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Hi Sifted Reader,

This week, our reporters Tim and Éanna have been speaking to Ukrainian tech workers who've put down their laptops and joined the country's defence effort. These recruiters and product marketing managers talk about their fear, stress and exhaustion — and why they felt like they couldn't do anything but stay and fight. If you read one thing from this newsletter today, read their piece.

Also on the agenda:

• France's most promising startups
• Europe's hydrogen industry: mapped
• The most active female angel investors in Europe

— Kai, reporter & Amy, editor

Vadim Lobarev, founder of recruitment company Mindhunt, has stopped sifting through job applications and instead taken up arms for the Territorial Defence unit. Meanwhile Daria Aleksieieva, marketing manager at no-code startup Popup, is now making more Molotov cocktails than coffees.

This is now daily life for thousands of Ukrainian tech workers. Tim Smith and Éanna Kelly spoke to them to find out how they're coping. 

Here's what they said.

Are you looking to accelerate your business — sustainably? Check out hypergrowth programme Grow by SAP for a dedicated SaaS package, supported by a customer success executive. 

Sign up here.

French tech showed it was a force to be reckoned with in 2021. The country's tech companies raised $13bn in funding across 28 $100m+ rounds. A whole 1,350 new startups were founded. 

But what does the future hold for France's startups? We ranked the most promising tech companies we think you should keep an eye on. 

Find out who made the cut.

2021 was the year Europe's hydrogen startups began to turn investors' heads, raising $437m — more than six times the amount raised in 2020. So far this year, $100m has already been snapped up.

Hydrogen's backers push its green credentials, and say it can be a key component of our transition to net zero emissions. Sceptics say the energy needed to create hydrogen outweighs the "green" benefits of the end product. Nevertheless, a number of European startups are putting their eggs in the hydrogen basket.

Freya Pratty mapped them all out.

Last summer, the team at Sifted — with the help of our readers — created a comprehensive list of the 100+ active female angle investors in Europe.

This week, we updated the list, and it now counts more than 150 women who have done three or more deals in the last 12 months.

Take a look — and let us know if you think we've missed anyone.

Buying a house today involves just as much paperwork as it did in the 1950s, so it’s no surprise startups are looking to demolish the status quo. Our latest report investigates the future of property, which trends are emerging and where the money is heading.

Read the report here.

🍄 Brexit Britain becomes unlikely psilocybin haven. Canadian psychedelic medicine startup Albert Labs has announced plans to conduct clinical trials in Manchester in the wake of the UK rolling out a new drug licensing process. London-based psychedelic therapy startup Small Pharma is also taking advantage of the new regulation as the UK increasingly opens up developing novel drug therapies.

💰 The €25m European metaverse fund. FOV Ventures is led by one of the founding team of Soundcloud and has so far secured €16.5m of its €25m target. The fund will look to back 25-30 startups at seed and pre-seed, and comes as hype around the metaverse continues to grow following Facebook's moves in that direction and games developer Epic's $1bn megaround last year.

🦉 Watch your back, Wise. Atlantic Money has just emerged from stealth with the world's first fixed-fee money transfer service, announcing a $4.5m seed round led by Atomico. It charges £3 for all transactions, so if you're sending a cool £1m — which Atlantic's founders say is more common than you'd think — you'll save at least £2k on fees compared with competitors. 

🍏 Watch your back, Apple. London-based Nothing has just announced a $70m Series B, as it looks to compete against Apple's iconic AirPods with its "Ear 1" earbuds — and according to some reports it's got plans for a smartphone release, too. The round brings total funding to $144m, and makes the startup Europe's second-best funded consumer hardware startup.

✍️ Typeform snaps up $135m. The Barcelona-based survey platform says it's tripled its revenue since 2018, as brands increasingly turned to digital solutions to engage with consumers in response to Covid. The Series C round was led by Brussels-based Sofina, and pushes Typeform's valuation to $935m — just shy of unicorn status.

🔋 Who's leading on low-carbon energy? It may feel like renewable energy is on the up in Europe, but is that really the case? We found out.

❌ Why Elon Musk is wrong about Web3. Musk thinks Web3's just a marketing buzzword — but that's the whole point, says Katia Yakovleva, cofounder of no-code startup Beyond. Marketing that runs on the blockchain has huge potential over the next decade, she writes, and could transform companies' relationships with consumers. Here's why. 

🤝 VCs — being founder-friendly isn't enough. VCs need to do more to build close relationships with first hires in a startup, writes marketing manager at Maki.vc, Reetta Heiskanen. But how can they do it? Heiskanen has the answers.

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