Startup Europe — The Sifted Podcast

Charles Maddock has been betting on AI agents since before most people knew what they were. His Stockholm-based startup Strawberry makes an AI browser where teams create “companions”: virtual colleagues that find leads, book calls and take notes across your tabs, and get better the more you use them.

Strawberry is backed by General Catalyst and EQT Ventures, and this week launched its first full product, Strawberry 1.0.
On the podcast, Maddock talks to host Freya Pratty about Europe’s need to build its own sovereign agents, how Legora’s Max Junestrand helped Strawberry land General Catalyst, and why he thinks Europe needs a voice on AI safety.

This episode was sponsored by Chargebee — billing, metering, and monetisation infrastructure for fast-scaling AI-native startups and enterprises.

With former DeepMind researchers raising record sums for their own startups, few investors are better placed than Aaron Rosenberg. Once Demis Hassabis’s deputy and later head of strategy and operations at Google DeepMind, he now leads Canadian firm Radical Ventures’ UK presence and runs a 70+-member London alumni group on WhatsApp for the lab’s former staff.
On this episode of the Sifted Podcast, Aaron tells host John Thornhill why he’s often among the first people DeepMind researchers call when they’re weighing whether to leave — and why his advice is sometimes to stay. He explains why London’s new crop of neolabs is breaking away from what he calls the “assembly line” of frontier model development, what could stop them from becoming global champions and why Hassabis remains his model of what a great CEO looks like.
The pair also discuss Radical’s new $1bn-plus growth fund, the firm’s investments in Inherent and Latent Labs and what the UK’s planned non-compete reforms could mean for founders leaving big labs.
Read Sifted's profile of Inherent: https://sifted.eu/articles/inside-londons-weirdest-neolab

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This podcast was brought to you by Chargebee — billing, metering, and monetisation infrastructure for fast-scaling AI-native startups and enterprises

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.

This podcast was brought to you by HSBC Innovating Banking.

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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