Q-day (the day when quantum computers will successfully actually break the internet) may be some time away yet. However, that does not mean that companies — and states — shouldn’t hop on the qubit bandwagon now so as not to be left behind in the race for a technology that could potentially alter how we think about life, the Universe, and well… everything.
Spurred on by a discourse that more and more revolves around the concept of “digital sovereignty,” 11 EU member states this week signed the European Declaration on Quantum Technologies.
The signatories have agreed to align, coordinate, engage, support, monitor, and all those other international collaboration verbs, on various parts of the budding quantum technology ecosystem. They include France, Belgium, Croatia, Greece, Finland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Malta, Estonia, and Spain. However, the coalition is still missing some quantum frontrunners, such as the Netherlands, Ireland, and Germany, who reportedly opted out due to the short time frame.
Ultimate aim: to create a globally competitive quantum ecosystem
“Quantum computing, simulation, communication, and sensing and metrology, are all emerging fields of global strategic importance that will bring about a change of paradigm in technological capacities,” the declaration begins.
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It further states that the bloc’s innovators and industry have not yet sufficiently mobilised to take full advantage of this potential as much as in other regions of the world. As such, it stresses the importance of building domestic R&D capacities for quantum technologies, as well as producing devices and systems based on them.
In addition, it needs to invest in the whole quantum stack — from hardware to software and applications and standards, so as to safeguard “strategic assets, interests, autonomy, and security.”
“The ultimate aim is to create a globally competitive ecosystem that can support a wide range of scientific and industrial applications, identify the industrial sectors where quantum technologies will have high economic and societal impact, and foster quantum innovation in small and large companies alike, from promising startups and scaleups to major industrial players — in short, to become the ‘quantum valley’ of the world,” the declaration reads.
Thierry Breton, whose time as Commissioner for the Internal Market has been marked by a big tech regulation crusade, has declared quantum one of his “favourite subjects.” We can expect to see even more of a push towards greater collaboration across the bloc, should he land the top job of Commission President next year.
Potentially, Breton could get more member states on board to coordinate on a more detailed bloc-wide quantum strategy. With quantum engineering talent notoriously difficult to come by, this could indeed be key to keeping Europe from getting left behind in yet another key technology race.
With under 2 million people, a landmass that’s half the size of Greece, and a recent history of communist rule, Latvia doesn’t have textbook foundations for building world-leading businesses. But building a world-leading business is exactly what Latvia’s Printful did. In 2021, the on-demand printing startup was valued at over $1 billion, making it the country’s first-ever unicorn.
To reach the local landmark, Printful took an international route. But rather than focus on its home continent of Europe, the company set its sights on the US.
“We wanted to make something big — and to this day, there is no bigger market than the United States for technology companies,” Davis Siksnans, the co-founder and former CEO of Printful, told TNW at the TechChill conference in Riga, Latvia, earlier this year.
“We’re glad that we had some people from Latvia who were willing to uproot themselves and move to the United States and work there on the ground.”
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It’s a move that Hussein Kanji wants more European entrepreneurs to make. As a partner at Hoxton Ventures, a VC investor based in London, Kanji has backed some of the continent’s most successful startups, including the unicorns Deliveroo and Darktrace.
His firm selects these businesses because it believes they can become category-defining companies. To reach this level, Kanji wants more founders to look stateside.
“Once you’ve built something and validated that it’s actually good relative to its peers, you should be focused on the US market as early as possible — you’re going to build a bigger company,” Kanji told TNW.
As a Stanford University graduate who’s worked for both startups and tech giants in the United States, Kanji has extensive experience with the rewards on offer in the country. He also has the data to substantiate his views. In new research, Hoxton Ventures found that nearly all European startups with over $500mn in revenue have succeeded by winning the US market.
Companies from across the continent have found success in the US. Credit: Hoxton Ventures
For European startups, the US market has numerous attractions. It’s got more customers, more capital, and more talent. There’s also the powerful network effects that fizzle across Silicon Valley.
The allure was irresistible for Printful. In classic startup style, the company’s founders built their early business from a garage in California.
“We leveraged a physical presence in the United States, which gave us immediate credibility with the customers there,” Siksnans said.
The move soon paid off. After four years of focusing on the US, Printful reached $46mn in revenue.
Still, not everyone is willing to migrate. Many European founders prefer to stay closer to home for familial, social, or patriotic reasons. Others are concerned about the risks of relocating.
“The US is way more expensive, way more competitive, and you’re way more likely to fail… but if you win, you win so much bigger,” Kanji said. “And we don’t care so much about the failure side — we care about the winning side.”
Risk and reward
Companies from larger countries are often reluctant to cross the Atlantic because they’re confident that their home market is already big enough. Startups from smaller countries, meanwhile, may prefer to target another European nation for its early European expansion. Geographical proximity, cultural connections, and personal relationships can make the local moves more alluring.
When these arguments are made to Kanji, he advises them to start in the US and then return to Europe when they’re on a winning streak. To his chagrin, they don’t always agree.
