Want to keep up to date about European startup news? Want to be in the know about controversies, deals, acquisitions, reports and other interesting tech tidbits from across the continent. Look no further!
Here is all the news about startups in Europe this week, brought to you by our pan-European team of Sifted journalists. If you want the news (and so much more) in your inbox three times a week, sign up to our newsletter here.
Fundings
? Danish startup Podimo, the “Netflix for podcasts”, raised €6m. At the moment, it’s super hard for podcast producers to get their shows out there — and hard for listeners to discover new content. Podimo wants to make this experience better; but it’s not alone. In Manchester in the UK, Podcast.co also wants to make it easier than ever to launch a podcast.
? Cubyn, a Parisian startup which deals with packing and shipping for ecommerce businesses, raised €12m. Without help from the likes of Cubyn — or UK competitor Weengs — online retailers can find themselves spending more time packing parcels than developing their companies.
? Dutch payments company Mollie had been bootstrapping for a decade. So why has it now raised €25m?
? Where are traffic lights for drones? They don’t need them; Antwerp’s Unifly is designing software to manage and track them — and has raised €17m to do so.
? Dutch festival app Woov has raised €2m. It’s not a ticketing app, like Festicket or Dice in the UK; instead its platform helps users choose events to go to — and find friends, stages and yes, the toilets, when they’re at festivals.
? Scooter startup Dott has just raised an additional €30m. That puts it in third place for money raised by a European scooter firm.
More VC money
? E.ventures (one of Podimo’s investors) has raised a $175m fund focused on Europe, based in Berlin.
Healthcare
?⚕️ NHSX, the new innovation unit of the UK’s gargantuan national health system, launched this week. Here are its five objectives.
? Swedish online doctor Doktor.se plans to buy up to 20 physical health centres.
Music News
?️ Spotify has discontinued its service which let artists upload their own music to the platform. By using the tool, artists were promised 50% of streaming revenues and 100% of royalties; it was seen as a way for artists to circumvent the music labels (which Spotify needs to stay friends with...)
Fintech news
? German neobank Fidor is shutting down UK operations. Meanwhile fellow German digital bank N26 is running a big old marketing campaign on the London Underground (just check out King’s Cross station, which is plastered in adverts for the startup).