The Sifted Podcast

This week on Startup Europe — The Sifted Podcast, Amy speaks with Rob Lacher, founding partner at early-growth VC Visionaries Club.Rob unpacks the challenges of defence procurement, why Europe has less than a year to get serious about its military capabilities and how VCs can do more than just write cheques in this space.He also shares why Visionaries  doesn't have an AI investment thesis, why new general partner Judith Dada is the 'single best person' he could have hoped to team up with — and the deals he still kicks himself for missing.Key moments:01.48: Lovable06.30: Visionaries Club's relationships with other funds12.24: Investing in defence companies29.59: Challenges and opportunities for SaaS companies39.39: Building a brand in VC42.45: Quickfire questions

If you work in tech, you've probably heard about Lovable — the AI agent startup that's helping users make websites without writing a line of code.The company hit $50m in annual recurring revenue earlier this year — just 12 months after launching — and recently poached a team member from 20VC. Not bad for a startup most people hadn't heard of this time last year.But how's Lovable actually growing so fast? What's its CEO Anton Osika really like? And is the hype justified?On this experimental 13-minute episode of the Sifted podcast, editor Amy Lewin grills Europe editor Mimi Billing on what she's found out.

If you're in venture, it's quite likely you're already a Granola user, and if not, you've probably heard VCs bang on about how much they like it. The London-based note-taking startup is growing fast, with users increasing 10% week on week, and last week announced a $43m Series B at a $250m valuation — just a year after launching. But the 20-person team faces stiff competition — there are plenty of other ‘knowledge work' tools out there — and there's a lot to discover about how we all really want to use AI in our day-to-day lives. On the latest episode of the Sifted podcast, editor Amy asks Granola cofounder and CEO Chris Pedregal: What could the road ahead look like for a company like Granola? Why's it being built in London? And what's life like as a founder of a ‘hot' AI startup?This podcast was brought to you by HSBC Innovation Banking, connecting you with what's next.

Today on Startup Europe — the Sifted Podcast, Amy is joined by Dinika Mahtani, London-based partner at European early-stage VC Cherry Ventures.Dinika explains why she thinks deeptech is 'back', why Europe is having a moment — and what impact tariff turmoil is having on her portfolio companies.She also shares how she made the jump from general manager at Uber to angel investing and then VC — and talks us through how she ensured she made partner within just three years of joining Cherry Ventures.All of that, plus who Dinika would swap places with for a day and the most valuable piece of advice she's been given in her career to date.This podcast is brought to you by Vanta.Vanta is the fast, frictionless way for growing companies to get compliant, stay secure, and earn and maintain the trust of vendors and customers.  Head to Vanta.com/sifted to learn more. 

On this episode of Startup Europe — The Sifted Podcast, Amy sits down with Tom Leathes, CEO and cofounder of used car marketplace Motorway. The company, founded in 2017, has helped more than half a million people sell their cars, and has raised $273m from investors like Index, Iconiq, LocalGlobe and BMW i Ventures.Tom and his two cofounders have launched four startups before Motorway, with three resulting in successful exits, and one having to shut its doors. Tom and Amy discuss what he's learnt from that one failure, and what's now going right at Motorway, as the company takes on the formidable challenge of disrupting a huge and slow-changing automotive industry. This podcast is brought to you by Vanta. Vanta is the fast, frictionless way for growing companies to get compliant, stay secure, and earn and maintain the trust of vendors and customers.  Head to Vanta.com/sifted to learn more. 

Tomas Okmanas is no stranger to scaling a company in a highly competitive space. When he launched NordVPN in 2012, the market was crowded with competitors, but today his company has 15m users, a $3bn valuation and a consistent stream of new features and products in development. Now, as if he wasn't busy enough, Tomas is launching a new startup — Nexos.ai, a platform that helps enterprises to make the best use of AI models.On this episode of the Sifted Podcast, he tells Amy why he believes he can rise above the competition and scale a huge business in what is the frothiest market of the moment, as well as why Lithuania is a startup hub to watch and why a trip to Davos is worth it for founders.