“The majority of the time, we probably fail to convince them because a lot of people are minimizing risk, and they have more close relationships in Europe,” he said. “But our view is we can help plug in some of the relationships.”
Kanji holds an MBA from London Business School and an undergraduate degree in Symbolic Systems from Stanford. Credit: Hoxton Ventures
He also reassures the doubters that Silicon Valley is very accommodating towards expats and new faces. The majority of tech workers in the region are foreign-born, and around half of its ‘unicorn’ startups were founded by immigrants.
It’s also a place that’s accustomed to power players suddenly emerging from out of nowhere. When Mark Zuckerberg was creating a creepy hot or not clone at Harvard, who could have predicted that he would soon transform the online world?
Such developments are hard to predict, which has encouraged the Valley to welcome new people and ideas. The cofounder of Stripe, for instance, moved there when he was still a teenager after his company had failed to draw financial support in his home country of Ireland. Nine years later, he was the youngest self-made billionaire in the world.
“The Valley is very accommodating towards new stuff — and the new stuff doesn’t have to just be American,” Kanji said. “It could be Swedish, it could be Estonian — but you have to be physically there, building those networks and relationships. If you’re far away, it’s a little less accommodating, because there’s still this bias in the Bay Area that the good stuff gravitates to the Bay Area.”
Taking the first steps
Kanji doesn’t advise leaving Europe as soon as an idea emerges. Startups first need to establish their initial product market fit, determine its worth, and get feedback. Once the value has been established, the founder can move to the US. The rest of the team, however, is often better built at home.
One drawback of the US is the high salaries of tech workers. There are also always bigger companies who want to poach the top talent. In Europe, these costs and risks are lower.
At Printful, the best balance was dividing roles across regions. While the startup’s founders established a presence in the US, they built their team of developers, designers, and marketers in their home region.
“Very quickly, we learned that even though the target market was the United States, we didn’t necessarily need all the teams on the grounds in the US, because we have a good selection of talent here in Latvia,” Siksnans said.
A Printful founder, however, remained in the US. It’s an approach that has often yielded impressive results.
Phill Robinson, a former Salesforce CMO and CEO of Dutch software giant Exact, has also experienced the benefits. Robinson recently returned to his home country of the UK to found the startup platform Boardwave, which aims to replicate Silicon Valley’s network effects in Europe. Yet he acknowledges that startups targeting the US still need a leader on the ground.
“You’ve got to have your founder move to the States, or a significant part of your management team,” Robinson told TNW. “You’ve got to understand the product market fit, because it might be slightly different. You can’t just rock up with a bunch of salespeople and keep selling more products.”
Robinson shared his ideas on building European tech leaders at TNW Conference. Credit: Boardwave
At the same time, Robinson insists that moving to the US isn’t the only option. He notes that access to capital is improving and that startups are now scaling more quickly. A recent report from Dealroom made similar observations.
The study found that Europe now attracts 20% of global VC funding — compared to under 5% two decades ago — and more than a third of the global investments at early-stage. The continent’s flock of unicorns, meanwhile, has grown by 88% since 2014. In the US, they’ve only increased by 56%.
Overall, however, the biggest opportunities to scale remain in the US. For Kanji, European founders with ambitions to be global leaders will often face a tricky choice: Stay home and minimise the risk of failure, or move to the US and maximise the chance of success.
It’s a question as old as the tech industry itself: can Europe compete with Silicon Valley?
This reared up again in my mind for two main reasons. The first is the recent(-ish) shift of Big Tech into being media entities. And the second? That’s Spotify’s struggles as a European stalwart in this field.
Let’s consider the first point.
Over the past few years, we’ve seen Silicon Valley shift its strategy and start investing heavily in media. You only need to look at Apple’s launch of the Apple TV+ and Apple Music streaming services, or Amazon’s foray into movies and TV series. I mean, the latter was behind The Rings Of Power, the most expensive television show ever made.
There are, of course, a myriad of reasons why Big Tech is investing in media, but one of the biggest is using it as a tool to hook people into their ecosystems.
“In the case of Amazon, due to its various revenue channels and methods of connecting with customers, it has a greater understanding of its users and their preferences through data,” Stephen Hateley says. He’s the head of product and partner marketing at DigitalRoute, a business that helps streaming companies understand their customer data.
He tells me that because Amazon “is not primarily or solely a media company, it can combine its customer accounts and upsell to them via its ecommerce, TV, film and music streaming, consumer electronics, and grocery delivery channels.”
For example, the company is able to spend money on shows and encourage people to subscribe to Amazon Prime Video. This comes bundled with Amazon Prime itself, meaning users have an incentive to use the platform to shop on.
“This provides it with more opportunities to monetise its customers as well as collect a great amount of data on their preferences,” Hateley says.
Spotify’s struggles: An industry signpost
The thing is, all of the above isn’t particularly profitable — and especially not when it comes to the media side of things. In many ways, US tech companies are using streaming as a loss leader. They’re pumping billions into shows and movies with the aim of making money elsewhere, not through the media itself.
