Mimi Billing at Slush. “It would be enough if they just got beer and coffee and a large hall and skipped all the panels and talks. I have lots of friends that only come to Helsinki to meet up with people but don’t even get a ticket to the conference itself.” 

So, if a lot of people in European tech aren’t the biggest conference fans, why do we do it to ourselves? And might there be a better way of bringing everyone together? 

Some event creators are trying different formats to help people connect — without the noise and overwhelm of big stages and loud networking halls. David Rowan, founder of climate tech and healthtech community Voyagers, organised a climate tech ‘festival’ called ‘The Heat’ for the first time this year — which he is quick to remind me is not a conference. The idea was to depart from the usual conference setup where everything is centred around panels —  instead creating spaces for serendipitous communication and “joy”. 

In a field at the Harwell science campus in Oxfordshire, the 600 attendees of The Heat encountered typical festival paraphernalia such as big white tents and milk churns that had been repurposed as urinals. Two poets wrote a poem throughout the day, which they performed at the end, alternative meat and non-dairy cheese brands showcased their products and a band called ‘The Net Zeros’, which was put together by festival attendees, performed to the crowd. (Pale Blue Dot GP Heidi Lindvall is, apparently, “phenomenal” on vocals.)

“The bottom line is the world isn’t clamouring for more conferences,” says Rowan. “What people want is the opportunity to connect in an authentic way and learn from other people.” 

So, for those struggling with conference fatigue, the answer might lie in sticking to the side events or choosing smaller, more intimate gatherings next year. And for conference creators and attendees, now might be an opportunity to reflect: do big conferences still offer the value they once did? How else could they be organised? And how might we create this ‘genuine connection’ that we all crave? Let me know your thoughts.

— Miriam Partington, senior reporter

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