Startup Europe — The Sifted Podcast

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Startup Europe — The Sifted Podcast

Sifted

141 episodes

2 days ago

This week it's another special episode from the Sifted Summit, with senior reporter Kai Nicol-Schwarz sitting down with serial entrepreneur Alex Depledge — founder of Resi and Hassle.com, and now entrepreneurship advisor to UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves. Alex shares her experience of navigating government and trying to make changes for the UK's tech sector, and discusses how to tackle the exodus of startup talent from the country. Her and Kai get into how to unlock more late stage capital for h...

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Entrepreneurship

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This week it's another special episode from the Sifted Summit, with senior reporter Kai Nicol-Schwarz sitting down with serial entrepreneur Alex Depledge — founder of Resi and Hassle.com, and now entrepreneurship advisor to UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves. Alex shares her experience of navigating government and trying to make changes for the UK's tech sector, and discusses how to tackle the exodus of startup talent from the country. Her and Kai get into how to unlock more late stage capital for h...

Show more...

Entrepreneurship

Episodes (20/141)

Startup Europe — The Sifted Podcast

How to stop the UK startup exodus, with entrepreneur and government advisor Alex Depledge

This week it's another special episode from the Sifted Summit, with senior reporter Kai Nicol-Schwarz sitting down with serial entrepreneur Alex Depledge — founder of Resi and Hassle.com, and now entrepreneurship advisor to UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves. Alex shares her experience of navigating government and trying to make changes for the UK's tech sector, and discusses how to tackle the exodus of startup talent from the country. Her and Kai get into how to unlock more late stage capital for h...

2 days ago

25 minutes

Startup Europe — The Sifted Podcast

Can Europe build AI champions?

This week, Daphné Leprince-Ringuet is joined by head of research Jonathan Sinclair and senior reporter Kai Nicol-Schwarz to unpack the state of AI in Europe. Funding for European AI-native companies has nearly doubled to €8.9bn this year, and acquisitions hit a record high of 18 last month — all while valuations continue to climb. But do the numbers tell the full story? The trio digs into insights from Sifted’s inaugural AI ranking, alongside recent reporting, to explore questions like: Shoul...

1 week ago

41 minutes

Startup Europe — The Sifted Podcast

Erin Platts on SVB collapse and new role at Octopus Ventures: ‘There will always be churn’

This week host Amy Lewin sits down with Erin Platts, CEO of Octopus Ventures. Erin joined Octopus at the beginning of this year after a two decade stint at Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), where she oversaw UK operations throughout its dramatic collapse in 2023. Erin walks Amy through the climactic weekend that SVB went under, revealing what really happened behind the scenes as industry partners scrambled to keep startups’ cash safe. The pair also dig into the state of venture in the UK, including ...

2 weeks ago

44 minutes

Startup Europe — The Sifted Podcast

How to build a $100bn company in Europe, with Sequoia's Luciana Lixandru

This week it’s another special episode recorded live at the Sifted Summit, with host Amy sitting down with Sequoia Capital’s Luciana Lixandru. Luciana, who established the legendary Silicon Valley firm's presence in Europe in 2020, discusses the continent’s “Act Two”, and ambitions to build $100bn companies. She talks about what Sequoia looks for in founders, how to build a defensible AI business and why she believes London is becoming the centre of Europe’s AI renaissance. Luciana and Amy al...

3 weeks ago

25 minutes

Startup Europe — The Sifted Podcast

Ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt: 'The AI bubble is a good thing'

This week it's the first in a series of special episodes recorded in front of a live audience at the Sifted Summit, and we're kicking off with a bang: a fireside discussion between former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Sifted's founder and editorial director John Thornhill. They discuss the ongoing AI revolution, with Eric arguing that the technology is actually undervalued today, and why "industrial" bubbles can actually be a good thing after they burst. He also talks about what the rest of the...