This is a huge problem to both media companies in general and European businesses in the same field. And guess who sits in both these categories? Yep, you guessed it: Spotify.
The Swedish company, which is broadly independent, is struggling to keep up with Big Tech. It pays its artists less than its biggest competitors, yet still hasn’t made a profit:
This graph from Carbon Finance shows that although Spotify has incredible growth, it’s consistently losing money.
This pattern is being played out across the entire European media landscape.
“US dominance can prove challenging for European companies attempting to claim their share of the market in any industry, and media is no different,” Hateley says, pointing towards how even organisations like the BBC are struggling in this environment.
This paints a picture of a sector being blasted away by Big Tech’s ability to spend and raises some important questions for the future of media.
Can European countries fight back? And do they need to?
“One way European media companies can compete with the big budgets of US firms is re-evaluating the type of content they’re putting out to audiences,” Marty Roberts tells me. He’s the SVP, Product Strategy & Marketing, at Brightcove, a streaming technology company.
Effectively, Roberts believes that US streaming giants create too many shows to market effectively. This is an opportunity for smaller entities to do “an amazing job at promoting a couple of new shows a month.”
Alongside this, he thinks that “[a] key strength for European media companies is hyper-localisation in niche markets.” He points towards either non-English language content, or getting particularly good at a specific genre, such as the success of Nordic detective dramas.
Jesse Shemen — the CEO of Papercup, a company that delivers AI dubbing for media companies — is similarly positive about prospects for European media.
“The current trend of bundling is opening up chances for unprecedented collaboration between European companies and US rivals,” he says. “We’re already seeing this in action, with Paramount Global’s partnerships with Sky and Canal+ just one recent example.”
This paints a rosier picture than I was expecting. The doom-and-gloom of European companies not competing doesn’t seem to trouble many experts, with them generally believing the businesses can thrive by not fighting US Big Tech, but instead working alongside it.
Yet is this unified, global approach a good thing?
One element that was brought up during my conversations was that the interconnected and worldwide focus of media now makes borders broadly irrelevant, meaning this focus on the success of European media specifically isn’t helpful.
“When it comes to investment capital, we live in a global village, where giant investors from the US, EU, UK, APAC, and anywhere can pour substantial capital into companies they believe in,” Maor Sadra says. He’s CEO and co-founder of INCRMNTAL, a data science platform.
This blurring of geographic lines, Sadra contends, is true of Spotify too. He points out that the company’s largest institutional investors include the UK’s Baillie Gifford, US-based Morgan Stanley, and Tencent Holidays, a Chinese company.
“The location of key management and employees in a connected world seems almost an irrelevant point of consideration in today’s age,” he tells me.
There’s no doubt that what Sadra and other experts say is true: we live in a global media environment and, for companies to survive, they need to accept that. Looking for outside investment or partnering with bigger organisations like Apple or Amazon is part-and-parcel of existing in this modern world.
This though doesn’t mean it’s not vital for Europe to maintain powerful media bodies.
You only need to look at how Hollywood and TV has benefitted America. It has expanded its cultural influence worldwide, becoming a form of soft power. Just consider, as one micro example, the global footprint of Halloween and Thanksgiving. For Europe to remain an attractive place, for it to carve out its own identity, it requires strong media.
Yes, it’s important to work together with these huge American organisations, yet European businesses in the same sector have to make their own mark too — and one way of achieving that is with tech.
Staying ahead of the wave
There was one theme that came up across many of my conversations on this topic of using tech to remain relevant: artificial intelligence.
“Localisation is one area where technology’s influence, especially generative AI, is being felt,” Shemen from Papercup tells me.
This is being trialled in a number of places already, with Spotify planning on cloning podcast hosts’ voices and then translating them into different languages. This trend will be hugely important for European media creators, especially if they’re making content in non-English. It almost goes without saying how much this could benefit smaller creators and media companies that fall into this category, as their potential reach can skyrocket.
Artificial intelligence will also be a vital part of the puzzle for European businesses when it comes to analysing data. If they can get access to forms of insights currently only available to gargantuan tech companies, they can alter their content to appeal and reach the masses, levelling the playing field.
The European route to success
If European media is going to survive Big Tech’s thrust into the space one thing’s for certain: it can’t stay stationary. Instead, the European industry needs to take advantage of its positive attributes and use them as best it can.
This should involve embracing its ability to create niche content, clever content partnerships, and investing in technologies that can help European content hit a wider audience.
Ultimately, the future of media streaming in Europe is one of balance. While there’s a lucrative future available by partnering with bigger organisations, it can’t risk losing itself in the process. Currently, there’s no real way European media bodies can compete with the bottomless wallets of Silicon Valley. What they can do though is ensure they stay relevant.
The secret to achieving this isn’t all that secret — being nimble and open minded.
Don’t act so shocked: age-old questions often have age-old answers, after all.
In a hiring freeze that CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski attributes to the rise of AI, Swedish fintech unicorn Klarna is no longer recruiting staff beyond its engineering department.
