Deeptech 

Better than Tesla

Elon Musk may be best at making electric cars and firing rockets into space, but Munich-based startup VoltStorage says it has the edge on the US entrepreneur when it comes to making increasingly popular home battery packs.

The team say their vanadium-based technology allows them to make a heavy-duty battery pack similar to Tesla's Powerwall — but which doesn’t use scarce rare earth metals and can power your house for 20 years without breaking. 

Maija Palmer has more.

 🏆 Startups: apply for the Digital Top 50 Awards 🏆

The DT50 Awards is bursting with rewards for Europe's startups and founders. 
 
Winners receive top support and mentoring from industry leaders like McKinsey, Freshfields, Google, 468Capital and HeringSchuppener.
 
Learn more here. [Sponsored post]

 Fintech 

Yikes, Monzo losses double to £115m

Losses at London-based challenger bank Monzo doubled last year. The company also said last night that uncertainties created by the coronavirus pandemic “cast significant doubt” on its ability to continue as a going concern.

Ouch.

 Healthtech 

Slack for doctors

A collaboration tool for medics called Siilo, a kind of Slack for doctors, wants to make sure that you never again have to explain the reason you've ended up in hospital to six different doctors in a row.

And it's just raised $10.5m to facilitate more of that kind of joined-up thinking. 

Amy Lewin talks to the team.

 Transport 

A €200,000 luxury French drone

Delair designs and builds ultra-high-end drones made completely in France that sell for as much as €200,000.

That's a lot of money, even for a big company, but they say that the Made in France label has given them the edge over intense Chinese competition during coronavirus.

Marie Mawad dips into this world of flying luxury.

 Cities 

A dose of community spirit 

The coronavirus pandemic has been a shot in the arm for local communities, with people all around the world spending more time supporting their neighbours.

And that’s great news for Commonplace, a London-based local community engagement platform, which has just raised £3m from VC firm Beringea and is riding this wave.

Amy Lewin takes us deeper. 

News that matters

🧞‍♂️ After 3 years at digital bank Revolut, George Robson is leaving to join the heavy-hitting US VC firm Sequoia as a partner in Europe. He'll join Luciana Lixandru, which Sequoia nabbed from Accel earlier this year to become its first partner this side of the pond — and is another sign that the firm is growing its reach into Europe, as Sifted reported here. It's also not the only recent departure from Revolut, with news this week that senior executive Richard Davies was leaving to become CEO of recently launched business bank Allica Bank.

🔬 The new European Innovation Council — designed to be Europe's “unicorn factory” supporting risky tech startups with a €10bn war chest — said that it had awarded over €307m to 64 "gamechanging" startups to support the green economy. The startups tie into Europe's Green Deal strategy and over one-third of the selected companies are led by women CEOs, said the EIT. For more on Europe's values-based tech ambitions, see here. 

💰 London-based payments company TransferWise is now valued at $5bn following a secondary share sale. It's a further sign of the increased excitement about online payments startups amid the coronavirus pandemic. Is it still not quite as valuable as Revolut, Checkout.com and Klarna, which are all valued at $5.5bn. But it marks a big jump from the last raise, which valued the company at $3.5bn. Full story here.

If you're a fan of our 'News that matters' and 'Sifted Suggests' sections, check out our newsfeed here, where we collect all of these gems — and more.

Sifted Suggests 

🕴️ Blame the LPs. This piece in Forbes is a familiar lament, but an important one, about how the European VC industry — and therefore European startups — are held back by the unwillingness of European pension funds to invest as limited partners in venture capital funds. 

♦️ This is a long and complex read, but definitely worth it, about the importance of using narratives and pseudo-secrets to define the journey of a startup (although as some point out you need to actually execute and be right). From the ultra-smart VC Michael Dempsey.

👼 In the UK, you may have heard of prominent angel investors like Shakil Khan, Martha Lane Fox, Taavet Hinrikus, Charlie Songhurst, Sherry Coutu and Alex Chesterman. But here are 35 others who are excellent, according to Pietro Invernizzi at Stride VC. And Sifted can verify — a lot of these names are truly great and lovely people.