Exclusive: Orral Nadjari, the founder of collapsed gigafactory Britishvolt, is working on a new battery project in the Gulf, he tells Sifted. sifted.eu/articles/bri...

It is remarkable that the west is committing to spending 5% of GDP on defence, and almost no one has made the case that the most pressing threat to our security this century is climate change and we should be spending more on tackling that.

Scoop: The European Anti-Fraud Office has found "serious irregularities" at EIT Manufacturing, an EU body tasked with upscaling manufacturing capacity in the region. W/ @mimibilling.bsky.social: sifted.eu/articles/eit...

Carbon removal company Climeworks is plotting an international expansion despite a recent round of layoffs and uncertainty over funding from the US government. The company tells me that Canada, Saudi Arabia, Norway and the UK fit its criteria. More here 👇 sifted.eu/articles/cli...

That's one of my newfound journalism friends @freyapratty.bsky.social, interviewing the President of #Iceland, Halla Tómasdóttir. She's kind of a big deal. #IIW25 🇮🇸

Target Global has seen two of its five partners depart in the last six months.

Researchers from AI startup Ziroh Labs and leading engineering school, IIT Madras, design new system that runs large AI models without high-end chips (like GPUs from Nvidia) New framework helps run LLMs from the likes of Meta, Alibaba on every day laptop/desktop processors tinyurl.com/4hmsbxvn #AI

Scoop: Buzzy German AI startup Black Forest Labs is no longer working with Elon Musk’s xAI, Sifted has learned. w/ @mpartington.bsky.social 👇 sifted.eu/articles/xai...

Scoop: AI language startup DeepL could IPO in 2026, sources say w/ @annesraders.bsky.social @tommatsuda.bsky.social sifted.eu/articles/dee...

Embattled Swedish battery-maker Northvolt has laid off more than half of its staff, weeks after filing for bankruptcy. ⚡️ #Northvolt

NEW: An ongoing lawsuit threatens to dredge up Checkout.com's relationship to 'vice' industries. The lawsuit links the fintech to a mysterious Cypriot entity historically listed on a mail-order bride website and once a client of Paxum bank. W/ @tommatsuda.bsky.social sifted.eu/articles/law...

NEW: Since 2021, London-based VC firm Future Planet Capital has secured more than £100m in public funds without any competitive bidding process. Sources tell Sifted that government officials have raised questions over its suitability for the project. sifted.eu/articles/fut...

New: Bpifrance, the French public sector investment bank, has over $30m of public money on the line after Ÿnsect filed for insolvency. sifted.eu/articles/bpi...

I wrote about my brother Charlie’s final 48 hours, and his increasingly desperate attempts to track down an emergency supply of medication from the NHS. It’s an upsetting read but one I’m proud of. He’d be delighted to have made the @financialtimes.com magazine front cover: on.ft.com/434zZqn

New: BlackRock-backed Amazon aggregator SellerX cuts its workforce by 20%, affecting 170 people. sifted.eu/articles/sel...

Scoop: An ex-Mistral employee is raising $80m for his new company, sources tell Sifted. "Genesis Robotics is the big round happening in Paris at the moment,” says one investor. sifted.eu/articles/ex-...

🔋 When Northvolt filed for bankruptcy in November, it said it would run out of cash in January. It says it's now extended its runway (but won't say by how much) and it's still in need of long term funding. sifted.eu/articles/nor...

Bankrupt battery factory Northvolt was supposedly running out of cash two weeks ago. Now the company tells @sifted.eu it has extended its cash runway. W. @freyapratty.bsky.social More here: sifted.eu/articles/nor...

Someone recently described Octopus Energy to me as an opportunity for equity investors to get in on "an expensive utility company or a cheap tech company." The tech company, Kraken, is growing fast and looks set to one day spin out entirely from Octopus. sifted.eu/articles/oct...

New: Octopus Energy has recorded its second year of profitability, despite a dip in revenues. Its tech arm, Kraken (which files separate accounts) saw profits increase 480%. sifted.eu/articles/oct...

"Knowing what I know now, I would have never taken Mubadala as an investor.” Getir vs Mubadala continues to rage on, after a Dutch court on Friday sided with the sovereign wealth fund. sifted.eu/articles/get...

'It's an open game for us, if the money's not going to the US,' says one VC. #US #VentureCapital #News

UK VCs want to mop up Chinese capital leaving the US. Should they? 🤔 sifted.eu/articles/uk-...

The Biden administration said on Tuesday that it would block imports from more than three dozen Chinese companies, citing their alleged ties to forced labor in the Xinjiang region of China.

Thanks to the FT Magazine for running these two climate cover stories - one on wildfires (July 2023), one on a possible collapse of Atlantic currents (January 2025). And thanks to everyone who read each piece, showing there is an audience for climate features www.ft.com/content/7711...

Northvolt's bankruptcy leaves its sister project Stegra (formerly H2 Green Steel) as Europe's flagship green infra project. I chatted to Stegra about whether Northvolt's fate has scared off the banks, Stegra's expansion plans and its hopes to mop up Northvolt talent: sifted.eu/articles/ste...