“There will be a shrinking of the company,” Siemiatkowski told the Telegraph. “We’re not currently hiring at all, apart from engineers.”
The chief exec of the buy now, pay later appsaid that the productivity gains from using tools like ChatGPT meant the company now needs “fewer people to do the same thing.”
Klarna is not planning layoffs. But as people depart voluntarily, the CEO said he expects the size of the company to shrink over time. AI is “a threat to a lot of jobs” across the economy, he added.
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The news comes as employees — from writers to artists — are becoming increasingly worried about the impact that AI could have on their livelihoods. Comments like these from the Klarna boss will no doubt exacerbate these anxieties.
Klarna isn’t the first to make such moves either, and surely not the last. In May, the CEO of IBM told Bloomberg that the company was pausing hiring for roles that it believed could be replaced by AI in coming years. While in April, Dropbox announced it was slicing its workforce by 16%, or 500 employees, blaming AI for forcing a shift in strategies.
Elon Musk, for one, thinks that AI will replace all jobs in the future. However, some believe AI won’t replace jobs, but simply make us more productive at what we already do, while a few think it will create more jobs.
Whatever your stance, the reality is that big tech companies across the world are implementing hiring freezes or laying off employees at a worrying rate — for reasons pertaining to AI or other matters.
Just today, Spotify, another Swedish tech giant, announced that it will lay off around 1,500 employees, or 17% of its workforce, to bring down costs.
From bringing ancient ruins to life through augmented reality (AR) to 3D-printing centuries-old artefacts, cultural heritage startups are transforming the landscape of heritage preservation and education. By leveraging technology to foster a deeper connection with our past, this breed of companies help safeguard some of the most defining elements of human history.
TNW spoke with three innovative startups in the space to find out how they’re using tech to bridge the gap between past and present.
Wsense
Over 2,000 years ago, the city of Baia near Naples was the go-to holiday destination for the elite of the Roman Empire. Known for its luxurious and hedonistic vibe, it attracted prominent figures such as Cicero and even Julius Caesar himself.
Today, about half of the ancient town lies beneath the surface of the Mediterranean.
Baia is one of the world’s very few underwater sites open to the public, accessible through snorkelling, scuba diving, and glass-bottomed boat tours. But preserving submerged ruins is no easy task.
Diving in Baia. Credit: Campi Flegrei Sub Center
To help protect Baia, in 2019, the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage partnered with Wsense, a spinoff from the Sapienza University of Rome, which specialises in underwater monitoring and communication systems.
“Since GPS, radiocommunication, and satellite signals don’t work underwater, you need to build your own infrastructure for the underwater domain,” Chiara Petrioli, founder and CEO of Wsense and Professor at the Sapienza University of Rome, tells TNW.
Wsense has created a subsea Wi-Fi so that real-time data below the water’s surface can be collected and transmitted back to land. To serve that purpose, the deep tech startup has developed a network of wireless IoUT (Internet of Underwater Things) devices.
Specifically, Wsense’s system relies on multi-sensor nodes, which provide information on various aspects of water quality, from temperature and pressure to pH, salinity currents, and tides.
Data can be transmitted in two ways. Firstly, from one node to the other, a process that is optimised by an AI algorithm that changes the transfer path when sea conditions change. Secondly, it can be transferred to the surface through Wsense’s gateways, which, either integrated into floating buoys or posted on nearby land, connect the underwater network to the cloud — and from there, to the rest of the world.
In the case of Baia, this system allows for remote in-situ monitoring, which doesn’t simply set off alarms in case of unauthorised access, but most importantly provides water information critical for the site’s preservation.
This includes tracking the environmental conditions that could distort the artefacts. It further entails observing CO2 emission levels to understand how the area’s volcanic activity is developing, while enabling the study of climate change’s impact on underwater cultural heritage.
Here’s a video with how Wsense’s system in Baia works:
In addition, the technology has provided a valuable tool for archaeologists diving in the submerged city. Thanks to special micronodes attached to a waterproof tablet, divers can communicate both with each other and with their colleagues above the surface. “Think of it as an underwater WhatsApp,” Dr Petrioli says. At the same time, these micronodes create a type of underwater GPS that helps locate divers in real time.
“We have also been collaborating with a partner to develop an AR app on our tablet, which visitors can use to view 3D reconstructions of Baia while at the site,” she adds.
Footage of diver using Wsense’s tablet in submerged Baia. CreditL: Wsense
Besides the preservation of cultural heritage, the startup’s technology has multiple areas of application, including environmental and critical infrastructure monitoring and aquaculture. Last January, the World Economic Forum named it “the world’s most innovative company in collecting and managing big data for the purpose of protecting the ocean environment.”
Founded in 2017, Wsense has grown into a team of 50 people, with offices in Italy, Norway, and the UK. In October, the award-winning spinoff completed a €9mn Series A round, raising its total funding to €13mn.
Dartagnans
It doesn’t take a knight in shining armour to save a castle in distress — and that’s exactly what Dartagnans has been proving. Named after Dumas’ famous musketeer, the Paris-based startup is fighting to save and promote castles that would have otherwise fallen into oblivion.
