Food 

Gousto becomes the UK's latest unicorn

Meal kit company Gousto has some pretty nifty numbers to shout about. It delivers 5 million meals every month, it’s doubling its team to 2,000 by 2022 and it has a net promoter score of 70-80.

Oh, and it's just hit unicorn status after a new £25m funding round from existing investors.

But Timo Boldt, founder and CEO, thinks that the unicorn valuation is "vanity, not sanity". 

Why? Amy Lewin finds out.

😊 Achieve your revenue goals 😊

This handy report from Oracle lays out the strategies, tools and techniques that will turn your startup into a profitability powerhouse.

Read 6 top tips here. [Sponsored post.]

 Data 

Can European tech lead entrepreneurship?

Last week, Sifted released a report in partner with Dealroom exploring if Europe has what it takes to be the most entrepreneurial continent.

How many European tech jobs are being generated? Do European investors have enough money to accommodate growing tech businesses? Is there a funding gap between early- and late-stage ventures?

Discover how we're doing here.

 Venture Capital 

What's next for British Patient Capital?

It’s been a busy few years for the UK’s largest startup investor. 

Since 2018, government-funded British Patient Capital has committed £1bn to VCs and startups — and it still has £1.5bn left to boost high-growth companies in the UK.

Sifted sat down with the interim CEO of BPC, Judith Hartley, to find out what impact Covid has had on its pipeline, why she's keeping a close eye on the US — and if she thinks VC partners should be paid less.

Amy Lewin reports.

 Diversity 

UK Black entrepreneurs receive under 1% of capital

A new report by Extend Ventures shows that between 2009 and 2019, just 0.24% of venture capital went to teams of Black entrepreneurs — 38 businesses in total.

The data isn't looking great for other people of colour as well, who received 1.7% of total capital at all stages... 

These solutions could begin to change that, however.

🌟 Tech Nation's Rising Stars: nine months on 🌟

Back in February, 10 companies were named Tech Nation’s Rising Stars 2.0 winners. Then coronavirus hit. What happened next?

Catch up with them here. [Sponsored post.]

Sifted Suggests 

🤔 Reflections on three years of finding a product/market fit inside a venture fund. Andrea Di Pietrantonio, investor at the Finnish VC firm Inventure “gets into the different stages of the VC version of customer success management”.

💪 Saving Europe’s economic sovereignty. This insightful long read by the European Council on Foreign Relations outlines 10 ways in which the EU can avoid coercion — from establishing a digital currency to introducing new regulations. French junior minister Cedric O recently told Sifted that fintechs are the key to sovereignty.

🦠 Your mobile phone can hear if you have Covid. MIT researchers have now found that people who are asymptomatic may differ from healthy individuals in the way that they cough. While the human ear cannot decipher it, savvy AI can.

🇸🇪 Sweden’s top 40 tech entrepreneurs under 40. According to Di Digital.

💳 Virtual event: Set up your fintech for success 💳

In these tumultuous times, every fintech leader should stay on top of the best next investment steps for their company.

Join Sifted’s fintech correspondent Isabel Woodford this Thursday 3pm BST to find out exactly how fintechs can sustain growth, featuring our star panel from Notion Capital, Oracle NetSuite and Currencycloud.

Sign up here.

In case you missed it 

🧠 From a chip in your brain to a headset on your head, here are the European startups going up against Elon Musk's Neuralink.

🚫 Fired by algorithm. Uber's facing a legal challenge after its automated system sacked four drivers. Here's what's going down.

🐝 Customer insights startup Streetbees relies on millions of people — or 'bees' — answering questions to fill up its database. But are they getting a fair deal?

🚀 Sifted needs your help 🚀

As we look ahead, we aspire to get bigger and better in what we do. So we're exploring membership models and we're keen to know what you, our readers, think of them.

Please take our reader survey — and get a sneak peek at our future plans. Cheers!

Events
 

💁‍♀️ Ask me Anything with Aimie-Sarah Carstensen | Online | 3 Nov 
Join Female Founders for the second edition of Ask me Anything, with the founder of Berlin-based creative community platform ArtNight to talk about female empowerment in business. 

💊 Investing in the future of medtech | Online | 4 Nov 
Calling all medtech fanatics, don't miss out on this webinar by Consilience Ventures about opportunities, risks and barriers associated with investing in the sector, and find out how investors can approach the sector with confidence.

🙏 FounderFuel LIVE: Team dynamics | Online | 24 Nov
How can we fuel ourselves and our teams better? Find out with Laura Penhaul: 2x world-record holder for rowing the Pacific with the female-led Coxless Crew.

🤸‍♀️ Share the fun 🤸‍♀️

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