Healthtech 

This startup will put your dead body on ice for €30 a month

Emil Kendziorra runs a business called Tomorrow Biostasis which — in exchange for a surprisingly small monthly payment — will freeze your head or body to -196°C until you can get resurrected. 

It’s part of a growing trend of companies in the longevity field (albeit one of the most esoteric). But are they freezing people? How does it work? Does it even work?

Sifted Mimi Billing tries out the tech.*

*P.S. No journalists were harmed in the making of this article.

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 Venture Capital 

Is Checkout.com really worth $15bn?

Checkout.com’s $450m Series C has catapulted Guillaume Pousaz’s payments business to a $15bn valuation, making it Europe's second most valuable privately held unicorn.

But how did VCs come to that lofty valuation? And is the company really worth that much?

Sifted's Katja Staple delves into the VC maths.

 Future of Work 

Tech workers have fled the cities. Will they come back?

With offices shut, many tech employees have upped sticks and headed to the countryside. 

Many have found cheap rents, great broadband... and the occasional electricity blackout.

But will their bosses want them to stay post-pandemic?

🌍 Who needs an HQ anymore? 🌍

For many startups, 2020 was the year their teams discovered remote working. Some employees love it, others hate it, but one thing’s for sure — it’s here to stay. 

On February 12, we’ll be joined by an expert panel to discuss what the new world of work means for startups and how they can take advantage of it. 

Is there really any need to limit your hiring to places where you have a physical presence? Just how far afield does it make sense to look for hires? And what does it take to build a fully remote workforce?

Find out in the next Sifted Talks.

 HR 

The great remote work pay debate

Should people working from home be paid less?

It makes sense if they can now live in the countryside (see above) where life is cheaper.

On the other hand, maybe they should be paid more? After all, employers no longer need to cough up for office space, internet, snacks etc... 

What's the answer? Nicolas Colin explores.

News that matters

🚨 Holy Moly that's a big valuation. UiPath has closed a $750m funding round at a post-money valuation of $35bn (!!), making the fast-growing robotic process automation platform by far the largest European private tech company just months ahead of a planned initial public offering.

💸 Buy-now-pay-later companies will now be regulated, said the UK government on Tuesday. The move comes after regulatory review and a social campaign by Alice Tapper that emphasised the impact on young people. Alex Marsh, the head of Klarna UK, said: “Now is the time for regulation”.

🏥 Telemedico just closed a €5.5m Series A round. The Polish telehealth startup has benefited from a surge in demand during coronavirus — it says 2020 was a record year, with 12m consultations carried out. But 2021 could well top it, with the company predicting a 2.5x increase in demand for their services.

🛵 Today Getir will begin delivering groceries within zones 1 and 2 in London. Backed by Michael Moritz, the Turkish startup promises delivery within 10 minutes and is vying to secure itself a place in the highly competitive market. After widespread concerns about working conditions in the gig economy, CEO Nazim Selur has said all Getir's drivers will be paid above the London living wage.

🥘 The French food media site Chefclub has raised $17m in a round led by First Bridge Ventures. It's competing against the likes of Tasty, Tastemade and Bon Appetit, and has a respectable 100m followers and receives 1bn views per month. Interestingly enough, it’s focused on consumer-packaged foods (including a partnership with Tefal) rather than online ads.

🍒 London-based HR startup Ben raised $2.5m in a round led by Cherry Ventures and Seedcamp. Its software, which helps  SMEs offer personalised, flexible benefits to their employees, is used by 100+ companies. 

👼 Startup pitching event Debut Sessions has just launched the 'Ascension ASA', a new investment structure that will allow angel investors to coinvest alongside VCs for as little as £2k.

🥤 A fizzy Series A round for Brussels-based Soda, the data monitoring platform. Point Nine Capital, Hummingbird, DCF and a few angels invested €11.5m, which the startup says will be used to develop its data monitoring platform and establish a more global reach.

🛴 A fine line for escooter users. The city of Stockholm's just announced a 250 kronor (approx. €25) fine for escooter companies every time the city's traffic wardens have to move discarded escooters. Voi responded with an announcement it would trial fining users in Helsingborg if they park scooters in the wrong place.

🤝 Meanwhile, yesterday escooter operators formed a new coalition. Micro-Mobility for Europe (MMfE) includes market leaders Bird, Bolt, Dott, FreeNow, Lime, Tier, Voi and Wind; and aims to support the rapid transition to zero emission urban mobility by developing a European policy framework which they can all back. Right now, the MMfE operates in over 100 European cities.

Sifted Suggests 

💥 The “cambrian explosion” in tech for remote work? (And much more.) The legendary Benedict Evans has released his annual presentation on tech — this year it's called ‘The Great Unbundling’ — which includes a view to the next 50 years, too.

🏡 Will Clubhouse wipe out podcasts? After the failure of early audio-only app Anchor, Casey Newton of newsletter Platformer makes the case that Clubhouse is doing what it never managed to do: “democratise radio.”

📉 He takes from the rich and gives to... the rich? This feature by the NYT on Robinhood's $1bn raise is the story of a startup caught in the perils of macroeconomics.

📈 Kevin Roose, meanwhile, argues the historic GameStop event was a "long time coming." Honestly, why did it take so long for this to happen?

⛵ Prefer waterfall hopping to working from home? Get the complete lowdown on Croatia’s first visa for ‘digital nomads’, which was introduced on January 1 and is valid for one year — as long as you don’t provide services to Croatian businesses and aren’t subject to income tax.

👩‍💻 Or are you missing those coffee machine catchups as much as we are? Following our most recent Sifted Talks last Thursday, here's seven tips on how to maintain company culture remotely, featuring another eye-catching illustration to share on the work Slack.

🇬🇧 London's still calling. Dealroom's new report concludes Europe's VC market is disproportionately based in the UK capital, as London's VC firms raised a whopping third of all new funds since 2018.

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