Mobility 

What the SoundCloud founders did next

It wasn't the most obvious of moves — but in July, Eric Quidenus-Wahlforss and Alexander Ljung, the founders of music streaming platform SoundCloud, launched a new e-bike startup. 

Some eyes rolled — e-bikes have become all the rage in recent months, attracting big funding rounds, while micromobility companies are hardly in short supply.

So how is Dance, as the e-bike subscription service is called, different? 

Miriam Partington in Berlin finds out. 

🌴 When are you getting back to work? 🌴

Rethinking workspace in the new world? 

Huckletree, the home of entrepreneurship, has launched new 2020 ultra-flexible packages for London, Manchester and Dublin-based teams, designed around how you work, not where you work from.

Find the flexible space you need from £199. [Sponsored post]

 Venture capital 

Meet CEE's finest female investors

No surprises here: women founders are underrepresented in central and eastern Europe's startup ecosystem. 

What needs to change? 

Kit Gillet asks the region's leading female investors.

  Top accelerators for female founders?  

We're on the hunt for Europe's best accelerators for female founders.

So, if you're a female founder who’s been through an accelerator, let us know how it was!

Did it help you to ace your OKRs? Support you for years afterwards? Or help you land a funding round?

Get in touch with Connor.

 Finance 

Will Covid finally kill off cash?

Cash has been slowly heading out of the door for a while now — but the pandemic is hastening its demise. 

Online and mobile payments have increased during lockdowns, and the habit might stick.

What does that mean for Europe's fintech startups and investors?

News that matters

💡 Eureka! Italy has a new deeptech-focused VC — Eureka!, a €38m fund which will invest in early-stage startups and forge close relationships with universities and scientific research centres in a bid to spot great advanced materials innovations early. The European Investment Fund is (unsurprisingly) a cornerstone investor.

🧠 In other university news, University College London (UCL) has launched a £100m fund to back innovations coming out of its research base. The fund will be managed by VC firm Albion, and has British Patient Capital as a cornerstone LP. In 2018/19, UCL spinouts employed 1,275 people and had attracted more than £579m in external investment. 

😔 TechHub goes bust. One of London's oldest coworking spaces is no more.

🚌 Watch out Citymapper. Fundraising troubles aside, transport app Citymapper is now also facing competition from its old friend, Transport for London (TfL). Yesterday, TfL launched its own app — TfL Go — to help Londoners plan safe journeys.

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 

😖 Climate change will not screw us all over equally. This Bloomberg data story looks at who — and where — will see death rates increase over the coming years unless action is taken.