Startup Europe — The Sifted Podcast – Détails, épisodes et analyse

This week, Daphné Leprince-Ringuet is joined by head of research Jonathan Sinclair and senior reporter Kai Nicol-Schwarz to unpack the state of AI in Europe.

Funding for European AI-native companies has nearly doubled to €8.9bn this year, and acquisitions hit a record high of 18 last month — all while valuations continue to climb. But do the numbers tell the full story?

The trio digs into insights from Sifted’s inaugural AI ranking, alongside recent reporting, to explore questions like: Should France still be considered Europe’s AI hub? Why do 95% of GenAI pilots fail at big corporations? And when is the AI bubble going to burst?

Read the report here: https://sifted.eu/rankings/ai-100-2025

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This week host Amy Lewin sits down with Erin Platts, CEO of Octopus Ventures. Erin joined Octopus at the beginning of this year after a two decade stint at Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), where she oversaw UK operations throughout its dramatic collapse in 2023.

Erin walks Amy through the climactic weekend that SVB went under, revealing what really happened behind the scenes as industry partners scrambled to keep startups’ cash safe.

The pair also dig into the state of venture in the UK, including the ups and downs faced by Octopus Titan, the £1.4bn listed fund that’s shed almost £600m in value since 2021 — and how Erin plans to steady the ship.

They also discuss her views on the Mansion House Accord, her role on the UK government’s industry taskforce and why Octopus Ventures has experienced such high churn in recent years.

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If you work at a tech startup, AI is a boon and a bane, empowering tiny teams to build at scale while wiping out entry-level jobs and flooding LinkedIn with “AI slop.”

In this week's episode of the Sifted podcast, Amy is joined by senior reporter Miriam Partington, to discuss how founders and operators at Europe's fastest-growing companies are using AI.

She shares what she's hearing about how the technology is hurting trust in brands, how engineering teams are being totally re-shaped and about why we're going from "an era of specialism to an era of generalism" in the talent market.

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This week we discuss:

00:53 Kry lays off 300 employees
03:52 Monzo staff unionise
07:33 Flying taxi startup raises $300
09:53 Robots in demand as energy prices soar
12:57 What's been going down at Web Summit?

This week we discuss:

01:58 Will Rishi Sunak, the UK’s new prime minister, be good for startups?
05:56 Damning stats reveal gender pay gap at European startups
09:18 Daye raises £10 for vaginal microbiome testing
12:20 H2 Green Steel secures €3.5bn in debt to build hydrogen steel plant
14:47 Alt meat startup Heura raises €20m
16:52 Paebbl raises €8m to turn captured carbon into cement
18:42 Can private jets really be good for the environment?
19:50 A lack of lab space is threatening UK biotech

This week, we're treating you to something a little bit different. Eleanor's joined by EQT Growth partner Carolina Brochado, who recently launched a new €2.4bn fund to back later-stage European startups. That's not her only heavyweight credential: before joining EQT, Carolina was a partner at both the SoftBank Vision Fund and Atomico.

They talk about how she’s works with her portfolio companies, how far European tech has come and how she tried (and failed), somewhat creatively, to win a spot on Deliveroo’s cap table back in the day.

This week we discuss:

02:01 Who would lose most in a Gorillas sale?
04:41 N26 reports widening losses
06:57 Amazon aggregators get sued
09:55 AI investment is down
13:02 Tech to make us age slower
19:30 Spain gets its 10th unicorn

This week we discuss:

03:19 Metaverse platform Improbable has raised $100m
10:15 Faux foie gras startup Gourmey raises €48m
13:15 New Paris-based VC fund Sista Fund launches
26:55 How can all startups help the green transition?

The carbon-light website agency mentioned by Tessa Clarke: Wholegrain

This week we discuss:

02:34 Italy gets its second unicorn in Satispay

04:56 Sequoia gets its fifth partner in Europe

06:40 Phagos raised €2.4m to fight antibiotic resistance

08:43 Wayve announces big breakthrough for self-driving cars

This week we discuss:

03:04 More layoffs at Klarna
03:54 Insect cultivation startup Innovafarm raises $260m
05:35 Equity management platform Ledgy raises $22m
07:00 B2B payments startup Sequence gets backing from Andreessen Horowitz
09:16 Glovo founder launches new VC fund as his company is fined €79m
11:58 Founder of collapsed energy company Bulb joins investment firm
14:10 Nato launches €1bn VC fund as "defence tech" heats up
21:03 Do we really need pets in the metaverse?