Sifted

The Nordics has developed a reputation as a European impact hub in recent years — where both large battery factories and smaller, fast-growing startups can flourish. 📈 The region had a record quarter for funding in Q1, securing a whopping €13.2bn from 277 deals. 💰 The number of megarounds in Q1 (9) beat the entirety of 2023 (6) in just one quarter. 🌱 Climate tech continues to attract the most interest from investors, recording 85 funding rounds, followed by B2B SaaS (71) and healthtech (41). We've compiled a list of the 10 fastest-growing Nordic startup teams by headcount over the last 12 months. Featuring Aira, Flatpay, 1X, Lassie, Hystar, Wattif EV, Agreena, Monta, Minervax ApS and H2 Green Steel. #nordicstartups #startuplife #nordics

📣 Mark your calendars for June 3rd and join us at the ViennaUp Startup Festival as we reveal Sifted's Central Europe Leaderboard, a ranking of the regions fastest-growing startups. 🇦🇹 Look forward to exclusive insights and ample networking opportunities with the region's top innovators. Admission is free. 🎟️ Secure your spot now: https://lnkd.in/ej-fcKuf #StartupUnveiling #NetworkingEvent #CentralEurope #Startups #SiftedLeaderboard Vienna Business Agency

Sifted's April’s early-stage funding wrapup — what did we find? 👉 Deal activity for Europe’s early-stage startups was down in April; VCs invested €1.4bn spread across 312 pre-seed, seed and Series A rounds last month 👉 The UK maintained its early-stage crown for funding in Europe (€314m), followed by France (€272m), then Germany (€211m) 👉 B2B SaaS, climate tech and healthtech took the top three spots, pulling in €345m, €333m and €315m respectively. 👉 It was a big month for healthtech, as drug discovery and biotech took the first two spots, pulling €138m and €135.2m respectively Plus, we share 12 early-stage rounds that caught our eye... #funding #venturecapital #VC

Meet UVC Partners, founded within UnternehmerTUM — one of Europe’s leading B2B deeptech investors. 💰 Every year, more than 3,000 startups approach the firm for funding, hoping to secure one of the roughly 10 investments it makes per year. In the past, Bavarian startups often had to look abroad for growth, but today, the funding landscape has completely changed. In a world where tech sovereignty is creeping up European agendas, we dived into UVC Partners — and how the fund has helped develop the "gamechangers" of tomorrow. #Ad with UVC Partners #deeptech #venturecapital #VC Featuring: Andreas Unseld, general partner at UVC Partners, Benjamin Erhart, general partner at UVC Partners, Felix Poernbacher, cofounder of DeepDrive, Jan Hiesserich, VP of strategy and communications at Aleph Alpha and Francesco Sciortino, founder of Proxima Fusion.

Are you a startup looking to grow and scale your business? 🚀 Like many startups, 3dnextech, an Italy-based startup specialising in sustainable additive manufacturing solutions, wanted to increase brand awareness and attract the right investors. That’s where Sifted’s Daily newsletter helped, after featuring 3dnextech’s recent investment round. “As we’re working on a Series A round for next year, we were enthusiastic about the kind of visibility Sifted’s newsletter provided. An important international potential investor reached out after reading about us, and we’re currently getting to know each other” says founder and CEO Andrea Arienti. 💬 This could be your success story too! Join Sifted for free today and subscribe to our newsletter to connect with a community of leading investors, corporates, startups and more. 📩 https://lnkd.in/eYjd58rX Thanks to 3dnextech for sharing their journey. #technewsletter #newsletter #startups

With startup marketing continuing to evolve under the influence of AI and machine learning, how can founders boost their return on ad spend? In our next Sifted Talks, we'll be joined by Camille Hadjeriéri (Delivery Hero), Chris Thurgood (ANNA Money), Hema Thanki (Twilio Segment), Alexandre Laloo (Qonto) and Éanna Kelly Kelly (Sifted) to discuss the innovative ways startups can ramp up their revenue. 📍 Online / 🗓️ May 15 \ ⏰ 12pm BST Don’t miss out, secure your spot here. 🔗 https://lnkd.in/eiJ6A4v7 #ai #revenue #siftedtalks #startupevent #artificialintelligence

Applications close tomorrow for our Central Europe Leaderboard! ⏰ Don’t miss out on the chance to gain unparalleled exposure and credibility for your company by featuring on our ranking of the fastest-growing startups in the region. It’s an exciting opportunity to showcase your business's success. Better yet, the leading startups will be invited to join Sifted at ViennaUp on June 3 for a networking event to launch the leaderboard and companion report. Last chance to apply — be quick: https://hubs.ly/Q02vkGCj0 #SiftedLeaderboards #startups #centraleurope #investors #ranking

Last summer, Cindy Gallop flew to Amsterdam to meet an investment manager 'Matthias' who had offered her £10m in equity financing to help her grow her ethical adult content business, who was charging a $500k commission in cryptocurrency for his services.  But it soon became clear that Matthias wasn’t who he said he was, but instead was one of the operators of a crypto scam. Someone poses as the representative of a willing investor and then persuades the victim to transfer substantial amounts of money into a crypto wallet, which the scammer then drains, never to be seen again. We have since spoken to seven entrepreneurs who’ve been targeted between 2021 and the end of 2023 — two of whom lost significant amounts of cash to the scam — as crypto criminals exploit founders in increasingly urgent need of funding. #venturecapital #VC #cryptoscam #scammer #crypto

Blockchain startups in Europe are showing signs of re-emerging after a harsh few years of experiencing funding downturns. 💰 And after following the regulatory rumblings, we thought it would be a good time to ask some of Europe’s top crypto-focused venture investors for their take on the up-and-coming startups in the sector. Amongst them were... 👉 Morpho Labs is on a mission to transform financial services for all by building the most secure, decentralised lending protocol on the Ethereum blockchain. 👉 Bubblemaps excels in providing a high-performance and aesthetically pleasing platform for visualising and analysing blockchain data. Its applications span from financial tracing to marketing strategy development. 👉 Centrifuge stands out as a platform that has gained significant traction facilitating the tokenization of real-world assets (RWA) on blockchains, bridging traditional financial products into DeFi. 👉 Matrix.One's technology allows people to create AI avatars that can be used in varied online contexts such as Twitch videos, games and metaverses. Tom Matsuda dives into the remaining startups, recommended by Ash Arora, partner at LocalGlobe, Luc Jodet, partner at XAnge, Lasse Clausen, founding partner at 1kx, Samantha Bohbot, chief growth officer and partner at RockawayX, Thomas Turelier, investment director at Eurazeo and Gleb Dudka, principal at Greenfield Capital #blockchain #startups #investors #fintech #cryptocurrency

B2B SaaS is a business model techies swear by — but for those just starting out, how do you stand out from the pack? 👀 Lost in the Cloud, our report sponsored by Amazon Web Services (AWS), is your definitive field guide on how to build a thriving company — even when times are tough. Inside you’ll find essential insights from founders, investors and startups, covering everything from: 🤔 Do people want what you’re selling? 🛍️ Winning your first customers  🚀 Discovering the winning tools and allies to grow your business ✅ A checklist of the essentials Download the report now: https://lnkd.in/eZ5zhd7K #b2bsaas #b2b #saas #techreport #startups #founders Featuring insights from Quantexa, Kurve, Sustainable Ventures, Zinc, The Scale Factory, SWEEP, Luminance, Zaptic, Thought Machine, FURTHER, commercetools, Tickaroo, EnterpriseAlumni, Synthesia and Novatiq.