View this email in your browser

Hi Sifted Reader,

Newly listed tech stocks have had a rocky start to the year, raising doubts over how favourable current market conditions are for scaleups looking to IPO.

But while public markets wobbled in January, private markets continued to boom — peppered with raises as big as Checkout.com's $1bn Series D. So how likely is it that market turmoil will trickle down to the startup world in 2022 — and which areas might be worst affected? We investigate. Plus ...

• Getting spicier: the next generation of grocery apps get specialist
• Web3 is not going to change the world, according to this investor
• Our diversity dilemma: only 10% of our team are men

Last week, Dutch file sharing company WeTransfer cancelled its IPO due to "market conditions". It's easy to see why it got the jitters: shares in public tech darlings Adyen, PayPal, Zoom and Spotify have all plunged since the start of the year. 

But according to an insider to the transaction, WeTransfer failed to attract enough high-quality investors in the lead up to its planned IPO. So what does its U-turn, coupled with the performance of market newbie tech stocks, say about 2022 as a time to list? 

Katja Staple spoke to investors to find out. 

Great customer experiences are a competitive advantage. The Zendesk for Startups Program is helping startups achieve lasting CX with the tools they need to scale.

Find out if you qualify and apply here.

On-demand grocery startups exploded last year, with countless new uniforms appearing atop mopeds across our cities. Most of these apps (think Gorillas, Flink, Getir and Zapp) deliver a generalist selection of products, similar to supermarkets.

But now there’s a new wave of apps in town that are catering for specific communities. From Oja’s Nigerian, Ghanaian and Jamaican products to Mixe.Store’s selection of Indian and Pakistani goods — now, there’s an app for almost everyone. 

Freya Pratty takes a look at the ones to watch in this rising subsector.

According to some VCs and founders, Web3 will unlock a new era of human co-operation and creativity. But investor Dr Ewan Kirk doesn't believe the hype.

Instead, according to Kirk, Web3 is just a new spin on the same blockchain tech that we’ve been discussing for the last decade. And that blockchain tech has its flaws.

Namely, its dire environmental impact — owing to what Kirk describes as huge computing farms playing “Numberwang” with each other more than 150,000,000,000bn times a second.

Read more here.

With more European startups raising VC cash than ever before, competition to secure top talent has ramped up.

For the past week, we've been reaching out to you, our readers, to find out what you're doing to tempt the brightest and best to your startup. Offering higher salaries? Doubling down on extravagant staff benefits? Recruiting from a more diverse talent pool?

Take our (anonymous) survey, let us know and we'll publish a piece featuring your responses in the coming weeks.

Get involved in Sifted's latest community journalism project.

Launched in 2017 in the US to address inequities in funding, Morgan Stanley’s Multicultural Innovation Lab has expanded into London.

Apply to its five-month accelerator programme to develop and scale your startup — with £200k in funding.

Find out more here.

👔  Internal comms, but for deskless workers. Currently, non-desk workers are poorly connected to their jobs, if at all, often having to use multiple consumer and enterprise apps. But Stuttgart-based startup Flip, which has just raised $30m in Series A funding, is trying to plug that gap with its messaging-based app that brings internal comms, information and processes all under one (app) roof. 

💰 Connected Capital gains cash for SaaS. Amsterdam-based VC Connected Capital has just closed its second fund, of €154m, to double down on its investments into European B2B SaaS scaleups. Watch this space, European cloud startups.

🌱 Decoding carbon markets. What does your startup needs to know about them? Find out more from Freya Pratty here. [Members]

👉 Lessons from Mind Candy on how to pivot. Eight years ago, Mind Candy’s online game Moshi Monsters was all the rage and had been played by 100m kids. Then growth slowed, revenue diminished and its CEO stepped down. So it pivoted to become child wellness app Moshi. Its COO Ed Barton shares his tips for how to do the same. 

👨 How to hire enough men. Tech is not a very diverse world when it comes to gender, but healthtech Kenbi is an extreme outlier: only 10% of its team are men. Cofounder and co-CEO Katrin Alberding realised that this was just as bad a diversity problem as a lack of women. She writes for Sifted on the steps she's taken to counteract that.

\Sifted

We want to give our beloved newsletter a bit of a revamp — and we want to hear from you!

What do you love about it? What annoys you? What features would you like to see us add — or take away?

We’d be eternally grateful if you could spare us 15 minutes of your time to chat to our team about it.

Sign up here.

Copyright © 2022 SIFTED (EU) LTD, All rights reserved.

Want to tailor what you receive from us?
You can update your preferences to manage your newsletter subscriptions,
or you can unsubscribe from Sifted if you never want to hear from us again.