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1 week ago | 
sifted.eu | Kai Nicol-Schwarz |Daphne Leprince-Ringuet |Tom Nugent
European hardware startups are scrambling to navigate supply chain uncertainty and rethink expansion plans as US tariff back-and-forths continue to wreak market chaos and a trade war with China intensifies. Senior leaders have been rushing to schedule contingency plan meetings with boards and investors over the past week, as they look to protect runways and shelter themselves from the worst of the global economic fallout, founders and VCs tell Sifted.
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4 weeks ago | 
sifted.eu | Tom Nugent
In 2024, universities across the UK took an average of 16.1% in the companies they spun out, down from an average of 21.5% in 2023.
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Nov 15, 2024 | 
email.sifted.eu | Tom Nugent
Good morning there,China pops up in many Sifted stories today. As a dominant market player in the solar industry, it features heavily in our latest briefing on the sector, in a story of how Europe is struggling to compete. China also has European policymakers scratching their heads over how to ensure the continent has its own strategic climate tech, with the country racing ahead in areas like battery and solar panel production.
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Nov 5, 2024 | 
sifted.eu | Tom Nugent
Oxford has historically trailed its Golden Triangle counterparts London and Cambridge in the UK when it comes to the amount of VC funding raised. But that’s not to say activity there isn’t catching the eye of investors. This year, €455m has been raised across 28 deals in the city, according to Sifted data.
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Nov 4, 2024 | 
sifted.eu | Tom Nugent
This article first appeared in Sifted’s Daily newsletter, sign up here. Last Thursday at Berlin’s Radialsystem — an arts centre in an old pumping station next to the River Spree — dozens of academics took to the stage to pitch companies created from their research.
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Nov 1, 2024 | 
sifted.eu | Tom Nugent
This article first appeared in Sifted’s Daily newsletter, sign up here. This time last year, most of the conversations I had with spinout folk in the UK were about greedy universities; specifically, institutions taking too big an equity stake in their spinouts and putting off investors. That doesn’t seem to come up as much anymore. The message I’m hearing at the moment is we’re on the way to fixing that (are we, actually? Or do we still have a long way to go?), and there are bigger fish to fry.
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Oct 31, 2024 | 
email.sifted.eu | Tom Nugent
Germany is on par with the US and closing in on France and the UK when it comes to stock options rules, according to new data from Index Ventures released as part of its Not Optional campaign to improve options schemes across Europe. In 2023, Germany had the worst setup for stock options in the region, according to Index. What’s changed? The big difference from the last time the data was pulled is the country’s Future Financing Act, which became law in early 2024.
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Oct 30, 2024 | 
sifted.eu | Tom Nugent
Raising money and finding people to pay for their product are among the chief challenges founders are facing, according to new data from tech event Slush published today. In its Startup Struggle survey of more than 1,000 founders (alongside more than 250 investors), 63% of startups said fundraising was among their top three challenges; 49.6% said customer acquisition was up there; 38.1% mentioned scaling and growth; and 36.8% pointed to revenue growth.
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Oct 8, 2024 | 
sifted.eu | Tom Nugent
University spinouts typically have their foundations in deep science — think drug discovery, nuclear energy, robotics — which means that when it comes to scaling up, finding the right operational talent can be an uphill battle. But that hasn’t stopped some companies born out of research labs across the continent from bolstering their teams in the last 12 months.
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Sep 27, 2024 | 
sifted.eu | Tom Nugent
In the last couple years, university spinouts have been hot property in Europe. Governments and VCs want in, while university folk want to support spinning more research out of the lab and into the market. London HQ’d Legal & General — one of Europe’s largest insurance and asset management groups — is also planning to go on the offensive.