“We wanted to save a castle from A to Z.
Founded in 2015, the startup began as a crowdfunding platform connecting donors to owners/managers of historical monuments. By gradually building a community, Dartagnans became France’s leader in crowdfunding for heritage preservation, just after the first two years of operation.
“After a point, we wanted to have our castle and save it from A to Z,” Romain Delaume, Dartagnans’ co-founder and CEO, tells TNW. “We didn’t have enough capital to buy one but we had a growing community.”
So in 2018, the startup reinvented its business model and introduced the collective purchase of castles concept, offering the opportunity for anyone in the world to invest in endangered castles and become co-owners.
“When we launched the first collective purchase campaign, we raised over €1.6mn in 45 days,” Delaume says. “This means that when you give the opportunity to people, they all gather for a cause regardless of their background.”
In the past five years, Dartagnans has helped save four castles in France: the Château de la Monthe Chandeniers in Vienne, the the Château de l’Ebaupinay in Deux-Sèvres, the Château de Vibrac in Charente, and the Château de Boulogne in Oise.
The Château de Boulogne. The 19th-century castle features a distinct architecture, inspired from history and esotericism. It was commissioned by Count Charles de Boulogne, a rich Belgian landowner. The castle suffered terribly during WWI and, now, nearly 7,500 people have become co-castellans to save it. Credit: Dartagnans
Following the purchase, the castles go through gradual restoration and are opened to the public for touristic activities, such as visits, events, volunteer projects, and hospitality programmes. The self-funded startup now counts over 50,000 co-castellans and an international community of 300,000 heritage defenders. Since its founding, it has raised €15mn for the safeguarding of monuments.
Co-castellans can invest in castles on the startup’s platform and, in return, they receive ownership shares, which they can keep, sell, or pass on to their children or friends. “It’s a share of a company,” Delaume explains. “We create a company for each castle we operate and then we sell the shares to the public.” Each share costs €79.
According to Delaume, Dartagnans owns one-third of the castles, which allows it to pilot the company and carry out restoration, management, marketing, and tourist activities. “I am like a CEO with thousands and thousands of little shareholders,” he says.
The Château de l’Ebaupinay. Classified as an historical monument since 1898, the medieval castle is a rare remnant of the mid-15th century architecture. Credit: Dartagnans
Nevertheless, co-castellans have their own say in big management decisions, with each share representing one vote. The community is also involved through activities, meetings, and assemblies, both in person and online. The company’s biggest event is The Night of the Castles (link), when hundreds of castles across France and Europe simultaneously open their doors at nighttime.
Dartagnans currently employs 14 people and operates solely in France, with future plans for international expansion. Within the next decade, Delaume hopes that they’ll have accomplished half of the restoration needed for the castles. Another goal is to keep growing what he calls “a happy community.”
Hi.Stories
Standing in front of historical ruins or a vase dating back to 500 BCE can cause a feeling of detachment. Even for those with a vivid imagination, reconstructing the past from a centuries-old object is no easy task — but thankfully, technology can help.
Hi.Stories was founded in Sicily in 2017 with the mission to integrate digital technologies into cultural heritage to help facilitate its communication, and in turn, its protection.
The startup offers multiple services. It develops 3D models and prints of museum artefacts; it designs apps for archaeological sites and museums, using storytelling narratives and gamification; and it creates virtual tours based on augmented reality (AR).
The startup developed the Sicily Histories app to help visitors explore the region’s sites using AR and 3D reconstructions. Through storytelling and a gamified narrative, users can help characters explore Sicily. Credit: Hi.Stories
One notable advantage of these tools is that they increase visitors’ interactive experience, and in turn, their engagement with heritage.
“Communication through the realisation of digital use systems allows heritage to be read at different levels: the visitor — on-site or remotely — becomes the protagonist of his or her own visit, being able to choose different degrees of immersion,” Luna Meli, co-founder of the startup, tells TNW.
Another advantage is the improved accessibility of exhibits, which goes well beyond the obvious benefit of accessing sites or museum collections remotely.
The 3D reproduction of objects, for instance, offers an alternative for groups such as individuals with visual impairments to approach works of art through touch. According to the company, this particular service can be used for educational purposes as well, enabling students to develop a direct, physical relationship with artefacts.
3D print of the Capitoline Wolf, the symbol of ancient Rome. According to the legend, the female wolf nurtured the twins Remus and Romulus, the mythical founders of the city. The original statue is displayed at the Palazzo dei Conservatori. Credit: Hi.Stories
Meli says that, after the pandemic, awareness of the need to use digital technologies for cultural valorisation and appropriation has grown. This has led to an increased demand for these services — especially regarding the creation of content and platforms that can be used in multimedia guide applications, webapps with AR, and immersive tours. Meanwhile, 3D models and prints have shown the biggest demand, partly because of their potential to improve the accessibility of exhibits.