To kick off 2025, we're talking "business angels": the people who take big bets investing their personal wealth into startups at their earliest stages, and without whom most companies would never get off the ground.So, how do you actually become an angel investor? How much money do you need to commit? How many investments should you be making? And how can the UK and Europe lay the groundwork for a more representative next generation of investors?Amy poses these questions to Jenny Tooth, a veteran angel who's also executive chair of the UK Business Angels Association, representing over 15k investors nationwide. Jenny shares insights from her work on Innovate UK's emerging tech steering board and her new initiative, WomenInvestEU, aimed at creating a more inclusive early-stage investment landscape.

On 2024's last episode of the Sifted Podcast, Amy is joined by an entrepreneur on a very big mission. Munich-based startup Proxima Fusion is developing a nuclear fusion reactor — a technology which many hope could help solve the climate crisis by producing clean, cheap and abundant energy that could replace a lot of fossil fuel power.But the technical challenges are considerable.Nuclear fusion reactors need to remain stable at incredibly high temperatures, while confining volatile plasma with powerful and sensitive magnets. Proxima Fusion is targeting raising a billion euros to build its technology, with support from European governments and international investors.The company's founder Francesco Sciortino sat down to discuss how his team plans to change the world with its technology, the milestones it needs to hit, by when, and to reflect on the challenges of scaling up ambitious hardware-based deeptech companies from Europe.

Podcast host and Sifted editor Amy Lewin sits down with Petteri Lahtela, founder of smart wearable company Oura Ring, to discuss how the business has grown to making $500m in revenue, hitting profitability and selling more than 2.5m devices in the process.They discuss the big idea behind Oura, how Petteri has turned down multiple offers from buyers and how the company is well poised to pounce on the AI boom with the data it holds.

This month we're joined by Jeannette zu Fürstenberg, managing director at global VC firm General Catalyst and cofounder of La Famiglia VC — a Berlin-based early-stage investor which merged with General Catalyst last year.Jeannette's investments include companies like HR platform Deel, logistics startup Forto, HR tech unicorn Personio, defence unicorn Helsing and AI unicorn Mistral. She also sits on Helsing and Mistral's boards, giving her a front seat at two of Europe's most closely-watched and exciting companies. She sat down with Sifted editor Amy Lewin to discuss how to fund ambitious deep tech ideas, how Europe can make the most out of AI to improve productivity and how that merger between two VC firms has been working out.

Avid Larizadeh Duggan, senior managing director at Ontario-HQed growth-stage investor Teachers' Venture Growth, is one of Europe's first operator-turned-VCs.Her career in tech began with stints as a product manager at places like eBay and Skype, and has switched between operational and investing roles ever since. In 2021 she joined TVG, which is part of the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, one of the world's biggest pension funds.Its investments include German AI translation company DeepL, German battery startup Instagrid, Swedish healthtech unicorn Kry, British chip scaleup Graphcore and French health insurance unicorn Alan. She sat down with Sifted editor Amy Lewin to discuss what's top of tech companies' minds at the moment, and why investors and board members without operational experience don't always quite “get it”.

This month we're joined by Ilan Gur, CEO of the UK's Advanced Research and Invention Agency (or ARIA), a government body set up last year to fund ambitious, breakthrough innovations.Before joining Aria, Gur was a programme director at ARPA-E, the US government's Advanced Research Projects Agency, which was established to develop new cutting-edge technologies to generate, store and use energy. He's also been a founder — starting two companies in Silicon ValleyWe discuss what technologies he's most excited about today, covering topics from neuroscience to “programmable plants” to fight climate change.

She's one of the three founders of Pale Blue Dot, a Malmö-based early-stage climate tech fund which launched in 2020 and backs pre-seed and seed-stage startups reducing and reversing the effects of climate change, in Europe and the US.Pale Blue Dot came along just ahead of the wave of climate tech funds which launched in Europe amid the tech boom. Its portfolio companies include Ember, a Scottish intercity transport startup; Monta, an app connecting charge point owners and electric car drivers; and Climate X, a platform which helps businesses analyse their exposure to and risks associated with climate change.On this episode of the pod, we discuss what types of climate tech company Lindvall doesn't need to see any more of, how Europe can compete with the US and how to balance VC investing with having two newborn babies.

