Good morning,

Welcome to the new folks on the list. Light edition this week, we’re nearing the end of a tough year and prepping for even a tougher one - I don’t know too many investors and startup people that are super happy these days. Next week is Nordic’s finest startup event, Slush, then a few Xmas parties and finally the holidays - time for reflecting, planning and finding optimism in a gloomy worldwide environment.

Top intel

Deal highlights from this week 

🇪🇸 ​Fence​, developing a SAAS using blockchain smart contracts to automate capital and asset transfers in order to simplify and automate debt facility operations, raises $1.9 million in a pre-seed financing round led by Semantic vc.

🇬🇧 ​SeeChange​, developing an AI and real-time visual intelligence solutions used as recognition systems for retail, raised $9.8 million series A led by Runa Capital, joined by Crane Venture Partners, Triple Point Ventures, Portfolio Ventures and Material Ventures. 

🇸🇪 ​Eliq​, developing a B2B energy intelligence platform used by 30 customers in 15 countries, raised $10.5 million in a growth round with Inven Capital, Axpo and Valkea.

🇫🇷 ​Indy​, operating a tax and paperwork platform for freelancers, secured a $43.6 million series C round led by BlackFin Capital Partners, joined by La Maison and iXO.

More early stage deals on tomorrow’s intel:

• 🇳🇱 AI for protein structure determination

• 🇸🇪 SAAS framework for federated machine learning

• 🇫🇷 AI for materials R&D

• 🇬🇧 B2B recycling marketplace

• 🇩🇰 AI SAAS for factory monitoring

• secondaries, exits, bankruptcies, new funds and much more.

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Market signals

• Pitchbook figured that the proportion of down rounds in Europe increased to 21.3% from 14.8% for the full year 2022 - this is the highest it has been since 2020. Correlated to this or not, non-traditional investors aka tourists have pulled back from their investments as LPs and from the market dealing.

• Meanwhile, Dealroom calculated that roughly 3,500 new startups from Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) raise their first VC round each year and 25% of them make it to Series A or beyond.

• If we exclude Africa and Middle East, and focus on Europe only - we have an universe of roughly 8-9k yearly deals and 10k active investors, per Nordic9 as of 2022. This year, those numbers are off 30% compared to 2022 as of November 25 - folks are still dealing but spend less money.

• Also notable, hiring across European startups ​has decreased ​by nearly 40 percent year over year, and 50 percent for late-stage startups.

Market talk

🇸🇪 Klarna received local authorisation to provide regulated payments and credit services within the UK

• that covers term loans, card products and open banking services

• … but it doesn’t include BNPL though, Klarna’s core competence.

🇷🇴 European banks consolidate positions and acquire banking assets in Romania:

• Unicredit acquired Alphabank’s operations in Romania last month.

• Intesa Sanpaolo acquired First Bank for €130 million.

• A third bank - OTP Bank - is disputed by Raifeissen and Banca Transilvania. Price tag: €360 million.

• Romania is attractive because loans to retail clients are still relatively small compared to the size of the economy → scope for growth

• That’s peanut money for old school players trying to pull some market share at the edge of the European market which has the higher adoption rates for neobanks services compared to Western Europe.

• To put it in context - Revolut was formerly priced at about 18 billion by its investors back in spring, Wise currently trades at 8 billion, and Monzo is in talks to raise at £4 billion from Google.

• In spite of the banks rebound this year due to higher interest rates, I still think financial services are one of the more interesting disruption opportunity for fresh blood.

🇫🇷 Vivendi announced the completion of the acquisition of its rival Lagardère - but the European Commission is continuing its investigation into whether the deal breached merger rules that the deal closed before it got the green light.

• If found to have done so, the deal will remain in place, but it could cost the company up to 10% of its total sales.

🗣️ Food delivery this week:

• UK Supreme Court rules Deliveroo riders are not workers in an employment relationship

• Delivery Hero’s offices in Germany were raided by the EU competition watchdogs on a suspicion that the service provider may have violated EU competition law.

