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Morning Sifted Reader,

If you haven't had your coffee yet, our top story on cybersex tech will wake you up. The sector's finally catching investors' eyes — although it does still need to iron out a few kinks... Also in today's issue:

The top Parisian startups and scaleups to watch in 2021
VCs' favourite remote work startups
Songkick founder raises £2m for new carbon offsetting scheme

\Consumer

VR pornography and the emerging cybersex tech market

Cybersex tech is stimulating the European market. With consumers craving the ability to connect with others, VR pornography and virtual intimacy are taking the sextech sector by storm.

From teledildonic devices to haptic tech, investors are starting to get a feel for the demand — and now there’s huge potential for the market to expand.

Here's why VR is a gamechanger for the sextech industry.

\Sifted Talks

How to make your exit a good one

Join the experts in our Sifted Talks TODAY at 12pm BST to discuss how to best judge the market and make a timely exit.

Register here!

\France

Parisian startups and scaleups to watch in 2021

So far this year, €4.1bn in VC investments has surged into Parisian startups — a stark rise from the €2.9bn raised in all of 2020.

Paris is fast becoming a hub for high tech enterprises; so from Malt to Monisnap, here's our list of the city's breakout businesses.

\Sponsored by Mastercard

Will fintechs lead the green revolution? 5 things we learned from our virtual panel

Fintechs are becoming a part of the ‘fabric of society’, according to ekko CEO Oli Cook. This makes them well-positioned to drive sustainability initiatives across all sectors.

So, from eco-friendly payments to educating consumers, how are UK fintechs leading the green revolution?

Find out here.

\For Members Venture Capital

VCs highlight 15 remote work startups in Europe

Lockdowns might be lifting across Europe, but the pandemic has transformed the working landscape. Remote work startups, including notable names like Portugal-based Remote, have recently attracted hefty funding from prominent investors.

From Zoom alternatives to productivity tools, we asked five VCs actively investing in this area for their non-portfolio favourites.

Here's what they said.

If you're not yet a Sifted member, subscribe here for as little as £19 per month.

\Community Journalism

Have you ever worked in a toxic environment?

Too often, the intensity of high-growth startups can create a stressful, fraught and unhappy atmosphere at work. We’re looking into our readers’ experiences of these toxic environments, and we want to hear from you.

This survey will only take a few minutes, and we won’t ask for any personal information that could identify you. We’ll publish the results of the survey in the coming weeks.

Take the totally anonymous survey.

\Sustainability

Does the world need another carbon offsetting platform?

Carbon offsetting is the current corporate craze — and between April and June, VCs poured more than $19m into European carbon tracking startups.

Now another one's come along.

Meet carbon offsetting platform Supercritical, which has just raised £2m pre-seed funding, and plans to do things differently by focusing exclusively on carbon removal schemes.

Sarah Drumm spoke to cofounder Michelle You to find out more.

News that Matters

⚡ Bolt bags €600m in funding. The Estonian startup — which is branding itself as a 'European super-app' — has now doubled its valuation to a whopping €4bn, after raising from new investors Sequoia, Tekne and Ghisallo. It'll be ploughing a lot of that capital into a new 15-minute grocery delivery service, launching in 10 European markets.

📦 You no longer have to forage for storage. Vienna-based logistics company Storebox, which offers digital self-storage services, has raised €52m in a Series B investment round to expand across Europe and the UK. Now, Storebox is leveraging its franchise model to propel its growth in the urban logistics market.

\Join Our Team

Marketing roles at Sifted

We’re looking for a social media manager to help us grow our social presence and find creative ways of sharing our content.

We’re also on the hunt for an experienced marketing manager to help us turbocharge our reach and nurture our membership base.

If you’d like to become part of our team and help us grow our audience then please apply!

Sifted Suggests

🎖️ The military is turning to startup tech. While western armies were once at the forefront of providing military tech to the private sector, they’re now increasingly leaning towards startups for a technical edge. Maija Palmer reports. [Member]

🙌 Managers — find your team some mentors. Sigrid Dalberg-Krajewski, senior director of communications at Berlin-based Delivery Hero, has found mentors for nearly everyone in her 20-person team. Here, she explains how you can find mentors for your team — and the benefits it brings. This Q&A first appeared in our weekly Startup Life newsletter. For more like it, sign up here.

🗺️ ‘Travel’ around the UK with our Startup Explorer map. Created in partnership with Microsoft for Startups, the UK Startup Explorer highlights what's buzzing in 21 of the UK’s biggest startup hubs. Dive into it here.

Michael Stothard
Editor

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

Riddhi Kanetkar
Editorial Intern

Get in touch with her at riddhi@sifted.eu
Or find her tweeting @r1ddhi

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Sifted - Remote work startups to watch 👀

\Consumer

VR pornography and the emerging cybersex tech market

\Sifted Talks

How to make your exit a good one

\France

Parisian startups and scaleups to watch in 2021

\Sponsored by Mastercard

Will fintechs lead the green revolution? 5 things we learned from our virtual panel

\For Members Venture Capital

VCs highlight 15 remote work startups in Europe

\Community Journalism

Have you ever worked in a toxic environment?

\Sustainability

Does the world need another carbon offsetting platform?

News that Matters

\Join Our Team

Marketing roles at Sifted

Sifted Suggests

Older messages

Monzo's latest financials 💸

The breakout fintechs of 2021 🔍

Death to bad meetings 📅

Don't hire with your gut 🙄

Raising a seed round? Good luck 😔

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