This week on the pod we're joined by Jarek Kutylowski, founder and CEO of German AI startup DeepL. He's built a profitable business in a field where he's had to compete with the likes of Google, by developing cutting edge language translation technology.The company says it now has “a customer network of 100k+ businesses, governments and other organisations worldwide” including Zendesk, Nikkei, Coursera and Deutsche Bahn. Kutylowski sat down with Sifted editor Amy Lewin to talk about DeepL's technology, how it's built an AI business with comparatively little VC funding and about how the craze around large language models is creating a new type of competition.

Name a big European tech company, and there's a high chance Martin Mignot, partner at Index Ventures, invested in it. Martin's portfolio includes some of the continent's big winners, like car sharing platform BlaBlaCar, digital bank Revolut, digital health provider Kry, HR platform Personio and delivery company Deliveroo — and some of its big failures, including energy supplier Bulb which went bust in 2022. On this month's episode of Startup Europe — the Sifted Podcast, we dig into what Martin has learnt from his time helping some of Europe's startup success stories scale, and some of the less fortunate company stories.We hear about what he believes makes a great founder, improving stock options at European startups and why Revolut would probably IPO in the US.

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.

Startup Europe is back for our new-look podcast, where we'll be focussing exclusively on longer form interviews with some of the biggest names in European tech.Last year we brought you conversations with  founders, operators and investors behind companies like Wise, Monzo, Figma, Delivery Hero and Kry and we have a whole load more for you in 2024.This week it's Roxanne Varza, director of Parisian startup mega campus Station F. In the years since Station F opened in 2017, France has seen startup funding more than triple and the number of unicorns more than quadruple. And now Paris is at the centre of the Gen AI boom too. Mistral, PhotoRoom and Poolside are just a handful of the buzzy AI startups based there raising huge amounts of funding.As an angel investor (and one of Sequoia's most active scouts in Europe) with more than 60 deals under her belt now, Varza is also getting to place some bets in the sector. In the first episode of the Sifted podcast this year, editor Amy Lewin speaks to Varza about what's on founders' minds right now, Station F's expansion plans and what she's learnt so far as an angel investor. 

What do Lidl, Auchan, Sephora and Flink have in common? They're all customers of RELEX Solutions, one of Finland's four private tech companies.RELEX makes supply-chain and retail-planning software — which might sound boring, but it's extremely important when you consider how much inventory, especially food, is wasted due to poor planning.Sifted sat down with cofounder Johanna Småros to talk about the company's decades-long journey from academia to commercialisation, just how many millions of kilos of waste annually the company is helping to avoid and why RELEX's engineers are tired of hearing about AI. 

This week we discuss:01:51 Hyme raises €8m for technology that could halve cost of storing energy05:12 Xlinks raises $25m from TotalEnergies for 3,800km cable from the Sahara to the UK07:46 Thought Web3 was over? This VC just raised €15m to back startups in the sector19:27 Why Stability AI is launching a subscription fee 

This week we discuss:01:05 Micromobility giant Tier lays off 22% of its workforce in push for profitability, Unicorn edtech Multiverse to lay off nearly a third of US employees05:34 GenAI biotech Cradle raises $24m Series A led by Index Ventures08:55 The top takeaways from Atomico's State of European Tech report20:13 Why hasn't EIF announced a single investment from its €3.75bn fund of funds yet?

Sonya Iovieno knows European tech's secrets. As head of venture and growth at HSBC Innovation Banking, where she works with thousands of VCs, startups and scaleups in the UK and Nordics, she has a view on who's done an undisclosed down round, who's been trimming headcount and who's set up a “hunting line” for future acquisitions.And she also knows what it's like to go through a merger, after her organisation, formerly Silicon Valley Bank UK, was acquired by HSBC for a mere £1 after the dramatic collapse of its US parent company in March.Iovieno joined us this week for a long-form interview on Startup Europe — The Sifted Podcast to share her predictions for 2024 and her experience of the tumultuous weeks of this spring.

