7 OCTOBER | LONDON 2024
SEPTEMBER 12TH - 14TH
The O2, LONDON
Future of Capital Allocation
Your weekly newsletter on the fast-evolving world of investing
The polarising investment trend everyone’s talking about
Europe, watch out: Americans are coming for your startups. So far this year, US firms are responsible for nearly half of the funding for European startups. How does the influx affect Europe’s tech scene?
There’s a divisive new investing trend in the US: a rise in “anti-ESG” funds. They invest in vice stocks like tobacco and gun producers, have explicitly conservative values, or simply don’t believe in ESG targets’ effectiveness. Will these funds outperform those with ESG targets?
We cover these stories and more in today’s edition — from how startups are enjoying the spoils of the US-China space race, to why Poolside chose to move to Paris over London.
—Charlie and the Research & Intelligence Team
🗽 Who’s backing Europe’s startups?
The US, it turns out. American firms have contributed nearly half of the funding for European tech companies so far this year. Amid a global market slowdown, any investment is a saving grace for startups — but is the influx of American capital a double-edged sword?
☄️ Startups reap benefits of space race:
The US and China are facing off to go back to the moon — and pouring billions into startups that will help them get there faster. Space-techs are using these government contracts as a proof-of-concept to raise more money from private investors.
How AI is transforming investing
📈 CIB goes all-out on gen-AI
Corporate and investment bank traders have long used machine learning models to predict trading patterns. Now, they’re using AI at scale — to sort through regulator reports, offer insights on real-time liquidity, improve client services, and more — while most of the industry lags behind.
👩💼 Goldman Sachs sees AI as a productivity boost
The investment bank plans to create an AI that can surface deep insights from internal systems, strategy and research, designed to save employees hours or even days of work. (Sound familiar? McKinsey released a bespoke consulting bot last month.)
.png)
Startups
Why did Poolside choose Paris over London?
The US AI startup, which last month raised a £103 million seed round, moved to Paris because Emmanuel Macron’s government is “committed to providing the conditions for AI companies to succeed”, its founder said. Rishi Sunak, take note.
10 fastest-growing European deeptechs
Based on headcount growth over the last year, Stability AI tops the list. Three of the top 10 deeptechs are in the UK; France and Germany follow with two each.
Jobs of the week
• Head of Global Accounts | Synthesia | London | £150-200k
• Head of Sales | Appear Here | London | £65-85k
• Senior VP of Global Sales | Threads | London | £85-140k
• Partner Development Manager | Stripe | Paris, Dublin or London | £94-127k
• Director of Core Accounts | Invisible | Remote | £105-140k
The investment ecosystem
Noteworthy deals
• Amazon will invest £1bn in US AI startup Anthropic, with an option to increase its stake to £3.3bn. As part of the deal, Anthropic agreed to use Amazon’s AWS cloud services.
• London fintech Curve raised £58m in a Series C extension from a range of investors, including Cercano Management.
• German online language learning platform Babbel raised £27m in a Series C led by Scottish Equity Partners.
• Paris startup AYRO raised £18.3m in a Series B led by Blue Ocean to build out low-speed electric vehicles.
London-based hospitality startup Shackle raised a £12m series A led by Silverstripe.