Space 

Flying high: Iceye raises €74m

Finnish startup Iceye's small satellites whiz around the Earth much faster than bigger satellites. 

That makes them a whole lot more useful for monitoring oil spills, keeping an eye on ice in the Arctic and watching unfolding natural disasters. 

It also makes this a big business — and one that investors are keen to get in on. 

Mimi Billing has more.

👷 Are your solutions helping workers hit by Covid? 👷

Nesta's Rapid Recovery Challenge is on the lookout for UK startups with solutions that improve access to jobs and money for those impacted by Covid-19. There's up to £475,000 up for grabs for entrants.

Apply here. [Sponsored content.]

 Venture Capital 

Point Nine raises a new fund of €99,999,999.99

"We love the number nine," says newly-appointed partner Ricardo Sequerra Amram.

The Berlin-based seed fund also loves: B2B SaaS startups; having one of the best seed to Series A conversion rates in Europe; and US VC firm Benchmark's equal partnership model — which it has now adopted. 

What does that mean? Amy Lewin finds out.

✒️ Legal advice designed for startups 🖋️

Plenty of law firms just don't really get startups.

Enter one that does: Harper James has a pay-as-you-go subscription model, designed to give startups the kind of support they need.

Find out more about the help on offer here. [Sponsored content.]

 Politics 

What China vs. the US means for Europe

The TikTok debacle is not a good sign.

China shut down its borders to foreign tech firms a while ago; now it looks like the US is following suit. 

That's bad news for European tech companies too, muses Nicolas Colin.

🚗 Could insurance be better? 🚗

Insurance is unavoidable in modern life, but it's also pretty frustrating. Is there a better way?

In the new episode of Samsung’s interview series "The Next Wave" Samsung’s president and chief strategy officer Young Sohn, speaks to Julian Teicke, founder of wefox to find out.

Read it here. [Sponsored content.]

 Expansion 

How to win in the US, 2020 style 
 

European startups used to hurry off to the US as soon as they possibly could. 

That's not the case anymore, according to new analysis from VC firm Index.

But why? Freya Pratty finds out.

💊 Calling all healthtech fans 💊

Does healthtech news get your heart racing?

Do you have strong opinions on what magic pills our healthcare systems do (or don't need)?

Are you filled with endorphins whenever you chat to other healthtech innovators?

Then join our LinkedIn group for European Healthtech. 

News that matters

🤑 It's a VC funding bonanza! French VC firm Daphni is raising a new fund, aiming to close $150m. It's also had a major reshuffle of its team — seeing three of the original partners depart.

🏖️ Travel-focused VC firm Howzat Partners is also raising. The Luxembourg-based firm is aiming to close a new €100m fund, and says that it's not looking totally gloomy for all travel startups.

🏦 TrueLayer has raised $25m. The London-based fintech which helps other fintechs access account data from high-street banks, has picked up fresh funding from Temasek, Anthemis, Connect Ventures and Northzone. For more on other behind-the-scenes fintechs worth keeping an eye on, read our in-depth report. 

🕵️‍♀️ Watch out Greensill. Germany's financial regulator is looking into a Bremen-based bank owned by fintech giant Greensill, which raised $800m from SoftBank last year. Is there something iffy going on? Bloomberg takes a close look.

💄 The UK's second largest tech IPO ever. The Hut Group, the retail giant, listed on Monday — and made Balderton, the VC firm which backed it at Series A in 2010 and still owned around 16% of the company, a tidy return. 

🇷🇴 In other IPO news, Romanian unicorn UiPath is hiring underwriters to prepare to go public in 2021. Reuters has more.

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.

🤗 We're hiring a head of content 🤗

We're looking for somebody to lead the work we produce for clients.

This is a role for a doer and a thinker; somebody with experience producing partner content who is happy to muck in from day one, but who also has big ideas about how to grow this part of our business.

Please share this opportunity with anybody who fits the bill.
 

Full job description here.

Sifted Suggests 

💭 Which are the up-and-coming categories to watch in Europe? tweeted Luciana Lixandru, Sequoia's new partner this side of the pond. Here's what the people of Twitter said.

🛑 Seven mistakes beginners make when starting out with Facebook ads. From Waded.