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 about why we're going from "an era of specialism to an era of generalism" in the talent market.

Tell us what you think of the podcast: https://form.typeform.com/to/WbVxsSv7

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 defence tech industry, what the future holds for unmanned vehicles and why he thinks Europe could take a leaf out of China's book when it comes to long-term planning.

Seibel, not one to mince his words, calls out the people and investors jumping on the defence tech hype, and explains how working in a war zone and competing against enemy Russian drones has been the ultimate motivator for innovation.

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 — unsurprisingly — in Ukraine.

Tekever was founded way back in 2001 and bootstrapped for its first 21 years, but in May this year raised €70m in a round led by Baillie Gifford and the Nato Innovation Fund. It also announced plans to invest £400m to build drones in the UK alongside the country’s Royal Air Force — and create thousands of jobs.

On this episode of the Sifted Podcast, host Amy Lewin and senior reporter Freya Pratty discuss why Tekever’s investors are so bullish on the company, how it compares to competitors and what else is on its roadmap.

Barcelona-based Factorial has come a long way since its early days as a software startup offering free HR services. The business management platform is now used by more than 13k companies for everything from expense tracking to project management.

It’s also scaling fast, with more than 1,300 employees and €110m in fresh funding from General Catalyst under its belt, which it raised in March. 

That means CEO and founder Jordi Romero has a job on his hands finding ways to keep momentum up. He’s also just onboarded 300 people in six months.

What does he look for in those new hires? A “willingness to work”. What doesn’t impress him? “Logos and CVs”.

In this week’s episode of the Sifted podcast, host Amy asks Jordi where AI is helping (and where it’s not), how the “unusual” General Catalyst deal came about and whether an IPO is on the horizon.

This episode was brought to you by HSBC Innovation Banking, connecting you with what's next.

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 episode of Startup Europe — the Sifted Podcast, fintech reporter Tom Matsuda joins host Amy Lewin to dig into how this team works — and whether the strategy is paying off. They also discuss the status of Revolut’s UK banking licence, the latest on its long-awaited IPO and what it’s like working with cofounders Nikolay Storonsky and Vlad Yatsenko.

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 celebrating the lessons learnt with less successful game releases.

Paananen also lays out why he's bullish on European tech, how AI will change gaming and how VCs can help his industry grow even more.

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 revenues, but do they justify its $6bn valuation?

On this episode of Startup Europe — the Sifted Podcast, senior reporter and French tech correspondent Daphné Leprince-Ringuet tells host Amy Lewin what the company is focused on today and whether she thinks it’s moving fast enough against ever-increasing competition.

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 stack at Charlotte Tilbury.

In this week’s episode of the Sifted podcast, Emma joins editor Amy Lewin to talk about what AI agents can and cannot do, the very real risks they pose to junior engineering jobs — and why she doesn’t feel ‘mum guilt’.

Key moments:

0.00: Intro and about Portia AI

3.00: How companies are using AI agents

9.00: Impact of AI agents on junior engineers

15.07: What AI Emma uses to code

16.00: Transition from Stripe to founding a company

19.15: Being a female founder in AI

22.40: On 996 and hustle culture

24.30: Emma's angel investing

25.40: General Catalyst relationship

27.30: The AI Act

33.00: Quick fire questions and outro

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 Sifted podcast, defence tech and VC reporter Anne Sraders and editor Amy Lewin share what they know of the rather mysterious company's products and clients, what murmurings they've heard from defence experts and investors and discuss what they think Helsing will do with all that money in the bank.

Key moments: 

00:00: Intro to Helsing
02:47: What does Helsing actually do?
06:02: Shifting attitudes to defence tech
08:49: Challenges and criticisms facing Helsing
12:06: What will Helsing do with €600m?

French fintech Qonto is a rare beast in startup land: it's actually profitable. Founded in 2016, the company provides banking and other financial services to 500,000 small businesses customers across eight European markets, helping them do everything from banking to accountancy, lending, savings, and as of recently, payment terminals.

And being in the black gives it plenty of opportunities to expand further, via new product development, acquisitions — and by becoming a fully-licensed bank.

In this episode of the Sifted podcast, CEO Alexandre Prot joins Amy to talk about how soon Qonto might apply for a banking licence, how it's using AI to tackle fraud and what lies ahead on the path to an IPO.

Key moments:

02:30 Acquisition strategy 
14:05 Becoming a ban
19:24 Secondaries and fundraising plans
22:57 IPO?
25:37 Challenges ahead 
28:14 Fraud and AI
35:45 What Alex would do differently building Qonto again