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Happy Wednesday Sifted Reader 🌞

On today's roster:

🐫 Europe's top seed and Series A investors
🌳 Mapping the continent's climate tech startups
🏡 The Clubhouse influencers you need to follow
🌊 Chinese funding into European fintech

\For Members Venture Capital

Top 10 seed investors in Europe

Founders are not short of options when it comes to raising a seed round in Europe, with over 2.5k seed-stage investors based in the continent (not mentioning the global VCs active over here).

Today, data platform Dealroom has released its annual ranking of seed-stage VCs, based on the size of their unicorn herd and deal count in EMEA over the past year.

On top of that, Sifted has looked into what else makes these VCs stand out — and what founders think of them.

Guess who made the top 10?

\A message from our sponsor Mitek

Covid-19 accelerated digital ID verification — but where is it headed?

From iris technology to biometric data, ID verification’s disruption is only just beginning. We’ll be exploring the future of identity veriﬁcation-as-a-service (VaaS) at an upcoming Sifted Talks with a panel of experts. We’ll ask:

How does facial veriﬁcation work?
What’s the potential for discrimination?
What does the future look like for biometric data fraud?

Register now to join the discussion on March 18.

\For Members Venture Capital

Top 10 Series A investors in Europe

2020 also saw some mammoth VC funds emerge, from the likes of Atomico ($820m) and Index Ventures ($800m), with a big focus on Series A.

So as an extra treat, we’ve also found out who the top Series A investors are in EMEA according to Dealroom’s ranking — plus what founders really make of them.

Find out here.

\Sustainability

European climate tech: mapped

VC firms Speedinvest and Creandum are mapping out European climate tech startups — and have found over 800 so far. (They're looking for further nominations too.)

We broke down the available data they've gathered so far:

Which countries have the most climate techs?
Which startups have raised the most?
Which sub-sectors have attracted the most funding...
...and where are clusters forming?

Read our analysis here.

\Sustain

Have you subscribed to our sustainability newsletter yet?

We're looking at you climate-anxious, future-focused, global thinkers. Sustain, our Thursday newsletter, looks at the startups and trends shaping the future of our planet.

Sign up now (because 2030 would be too late).

\Consumer

The Clubhouse influencers you need to follow

The audio-only app is growing fast, jumping from 5.3m users in early February to 11m in March. Don't have an invite yet? It's time to find one.

Then your next move is to follow the leaders in European tech responsible for making the app what it is today — from Akash Bajwa, founder of the European Tech Club, to Sara Essa, founder of Sustainability Club.

Here's our list of 20 tech leaders to follow on Clubhouse.

\Sifted Talks

Today: How to use data to grow your startup

What data is most important for customer acquisition? How can numbers make your business more efficient? And how can non-technical teams become data experts?

Find out at our Sifted Talks today, 5pm GMT.

Sign up here (it's free!)

\For Members Fintech

The Chinese investors on the hunt for European fintechs

Chinese investors have already funded Klarna, N26 and Wefox — but a small group of 14 key investors, from corporate VC firm Tencent to crypto fund Bitmain, are becoming increasingly important for the sector.

Analysts expect a boom in Chinese capital into the sector fuelled by changing political and regulatory tides.

Get the full lowdown here — and don't forget to subscribe to our fintech newsletter.

News that Matters

🤝 Passion Capital's opened up its latest fund to 'everyday' investors. Amy Lewin finds out why the London-based VC firm is inviting just about anybody to become an LP.

🐦 Starling's ready to fly from the nest. Having now officially reached unicorn status, this FT article points out how the digital bank's recent growth has been driven by government-backed loan schemes. Will its luck continue?

🛴 London's trialling Lime, Tier and Dott. Mayor Sadiq Khan has reportedly chosen to test out the same trio of e-scooter operators as Paris. Only a third of London's 33 boroughs are participating in the scheme though, which is likely to pose big problems.

🍎 France is suing Apple — on behalf of all startups. France Digitale, the official association representing the nation's entrepreneurs and VCs, has asked the French privacy watchdog to investigate iOS 14 software for potential violation of GDPR.

🐴 Is OVH flogging a dead horse? The founder of the French cloud company wants to buy virtual PC startup Shadow, which is near bankruptcy and requires mega investments — despite a boom in demand. We're keeping an eye on this story.

🚜 Wefarm is set to expand its SMS service into an online platform. The tool connects millions of farmers worldwide with each other, and the agritech has also announced a $11m Series A round.

🎒 Preply, the Ukrainian edtech, has raised €29.5m. The Series B round was co-led by Owl Ventures and Full In Partners, with investment from Delivery Hero cofounder and CEO Niklas Ostberg and Booking.com cofounder Arthur Kosten.

Sifted Suggests

🚶‍♀️Trans women in tech. Revisit this piece by founder Joan Westenberg, where she details her experience as a trans woman in an often hostile industry.

🍀 Ireland takes on the US (in the form of fintech king Patrick Collison). This interview with the cofounder and CEO of Stripe is easy to get lost in — perfect for a Wednesday afternoon coffee break.

🎧 Daniel Ek's management advice. Young VC Harry Stebbings interviews Daniel Ek, founder of Spotify — and Stride founder Fred Destin handily made a Twitter thread to break down his key lessons on management if you don't have time to listen to the whole thing.

🎨 Any modern Monets reading this? This is a must-read on non-fungible tokens — the latest tech that could redefine how creative industries prove provenance — and here's a step-by-step guide on how you can mint an NFT of your own.

🍌 Peeling confused about all this investment jargon? Below is a helpful diagram — and yes, someone did create an NFT of the NFT painting, which you can bid on before 15 March.