This week we discuss:Nordic merger between online grocers Oda and MathemIt ain't Easee: How Norway's EV rising star fell foul of regulatorsHow Sequoia-backed e-bike refurbisher Upway raised $30m in a micromobility slowdownGrocery delivery is back as Crisp raises €35m to scale next-day delivery$400k graduate salaries and gun-for-hire ‘SWAT teams' — inside the wild AI talent market of 2023Why top AI talent is leaving Google's DeepMind

This week we discuss:00:53 Aleph Alpha raises $500m Series B in one of Europe's largest AI rounds ever03:56 What the pitch deck from Adaptive, a new AI startup raising at a $100m valuation, tells us07:15 French startup Quandela raises €50m to manufacture commercial quantum computers11:03 Swedish startup wants to ‘stream energy like music' on electric roads to charge cars as they drive18:21 10x more money goes to VC funds owned by all-male vs all-female teams

This week we discuss:02:26 Web Summit announces former Wikimedia boss as new CEO04:16 More unions sign up to Klarna strike on Nov 706:36 Benetton scion moves into tech investing with new €30m fund09:40 How a “miracle” weight-loss drug created Europe's most valuable company, and a startup investment machine17:23 UK gears up to major AI summit under the shadow of its own lack of regulation

This week we discuss:02:05 French early-stage startups get a €500m funding boost in 2024 budget04:33 Northvolt's $20bn listing in Stockholm — a win for European stock exchanges07:20 Solar energy storage breakthrough could make European households self-sufficient12:30 Quantum computing is not a threat to national security. So why can't Europe work together?20:35 Founder to reality TV star — a shortcut to startup success?This podcast is brought to you by Harper James, a national full-service law firm designed to support ambitious businesses. Having supported over 3,500 businesses, Harper James isn't a run-of-the-mill law firm. It has transformed the traditional law firm model through unique price plans, smart technology and teams of almost exclusively senior lawyers — giving you affordable, commercial and high quality legal advice.If this sounds too good to be true, then head over to harperjames.co.uk and see for yourself. While you're there, you'll find 100s of resources to help your journey from startup to scaleup and beyond.

This week we discuss:00:59 Germany is about to legalise cannabis. What does it mean for startups?03:49 Payments fintech Modulr agrees with regulator to stop onboarding new customers 05:32 German fund La Famiglia merges with General Catalyst09:29 Northvolt founder's heat pump startup secures €87m17:24 The rise — and fall — of BabylonLink to subscribe to the Sifted Fintech newsletter: https://sifted.eu/newslettersThis podcast is brought to you by Harper James, a national full-service law firm designed to support ambitious businesses. Having supported over 3,500 businesses, Harper James isn't a run-of-the-mill law firm. It has transformed the traditional law firm model through unique price plans, smart technology and teams of almost exclusively senior lawyers — giving you affordable, commercial and high quality legal advice.If this sounds too good to be true, then head over to harperjames.co.uk and see for yourself. While you're there, you'll find 100s of resources to help your journey from startup to scaleup and beyond.

This week on the podcast we're joined by Alex Kendall, CEO of self-driving car company Wayve, for a long-form interview on the challenges of getting autonomous vehicles onto our roads. Alex discusses how to win public trust for this technology, how he sees a future world filled with “embodied AI” and about how Elon Musk followed Wayve's approach to self-driving tech.This podcast is brought to you by Harper James, a national full-service law firm designed to support ambitious businesses. Having supported over 3,500 businesses, Harper James isn't a run-of-the-mill law firm. It has transformed the traditional law firm model through unique price plans, smart technology and teams of almost exclusively senior lawyers — giving you affordable, commercial and high quality legal advice.If this sounds too good to be true, then head over to harperjames.co.uk and see for yourself. While you're there, you'll find 100s of resources to help your journey from startup to scaleup and beyond.

This week we are live from the Sifted Summit — our annual event bringing together the best of European tech and startups.Today on the pod you'll hear from Stripe cofounder John Collison, AI startup sensation Mistral cofounder Arthur Mensch and digital bank Monzo COO Sujata Bhatia.*And, if you want to learn how to live into your 100s, here's a write up of the top tips from longevity investor Christian Angermayer.This podcast is brought to you by Harper James, a national full-service law firm designed to support ambitious businesses. Having supported over 3,500 businesses, Harper James isn't a run-of-the-mill law firm. It has transformed the traditional law firm model through unique price plans, smart technology and teams of almost exclusively senior lawyers — giving you affordable, commercial and high quality legal advice.If this sounds too good to be true, then head over to harperjames.co.uk and see for yourself. While you're there, you'll find 100s of resources to help your journey from startup to scaleup and beyond.

