Startup Europe — The Sifted Podcast

Sequoia is closing its London office after six years. The Silicon Valley firm, which has backed European companies like Ineffable Intelligence and Stark, says it can still support Europe's best founders from the Bay Area. Its European scout programme is being cut, and three of its four London partners are staying in Europe rather than moving to California.On this episode of the Sifted Podcast, senior reporter Anne Sraders tells guest host Daphné Leprince-Ringuet why Sequoia is refocusing on San Francisco as the AI boom pulls capital to the Bay Area, and why other European VCs are also following suit. She explains what Sifted data shows about Sequoia’s European dealmaking: 12 announced primary rounds so far this year, down from 18 at this point in 2025 but up from 10 in 2024. She also explains why Sequoia feels confident it can cover Europe from abroad. The pair also discuss how founders and VCs have reacted, from talk of "managed decline" to claims that people are overreacting. They ask whether Europe still relies too heavily on US money for big rounds, and whether Sequoia's exit opens the door for local investors.Read Anne's story on Sequoia's exit.Sign up to Anne’s weekly VC newsletter, Up RoundSign up to Sifted's free newsletters: https://sifted.eu/newslettersThis episode was sponsored by Chargebee — billing, metering, and monetisation infrastructure for fast-scaling AI-native startups and enterprises.

Charles Maddock has been betting on AI agents since before most people knew what they were. His Stockholm-based startup Strawberry makes an AI browser where teams create “companions”: virtual colleagues that find leads, book calls and take notes across your tabs, and get better the more you use them.Strawberry is backed by General Catalyst and EQT Ventures, and this week launched its first full product, Strawberry 1.0.On the podcast, Maddock talks to host Freya Pratty about Europe’s need to build its own sovereign agents, how Legora’s Max Junestrand helped Strawberry land General Catalyst, and why he thinks Europe needs a voice on AI safety.This episode was sponsored by Chargebee — billing, metering, and monetisation infrastructure for fast-scaling AI-native startups and enterprises.

With former DeepMind researchers raising record sums for their own startups, few investors are better placed than Aaron Rosenberg. Once Demis Hassabis’s deputy and later head of strategy and operations at Google DeepMind, he now leads Canadian firm Radical Ventures’ UK presence and runs a 70+-member London alumni group on WhatsApp for the lab’s former staff.On this episode of the Sifted Podcast, Aaron tells host John Thornhill why he’s often among the first people DeepMind researchers call when they’re weighing whether to leave — and why his advice is sometimes to stay. He explains why London’s new crop of neolabs is breaking away from what he calls the “assembly line” of frontier model development, what could stop them from becoming global champions and why Hassabis remains his model of what a great CEO looks like.The pair also discuss Radical’s new $1bn-plus growth fund, the firm’s investments in Inherent and Latent Labs and what the UK’s planned non-compete reforms could mean for founders leaving big labs.Read Sifted's profile of Inherent: https://sifted.eu/articles/inside-londons-weirdest-neolabSign up to Sifted’s free newsletters: https://sifted.eu/newslettersThis podcast was brought to you by Chargebee — billing, metering, and monetisation infrastructure for fast-scaling AI-native startups and enterprises

Harry Stebbings needs little introduction. The founder of 20VC has built a venture and media empire, and a reputation for punchy takes.Among the most memorable: London is overrun by phone snatchers, the best founders have experienced some form of childhood trauma and people should be working 9am to 9pm, six days a week.Recorded live at Sifted Summit in October, this conversation sees Harry sit down with host Freya Pratty to walk back several of those claims and explain the difference between “brand Harry” and Harry himself. The pair also discuss bro culture in tech, his political ambitions and which company he thinks will return the 20VC fund.This podcast was brought to you by HSBC Innovating Banking.

Few people have seen tech policy from as many angles as Nick Clegg. He spent five years as the UK’s deputy prime minister, then seven inside Meta as president of global affairs, defending Silicon Valley to the regulators he used to sit alongside.At Sifted Summit, Clegg sat down with Sifted founder and FT innovation editor John Thornhill to talk about where all of that leaves Europe.As AI reshapes the global balance of power, can Europe build champions of its own, or is it destined to be the world’s regulator rather than its innovator? How do politicians and big tech really see each other behind closed doors? And what does someone who has worked on both sides think Europe gets wrong, and right, about the industry?The pair also dig into Europe’s place in the AI race, the uneasy relationship between Brussels and Silicon Valley, and what it will take for the continent to stop playing catch-up.Missed Summit this year? Get your ticket for 2027 here: https://sifted.eu/summitThis podcast was brought to you by Stripe.

