Tech.eu

An interview with two experts on the CrowdStrike fallout and how businesses can limit impact of outage or cyber attack.

A podcast interview with the president of Robinhood UK. In the podcast, we discuss how the UK app is performing, the growth of the UK team, and future plans.

Interview with Maria Rotilu, founder and general partner, Openseed, a fund which is raising $10m to invest in startups at the earliest stages in Europe and Africa.

Rotilu discusses-The the birth of Openseed, The benefits of being a solo general partner, What type of investments Openseed is interested in, Why startups should partner up with Openseed, and The investment landscape in Europe and Africa.

Enline is the winner of the EIT Venture Award for their vegetation and landslide predictive forecast programme. The company develops tech such as  dynamic line rating and digital twins to help utilities get more out of their existing infrastructure.

Altris AB is the winner of the EIT Innovation Team Award for their sodium-ion batteries. The batteries enable high performance batteries to accelerate the energy transition, without increasing the cost to the environment or to customers. https://www.altris.se/

We talked with Mohamed Elamir and  Dr. Andreas Bittner.

Mohammad is the winner of the EIT Changemaker Award and co-founder of Woamy, which develops biodegradable plastic-free biofoam for protective packaging to replace harmful plastic foams. https://www.woamy.com/

Dr. Andreas Bittner is the winner of the Public Award winner from HiQ-CARB, a team that produces sustainable and resource-efficient nanomaterials for high-performance batteries. These materials enable faster-charging electric vehicles, extended battery life spans for mobile phones, and enhanced safety and longevity for battery-powered devices. https://www.greener-carbons.eu/

Around 25 per cent of fintechs pitching a top VC for funding are AI-first startups, according to a top VC.

Asked what per cent of fintechs pitching Breega, a European VC which backs UK savings and investment app Moneybox and UK card-consolidator Curve, are AI-first startups, Breega partner Benjamin Deplus said:

Deplus was speaking on the Tech.eu fintech podcast with Florian Reichert, partner and managing director at Picus Capital, the early-stage tech investment firm, which backs Dutch payment processing tech firm Silverflow and French BNPL firm Alma.

The pair discussed an array of subjects focused on fintech and VC trends in 2024.

On hot investment fintech sectors in 2024, two of those cited by the pair were CFO stack fintechs and payment infrastructure fintechs.

Reichert said:

Deplus said: 

“It’s never too late and it’s never too early” to launch a startup, according to the co-founder and co-CEO of Enfuce, the payment startup and one of Finland’s biggest fintech.

Monika Liikamaa, co-CEO & co-founder of Enfuce, was speaking along with Michaela Berglund, CEO and founder of Feminvest, an events and education platform for women which has also launched an €8.8 million fund to invest in Nordic startups which are majority owned by women.

The pair discussed the dearth of female founders, female CEOs and females working in VCs- and its impact on the industry.

Asked her thoughts on seeing headlines in the media denoting gender such as “female founder raises .... ” and “……  appoints first female CEO”,  Liikamaa says she found the headlines “empowering”-as it shows women were achieving feats.

That said, Liikamaa added:

Liikamaa pointed to data showing companies with female directors outperforming those with male directors.

She said women were partially to blame for the lack of female founders, as they hadn’t explained well enough that women can be founders and have families as well.

In the UK, Anne Boden, founder, Starling Bank; PensionBee founder and  CEO Romi Savova; and Lisa Jacobs, CEO of Funding Circle, are examples of high-profile female leaders.

Liikamaa added:

Talking about Feminvest’s VC fund, Berglund said:

The CEO of a European neobroker startup recently acquired by Dutch financial services giant ABN AMRO says it’s his job to keep BUX protected from “too much influence from the larger organisation”.

In the Tech.eu podcast, Yorick Naeff, BUX CEO, gives us the background to ABN AMRO’s purchase of BUX, announced in December last year.

The Dutch giant was an early stage investor in BUX- most famous for offering commission-free trading to European investors- and the pair are also tech partners.

“We started discussing opportunities around the summer last year and at some point these things become more concrete,” says Naeff.

“I am very much aware of the pitfalls of becoming part of a larger corporate beast. I think it is up to me to make sure obviously that we keep our innovative power and agility.”

He added it was his job as CEO to “protect” BUX from “too much influence from the larger organisation”.

For example, he wants to ensure that BUX doesn't become too subsumed within ABN AMRO, losing its ability to launch products quickly and also that BUX maintains its tech stack.

On the flip side, he points to the benefits of the tie-up, pointing to ABN AMRO’s global reputation, knowledge and experience across financial services.

Elsewhere in the podcast, Naeff talks about other recent changes to BUX, including 40 per cent job cuts, amid a tough economic environment and why it is shifting out of crypto.

Finally, he talks about the importance for him of work-life balance and says meditation works for him.