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7 OCTOBER | LONDON 2024

SEPTEMBER 12TH - 14TH
The O2, LONDON

Future of Capital Allocation

Your weekly newsletter on the fast-evolving world of investing

GenAI’s gold rush: Is Europe being left in the dust?

Investors have spent £18 million on GenAI since 2019, with most of the beneficiaries concentrated in Silicon Valley. European startups saw just £800 million — less than 5% — of that cash flow.

Will investment in generative AI continue to soar — or are we headed for a bust? One founder warns that pouring billions into big GenAI models is a “recipe for waste”.

And a new study reveals that VC funds with women in high-level positions perform better. Read on for these stories and more — from new insights into old investing benchmarks, to why pitching your startup as “the ChatGPT for X” is old news.

—Charlie and the Research & Intelligence Team

🤑 More women = more profits

VC funds with women in decision-making positions perform better, according to a new report. Despite that, only 16% of Europe’s VC general partners are women.

🎒 GenAI startups neglect B-School basics

Keelvar founder Alan Holland lambasts startups raising millions without finding a problem to solve. He said that investing in companies building big GenAI models is a “recipe for waste”.

How AI is transforming investing
💶 Europe nabs just 5% of GenAI funding

Since 2019, VCs have invested £18 billion in generative AI; European startups got just £800 million of that funding. Unsurprisingly, US companies attracted the vast majority (89%) of capital.

🌎 GenAI is a seismic shift for investing

Grove Ventures general partner Lotan Levkowitz said it’s creating entirely new sub-fields — from infrastructure to applications — and opportunities for investing, and can help VCs better service clients.

Startups
✍️ Lessons from Y-Combinator’s demo day for AI startups

Pitching your startup as the “ChatGPT for X” is over — the latest trend is “Copilot for X”: B2B AI assistants that do it all, from negotiating contracts to planning events.

👥 A board can make or break your startup

Be clear about objectives, prioritise balance between investors and non-investors, and don’t rush to form a board — they’re often not needed until a Series B.

Jobs

•Vice President of Sales & Marketing | xUnlocked | London | £150-200k
•Senior Account Manager | Airbnb | London | £100-160k
•Head of Revenue Enablement | Synthesia | London | £85-140k
•Sales and Customer Success Manager | Canva | London | £60-90k
•Strategic Account Director | Movable Ink | Remote | £88-101k
•Partnerships Lead | Sumus | Remote | £60-85k

The investment ecosystem

Noteworthy deals

Series A+

•San Francisco startup Writer, which aims to improve corporate content creation, raised a £81m Series B round led by Iconiq.
•UK spacetech Open Cosmos raised £40m in Series B funding from Accenture Ventures and ETF Partners.
•London’s HyperJar, a money management app, raised a £19.4m Series A round led by Susquehanna Private Equity Investments.

Pre-seed & seed

•Oslo AI assistant startup Databutton raised £4.1m in a seed round led by Skyfall Ventures and Helsinki’s Maki.vc.
•Brussels healthtech Awell, which automates clinical workflows, raised £4m in a seed round led by Octopus Ventures.
•Paris startup ColibriTD raised £900,000 in seed funding to grow its quantum-as-a-service model in a round led by Earlybird Venture Capital.

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