Miriam Partington

Berlin

DACH Correspondent at Sifted

Senior reporter covering DACH at the Financial Times' @siftedeu • Catch me on: https://t.co/SB12I4M8eC

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Articles

Will product teams become product ‘person’?

1 week ago | sifted.eu | Miriam Partington

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll know there’s been a lot of hype lately around AI and its ability to write code, build prototypes and create websites faster than any human. Online, doomsayers predict the end to product teams within the next decade, or sooner. But is that realistic? This year, VCs have been fawning over “tiny teams” of 10 people or fewer that have hit millions in ARR within months, using AI to power product development, customer service and even marketing.
Accel leads $4m seed round in AI voice agent startup Solda.AI

2 weeks ago | sifted.eu | Miriam Partington

Berlin-based AI voice agent startup Solda.AI has raised a $4m seed round led by Accel, with participation from US private equity firm AltaIR Capital. AI “agents” — apps using large language models (LLMs) to automate complicated tasks without a human in the loop — have taken the VC world by storm, with European startups in the sector scooping up €827m in Q1 of this year alone, according to Sifted data.
Trump tariffs threaten cloud price hike for European startups

2 weeks ago | sifted.eu | Kai Nicol-Schwarz |Miriam Partington |Anne Sraders

European startups and their investors are bracing for a hike in cloud computing costs that could hit growth ambitions and delay profitability, amid fears that US tariffs could force hyperscalers to ramp up prices. US president Donald Trump sent markets around the world into meltdown earlier this month, after unveiling a sweeping package of import taxes on trading partners from around the world.
Europe’s climate investors seek silver lining amid Trump upheaval

2 weeks ago | sifted.eu | Miriam Partington |Freya Pratty

When Donald Trump was elected US president for the second time in November last year, climate tech’s industry leaders knew they’d be in for a wild ride. Since retaking office, Trump has once again withdrawn the US from the Paris climate agreement, paused billions in federal support for clean energy initiatives, doubling down on fossil fuels all the while. The Trump administration has sent shockwaves throughout the tech and VC ecosystem far beyond the US.
Aleph Alpha acquires AI text processing startup thingsThinking

2 weeks ago | sifted.eu | Miriam Partington

German AI startup Aleph Alpha announced on Thursday it would acquire AI text-processing startup thingsThinking for an undisclosed amount. Aleph Alpha, once hailed as a European leader in large language models (LLM) to rival OpenAI and other industry leaders, has since pivoted to a B2B consultancy model, offering a so-called “generative AI operating system” for large enterprises and other organisations, helping them integrate AI internally.
‘Resilience’ is the new VC buzzword. But what does it actually mean?

2 weeks ago | sifted.eu | Anne Sraders |Miriam Partington

Spend any time on LinkedIn these days and you’re bound to come across VCs talking about one thing: ‘resilience’. European VCs are increasingly using it to describe everything from climate tech to space and new materials — and, most prominently, defence. It’s become a much-mentioned investment topic — and London’s now home to a Resilience conference, tagline: “Startups. Security. Defence”.
Berlin tech salaries stagnate, gender pay gap widens

2 weeks ago | sifted.eu | Miriam Partington

Berlin’s tech workers’ wages have remained almost stagnant since last year, while the gender pay gap widened to 20% in the same period, a new report shows. A survey of 1,845 workers by Handpicked Berlin, a German weekly newsletter, suggests men working in tech in the capital earned a median salary of €83k, compared to the average woman’s wage of €66k. In leadership positions, the pay gap has widened to 24.5%, up from 14.46% last year.
Black Forest Labs: Europe’s most-hyped - and elusive - startup?

3 weeks ago | sifted.eu | Freya Pratty |Miriam Partington

At Swiss conference Start Summit in March, generative AI wunderkind Robin Rombach found himself in the middle of a crowd of people wanting to speak to him. Rombach, who was dressed all in dark colours apart from an orange rucksack, is the cofounder of Black Forest Labs, the German startup which is fast becoming one of Europe's most-talked-about AI companies.
Berlin-based Noxtua raises over €80m Series B to build ‘sovereign’ legal AI

3 weeks ago | sifted.eu | Miriam Partington

Berlin-based startup Noxtua — formerly known as Xayn — has raised a €80.7m Series B round to develop what it says is Europe’s first “sovereign” legal AI tool. Amid ongoing geopolitical instability, tech leaders are calling for Europe to reduce its dependency on foreign technology providers. Noxtua’s legal AI is powered by its own large language models (LLMs) trained exclusively on European legal data.
Early-stage VC Kompas raises €150m for second fund

3 weeks ago | sifted.eu | Miriam Partington

Early-stage VC Kompas has raised €150m for its second fund to invest in industrial technology across Europe, the US and Israel. The firm invests across three main areas: decarbonisation, productivity and “resilience”, the latter of which it defines as protecting businesses against global risks from supply chain disruptions to cyberattacks.