Startup Europe — The Sifted Podcast cover art

All Episodes

Startup Europe — The Sifted Podcast — 163 episodes

#
Title
1

Anthropic vs European AI

2

Hertility CEO Helen O’Neill on building a foundational model for women’s health

3

Wolt CEO and Slush chair Marianne Vikkula on building a superapp, leadership lessons and Slush’s secret sauce

4

Could Europe become a world leader in robotics?

5

Project Europe CEO Kitty Mayo: ‘Harry Stebbings is like our head of state and I’m prime minister’

6

Tiny VC partner Philipp Moehring on when to take money off the table

7

OpenAI's Laura Modiano on hackathons, Lovable and how startups can partner with the tech giant

8

Meet the 100 fastest-growing startups in the UK and Ireland

9

Hélène Huby, CEO of The Exploration Company: 'Only the crazy people change the world'

10

SaaSpocalypse: What’s next for Europe’s SaaS scaleups and investors?

11

What are world models — and are they Europe’s winning AI bet?

12

Judith Dada, general partner at Visionaries Club: 'I'm deeply troubled by what lies ahead for Europe'

13

Creandum’s VP of talent Michelle Coventry: What it’s like being at the other end of Anton Osika’s WhatsApps

14

The 26 startups to watch in 2026 — plus cities, sectors and investors on the up

15

Endeavor CEO Linda Rottenberg: ‘Talent is everywhere. Opportunity and capital are not’

16

Is Europe’s AI infrastructure build-out heading for a gigafactory-style bust?

17

2026: The year the AI bubble bursts?

18

NATO Innovation Fund chair Fiona Murray: ‘The threat from Russia is extremely real’

19

Bolt founder and Klarna board member Markus Villig on why Europe is sleepwalking into a 'disaster' on self-driving cars and physical AI

20

UK AI minister Kanishka Narayan: “The role I have is the best job going”

21

Nothing founder Carl Pei: ‘If you’re serious about hardware, you should spend time in China’

22

The State of European Tech 2025: Top talent, failing better and scaling faster

23

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

24

Can Europe build AI champions?

25

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

26

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

27

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

28

Why Vinted moved into venture, with Milda Jasaitė

29

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

30

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

31

Can anything stop Synthesia?

32

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

33

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

34

How AI is transforming startups — for better or worse

35

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

36

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

37

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

38

The secret behind Revolut's product blitz

39

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

40

Is Mistral worth $6bn?

41

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

42

Helsing: Challenges ahead for the defence tech unicorn

43

Tackling financial fraud with AI: Qonto CEO Alexandre Prot

44

Vinted CEO Thomas Plantenga: ‘Vinted is not a company that’s going to exit’

45

'Defence is where we can play all our superpowers': Visionaries Club’s Rob Lacher

46

What's so special about Lovable?

47

'We haven’t made a pitch deck since we started the company': Granola CEO Chris Pedregal

48

How to make partner in less than three years: Cherry Ventures' Dinika Mahtani

49

Three exits and a failure: Motorway's Tom Leathes on how to disrupt big industries

50

Nord's Tomas Okmanas on why he had to launch an AI startup

51

The 101 of angel investing with Jenny Tooth

52

Replacing fossil fuels: Proxima Fusion’s Francesco Sciortino on his mission to revolutionise clean energy

53

Oura Ring founder Petteri Lahtela on fending off acquisition offers from Big Tech

54

General Catalyst’s Jeannette zu Fürstenberg on how to scale European moonshot ideas

55

Mistral, DeepL and Kry investor Avid Larizadeh Duggan on where AI is creating value

56

Programmable plants and neurotech devices: Inside the UK government’s £800m “inventions” agency

57

Climate tech’s growing pains with Pale Blue Dot’s Heidi Lindvall

58

DeepL founder Jarek Kutylowski on how his AI startup took on Google Translate — and won

59

Index Ventures partner Martin Mignot on where Revolut should list

60

Sophia Bendz on why Spotify's Daniel Ek hired people with "no track record"

61

Why Andreessen Horowitz is betting big on crypto in Europe with Sriram Krishnan

62

Hussein Kanji from Hoxton Ventures on how just much he made from investing in Deliveroo and Darktrace

63

Glovo's Oscar Pierre on the gig economy and building scaleups in Southern Europe

64

Station F’s and Sequoia’s Roxanne Varza on how to stop tech companies moving to the US

65

“We’ve made more money than we ever dreamed of”: RELEX Solutions’s Johanna Småros

66

Why is Stability AI changing its business model?

67

More layoffs at European scaleups as the tech slowdown bites

68

HSBC’s Sonya Iovieno on undisclosed down rounds, startups trimming headcount and SVB’s collapse

69

Some tech workers are now earning $400k straight out of uni. Why?

70

Aleph Alpha raises one of Europe's biggest AI rounds, but is all as it seems?

71

Klarna’s workers are going on strike as the company cuts more roles

72

France’s big plan for startups

73

Babylon: how it all went so wrong

74

Interview: Wayve’s Alex Kendall on autonomous vehicles, embodied AI and Elon Musk's U-turns

75

Stripe’s John Collison on launching his $50bn business at the age of 19 — Sifted Summit special

76

Can French AI startup Mistral ever compete with Big Tech?

77

Interview: Seedcamp’s Reshma Sohoni on bunker mentality during a downturn

78

European valuations tumble as the great startup fire sale begins

79

Interview: ‘The age of AI resembles the age of DaVinci’ — Builder.AI’s Sachin Duggal on the need for polymaths in machine learning

80

Klarna is back in black after a tough 2022

81

Getir is laying off 2,500 employees to try and survive

82

Founder of a top European VC firm accused of sexual harassment

83

Which buyer can save Babylon from bankruptcy?