1 month ago

27 minutes

Startup Europe — The Sifted Podcast

Why Vinted moved into venture, with Milda Jasaitė

This week the Sifted Podcast comes to you live from Italian Tech Week, where Amy sat down with Milda Jasaitė, the head of second-hand marketplace Vinted's new investment arm: Vinted Ventures. It's fairly unusual in Europe for a startup like Vinted, that's only been profitable for a couple of years, to launch a venture arm but, as Milda explains, it's a trend that's far more common in the US. They discuss why a relatively young startup needs an investment arm and the kinds of companies that Mi...

1 month ago

27 minutes

Startup Europe — The Sifted Podcast

“90% of drone startups will fail in five years”: Europe's defence tech beyond drones

On this week’s Newsroom episode, where we ask our journalists what they’re hearing as they report on Europe’s tech industry, Amy's joined by senior reporter Anne Sraders. Anne reports on one of the continent’s most hyped sectors: defence tech, a market that is booming as governments put large sums of cash behind plans to rearm in the face of increasing Russian aggression. Meanwhile, Amy has been at Resilience, a conference full of startups, soldiers and spies who are all figuring out which ne...

1 month ago

29 minutes

Startup Europe — The Sifted Podcast

Sequoia VP talent Zoe Hewitt on what star talent looks like in 2025

This week Amy is joined by Zoe Hewitt, VP of talent at legendary Silicon Valley VC firm Sequoia, where she helps its portfolio companies find and hire talent based in Europe. That makes her one of the continent's best informed people as to what is going on with tech talent today, in a world where startups and scaleups are ripping up the hiring rulebook, as AI changes the art of company building. Zoe knows where top talent wants to work, how to spot a future founder, what 'the office of the CE...

1 month ago

34 minutes

Startup Europe — The Sifted Podcast

Can anything stop Synthesia?

Ever fancied hearing Brad Pitt speak flawless Mandarin? That’s the kind of trick Synthesia’s hyper-realistic video avatars can pull off. The London-based unicorn, which uses generative AI to make videos for corporate training and internal comms, has been a big hit among enterprise users — its customer list includes more than 80% of the Fortune 100, and it hit $100m ARR in April this year. It seems to be a pretty solid business model — and investors certainly like it. But where will the compan...

1 month ago

18 minutes

Startup Europe — The Sifted Podcast

'Reverse acquihires are incredibly dangerous': Tech lawyer Mike Turner

Mike Turner, partner at law firm Latham and Watkins, has a bird’s eye view of Europe’s startup ecosystem: which sectors are on the up and which are on the down; which VCs play nice and which don’t; and why more and more founders are getting edged out of their companies. On this week’s episode of the podcast, Mike sits down with host Amy to discuss why climate tech's monetisation model remains unknown, the growth in strategic buyers’ M&A activity and how European governments will react to ...

2 months ago

26 minutes

Startup Europe — The Sifted Podcast

Lovable’s Anton Osika on churn, calculating ARR and his newfound celebrity status

It’s pretty fun being the frontman of the world’s fastest-growing company, says Anton Osika. But being swarmed by enthusiastic users, opportunistic investors and beady-eyed journalists can occasionally have its downsides. It’s no surprise everyone wants a piece of Lovable founder and CEO Anton. Last month, just eight months after its launch, Lovable was crowned Europe’s newest unicorn when it raised $200m at a $1.8bn valuation, and hit $100m ARR. On this week’s episode of the podcast, A...

2 months ago

19 minutes

Startup Europe — The Sifted Podcast

How AI is transforming startups — for better or worse

If you work at a tech startup, AI is a boon and a bane, empowering tiny teams to build at scale while wiping out entry-level jobs and flooding LinkedIn with “AI slop.” In this week's episode of the Sifted podcast, Amy is joined by senior reporter Miriam Partington, to discuss how founders and operators at Europe's fastest-growing companies are using AI. She shares what she's hearing about how the technology is hurting trust in brands, how engineering teams are being totally re-shaped and abou...

2 months ago

25 minutes

Startup Europe — The Sifted Podcast

Quantum Systems CEO Florian Seibel: ‘Having a dictator has advantages’

Germany-based defence tech Quantum Systems is one of Europe's leading makers of military drones, having completed thousands of missions in Ukraine and signed contracts with governments around the world. The company raised a €160m Series C in May 2025, hitting unicorn status, and is seeing its revenue double year on year. On this week's episode of the Sifted Podcast, host Amy sits down with Quantum Systems’ CEO Florian Seibel to hear about what peace in Ukraine will mean for the growing defenc...