In the video below, you can watch part of the startup’s 3D reconstruction and virtual tour of the Necropolis in Via Sant’ Euplio in Catania:
Currently, the bone-in ribs are only available in limited releases in the EU, UK, and US — at a premium of €66 per kilogram. Being a distinguished TNW reporter, I was lucky enough to be sent one of the first packs for free. (The vegan ribs will launch for regular purchase on the company’s webshop in early 2024).
Founded in 2020, Juicy Marbles is perhaps best known for creating the world’s first marbled plant-based steak. Our resident senior reporter (and vegetarian) Thomas Macaulayalready tested these last year and was, perhaps predictably, satisfied. But would the startup’s latest offering really indulge the taste buds of a savage carnivore?
Upon delivery, my first impression was that the ribs looked pretty similar to the real thing — the addition of ‘bones’ and beetroot juice (for colour) definitely helps with the aesthetic.
Encouraged, I began prepping them for the ‘braai’ (what we call BBQ in my homeland). Overall I was quite impressed with how these plant-based ribs held up on the grill. The outer layer crispened to perfection, and generally, the rack looked delicious — although it did begin to break apart towards the end. Total cook time was around 10 minutes.
The taste test
As advertised, the ‘meat’ is succulent and flakes off the ‘bone’ with ease. But it has more of the texture of pulled pork than pork ribs. Minor qualm there.
The taste was decent — it reminded me somewhat of other soya-based products I’ve tried but with more meaty substance. This is probably thanks to Juicy Marbles’ patent-pending 3D assembly system which layers the proteins into linear fibres, which mimic the muscle structures of meat. The ribs also did a good job of absorbing the spices and marinade.
As for a convincing replacement for a rack of pork ribs? I’m not so sure.
The spoonfuls of sunflower oil added to the soya protein simply cannot replace the deliciousness of real pig fat. And the flavour profile feels unidimensional compared to the real thing.
My biggest gripe however was how stuffed they make you feel — these plant-based ribs hit your stomach like a tonne of bricks. The high soya protein and oil content are probably to blame for that.
And what about the edible vegan bones you ask? Well the bones, which apparently have the same protein content as beef jerky, are purportedly meant to be fried or baked as a crispy snack. Maybe I did something wrong, but after 10 minutes in the air fryer, my bones still remained chewy — perhaps edible, but definitely not enjoyable. Nevertheless, they remain a cool addition, even if just for show.
Sharing is caring
Juicy Marbles says it wants to recreate joys of eating meat with others, and that’s where I think these bone-in ribs really hit the mark. I’ve often felt like vegans or vegetarians are excluded from the shared pleasures of a BBQ simply because they don’t devour animal protein. But plant-based whole cuts could unite us all around the fire.
“Anyone cutting down on meat can probably confirm that the hardest part is not missing meat’s flavour, but feeling excluded from cultural traditions,” explains Mićković. “That’s why we chose ribs as our next product — we wanted to create something that evokes the primal joys of sharing food.”
Plant-based whole cuts like Juicy Marbles’ tenderloin could become a common feature at the barbecues of the future. Credit: Juicy Marbles
Overall, I was left feeling impressed by the world’s first plant-based bone-in ribs. This was definitely the most realistic plant-based whole cut I’ve tried (as opposed to a burger). The texture and addition of bones make it pretty legit. For what it is, I think Juicy Marbles did a great job.
The pursuit of plant-based meat perfection could also have benefits beyond bonding with your brethren behind the barby.
Converting the carnivores
One recent UK study found that almost 90% of consumers who ate plant-based meat and dairy were meat-eaters or flexitarians. Another found that plant-based products with a similar taste, texture, and price to processed meat had the best chance of replacing meat.
While products like plant-based burgers, steaks or ribs aren’t always enough to turn carnivores into vegans, they have been shown to reduce overall meat consumption, which is good for the planet and our health.
Livestock farming contributes 15% of all greenhouse gas emissions, uses78% of agricultural land worldwide, and sucks up an estimated 25% of all potable water. Moreover, plant-based meat products are generally healthier than their processed meat equivalents.
So maybe Juicy Marbles’ pursuit of plant-based meat perfection is also meaningful way to shift our diets in a more sustainable direction.
Europe leading the shift
Despite the benefits, demand for plant-based meat actually declined in the US last year, while Silicon Valley plant-based burger poster children Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods have been losing money and customers.
However, the picture looks more promising in Europe. The plant-based food sector here has grown by 49% over the past two years.
Figures from the German Agriculture Ministry show that meat consumption dropped to 52 kgs per person in 2022, the lowest figure since records began in 1989.
Meat consumption in the Netherlands is alsodeclining.
Many experts believe that the rise of plant-based alternatives has had a direct impact on the reduction in meat consumption in Europe. Another contributing factor could be that recent soaring inflation has closed the cost gap between conventional meat and plant-based alternatives, which are usually more expensive in supermarkets.
