Sifted

AI-native startups in France & Benelux almost quadrupled in a year, from 5% of the region's fastest-growing companies to 21%. That's one of the standout findings from the Sifted 100: France & Benelux 2026, sponsored by Nebius, which ranks the region's 100 fastest-growing startups on three years of revenue data. A few more numbers behind the ranking: → 137.7% average two-year revenue CAGR → Four startups grew more than 500% → 33 of the 100 are already profitable → 16 companies have crossed €100m in revenue → Paris is home to 64% of the ranking Growth here isn't just about speed anymore. It's about which companies are building on the right foundations, AI included. Full ranking, sector breakdowns and the top 50 investors behind these startups: link in comments.

More of the leaders behind Europe’s fastest-growing tech companies are confirmed for this year’s Sifted Summit. Check out our latest speaker drop 🔥 Tim Spector, cofounder, ZOE Hamish Shephard, cofounder, HelloFresh Leslie H., cofounder and publisher, Resilience Media Gautier Cloix, CEO, H Company Henry Hayes, VP of marketing, Passionfruit Cole Bittel, founder, Walt Meet them in London, on 30 September - 1 October: https://hubs.ly/Q04pKVtv0

We are excited to share that Aditi has joined us as our Head of New Media. Aditi spent five years at LinkedIn, most recently leading go to market for their AI career products across EMEA and LATAM, and has since been Chief of Staff at an early stage fintech. Alongside that she has built a creator platform to 300K+ across LinkedIn, Instagram and Substack talking about tech, AI & startups and regularly works with some of the biggest tech brands. At Sifted she is thinking about distribution: how the founder stories we tell reach the people who actually need them, on the platforms where those people already are. Expect new formats and a fair amount of experimenting. She has also been reading Sifted for years, so she came in with opinions, which is exactly what we wanted. Welcome Aditi 👋

We’re delighted to welcome Latham & Watkins as a major partner for this year’s Sifted Summit. As a law firm with global presence, Latham works with high-growth tech companies as they navigate complex scaling situations. This expertise will be delivered at Sifted Summit 2026 across three hands-on sessions: Mike Turner, emerging companies partner, is taking part in a mainstage panel. This will explore the growth of the European secondaries market, and whether it can deliver the liquidity which founders and funders are seeking. Jon Fox, partner at Latham & Watkins, will be leading a workshop built around unpacking the key decisions and dynamics which shape M&A and IPO outcomes, helping scaleup leaders stay prepared and navigate the complexities of potential exits. We will also have Shing Yuin Lo, partner, hosting an exclusive roundtable on the trends the team is seeing in current deal terms, and what that means for founders raising in H2 onwards. She’ll also be answering all your hot questions. Learn more here: https://summit.sifted.eu/

Mistral was meant to be Europe's Anthropic. Data Sifted has seen exclusively says it's quietly becoming Europe's Palantir. Freya Pratty walks us through what she found 👇 At launch, 80%+ of Mistral's technical hires were AI researchers building frontier models. By 2026, that research team is down to 29%. The fastest-growing group instead: teams that embed directly with enterprise customers to deploy the tech. The exact model Palantir pioneered. The blunt read from investors: they didn't have a choice. Europe can't match the tens of billions US and Chinese labs pour into frontier models. Mistral found a niche, deploying AI inside banks, carmakers and governments.  One investor called it a “survival strategy”. Mistral says it's still a science company at its core and that research headcount has grown. But at a reported €20bn, investors are being told to model it on Palantir now, not OpenAI. Read Freya's full breakdown here: https://lnkd.in/gMWe8art Our question to you: is this Europe failing to build a frontier champion, or Europe being clever and building its next Accenture instead?

68 minutes a week, that's how much time the average UK employee loses to a badly designed office, hunting for a room with decent Wi-Fi, waiting on a lift, or trying to find somewhere quiet to actually think. We sat down with Bukky Akinsanmi Oyedeji, assistant professor of strategy and entrepreneurship at London Business School, to talk about why your office is doing more work than you think for productivity, culture, and for how investors size you up before they've even sat down. Read the full conversation 👇 https://lnkd.in/eNQPz9wJ

Last week, Britain's new prime minister, Andy Burnham, announced Kanishka Narayan MP as his AI minister. He is the UK’s first cabinet-level AI minister, a move widely welcomed across the startup ecosystem. We’re now delighted to announce that Narayan will be speaking at Sifted Summit. There’s a lot of pressure being placed on Narayan. He is expected to play a central role in shaping the UK’s tech strategy from the cabinet table, and the ecosystem is hoping he’ll play a pivotal role in ensuring the UK’s competitiveness in the wider AI landscape. So on 30 September in London, just months into his new role, John Thornhill will be asking him all about it, plus policy implications for European startups, and what’s next for AI in the UK. This is not a conversation you’ll want to miss: https://hubs.ly/Q04mhWgZ0

Europe has minted a new unicorn every week on average in 2026. Bending Spoons' IPO this month made 100+ employees millionaires – all four cofounders are now billionaires. But not every unicorn story ends like that. Sifted's analysts Ruggero Di Spigna and Federico Scolari tracked the seven European startups that exited in the past 12 months after hitting unicorn status. View the list now: https://hubs.ly/Q04r1v220

We are excited to welcome Molly Jaques to Sifted as our Chief of Staff 🎉 Prior to joining Sifted, Molly worked at Mastercard where she spent nearly three years working across their Fintech and Digital Partnerships and Account Management teams. At Sifted she will be focusing on cross functional execution, making sure our biggest priorities move from decision to done. A lot of her role is connective, both inside the business and across the industry, as we keep bringing together Europe's startup and scaleup founders, operators and investors. With Sifted Summit ahead of us and our first Onstage event since the acquisition, you will be seeing plenty of Molly. Welcome Molly 👋