This week we discuss:02:07 — Improbable's refocus on the metaverse sees big reduction in losses04:46 — ‘The economics of trading equity for compute are not great' — Mistral releases its first model07:15 — Dutch arm of vertical farming startup Infarm declared bankrupt11:22 — US eyes British startups in chip sovereignty bid13:50 — UK-France AI rivalry heats up with dual summits14:48 — Why is applying for EU funding such a nightmare?Get yourself a ticket to the Sifted Summit here.

This week it's a long form interview with Reshma Sohoni. In 2007 she cofounded the London-based venture fund Seedcamp, which has backed leading European tech companies like UIPath, Wise and Revolut. Reshma sat down remotely with Sifted's Amy Lewin to share her thoughts on what she's seeing in the market today, and lessons learnt from more than a decade and a half of investing in startups.

This week we discuss:01:24 Getir valuation reduced 4x in new $500m funding round02:14 The big French fire sale: record numbers of startups are selling at big discounts05:51 German HR tech Personio opens New York office, plans to double US workforce07:33  Smart chatbot maker DRUID raises $30m to double down on US business14:48 Want to capitalise off America's $369bn climate bill? Here's howGet yourself a ticket to the Sifted Summit here.

This week, Startup Europe — The Sifted Podcast is joined by Sachin Duggal, founder and CEO of Builder.AI, a company that uses AI to help customers build software applications more easily. He sat down with Eleanor in the studio to talk about competition for talent, building culture and the future of software development.

This week we discuss:02:55 US AI startup Poolside raises $126m seed round and relocates to France05:50 Klarna cuts losses and sees “huge opportunity” in generative AI08:10 N26 CPO Gilles BianRosa steps down, becomes supervisory board member08:42 Babylon finds buyer for its UK business (and GP at Hand service)10:02 Dutch VC PhotonVentures bets all on photonic chips with new €100m fund16:23 Hackers are watching your startup. Not many are prepared for the attack

This week we discuss:02:25  Weight-loss drug mania reaches Europe: Denmark's Embla raises €10m06:47 Getir cuts 10% of staff in latest sign of speedy grocery industry's struggles08:30 Northvolt raises $1.2bn convertible note from BlackRock10:33 Scottish startup ENOUGH raises €40m for its alternative meat 13:12 NatureMetrics raises £10m as biodiversity moves up the ESG agenda23:13 How is the global run on AI hardware affecting startups?

This week we're talking about a single story that Sifted reported this week: serious allegations of workplace misconduct at one of Europe's leading VC firms. Seven people who worked at DN Capital — an investor in Shazam, Remitly and Auto1 — allege that its founder Nenad Marovac sexually harassed and bullied colleagues, creating a culture of misogyny at the fund.Marovac has denied all the allegations. DN Capital has opened an independent investigation into the allegations, which it said do not reflect its culture.Read the story here.

This week we discuss:01:10 How much RingCentral paid for those Hopin assets              Was Hopin really such a failure?03:41 Dutch startup Meatable raises $35m to scale cultivated pork products07:58 Build-a-bot workshop: deepset.ai raises $30m for personalised AI models10:58 Who's going to buy Babylon?19:20 The machines have eyes: How GenAI is giving warehouse robots vision

This week we discuss:01:07 Johnny Boufarhat steps down as CEO of Hopin04:55 Prima Materia makes third startup investment — into longevity08:31 European VCs see exodus of women investors11:58 The ‘crazy' £20bn subsea cable to bring Moroccan solar power to the UK22:38 Can French startups overcome their elitist image?

This week we discuss:Getir calls on staff to go door-to-door with goodie bags as cashflow problems persist (1:36)Eurazeo's growth team quits to start new fund (5:31)VanMoof: What happened to VCs' favourite bike? (8:42)Are Oura rings and executive coaches the answer to founder burnout? (12:46)

We're back with another longer form interview and this week we're joined by Eileen Burbidge, cofounder of London-based, early-stage VC firm Passion Capital and director at reproductive healthcare company Fertifa. She came into the studio to reflect on the differences between Silicon Valley and London, her time at Monzo and how she wants to fix reproductive healthcare in Europe.

