Startup Life 

Do founders make the best CEOs?

It’s the age-old question: do startup founders make the best startup CEOs? Or does there come a time when they should hand over the reins to a career CEO?

In this debate, Heba Bevan, CEO and founder of sensor startup UtterBerry pits herself against Suranga Chandratillake, general partner at Balderton Capital.

Who comes out on top?

⚡ Prepare to go public ⚡

Kick off 2021 getting prepared for an IPO with TechShare, Euronext’s unique pre-IPO programme dedicated to tech companies.

Familiarise yourself with financial markets and connect with TechShare’s top partner network — from Deloitte to PwC.

 Apply by October 23. [Sponsored post]

 Consumer 

“The industry is set up for caucasian skin”

Noelly Michoux, a French entrepreneur of Cameroonian descent, realised early on that she couldn’t find skincare products for her skin tone in the secluded part of Normandy where she grew up.

She thought things might improve when she moved to Paris — they didn’t — and then, when she moved to London, she thought things might be better there — they weren’t.

So she did something about it, founding 4.5.6 Skin.

This is how she did it (and just raised €700,000 in seed funding).

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 Investing 

A potential Covid vaccine is crowdfunding

It’s not every day that you get the chance to invest in a potentially world-changing piece of research.

But today, Catalan startup Ruti Immune will open a crowdfunding round of €2m to fund clinical trials to test a vaccine’s potential to aid the fight against Covid-19.

Read all about it.

 Mobility 

Tier’s lessons from Paris, the world’s scooter capital

Earlier this year, Paris said “non” to scooter chaos and adopted a heavily regulated approach instead, handing out only three licences to electric-scooter operators.

So what has Tier, one of the lucky licence holders, learnt from one of the biggest (and most complex) scooter markets in the world?

Sifted's French correspondent Marie Mawad finds out.

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So please, pitch us some more!

We want to hear your punchy takes on everything from sustainability to startup culture, salaries to strategies.

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News that matters

🤯 Our heads are spinning here at Sifted as used car website Cazoo, founded by serial entrepreneur Alex Chesterman (founder of property site Zoopla), has raised another £240m. This is the British startup’s fourth round of funding in just two years, and brings total funds raised to £450m. That is very speedy going. In June, the startup became the UK’s ‘fastest-ever’ unicorn, hitting a billion-dollar valuation.

⏰ TetaVi, an Israeli startup which makes 3D holograms, has secured $6m in new funding, and it’s got its sights set on a new area for holography — social media, and TikTok in particular. Founded in 2016, TetaVi is based in Tel Aviv but has studios in New York, Los Angeles and Tokyo, and the recent funding round brings the total investment in the company to $11.3m. So far, it’s created holograms for esports, fashion retailers, gaming and entertainment.

🤖 General purpose artificial intelligence is increasingly becoming a game for Big Tech and Big Government in the US and China, leaving Europe trailing in the dust. But AI is also a game for nimble startups that can creatively apply the technology to particular business niches, giving Europe a chance to flourish. Those are two of the main takeaways from the third annual 176-slide State of AI report, written by Nathan Benaich and Ian Hogarth, two of the most active angel investors in the UK in AI startups.

🔮 Staff at IQM, the Finnish quantum computer startup, have announced a breakthrough that would make quantum computers more accurate and easier to scale up. You may want to make a strong cup of coffee before reading our piece on exactly why, but the interesting point is that, while much of the development of quantum hardware has taken place in the US at big tech companies like Google and IBM, European startups are still playing a big role in the development of this new wave of computing.

🗃️ Imagine driving around the city with a box on the back of your truck — the inside of which is hot enough to melt steel or power an industrial furnace. This is part of the clean energy vision being developed by Kraftblock, a German startup which is using nanotechnology to develop a highly efficient thermal storage system which has just raised a €3m investment.

🍆 Spain’s Emjoy, an erotic audio guide app which has seen a big spike in usage during the coronavirus lockdown, raised €2.5m. “Social distancing can be quite challenging for our health, especially when it comes to our natural human need for touch. Self-isolation can be a great opportunity to reconnect and explore our bodies,” Emjoy cofounder and chief executive Andrea Oliver told Sifted the other month.

🚚 Einride, a Swedish startup building autonomous trucks that hauls goods from A to B without a human driver, announced an €8.5m fundraise led by existing investors including Norrsken, EQT Ventures, Nordic Ninja and Ericsson Ventures. It comes just one year after the company raised $25m, bringing Einride’s total raised to $42m. For more on Einride, see our profile here.

🌱Dutch impact investing fund manager Social Impact Ventures has launched its second fund and adopted a new name; Rubio Impact Ventures. The first closing of the new fund at €55m includes continued support from the European Investment Fund with a €20m participation, said the firm. 

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 

🇬🇧 Too many startups are failing and this new members club in London wants to help... Read all about Startup Garage here. 

📵 I stopped using screens on Sundays — this is how it changed my life, by Mary Lemmer in Fast Company. 

💸 Fundrise and the magic of diversification, by Packy McCormick.

💉 Covid-19 business impact (in the UK) — six months on, from Beauhurst. 

🧑‍💼 Coronavirus' business impact — from McKinsey