Whatever the reason may be, plant-based alternatives are here to stay. As the costs begin to decline, the benefits become unequivocal and the options become more legit than ever before, I think it’s likely that plant-based whole cuts like Juicy Marbles’ bone-in ribs will become a common fixture at the barbecues of the future. Herbivores delight!
Tesla sued the Swedish Transport Agency and the country’s postal service yesterday in an attempt to squash the biggest strike the American carmaker has ever faced anywhere in the world.
Just hours after the lawsuits were filed, a court in Norrköping, where one of Tesla’s service centers is based, ruled in favour of Elon Musk’s car company — the latest twist in the month-long union action.
But first, a bit of context.
Postal workers across Sweden are currently refusing to handle Tesla-related mail and deliveries in a show of solidarity with mechanics who are seeking more security in their employment contracts with the EV-maker. This blockade has prevented number plates from the Swedish Transport Agency being delivered to new Teslas, as current regulations say they can only be delivered via the Swedish postal service.
The suits Tesla filed were to pressure the agency to allow it to collect number plates for new vehicles directly rather than have to receive them via post. In a separate action, the firm sued the postal service to allow it to collect all the plates currently in their possession.
Now, in line with the court order, the Swedish Transport Agency has seven days to allow the automaker to collect the number plates directly or face a fine of of 1 million Swedish crowns ($95,000).
“We are pleased that with this decision, Tesla can continue to deliver new cars to our customers,” the automaker said in a statement to the Financial Times.
Elon Musk, Tesla’s chief executive, previously wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that the number plate blockade was “insane”.
The suits signal an escalation in the battle between Tesla and Swedish workers that has ensued for over a month now — and shows no sign of stopping anytime soon.
How did we get here?
About 130 mechanics at seven Tesla-owned repair shops in Sweden downed tools last month after the automaker refused their request for a collective bargaining agreement. The Nordic country doesn’t have laws that set working conditions such as a minimum wage, so instead workers rely on these bargaining contracts — which Tesla have consistently refused to grant.
Frustrated, industrial workers’ union IF Metall went on strike on October 27, in an action that has quickly escalated. Dockworkers, car dealers, and the postal service have since refused to work with the US brand in a show of solidarity with the mechanics. Workers at a Swedish supplier ofcritical components for the Tesla Model Y also joined the walkout. The strike action now threatens to spill over into other EU states.
Musk has long been opposed to unionisation, and has so far managed to avoid issuing collective bargaining agreements in all the countries where Tesla operates. However, in Sweden such agreements are the standard way almost all businesses operate, so the workers discontent is understandable.
Seko, a Swedish trade union, said that it viewed the lawsuits “as a sign that Tesla has not been able to circumvent our sympathy action.”
Sympathy actions, where workers from other employers down tools in solidarity, are legal in Sweden, but not in many of the other countries where Tesla operates, including Germany, where it has a gigafactory.
For Seko, and the workers, “there is an easy way for Tesla to solve this, and that is to sign a collective agreement with IF Metall,” it said.
European tech is starting to bounce back — and AI is turbocharging the recovery.
The continent is now home to more highly skilled professionals in the field than the US, according to new research by Atomico, a VC firm headquartered in the UK.
This overtaking follows a decade of rapid progress. Over the past 10 years, the number of people working in artificial intelligence across Europe has increased by a whopping 1,000%.
This talent pipeline is now flowing into some impressive startups. In 2023, AI companies raised 11 of Europe’s 36 mega-rounds of $100mn or more. They include France’s Mistral AI, which bagged €105mn in the continent’s largest-ever seed round, and Aleph Alpha, which this month secured €460m in Series B funding.
The pattern extends into the new herd of European unicorns. Of the seven companies to reach a valuation of $1 billion this year, four focus on artificial intelligence: DeepL, Helsing.ai, Synthesia, and Quantexa. Their successes have helped Europe’s ecosystem rebound to a total value of $3 trillion — equalling its 2021 peak.
“The European tech environment today looks more stable than it has at any point since the onset of the pandemic,” Tom Wehmeier, Atomico’s head of intelligence, told TNW. “And that brings with it a greater amount of certainty, predictability, and general confidence throughout the ecosystem.”
AI isn’t the only field with an impressive talent pool. Despite a brutal series of layoffs earlier this year, there’s been a net growth in the number of European tech workers. This means the rate of job creation is more than offsetting the redundancies.
It also continues an impressive recent spell of expansion. In the last five years, Europe’s IT workforce has grown from 750,000 employees to more than 2.3 million today.
One reason for this rise comes from across the Atlantic. According to Atomico’s data, Europe is now a net beneficiary of tech talent from the US.
“There’s always been this myth that Europe sees a big exodus of talent to the US,” Wehmeier said. “But when you look at their data, it shows that the inverse is actually true.”
The tech talent has sparked an explosive growth in new startups. This year, Europe has produced an estimated 14,000 new founders — 1,000 more than in the US.
Unfortunately, the continent’s investor landscape can’t yet match the ambitions of its founders. In the US, startups are 40% more likelyto raise VC funding within their first five years. Yet once companies secure an initial seed investment, the chances of them reaching a billion-dollar valuation are the same in Europe as they are in the US.
