Innovation 

Spain: full of copycats?

Spanish startups — like food delivery company Glovo and ride-hailing company Cabify — are very good at taking other startups' business ideas and making them a big success in southern Europe and Latin America. 

But are they any good at actually coming up with new ideas? And does that really matter?

Tim Smith dives into the debate. 

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 Fintech 

An audience with fintech's posterchild: Stripe

San Francisco's Stripe is now Silicon Valley's most valuable startup — at $36bn.

But it's not only making waves in America's investor playground — the company landed in Europe seven years ago and is slowly encroaching on local fintech's turf.

We sat down with Stripe's head of EMEA, Eileen O'Mara, to talk about how the US fintech giant plans to remain competitive amid an influx of new nifty players, and the issues O'Mara was brought in to fix.

Isabel Woodford has the story.

 Startup Life 

Get yourself an independent board

Startup boards all too often look a wee bit similar. They're made up of founders, investors and, sometimes, members of management. 

Bad move. 

The most useful board members you can get are independent — and not financially invested in the company, writes INSEAD director Aline Eibl. 

Here's how to build a great board.

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 Future of Work 

A new twist in the food delivery space

Totem, a French startup which places snacking pods/mini convenience stores in workplaces, has raised €4m.

Sounds like a trick to keep employees chained to their desks for as long as possible?

Perhaps, but it could be a lot more than that.

Amy Lewin finds out how Totem hopes to steal a slice of the food delivery players' business — and even cut out the local supermarket.

News that matters

🔋 $600m for Northvolt. Spotify founder Daniel Ek has announced his first 'moonshot' investment — into Swedish battery gigafactory Northvolt. Mimi Billing has more.

🕵️‍♀️ And €600m for Highland Europe? The London-based VC firm, which has been on a funding spree of late, is planning to raise a new fund, according to regulatory filings in the US.

🍒 Warehouse robots startup Exotec has raised $90m. Its tiny robots scoot up and down the floors and racks of warehouses to pick up pallets — and then deliver them to workstations where humans unpack products from them. Clients include Carrefour, Leclerc and Uniqlo. All of Exotec's robots are manufactured in Lille in France; it plans to produce 4,000 per year by 2021.

📦 In related news, 'micro-warehouse' startup Huboo has raised £14m. The UK startup works with online retailers to store, pack and deliver their goods to customers, as soon as they're ordered. VC firm Stride has led the round, with existing investors Episode 1, Maersk Growth, Ada Ventures and True Capital following on. Supply chains don't sound sexy — but with retail speedily shifting online, this is one space to watch. 

👵 Care startup Cera has been on a shopping spree, again. It has acquired another care firm, Mears Care Scotland, for £2m. The move will boost Cera's headcount by 1,000. For more on Cera, read our profile.

🚕 Uber lives to fight another day. The ride-hailing company has been granted a new licence to operate in London. Its European competitor Bolt will be disappointed. 

📸 Caught on camera. NtechLab, a Russian startup which analyses footage from surveillance cameras — in real-time — has raised $13m to expand globally. The tech has been used to monitor large gatherings of people and for facial recognition for law enforcement. The round was led by the Russian Direct Investment Fund. 

😁 Smile! Spanish orthodontics startup Impress raised a $5.8m seed round to expand into new markets and sell its invisible braces to more customers.

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Sifted Suggests 

👏 More VCs Congratulating Themselves! The highly entertaining @VCBrags Twitter account now has a European spin off. Enjoy.

🇷🇺 100 Russian-speaking female tech founders. Compiled by VC firm Leta Capital.

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