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Yet another US VC giant has landed in Europe — General Catalyst has opened an office in London and is hiring a big old team. We find out whether local investors should be scared and why founders should take note, plus...

Find out how one creator economy startup raised from an impressively diverse set of angels
List the hottest early-stage telehealth startups
Discover how to perfect your go-to-market strategy

\Venture Capital

US VC giant General Catalyst has opened an office in Europe

American VCs can't get enough of Europe's startup scene these days, it seems. Following a trend kicked off by fellow US giant Sequoia last year, General Catalyst has also taken up lodgings in the region.

Amy Lewin finds out who "GC" has got on the payroll, how it plans to schmooze founders and what it'll splash its cash on.

She's the only one with this story.

\A message from our sponsor Stripe

Ecommerce websites make these mistakes again and again

Stripe found the top 800 European ecommerce websites are making the same mistakes when it comes to checkout. For example, 75% didn’t allow customers to save their payment information for future use.

Read the report to learn how to optimise your checkout flow.

\Consumer

This creator platform raised €3m — and half its angels are women or minorities

The creator economy has long been dominated by US startups, but Berlin-based Passionfroot's new raise may be a sign the tide is turning.

The €3m raise is the largest pre-seed round for a creator economy startup, and that's not the only area the company leads in. Bucking the major lack of diversity among founders and VCs, Passionfroot has two female founders and 50% of its angel investors are women or people from underrepresented groups.

Eleanor Warnock finds out more.

\For Members Healthtech

15 up-and-coming telehealth startups to watch, according to VCs

Increased adoption during the pandemic, a European VC boom and more favourable regulatory conditions have helped telehealth take off in the past 12 months.

But which early-stage startups should you be paying attention to in the sector? We asked VCs from Project A, Eurazeo, Kima, 3VC and Speedinvest to find out.

Here's what they said.

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

\Startup Life

Startups, nail your go-to-market in three phases

The infamous Fyre Festival taught us all how inconsequential great marketing is without a great end-product (remember those dreadful looking cheese sandwiches?).

While there's no silver bullet to getting this right, there are three key things to think about that'll put you on track for growth, says David Odier, founder of marketing boutique Launch Mapper.

Here's what you need to consider.

\Sponsored by Microsoft Advertising

Four tips for accelerating your search advertising

A third of people click on a paid search ad because it directly matches their query — so it's not a part of your marketing mix you can afford to ignore.

But, there are ways to do it right. And ways to do it wrong.

Here's how to nail search advertising.

News That Matters

🌍 Latvian localisation platform bags $50m. SaaS startup Lokalise (an apt name) has just announced its Series B round. It could be a sign that investors are betting on the rise of multilingual and hyper-localised websites becoming the norm in the not-so-distant future.

👩‍🏫 Parent-teacher collaboration startup raises $18m. Copenhagen-based Famly has secured Series A funding in a round led by Susquehanna Growth Equity. It follows a bumper year for the European edtech sector that's seen investment double to €1.5bn.

🛒 Speedy grocery delivery sector hots up in CEE. German startup Grovy has raised €3m in a round led by Lighthouse Ventures. It says it'll deliver in 15 minutes, and is looking to avoid the heavy competition in Western Europe and make waves in the east — where rivals are few and far between. Shrewd.

Sifted Suggests

🚀 SoftBank has announced its Emerge accelerator European cohort. The diversity accelerator was looking for founders from underrepresented backgrounds, and has $7.7m in the pot for the nine startups it's selected. But what does it take to join a SoftBank cohort? You can watch the successful founders' pitches here.

🏅 Europe's Top 25 VCs. Forbes's Midas List dropped last week with Jan Hammer, partner at Index Ventures, topping it for the fourth time in a row. Sequoia's Luciana Lixandru and Entree Capital's Avi Eyal round out the top three — but who else made the cut? Right this way for the full 25.

Amy Lewin
Deputy Editor

Get in touch with her at amy@sifted.eu
Or tweeting @amyrlewin

Kai Nicol-Schwarz
Editorial Lead (Membership)

Get in touch with him at k ai @sifted.eu
Or @NicolSchwarzK

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Sifted - General Catalyst lands in Europe 🗽

\Venture Capital

US VC giant General Catalyst has opened an office in Europe

\A message from our sponsor Stripe

Ecommerce websites make these mistakes again and again

\Consumer

This creator platform raised €3m — and half its angels are women or minorities

\For Members Healthtech

15 up-and-coming telehealth startups to watch, according to VCs

\Startup Life

Startups, nail your go-to-market in three phases

\Sponsored by Microsoft Advertising

Four tips for accelerating your search advertising

News That Matters

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