View this email in your browser

Hi Sifted Reader,

The last two lockdown-plagued years have meant longer hours and blurred lines between work and not-work for many startup employees.

Cue the latest hot benefit trend — scheduling a company-wide week off. But is anything more than a sticking plaster for wider company issues? We spoke to startups on either side of the argument to find out. Plus...

• An embezzlement scandal hits French incubator The Family
• Europe’s newest Web3 creator economy startups
• Ferrari owner Exor wants to build a Y Combinator for Italy

— Amy, fintech reporter & Amy, editor

While many of us were enjoying the sunshine over the weekend, an ugly dispute inside France’s most famous startup incubator burst into public view when two of its cofounders accused the third of embezzling investment funds.

The Family — led by Alice Zagury and Nicolas Colin — has filed a criminal complaint against longtime comrade, Oussama Ammar, who they claim has refused to account for €3m raised for investment.

But that's not the only trouble afoot at The Family. 

Chris O'Brien breaks down all we know so far. 

How does Europe fare when it comes to alternative payment methods? Are we ready to step away from contactless cards and into a world of purchasing alternatives? Find out in the first of our new video series.

Watch our video here.

TikTokers, influencers, video game streamers, newsletter writers. All careers your grandma wouldn't have recognised, but they're big money now and they belong to the "creator economy". 

Still, a new report mapping the sector has found that Europe's market of creator economy startups is still nascent compared to the US: in fact, only 18 out of 144 recently funded companies globally. 

What are they up to? And why are they all so big on Web3?

Eleanor Warnock dives in to this strange new world.

Austrian cryptobroker Bitpanda shut down for a whole week last year to give its employees a well-earned break — and, it says, it worked. Everyone came back to their desks refreshed and raring to go, and the company now offers two "recharge" weeks a year to all its staff. 

But some other companies think this isn't the way to solve overworking woes. 

Miriam Partington hears the case for and against "recharge" weeks. 

Fintech has gobbled the lion’s share of capital in European tech for the past two years. But after a rocketship 2021, there are some early signs that growth might be cooling this year.

Preliminary data for fintech fundraising in Q1 2022 reveals that the headline figure was buoyed by megarounds raised by Checkout.com and Qonto. But the number of overall deals actually fell on quarter. 

Why? Amy O'Brien gives you the rundown.

From first to third-party data, startups need to perfect their customer experiences to get great web and mobile products off the ground. Tell us your strategy secrets and help create Sifted’s “how to” for building a successful, scalable business.

Spill the beans. 

🇮🇹 Italy's answer to Y Combinator? The exodus of tech talent and lack of startup creation in Italy has worried investors, policymakers and founders for years. It's worried Italian holding company and owner of Ferrari Exor, too. So it's set up a new venture arm, Exor Seeds, to plug the gap in early-stage startup funding on its home turf. And the team told us they want to grow to Y Combinator-like heights. 

💰 Long-term equity-free loans? Yes please. Alternatives to traditional VC funding are all the rage right now. Swedish fintech Ark Kapital is one of them. It offers non-dilutive loans of €1m-10m to European startups and it's just announced a €165m seed round (made up of €15m in equity and, fittingly, €150m in debt) led by LocalGlobe.

💸 Sequoia's next European bet. You know what else seems to be all the rage right now? Employee expense management. It's good enough for Sequoia, which just led Swiss expense management startup Yokoy's $80m Series B. Speedinvest, Balderton and Visionaries Club were among the other investors involved. The full story is here. 

🎧 The Sifted Podcast is back — here’s what you missed 

The Sifted Podcast is back for season two — but we sound a bit different now. Each week, Sifted editor Amy Lewin and deputy editor Eleanor Warnock discuss our top stories and chat about everything from what the editorial team are doing to what our readers are saying about us. Find out what this month has held so far in podcast land here.

Amy Lewin
Editor 

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

Amy O'Brien

Reporter

Get in touch with her at amyobrien@sifted.eu 
Or @Amy_EOBrien

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.