Startup Europe — The Sifted Podcast

This week on the podcast we are joined by Cherry Ventures general partner Sophia Bendz — formerly global marketing director at Spotify — who talks us through what she's seeing across the European early-stage startup ecosystem in a challenging market.She tells us about the AI effect on young companies launching today, how founders can look after their mental health in today's tough market and about how the startup ecosystem has changed since her days at Spotify.

Andreessen Horowitz is one of the world’s best known — and biggest — VC firms, with over $35bn in assets under management, over 500 employees and a portfolio including Airbnb, GitHub, Instacart, Instagram, Lyft, Slack and Wise.But for a long time it merely dabbled in investing in Europe.So it was big news last year when the firm announced it was opening a London office — its first non-US office — and that general partner Sriram Krishnan was moving to the UK to run it. His first job in tech was at Microsoft — and he’s since led product teams at Twitter, Snap and Facebook.Andreesen’s new London team plans to invest primarily in crypto and Web3 — and has already done a handful of investments in Europe. Sriram joins us on the podcast to talk about Europe’s crypto prospects, what he’s learning about the continent since his move over from Silicon Valley, the attributes of great CEOs, and why he remains optimistic about tech despite wider market doom and gloom.

This week Sifted editor Amy Lewin is joined by one of London’s best-known VCs Hussein Kanji, founding partner at Hoxton Ventures. He reflects on the kinds of big returns he won, and missed out on, by making early bets on companies like Deliveroo, Darktrace and Babylon.

Oscar Pierre is one of, if not the, best-known entrepreneurs in Spain. His delivery company Glovo — which was bought by its bigger, listed competitor Delivery Hero in 2022 — is one of the country’s big international success stories, and now Pierre is using his experience (and financial resources) to help Spain’s next generation of entrepreneurs.He’s also still running Glovo, largely independently of its new parent company. The business has 20m customers in 1,500 cities across 26 countries, including Spain, Italy, Ukraine, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan — and might consider further expansion soon, Pierre tells Sifted. On its app, you can order everything from a Burger King to groceries to flowers, from both independent high street businesses to big global chains.It’s raised more than €1bn from investors and employs over 4,000 people, while working with around 65,000 riders.On Startup Europe, The Sifted Podcast, editor Amy Lewin asked Pierre about his budding VC career, what’s going on in the southern Europe startup scene, the state of the food delivery market in 2024 — and if he’s thinking about his next move yet.

Roxanne Varza, director of Parisian startup mega campus Station F, talks about the growth of the French tech ecosystem, the mindset of founders, angel investing, and the challenges of attracting US venture capital firms.

Johanna Småros, co-founder of RELEX Solutions, discusses the company's journey from academia to commercialization and how they are helping to reduce waste in the supply chain. They explore the importance of supply chain efficiency, the satisfaction gained from addressing challenges, fundraising plans, and the relationship between their commercial and nonprofit solutions. The podcast also touches on staying motivated after 20 years, the role of AI in RELEX Solutions, and the challenges and potential improvements in the industry.

The podcast discusses fundraising activities by Danish startup Heim and UK startup Ex-Links, an innovative energy storage solution using molten salt and sodium hydroxide, a subsea cable project bringing solar power from Morocco to the UK, the importance of the X-Link project in the UK, the growing interest in interconnectors in Europe, the concept of web three crypto and its impact on the software revolution, and Stability AI's shift in business model to a paywall system.

This week's podcast discusses layoffs at Micromobility giant Tier and edtech Multiverse, Cradle's $24m Series A funding for AI biotech, the top takeaways from Atomico's State of European Tech report, and the lack of investment announcements from the European Investment Fund's fund of funds.

Head of venture and growth at HSBC Innovation Banking, Sonya Iovieno, discusses undisclosed down rounds, startups trimming headcount, and SVB's collapse. Topics include the impact of changing interest rates on startup valuations, the popularity of debt as a capital source, founder concerns and talent acquisition, VC finances and return models, and the financing of startups and SVB's acquisition by HSBC.

$400k graduate salaries and gun-for-hire ‘SWAT teams’ — inside the wild AI talent market of 2023, the impact of COVID and higher interest rates on food delivery companies, Easy's struggle and Upway's success, survey results on European VCs and their challenges with LPs, CRISP's focus on sustainability and high-quality food, and the rise in salaries and new roles in AI.