Christmas Special 

What did we learn this year?

Merry Christmas all! This year in Europe we got €37.3bn worth of VC funding for startups, 21 IPOs, 15 new startup unicorns, 1,933 seed rounds and 181 VC funds raised.

But these are just numbers. What did we really learn this year?

Here are some of the top facts that Sifted found out in 2020, from the fun to the serious. 

1. European startups can go from launch to being worth $2.1bn in just 8 months. Yes, that is now officially possible after London-based online events platform Hopin became one of Europe’s most valuable startups this year after its $125m Series B in November. 

2. VCs are apparently not just guessing when they come up with valuations like this $2.1bn Hopin one (although there is a bit of that as well).

3. Despite the pandemic, CEOs have been taking their employees on psychedelic Ayahuasca retreats as a team bonding exercise (and HR is not so sure it's a good idea).

4. The European Union has started investing directly into startups through the "unicorn factory" EIC fund. It also made its first investment into "new space" as well.

5. Along with edtech, telemedicine, and food delivery, dating apps usage went through the roof during the early Covid spike. Swedish dating app Relate saw its active users increase 40% during lockdown, and two people in Paris held up a virtual date for a whopping 11 hours and forty minutes on Swiss dating app Once. Has dating changed forever?

6. Delivering one dose of a coronavirus vaccine to 7.8bn people worldwide would fill 8,000 Boeing 747 aircraft, according to Cargo.one, the Berlin-based digital booking platform for air cargo. In other virus news, it was Germany's BioNtech, a classic European startup success story, which helped create the first vaccine. 

7. Away from coronavirus, Sifed discovered that glow worms may be the next big thing in street lighting. French startup Glowee makes use of bioluminescence — a light-emitting property found in glow worms and fireflies — to produce sustainable lighting.

8. Bananas have their own version of Covid-19. It’s called TR4, also known as Panama disease which causes banana plants to wilt and die. Tropic Biosciences, a UK-based biotech company, is using gene editing to develop a banana that can beat the disease. 

9. Buy-now-pay-later startup Klarna is being sued by a company founded by Pablo Escobar’s brother, which claims that the startup owed his company Escobar Inc €400,000.

10. Vibrators are being used to help spinal injury patients regain sexual sensation in the latest iteration of the sextech craze in Europe. The hypothesis is under investigation by MysteryVibe, a London-based startup creating sexual health products.

11. Food can be made from more or less thin air. This is thanks to Finnish startup Solar Foods which is making a food called solein — which tastes a bit like egg and when baked into bread it has a hint of carrot — in a unique chemical process.

12. Four out of five dog owners in the US market will treat their furry friends a birthday gift according to David Prien, founder of Stockholm-based digital veterinary clinic FirstVet. That’s a big market for European pet tech companies.

13. A tote bag needs to be used 167 times until it's actually more useful to the planet than a paper bag, according to Plan.AEarth cofounder Lubomila Jordanova in a Sifted Talks on accelerating tech for good in November.

This is just a selection of the 52 things that Sifted has learnt this year. Read the full list here!

 🏃 Hone your business idea in a weekend 🏃

How do you find product-market fit? What do you need to build a viable financial model?

Huckletree’s Future Founder Academy on January 30-31 takes you through all the entrepreneurial essentials to kickstart your business.

Use code SIFTEDFFA21 for 20% off tickets.

Sign up now. [Sponsored post]

 Year in Review 

Sifted's most read stories of 2020

1. Europe is making faster cars and better batteries than Tesla
2. Pablo Escobar’s brother is suing Klarna for millions
3. Good vibrations — men’s sexual wellness gets the tech treatment
4. Enter the era of the digital nomad
5. The “Fin-influencer” boom: Why Instagram and TikTok are the new battlegrounds for digital banks
6. Inside Monzo 2.0: Who’s running the show now?
7. Brunch with Sifted: psychedelic investor Christian Angermayer
8. Europe now has 60 startup unicorns
9. The power of community: how Gymshark is killing it in the gym
10. A robot wrote these startups pitches. Would you invest in them?

 Future of Work 

From the archives: A new era for digital nomads

Estonia has become the first country in the world to create a digital nomad visa — the remote worker's ticket to heaven.

In most other countries, it's still not legal to work there for an extended period of time unless you have a local employer.

That's seriously short-sighted, says Karoli Hindriks, CEO of Jobbatical.

Here's why everywhere should want to nab those nomads.

🎄 Working but not working 🎄

Give your eyeballs a break from the Crimbo movies, and have a read of Sifted’s chapter in the Google for Startups Yearbook, all about adapting to change.

We spoke to six founders on the programme to find out how they succeeded in what has been a tough year for most.

Read the stories. [Sponsored post]

 Opinion 

The 10 biggest funding rounds in Spain 2020

On the face of it, it’s been a pretty terrible year. Total investment into Spanish startups in 2020 fell by 56% compared to 2019, from €1.2bn to €525m, according to Atomico’s State of European tech report.

But amidst the gloom, there were some big and exciting funding rounds.

What were they?

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