Venture Capital 

Covid is going to be a "VC slayer"

The last few years have been a golden era for European VCs, with record levels of cash to deploy and record returns from their investments.

But the next five years are going to be a bit trickier, truly separating the mediocre VCs from the really great ones.

How come? Isabel Woodford 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 six top tips here. [Sponsored post]

 Startup Life 

How to lead in times of crisis

The last few months have not been an easy time to be leading a company — and the next few won't be either.

There's no playbook to follow, but empowering your team and getting the hell outta the way seems to be working well for some founders.

That's according to leadership coach Gillian Davis — who explains more here.

 Venture Capital 

Screw the EIF

There is a new way for VC firms to get bragging rights: saying no to money from the European Investment Fund.

Or at least that's what the team at All Iron Ventures have proudly done with their newly closed €66.5m fund, the largest debut VC fund in Spain to date.

Not taking government money gives them more freedom to invest, says cofounder Ander Michelena.

What else? Sifted's Tim Smith in Barcelona has more.

 Healthtech 

The data on European healthtech

European healthtech startups brought in $2.3bn worth of investment in the third quarter of 2020, nearing the record $2.9bn in the same quarter last year.

This big number came despite fears that the pandemic would mean health investors focused on operative businesses rather than up-and-coming ones.

Great news! What else do the numbers say?

Freya Pratty digs into the data. 

⚕️ Cancer startups: get in touch with Sifted ⚕️

Hej, our Nordic correspondent Mimi Billing is writing about cancer startups in Europe and would love to hear from you.

Email her here and maybe get featured in Sifted. 

News that matters

💳 German fintech Vivid Money has raised a €15m Series A funding round at a €100m valuation, becoming the latest challenger bank the enter the fray in Europe. Vivid is built on top of Solarisbank for the banking infrastructure and has a whole load of nifty digital features and a — stop the presses — metal card. Right now, Vivid is only available in Germany but it has plans to expand to other European countries.

👎 Salary expectations have dropped for startup roles in London in almost all departments, apart from data science and business intelligence, according to data from job platform Kandidate. Here’s what else you need to know about London’s startup job market in late 2020.

💰 VC firm Hummingbird has raised a $200m fund at "record speed". It's not a huge fund, but they said that "a larger fund size would keep us from our best and our passion: investing in seed, with tickets from $500k to $5m in the earliest stages of a business." Hummingbird's portfolio includes Deliveroo and Billion to One. The bigger trend, as discussed above, is that VCs are finding it pretty easy to raise money — and have developed a taste for 'opportunities' funds.

🩰 Citysocializer, previously a platform for promoting real-world socialising in cities, has relaunched, becoming something akin to a ‘Get Your Guide for virtual events’. It's one the many startups having to pivot during coronavirus. For a longer list of pivoting startups, see our story here. 

👀 The UK government has held talks with US data analytics company Palantir in an attempt to bolster its struggling test-and-trace programme after a spreadsheet blunder left thousands of positive coronavirus cases unreported for days, according to the FT. Maybe the UK government should turn to some of these European startups instead to help with coronavirus?

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.

🤸‍♀️ Share the fun 🤸‍♀️

If you like our newsletter, please forward it on to somebody else who might like it too. It really helps us grow our audience. Thanks!

Sifted Suggests 

🐦 A new book from Anne Boden, founder of Starling Bank, has reignited rivalry between the two challenger banks Monzo and Starling. Here Oscar Williams-Grut looks at the tensions and drama.

🌿 The recent relaxation of cannabis legislation around the world has attracted a lot of investment. While most endeavours focus on extracting cannabinoid compounds from cannabis plants, there’s a growing interest in producing them using engineered microbes.

☁️ One for the cloud geeks... A good piece by Elaia about investing in cloud infrastructure.