Amy Lewin

London

Editor @siftedeu, covering startups and tech, backed by the FT | [email protected] | For our latest, greatest stories, sign up to our newsletters 👇

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Articles

EIF head Marjut Falkstedt: “We will not finance weapons and ammunition”

1 week ago | sifted.eu | Amy Lewin

When Marjut Falkstedt took up her role as head of the European Investment Fund (EIF) two years ago, the conversations VCs — and politicians — were having, in public at least, were very different. Defence spending wasn’t regularly headline news, or part of VC social media chitter chatter. Today, it very much is. That means the EIF — the biggest backer of Europe’s VCs, investing €7bn in equity financing last year, with €143.7bn in assets under management — has shifted its priorities.
Atomico sells part of fund of funds portfolio to PE group Kline Hill Partners

1 week ago | sifted.eu | Kai Nicol-Schwarz |Amy Lewin

European VC giant Atomico has agreed to sell part of its fund of funds portfolio, multiple sources have told Sifted. US private equity company Kline Hill Partners (KHP) is acquiring Atomico’s LP stakes in VC funds including Seedcamp, Visionaries Club, Puzzle Ventures, Common Magic and Tiny VC, according to a source with knowledge of the deal.
Running a startup pregnant

1 week ago | email.sifted.eu | Amy Lewin

As chaos hits the public markets and economists predict a global recession by year end, investors are looking for silver linings: “As in every crisis, now is the best time to found a company,” Benjamin Erhart, partner at German-based VC UVC Partners, tells Sifted. It’s hard not to feel like we’re living in a giant game of snakes and ladders — and have just slid down a few levels. Wasn’t 2023 also the best time to start a company? Or was that 2021?
Britain’s got talent. But is that enough?

2 weeks ago | sifted.eu | Amy Lewin

Could the next technological breakthrough akin to the invention of the internet, or the mRNA vaccine, take place in Britain? The latest cohort of scientists and engineers joining the UK government’s ‘moonshot factory’, ARIA (Advanced Research and Invention Agency), certainly hope so.
AI founders score the sweetest term sheets

3 weeks ago | sifted.eu | Amy Lewin

Investors fell head over heels for AI companies last year — making up 14% of UK deals done last year, up from 9% in 2023. And in a bid to woo those AI startups’ founders and get their name on the term sheet, investors have been agreeing to some much more founder-friendly conditions, according to a new report on UK VC term sheets from HSBC Innovation Banking. It is based on 588 term sheets issued in 2024, sourced from 27 law firms.
Tom Blomfield’s AI recipe app trolled with bogus meals

3 weeks ago | sifted.eu | Amy Lewin

Monzo founder and Y Combinator partner Tom Blomfield has unveiled a new recipe app he’s built — but within hours the site has been flooded with user-generated instructions for items ranging from “snot pasta” to “pre-shitted pants”. Since quitting the neobank in 2021, Blomfield has taken on a series of new challenges, becoming an active angel investor, a mental health advocate and a group partner at California-based startup accelerator YC.
Formidable London tech journalist Steve O’Hear dies aged 49

Oct 14, 2024 | sifted.eu | Amy Lewin |Freya Pratty

Former London tech journalist Steve O’Hear has died aged 49 after a short illness, his team announced today. O’Hear worked for TechCrunch for over a decade and covered the rise of many of the UK’s most successful tech businesses, like Monzo and Wise. He left in 2021 to join food delivery scaleup Zapp as SVP of strategy and communications, and then two years ago founded strategic communications firm O’Hear & Co Advisory — its logo a nod to O’Hear’s trademark hat.
Europe’s first accelerator for VCs launches

Oct 13, 2024 | sifted.eu | Amy Lewin

Founders have all manner of support to help them get up and running with their businesses. VCs, less so — until now. Early next year, advisory firm Mountside Ventures is launching Europe’s first VC fundraising accelerator. It’ll take on 15 emerging managers and “help them become better fundraisers”, says Jonathan Hollis, the firm’s managing partner.
Is there a clear path for women VCs to become partner?

Oct 11, 2024 | sifted.eu | Amy Lewin

This article first appeared in Sifted’s Up Round newsletter, sign up here. There is, among VCs — and among women VCs in particular — a feeling that the ‘path to partner’ is not a clear one, nor an easy one. Most firms are small and only have so many seats for partners. Most who hold those roles are in it for the long term — and so it’s rare that a spot opens up.
Wolt CEO: “We always thought that we would evolve to become more like a bank"

Oct 9, 2024 | sifted.eu | Amy Lewin

When food delivery company Wolt started out, enabling customers to skip the queue at coffee shops by pre-ordering their americanos, it probably didn’t look like a business that was eyeing up global domination. But a decade on, as the Helsinki-HQd company celebrates its 10th birthday, it’s well on its way to becoming a global superapp. Wolt now employs 12k people with customers in over 1,000 cities across 28 countries.