Startup Europe — The Sifted Podcast

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.

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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/summit
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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-250-2026

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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/newsletters
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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/newsletters
Are agents moving faster than Europe can regulate them? Read here: https://sifted.eu/articles/ai-agents-anthropic-openai-eu-uk-laws

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