2 months ago

48 minutes

Startup Europe — The Sifted Podcast

Meet Europe’s ‘other’ defence tech unicorn: Tekever

You might be forgiven for thinking Europe had just two big drone makers — Germany’s Helsing and Quantum Systems — given how many headlines both attract. But there’s a third defence tech unicorn on the continent: Lisbon-based surveillance drones maker Tekever. Its drones are used all over the world — by the European Maritime Safety Agency to survey the coastline around Europe and by the UK Home Office to keep an eye on the English Channel, by the Spanish police and Brazilian Navy and — unsur...

3 months ago

14 minutes

Startup Europe — The Sifted Podcast

‘We don’t need to raise capital to grow’: Factorial CEO Jordi Romero

Barcelona-based Factorial has come a long way since its early days as an HR software startup: it’s now a full-blown business management platform used by over 13k businesses for everything from expense tracking to project management. With more than 1,300 employees and €110m in fresh funding from General Catalyst under its belt, Factorial is scaling fast — and CEO and founder Jordi Romero is finding ways to keep that momentum going, having onboarded 300 people in just six months. What does he l...

3 months ago

38 minutes

Startup Europe — The Sifted Podcast

The secret behind Revolut's product blitz

Revolut is Europe’s most valuable private tech company — and is set to become even more so soon, with a fundraise in the works which would see it valued at a reported $65m. The digital bank manages to churn out new features at breakneck speed — from pet insurance to travel bookings, and now mortgages and mobile plans — despite having over 50m customers around the world. The secret? Its “new bets team”: small, startup-like squads tasked with testing and scaling new products fast. On this...

3 months ago

18 minutes

Startup Europe — The Sifted Podcast

Supercell CEO Ilkka Paananen: "Europe doesn't need to become Silicon Valley"

Supercell is one of Europe's leading video game companies — with enduring hit titles like Clash of Clans and Brawl Stars under its belt. But, as CEO and cofounder Ilkka Paananen explains on this episode of Startup Europe — the Sifted Podcast, developing new and popular games is a tough business. He sits down with Amy Lewin to explain how Supercell tries to foster creativity by empowering its game development teams by giving them maximum autonomy, and by taking the fear out of failure through ...

3 months ago

33 minutes

Startup Europe — The Sifted Podcast

Is Mistral worth $6bn?

Once upon a time, Mistral was Europe’s buzziest tech company — raising a huge €105m seed round in 2023 to build GenAI models and compete with the likes of OpenAI. But as the sector's matured, and we’ve seen application-focused AI startups like app maker Lovable and defence tech Helsing rise to the top of the hype pile, how is the Paris-based startup living up to its early promise? The company has won some big clients, announced partnerships with giants like Nvidia and grown substantial annual...

4 months ago

25 minutes

Startup Europe — The Sifted Podcast

The days of making easy money from coding are over, says former Stripe UK CTO turned founder Emma Burrows

If you work in tech, you’re likely in one of two camps: thinking about using AI agents, or already deploying tens of them. That’s why Emma Burrows cofounded Portia AI, a platform which helps businesses build and use AI agents securely, in-house — and which secured £4.4m in a seed round led by General Catalyst back in April. Emma's no stranger to a breakneck sector: before founding Portia, she was UK chief technology officer at payments giant Stripe, and previously built out the ecommerce stac...

4 months ago

35 minutes

Startup Europe — The Sifted Podcast

Helsing: Challenges ahead for the defence tech unicorn

Defence tech unicorn Helsing — which raised a whopping €600m in June at a €12bn valuation — has swiftly become one of Europe's most intriguing and closely-watched startups. Defence is top of the agenda for many policymakers and investors at the moment, and four-year-old Helsing has been crowned the poster child for the rising European defence tech wave. But, despite all that, the Munich-based company is remarkably secret about what it actually does. On this episode of the Si...

4 months ago

13 minutes