🇬🇧 Good overview on the British market - Future of Payments Review - and a set of 10 recommendations for improvement.

• There are two significant issues in the retail space that need to be addressed.

  • First, the consumer-to-consumer bank transfer process is clunky (relative to international comparators) with the need to enter account numbers and sort codes. This needs to be improved in the coming years.

  • Second, many merchants and retailers are frustrated by the costs of taking card payments, and the lack of viable alternatives.

• Open Banking could help improve the consumer-to-consumer process and (in time) provide an alternative to the card schemes for retailers.

  • However, there is currently no consumer dispute resolution process for Open Banking transactions - this will be a barrier to adoption if not addressed.

  • Likewise, the current commercial arrangements do not create the conditions for Open Banking to thrive in a healthy way, with costs and benefits misaligned.

🇬🇧 Palantir secured a £330 million contract to create a huge new data platform for NHS (the publicly funded healthcare system in England), leading to privacy concerns around patients’ medical details. The Guardian calls Palantir the US spy tech firm.

🇬🇧 The Brits launched a new metascience unit, with £10m of initial funding.

🇪🇺 The great delisting: Why European companies are moving to US exchanges.

🇪🇺 Germany, France and Italy reach agreement on future AI regulation - the inherent risks lie in the application of AI systems rather than in the technology itself.

• an interview with Thierry Breton, the EU politician in charge, seemingly a bit overwhelmed by the importance of his job.

🇪🇺 There’s an ESG case for defense-related investments, like weapon manufacturing, and funds building up their exposure to the defense sector are enjoying considerable price gains.

• NATO's boss says there’s nothing unethical about such investments.

🇸🇪 A poll of 120 Swedish companies, each with fleets of 100 company cars or more, said they would pause or completely stop buying Teslas because of the current conflict between the Americans and the Swedish unions.

• Mentioned about it in last week’s email, the strike still goes on with other unions joining in sympathy - it went as far as Tesla’s trash bins not being emptied and mail services not delivered, including plates for new cars registrations.

• It’s a tough spot, the unions are unlikely to let go and if Tesla wins, other big companies may want to refuse to sign the collective bargaining agreements.

• This is not the first American company refusing to do so - Toy’R’Us did the same in the 90s, caved in and signed after three months and exited the Swedish market shortly after.

• What can happen next - here.

🇪🇺 More strikes in Europe: baggage handlers in Spain in December, French rail workers on Christmas.

Mo’ Sundaying

🇩🇪 The typical GmbH boss in Germany is male, works 48 hours a week, makes €182,000 and drives a BMW, which is a company car.

🇫🇷 Brunch with Marie Ekeland, one of France’s venture capitalists.

🇰🇷 South Korea plans to start a digital currency pilot in Q4 2024; 100K people will be able to use deposit tokens issued by commercial banks in the form of CBDC

🇸🇬 Singapore is 15% of NVIDIA's revenue in terms of purchases. Fourth after China.

 Apple CEO Tim Cook says that he is determined his successor will come from within the company.

🤔 If the App Store isn’t a gatekeeper, what is?

🥕 The world’s 280 million electric bikes and mopeds are cutting demand for oil far more than electric cars - that’s because these forms of transport are cheaper to buy and run.

👀 Forget about SAAS, the technology business is about to get much bigger in the next 5- 10 years.

👁️‍🗨️ Every VC wants to be contrarian, but few truly are.

🇳🇱 What Dutch people are like.

🇺🇸 Two electric air taxi makers have demoed their craft in New York City as part of plans to create the world's first heliport with infrastructure necessary to support the vehicles.

💪 Your immune resilience greatly impacts your health and lifespan.

👭 Research found that more than two-thirds of women experience a negative impact at work due to menstruation symptoms and more than half said they had had to miss work because of their period symptoms, with one in five taking sick leave. link

🇪🇺 Whatever happened to the EU plan to ditch the changing of the clocks?

🏎️ A Belgian man’s journey into the weird and wonderful side of car collecting.

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