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Happy Wednesday Sifted Reader! Your line up today includes:

💳 The N26 alumni to watch
🐫 Deliveroo: Is it worth it?
🔬 €2bn for French deeptech
💰 IPOs and SPACs galore

\For Members Fintech

Meet the fast-growing N26 'mafia': the employees turned entrepreneurs

Since its launch in 2013, Germany's most highly-valued fintech has spawned dozens of new companies across Europe.

The list is ever-growing, but we count a whopping 28 N26 alumni who've gone on to launch startups of their own.

They include Alexa-for-the-workplace 6voices, DeFi savings app Donut and up-and-coming social app Beam.

Miriam Partington's collected the full list — but this one's for Sifted members only.

\Our new report Pet tech on the rise

Does pet tech have a fur ball?

Sifted’s ulti-mutt pet tech report is finally here. What are the biggest challenges pet tech entrepreneurs are facing? Where is pet hardware headed? How can tech make pet ownership and adoption more ethical?

Download the latest Sifted Report to learn more.

\Opinion

Deliveroo: Is it worth it?

Deliveroo lists on the London Stock Exchange today — but reports suggest many investors might shun it. Why?

Fears around its gig economy model, after the recent ruling about Uber's workers?
Is there just too much competition?
Or is it because the UK's Competition and Markets Authority took absolutely ages to approve Amazon's minority investment in Deliveroo last year?

Nicolas Colin is back — and argues that none of that matters that much.

\For Members Consumer

12 startups nibbling at Deliveroo that investors are watching closely

Covid-19 doubled the number of Deliveroo orders placed last year, and founder Will Shu says he believes the pandemic will have accelerated the food delivery industry by two or three years.

Unsurprisingly, plenty more startups want in on the action.

Super fast delivery companies, meal kit startups and a whole host of ambient grocery startups are coming for parts of Deliveroo's business — and many are doing things very differently.

But which ones are investors watching carefully? Sifted members can find out here.

\Deeptech

France's deeptech fund reaches €2bn

Europe's betting big on science startups — and its efforts are led by Bpifrance, the French state-backed firm.

It's just announced a 50% increase in its five-year deeptech fund, from €1.3bn to €2bn.

But what are the UK, Germany, Estonia and the EU itself up to?

Our new French correspondent Chris O'Brien finds out.

\Sponsored by ClearBank

Four ways banks can work better with fintechs

Over 50% of fintechs see banks as 'mission critical partners', according to a recent ClearBank survey, helping startups with regulatory compliance, sourcing new revenue streams and reducing overall operational spend.

On the flipside, fintechs help banks with innovation and keep them from competition.

But the report also found that banks aren't meeting the needs of fintechs — a little under half of respondents don't think their institutional partners have helped them at all.

Here are the four things that could improve agency banking.

News that Matters

Raises

🤵 Beyond erections and balding. Manual, a mentech startup, has raised $30m in a Series A round from Cherry Ventures and Felix Capital. It offers a wide range of personalised treatments for men's health, from skincare to maintaining heart health.

🛰️ Satellite and comms startup Hiber has secured €26m to expand its IoT satellite network. The money's coming from the European Innovation Council's Innovation Fund, as well as private investment.

🛵 Everli has raised $100m in its Series C. Formerly known as Supermercato24, the online grocery startup is a mainstay in Italy, Poland, the Czech Republic and France. The round was led by Verlinvest.

📦 This kitchen starter kit startup is starting out strong. Noah has just raised £1.4m in its seed round, led by Fuel Ventures.

🤳 Is data the new oil? French startup TaData is paying people for their personal data, and is targeted at 15-35 year olds — this investigation by Le Figaro digs into how this affects students.

🏫 Speaking of students, Austrian digital learning platform GoStudent has raised €70m in its Series B round. So far, it claims to facilitate 250k tutoring sessions per month — and it plans to use the funds to expand across 15 European countries.

IPOs and SPACs

🛩️ Lilium's flying. It's finally announced plans to list on the Nasdaq via a reverse merger with Qell Acquisition Corp, valuing the German flying taxi startup at $3.3bn.

🚨 SPAC alert! Cazoo is listing on the NYSE via a $7bn business combination with AJAX I. The UK online used car retailer, founded in 2018, is expected to see $1.6bn in gross proceeds. D1 Capital, Altimeter, BlackRock, Counterpoint Capital and Fidelity were also involved.

🐝 Pensionbee's going public. Yesterday it published its registration document on the London Stock Exchange, and it's aiming to raise £55m by issuing new shares. The pension consolidator was founded in 2014.

🌾 Oatly is truly going global. Ahead of its IPO, the cult oat milk company is opening up a factory in Singapore to meet demand on the continent.

VC action

🌝 The European Moonshot. The EU Unicorns Group, a 35-strong collective of founders and CEOs, have called upon the EU to support their new programme which focuses on greentech and deeptech. They've said: "Europe is not the US nor China. We should take advantage of the strength of our variety and strive to set up a network of our 'small valleys.'"

🕵️ 007's new ventures. The UK's National Security Investment Fund has invested £100m into seven VC firms: Albion VC, Amadeus Capital, Dawn Capital, Evolution Equity Partners, Longwall Ventures, Notion Capital and Oxx Capital.

💰 Singular has launched. The VC firm, based in Paris, was founded by ex-partners at Alven and has raised an initial fund of $265m.

Sifted Suggests

🌐 Why is a web browser investing in fintech? Norwegian company Opera plans to plough $100m into building a fintech business, whether through R&D or acquisition. Ryan Weeks investigates.

✔️ How to not write a job ad. How you write job postings sets the tone for your company and has a serious impact on diversity goals — so here are the five things not to do.

🎵 Thinking about TikTok marketing? It's not too late (yet). Here's a great bit of user research on how startups actually succeed on the platform designed for authentic user interactions.

🔥 The real reason humans are the dominant species: energy. Especially for you climate tech, cleantech and greentech geeks, this is an exceptional feature on how the way we power our societies defines us.

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Sifted Resources

Europe's fastest-growing B Corps [Member]

The brand-new sustainability startups you need to know

How to pitch an opinion piece to Sifted

How to pitch a story to Sifted

How to tell your story: PR advice for startups

Michael Stothard
Editor

Get in touch with him at michael@sifted.eu
Or find him tweeting @MStothard

Isabella Pojuner
Editorial Intern

Get in touch with her at isabella@sifted.eu
She's into climate tech and crypto.

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Sifted - Meet the N26 'mafia' 💳

\For Members Fintech

Meet the fast-growing N26 'mafia': the employees turned entrepreneurs

\Our new report Pet tech on the rise

Does pet tech have a fur ball?

\Opinion

Deliveroo: Is it worth it?

\For Members Consumer

12 startups nibbling at Deliveroo that investors are watching closely

\Deeptech

France's deeptech fund reaches €2bn

\Sponsored by ClearBank

Four ways banks can work better with fintechs

News that Matters

Raises

IPOs and SPACs

VC action

Sifted Suggests

Sifted Resources

Older messages

Relationship tech: can it woo investors? 💘

Dating a founder ❤

Shift over SaaS 💁

Trustpilot IPO: what do VCs get? 🤑

The NFT buzz 💥

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