🎉Happy to share I'm joining Sifted as news editor from next week! Backed by the Financial Times, Sifted has fast established itself as a must-read for founders and investors across Europe. I'm looking forward to getting stuck in! If you want to get in touch, ping me on [email protected]

New: Checkout.com saw losses balloon 73% to $306m at its UK entities in 2023, filings show. Revenues from processing payments dropped after severing ties with “a large merchant”, thought to be crypto exchange Binance. sifted.eu/articles/che...

✈️ Insolvent flying taxi startup Lilium says it has found a buyer. If it goes through, the 1,000 staff laid off on Friday will be brought back. sifted.eu/articles/lil...

FT Investigation: A Scottish-Lebanese dynasty. A sheikh scorned. A German arms deal. A £50mn penthouse. The former King of Spain. One of London’s hottest tech investors. Intrigued? Hope you enjoy What led to the fall of the house of El Husseiny on.ft.com/402y3wZ

Chinese AI chip firms blacklisted over weapons concerns gained access to UK technology

Ian Slater set up a family office called Gloucester Circus to invest in VCs at time when fundraising was tough. But while the VCs circling him for cash were real, his promises of money were often not. We tell the story of the man who catfished the VC ecosystem. sifted.eu/articles/glo...

Ian Slater set up a family office, Gloucester Circus, to invest into VCs. There was just one problem: the VCs and family offices around Slater were real, but his promises of money were often not. This is the story of the man who managed to catfish the VC ecosystem. sifted.eu/articles/glo...

The Land Registry putting up fees for finding out the true owner of a property by 133% is a proper financial hit if you're running a small investigative news outlet! (Related: I've always thought if you wanted to start a revolution in the UK, make the Land Registry free and searchable on Google.)

New: UK biotech Oxford Nanopore has filed its promised lawsuit against China's BGI over the misuse of confidential information. sifted.eu/articles/oxf...

Splendid understatement in this very good primer on ascendant Syrian opposition leader www.ft.com/content/574c...

"Helsing became one of Europe’s most valuable startups by building artificial intelligence software for drones and jet fighters. Now it’s making weapons of its own." scoop on killer drones www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

« Une pour toutes, toutes pour une ». Pour @newlinesmag.bsky.social, mon reportage au procès dit des viols de Mazan à Avignon. Un moment de solidarité et de sororité hors du commun. newlinesmag.com/spotlight/gi...

Galp scraps its joint venture with Northvolt to build Europe's largest lithium refinery 🔋 sifted.eu/articles/gal...

So they're called Starter Packs but they're never finished. We keep adding names as we see them - most recently welcome @chuckmccutcheon.bsky.social @climatemama.bsky.social @jacktgraham.bsky.social and the inestimable @chrisnelder.bsky.social. Who's missing?

Finally convinced (most of) the team to migrate 🤩 bsky.app/starter-pack...

Epic work from the team at @tbij.bsky.social Collecting investigations that were suppressed or altered because of the threat of SLAPPs MPs shared a lot of those stories in the Commons under privilege and here they are First a disclaimer

What's next now Northvolt's filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy? Filing for Chap. 11 gives it access to $245m to keep operations going until early next year. It'll now work to restructure and bring in new financing, meaning a captable re-write. sifted.eu/articles/nor...

New: CEO Peter Carlsson to leave Northvolt, after the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the US yesterday. sifted.eu/articles/pet...

Energy retailer Holaluz (sometimes dubbed Spain's answer to Octopus) has had a rocky 2024. It came into the year on slippy financial ground and needed to urgently raise funds. It took seven months to do so, but Holaluz now says it will be cash flow positive in Q1 2025. sifted.eu/articles/hol...

Jimmy Lai’s rags-to-riches-to-prison story mirrors Hong Kong’s path from outpost to hive of unbridled commerce and now battleground for Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s determination to stamp out dissent. My free to read profile of Lai on the resumption of his NSL trial: www.wsj.com/world/china/...

Crisis-hit Northvolt has curtailed production at its plant in Northern Sweden, Reuters reports. It had cut operations down elsewhere to focus on the plant in Northern Sweden, so curtailing production there is significant. www.reuters.com/technology/c...

"A climate fund is now way too generic," says Nucleus Capital — as it launches a new fund focused on synthetic biology. "Every generalist today will be a climate fund in 10 years.” sifted.eu/articles/nuc...

✈️ Germany's Volocopter has hired Oliver Vogelgesang — who held the role at fellow German electric aircraft startup Lilium until earlier this year — as its new CFO. Volocopter previously flagged it was at risk of insolvency, while Lilium filed for insolvency in October. sifted.eu/articles/vol...

👋 Hi Bluesky — I'm a reporter at Sifted covering tech across Europe, with a focus on 🌱 climate tech and 🔍 investigations into the wider tech world. I love when people get in touch with tips on what to look into next: [email protected] / [email protected] / DM me!