This week we discuss:02:00 UK government unveils plan to direct £75bn from pension funds to startups05:30  5 key questions that the Mansion House Compact doesn't answer07:34 The startup creating AI jobs for humans: Prolific raises £25m 10:39 Causaly raises $60m Series B to give scientists instant access to 'all of biology' 13:15 Aphea.Bio raises €70m Series C 24:00 Paris is burning (VC investor cash on AI startups) — Link coming soon

Our competition to win a ticket for the Sifted Summit has now closed, thanks for entering if you took part! We're still keen to learn more about who listens to the podcast,  please take this five-question survey if you have a minute to spare: https://ftx.typeform.com/to/L2ai27FuThis week we discuss:02:14 Spotify founder Daniel Ek's Neko Health raises €60m Series A amid European expansion plans 06:38 'An inkjet printer for the periodic table' — VSParticle raises €14.5m09:14 Arrival loses key finance lifelines as troubles mount13:47 Britishvolt cofounder pins new hope on Italian gigafactory20:11 I am a successful founder — and it's the worst job I've ever had

Our competition to win a ticket for the Sifted Summit has now closed, thanks for entering if you took part! We're still keen to learn more about who listens to the podcast,  please take this five-question survey if you have a minute to spare: https://ftx.typeform.com/to/L2ai27FuThis week we discuss:01:51 Data roaming outside the EU still sucks — but the AUTO1 founder's new startup wants to fix it06:31 The German spacetech planning to fire stem cell 'organoids' into orbit10:31 Babylon shareholders wiped out as healthtech agrees to delist12:55 Startup boards are still a boys' club — 45% have no female representation17:58 'The G-spot of Europe': how Vilnius is trying to attract international tech talent

Our competition to win a ticket for the Sifted Summit has now closed, thanks for entering if you took part! We're still keen to learn more about who listens to the podcast,  please take this five-question survey if you have a minute to spare: https://ftx.typeform.com/to/L2ai27FuThis week we discuss: See the pitch memo that raised €105m for four-week-old startup MistralA Human Genome Project for the nervous system? BIOS Health raises fresh fundingNato launches tech accelerator to bring Silicon Valley ethos to Europe's armiesWhere to find Europe's best AI engineersTony Blair thinks AI will save Britain, he's just not quite sure how it should work

This week we sat down with Chloe Smith, the UK's acting secretary of state for Science, Innovation & Technology — the government minister tasked with supporting the growth of the country's tech and startup sector.She told us about what the UK is doing to attract talent to its shores, and about how the country plans to unlock pension funds to invest in high-growth tech companies.

This week we discuss:Infarm quits Europe as vertical farming withers on the vineCheckout.com cuts internal valuation by another 15%EIF to set up a €200m fund for European defence techCan e-fuel make flying green? Startups are tryingAn unknown Swedish startup's €3bn bid to build a green rival to AWS

This week we discuss:01:06 Monzo narrows losses slightly as lending book triples04:06 Inside GetYourGuide: Germany's $2bn travel experiences platform07:41 US giant NEA backs Stockholm AI company Sana Labs09:45 Did US hustle mentality ruin Typeform?14:36 SaaS won't save the planet, but a hardware-software duo just might20:16 An OpenAI alum is building a robot butler for your home

This week it's another longer form interview. We're joined by Ophelia Brown, managing partner of Blossom Capital, a VC fund that's backed the likes of payments company Checkout.com, crypto exchange Moonpay and HR platform Localize. She sat down with Sifted's Amy Lewin to make her case for a crypto comeback, as well as giving some harsh words on the political mismanagement of the UK tech sector.

This week we discuss:02:55 Mobility giant Bolt likely to acquire rival Tier in weeks05:00 Northvolt to build German and US factories10:13 ETH spinout ANYbotics raises $50m for AI-led robo workforce 13:54 Startup valuations continue to plummet in 202317:52 It's not just the CFO who's quit: Meet the people left with power at Revolut23:26 A taster of the foods of the futureListen to Sifted's new podcast series sponsored by EQT Ventures: "Downturn Survival Guide."