When it launched a decade ago, French search engine Qwant aimed to offer an alternative to Google that would protect users’ privacy and promote European tech sovereignty. Government officials were all over it, showering the company with political support and more than €50m in public funds. But the good times didn't last. Losses started mounting up, and critics began to raise questions over its cosy ties to officials and its technical dependence on US and Chinese tech giants.
With just €10.5m in the bank as of July 2022 and auditors warning that it was running out of money to cover its debts and expenses, it embarked on a desperate attempt to raise more capital.
That led to a new plot twist: one of France’s most notable entrepreneurs, OVHcloud founder Octave Klaba, announced he wanted to acquire it, and he's got plans to take on Google's entire suite of online services. Also from the Sifted newsroom: |
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We listed 100 B2B SaaS companies from across Europe and Israel that we think are likely to earn $1bn+ in valuations. See who made the cut in our new report — launching today. |
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Who is he? Russian billionaire and ex-owner of English football club Chelsea, Roman Abramovich, who's currently sanctioned by the UK government.
Why does he matter? Abramovich has long been described as a backer of Moscow-based firm Impulse VC, which rarely pops up visibly on cap tables and so has been hard to trace. The exact nature of Abramovich’s link to the firm was also never spelled out.
Why is he in the news? Documents leaked from Cypriot law firm Meritservus Ltd and seen by Sifted have revealed the name under which Abramovich's money has actually flowed: a British Virgin Islands-based entity called Innes Worldwide Holdings Limited, of which he was named as the ultimate beneficiary. In the weeks following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Abramovich transferred assets out of his direct ownership to protect them from sanctions. Sifted was able to identify Innes as a shareholder in four UK companies previously listed as Impulse investments in press releases or on its website.
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Finom, Floww, London Stock Exchange and Perivan have joined the line-up! They’re joining partners such as Latham & Watkins, Morgan Stanley and BT — make sure you get your ticket to meet them at Sifted Summit this October 4-5 at Magazine, London. |
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🎢 How to navigate the emotional cost of scaling a startup — Jing Ouyang, founder of Patchwork Health, shares his tips. |
🦄 Europe's 2023 soonicorns. French business planning software maker Pigment tops the list of startups on the brink of crossing the $1bn threshold — have a gander at the full list here.
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💰 Series A+ - France's Carthera — a Sorbonne University spinout building a medical device to treat a range of brain disorders — has bagged €37.5m in Series B funding.
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Dexory, a UK startup building autonomous robots for warehouse management, has secured $19m in Series A funding led by Atomico.
- Algorithmiq, which uses quantum computing to speed up the drug discovery proof-of-concept process, has raised a €13.7m Series A led by Inventure VC.
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Czech startup Resistant AI, which uses AI and machine learning to offer financial crime protection for financial services, has raised an additional $11m in Series A funding from Notion Capital, bringing its total round to $27.6m.
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SuperScale, a UK-based platform offering resources to help the games industry grow revenue, has raised $5.4m in Series A funding.
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💰 Pre-seed and seed -
UK startup Upp, which uses AI and machine learning to produce digital ecommerce marketing, has raised $10m in seed funding.
- German startup Colonia Technologies, which offers a B2B sharing platform for commercial vehicles, has announced a €6m seed round led by Octopus Ventures.
French startup Dust, which is using generative AI to build the operating system for smart teams, has raised €5m in seed funding led by Sequoia, with participation from XYZ, GG1, AIGrant, Connect Ventures, Motier VC, Remote First, Tiny Supercomputer and Seedcamp. -
Germany's hema.to, which is developing a way to use blood data analysis to personalise treatments, has announced a €3.6m seed round.
UK-based 32Co, which connects general doctors with specialist clinicians to bring local expertise to patients, has raised £2.2m in seed funding from Balderton. Finland's Steady Energy, which makes nuclear reactor-powered heating plants for residential use, has raised €2m in seed funding. AIRMO, a German startup building space satellites to measure greenhouse gas emissions, has raised €5.2m in pre-seed funding. Employee management platform Jet HR, based in Italy, has secured €4.7m in pre-seed funding.
The UK's carbon capture startup Greenlyte Carbon Technologies has secured an additional €4.5m in pre-seed funding, bringing its total funding to €8m. Quantum battery maker Planckian, from Italy, has raised more than €2.7m in pre-seed funding.
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Sadia Nowshin Editorial Assistant |
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