This week at Sifted we launched the Sifted 250 — a ranking of the 250 fastest-growing startups by revenue-growth across the continent, as well as a new research report.London-based wellness marketplace Healf was crowned winner, followed by body scanning startup Neko Health and Ghent-based security management platform Aikido. Notion Capital, Accel, YC, BpiFrance and Balderton topped the investor rankings, backing the most companies on the list.On the podcast this week, host Freya Pratty discusses the findings of the leaderboard — including the rise of digital health startups and the emergence of hubs like Oslo and Prague — with her colleague from Sifted’s Intelligence team, Jonathan Sinclair. Read the report here: https://sifted.eu/intelligence/reports/sifted-250-2026This podcast was brought to you by Stripe.

Senior reporter Anne Sraders has just spent two weeks in New York, and one thing was impossible to miss: AI was everywhere. From subway ads to investor breakfasts, it was the only conversation in town."Everyone wants to find the next Anthropic for every other domain," Abby Meyers of Bain Capital Ventures told Anne. And some US investors are looking to Europe's neolabs, from Yann LeCun's AMI Labs to David Silver's Ineffable, to find it.So how do New York VCs really feel about European tech? And what are a16z's plans for Europe after closing its London office?Joining host Freya Pratty on this episode of the Sifted podcast is senior reporter Anne Sraders. The pair also dig into why FirstMark's Matt Turck thinks Europe is underrated, a16z partner Anish Acharya's case for startups that are "unapologetically European", and why some US investors are bullish on the European consumer. Sign up to Anne's newsletter Upround here: https://sifted.eu/newslettersThis podcast was brought to you by Stripe.

Last week, the resignation of Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon catapulted the discussion over AI safety into the mainstream. A thread he posted on X quickly garnered millions of views.“The consensus is that the next year or two is crunch time for humanity,” Coxon later told tech publication Wired. “From [my former colleagues’] perspective, this is when Anthropic and its competitors decide the fate of humanity.”How is this debate materialising in Europe, where no AI company is pushing the frontier? What are startups’ take on safety and security? And what do investors make of it? Joining host Freya Pratty on this episode of the Sifted podcast is senior reporter Daphné Leprince-Ringuet. The pair also dig into Europe’s rising wave of defensive startups, as well as everyone’s favourite topic: the EU AI Act.Sign up to Daphné’s AI newsletter here: https://sifted.eu/newslettersAre agents moving faster than Europe can regulate them? Read here: https://sifted.eu/articles/ai-agents-anthropic-openai-eu-uk-lawsThis podcast was brought to you by Stripe.

There's been talk all summer about who would fund Mistral's next round. This week it was confirmed: €3bn at a €21bn valuation, co-led by Samsung, the EU's Scaleup Europe Fund and US growth firm PSG Equity. A year ago Mistral was worth €11.7bn.Mistral has always pitched itself as Europe's sovereign alternative to US AI giants like OpenAI and Anthropic. With few European investors capable of meeting its huge capital needs,many were watching closely who the French scaleup would seek money from — and whether the round would preserve the company’s independence.With this trio of co-leads, has Mistral succeeded? What is the significance of bringing on a sizable strategic investor like Samsung, which makes the memory components Mistral's AI runs on?In this episode of the Sifted podcast, host Freya Pratty is joined by senior reporter Daphné Leprince-Ringuet. They discuss who joined Mistral’s round and why Samsung led it and how long Mistral can keep up this fundraising rhythm. They also look at Daphné's scoop on the company's robotics chief raising €200m for his own startup.This podcast was brought to you by HSBC Innovation Banking.Sign up to Sifted's newsletters here: https://sifted.eu/newslettersCheck out Sifted Summit here: https://summit.sifted.eu/

Legora has had a busy year. The Swedish legal AI firm raised $550m in March, led by Accel, and has made five acquisitions since January.The company is often pitted against its US rival Harvey. But while the two are comparable in many ways, they diverge on some key things, including whether to build their own AI models. Harvey has launched one ; while Legora says training a frontier model doesn't make business sense. This episode of the Sifted podcast comes live from TechBBQ in Copenhagen, Denmark. Host Freya Pratty is joined by Legora CTO Jacob Lauritzen to discuss why Legora is steering clear of the model game, plus how the company is organising its engineering and product teams, what it looks for when it buys a company, and why Stockholm — not Copenhagen — is having a moment.The two also chat about why Legora has  switched some tiers to consumption-based pricing — and why the technical team loves the move — as well as Legora’s recent integration with Google. Sign up to Sifted's newsletters here: https://sifted.eu/newslettersCheck out Sifted Summit here: https://summit.sifted.eu/