84

Hopin: how a $7bn startup fell down in a heap

85

Why did VCs' favourite e-bike go bankrupt?

86

Interview: Passion Capital's Eileen Burbidge on crisis talks at Monzo and building a reproductive healthcare company

87

Inside Paris's booming AI scene

88

Spotify founder’s new startup finally comes out of stealth with €60m investment

89

Millions in shareholder value wiped out as Babylon delists

90

Tony Blair on his vision for an AI-powered Britain

91

Interview: Chloe Smith MP on unlocking pension funds for tech investment

92

Why has Checkout.com slashed its own valuation again?

93

Why is Typeform losing market share?

94

Interview: Blossom capital’s Ophelia Brown on why crypto isn’t dying, but the UK tech sector might be

95

What’s behind the senior employee exodus at Revolut?

96

Amazon Alexa's creator drops hints about new AI startup

97

New rules for the London Stock Exchange to combat "Brexit idiocy"

98

Stability AI leaked pitch deck raises questions over Series A

99

End of the road for Cazoo? Details on the company's $630m debt burden

100

Checkout.com sees exec exodus while laying off staff “by stealth"

101

Interview: Layoffs and large language models in healthcare with Kry’s Johannes Schildt

102

The man trying to stop the AI apocalypse

103

Interview: Seven-figure salaries and AI sovereignty, with Entrepreneur First's Matt Clifford

104

How the government saved SVB UK

105

In conversation with Klarna’s Sebastian Siemiatkowski

106

Inside Klarna’s $1bn annual loss — its biggest ever

107

Interview: Transferwise founder Taavet Hinrikus on going over to the VC dark side

108

Can this Bill Gates-backed electric plane really stay in the air?

109

Ukraine special: Founders on the frontline

110

Meet Europe’s biggest competitor to OpenAI

111

Entrepreneurs are outraged as Tech Nation shuts down after losing government support, leaving talent visa scheme in limbo

112

Interview: Will speedy grocery ever be profitable? Delivery Hero’s Milena Lazarevska, VP of quick commerce

113

Britishvolt has gone bust: what went so wrong?

114

The former spy who's helping VCs interrogate founders

115

Generative AI: Why are investors getting so excited?

116

Interview: Pleo CTO Meri Williams on Elon Musk, unsustainable hiring and diversity in tech

117

Checkout.com is no longer Europe’s most valuable startup

118

Gorillas investors are having to stump up $100m to have their company bought

119

Scammers are increasingly targeting Monzo, Revolut and Starling customers. Why?

120

Interview: Danny Rimer from Index Ventures on crypto, pay rises and investing in Figma

121

FTX fallout hits Europe: Starling clamps down on crypto

122

Interview: Ready Player Me's Timmu Tõke on the metaverse, identity and advice for Mark Zuckerberg

123

Uncovering the Spotify founder's secretive new startup

124

Why has Kry laid off 300 more employees?

125

Will Rishi Sunak be good for UK tech?

126

Interview: EQT Growth partner Carolina Brochado on the advice she's giving portfolio companies now and the craziest thing she did to win a deal (which she didn’t ultimately win)

127

Gorillas is getting sold at a slashed valuation — who's losing the most money?

128

Zuckerberg's metaverse plans get slammed by Herman Narula of Improbable (Live at the Sifted Summit)

129

A breakthrough for self-driving cars, but will regulators spoil the party?

130

Klarna job losses climb to 800 in 2022 as the company cuts more roles

131

Mass layoffs at Cazoo as the company shuts down its EU operations

132

Why did Snap shut down the French social app Zenly?

133

The mystery of the vanishing investor

134

Is Babylon going to be booted off the New York Stock Exhange?

135

Why Robinhood tanked a crypto app’s valuation to re-enter the UK

136

Klarna in crisis? Why normal folks are still investing

137

\Gorillas: €60m burn rate, big cash bailouts and a looming downround

138

\The next Tesla: could this startup birth the next era of Musk rivals?

139

\Should your boss pay your energy bills?

140

\Raids and possible “cartels”: Inside the latest Glovo drama

141

\Gorillas’ latest scandal — will their riders ever get paid?

142

\The EU's big new plan for tech innovation

143

\From near death to an $80m Series E: How Omio survived

144

\Can N26 be trusted? A rare interview with the founder

145

\Will Gorillas survive this week’s C-suite exodus?

146

S2 E14 \Customer scandal surrounds elite event company Pollen

147

S2 E13 \Mass layoffs are here — who's been hit?

148

S2 E12 \The billionaire betting big on psychedelics

149

S2 E11 \Tech stocks are crashing — what does it mean for startups?

150

S2 E10 \Wise, Bolt and Skype: How Estonia churns out unicorns

151

S2 E9 \The fintech targeting… seafarers?

152

S2 E8 \VC horror stories

153

S2 E7 \The NFT bros losing thousands on ape scams

154

S2 EP6 \The metaverse sector actually making money

155

S2 EP5 \Claims of toxicity at Glovo: How ‘good vibes’ turned into a ‘nightmare’

156

S2 EP4 \Is speedy delivery startup Getir really worth $11.8bn?

157

S2 EP3 \Trouble in bug town: How Brexit squished a startup industry

158

S2 EP2 \International Women's Week and human stories from Ukraine

159

S2 EP1 \In Ukraine, business isn’t as usual

160

S1 EP4 \Audio erotica and the orgasm gap

161

S1 EP3 \Neobanks and millennial millionaires

162

S1 EP2 \Psychedelics and startup spiritualism

163

S1 EP1 \Drones and nappy cream