It all makes a strong case for better access to institutional investments. As Atomico notes, funding a single company can have a generational effect.
Skype provides a powerful European example. Entrepreneurs from the firm’s alumni network have gone on to launch more than 900 companies across 50 countries. Atomico calls this phenomenon the “flywheel effect.”
“It’s an astonishing reflection of the ability of a single company to move the needle for the ecosystem,” Wehmeier said. “And given that Europe’s had 111 billion-dollar exits over the past five years, you really get a sense of the extent to which that flywheel is going to keep spinning.”
Nonetheless, the flywheel could certainly do with more greasing from investors.
Among the barriers European tech has to overcome, gender diversity is undoubtedly a pressing one. The numbers are telling. So far in 2023, female-founded startups have raised less than 2% of the total VC capital in Europe.
A new study by global early-stage VC firm Antler shows that, unsurprisingly, female founders have to routinely deal with gender bias.
Antler surveyed founders based in Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, and the UK on their recent experience with angels and VCs. All of the respondents said that the European investor ecosystem is biased against women.
Specifically, two-thirds (64%) of the founders reported that their gender has actively made it difficult to raise investment. At the same time, a third (32%) have felt the need to call out investors for unconscious bias during pitching meetings.
Diversity is a critical factor lacking in European venture capital.
The picture gets even grimmer: a whopping 72% of the respondents also said that they have been asked questions that male founders wouldn’t have been asked. These included inquiries about family planning and pregnancy.
“Why do conversations about female founders immediately lead to conversations about combining the journey with having a family?,” commented Karolina Ling-Vannerus, founder of Sweden-based sustainable packaging startup Circulate, who took part in the survey.
“I don’t understand why we always worry and think it’s women in their 30s-40s who have families, when it takes two to tango? Provided that the vast majority of families are heterosexual couples, there are just as many men affected? So this equally applies to ALL talent in our 30s-40s regardless of gender?”
Meanwhile, the vast majority of respondents (95%) called on VCs to hire more female investors as a means to driving positive change. The founders also suggested data transparency on diversity, the inclusion of parental leave policies in investment terms, and promoting women’s success stories through social channels.
“Diversity is a critical factor lacking in European venture capital. In 2022, only 1.8% went to female founders, and 12% to mixed founders, revealing blind spots in the ecosystem,” said Sarah Finegan, Director at Antler.
For Finegan, to cultivate a more inclusive VC ecosystem, it is “essential to prioritise representation.” “We’re seeing lots of positive change in the industry already, but more needs to be done,” she told TNW. “A more inclusive VC ecosystem will support a new generation of diverse tech founders which will be great news for European tech.”
Studies have shown that female-led companies tend to return higher revenues, while scaleups founded by women in Europe have not only seen their value increase almost 6.5 times in the past five years, but have also grown 1.2 times faster than other scaleups. This means that investing in female entrepreneurship is as much a prerequisite for social equality, as it is good for business.
Sandwiched between Germany, France, and Belgium, the tiny country of Luxembourg is one of Europe’s smallest, but also its wealthiest — its residents enjoy the second-highest per capita income in the world.
Key to this success is its thriving financial services sector which has helped draw several big names to the Grand Duchy, including the European Investment Bank and Amazon. It’s no surprise then that fintech has been identified as the tech sector with the greatest growth potential in the region.
Luxembourg was also one of the world’s biggest investors in AI per capita in 2021, surpassed only by Israel, the US, and Sweden (in that order). The National Research Fund has allocated €200mn to AI research projects over the past five years. To help power these advancements is Meluxina, one of Europe’s most powerful supercomputers.
While only home to 600,000 people, Luxembourg’s thriving economy, modern infrastructure, international workforce, and generous government grants, which cover up to 80% of R&D costs, allow it to punch above its weight as a hub for emerging tech startups.
Well-known success stories include social media analytics and monitoring tool Talkwalker, and online jobs board JobToday. OCSiAI, a producer of graphene nanotubes, made headlines in 2019 when it joined Europe’s growing list of tech unicorns.
Located in downtown Luxembourg City, House of Startups is the epicentre of the country’s tech ecosystem. Credit: House of Startups
“Although Luxembourg is a small country, it shares its borders with two of Europe’s biggest economies,” pointed out Kenneth Graham, CEO of Tomorrowstreet, a Luxembourg-based innovation centre that focuses on scaling late-stage deep tech startups.
“Half the population come from somewhere else and many have connections with people all over the world, including Silicon Valley and the UK. This diversity of thought really makes the country a special place to do business,” he said.
Almost 50% of Luxembourg’s workforce commute from neighbouring countries, and 80% of the population speaks English.
A 2022 report from Startup Genome found that startup funding deals in Luxembourg increased five-fold between 2012 and 2021. Notably, the availability of seed funding in the country is considerably higher when compared to peers with similar-sized economies. Although it performs worse when it comes to later-stage investments.
This growth is undoubtedly partly thanks to the emergence of multiple startup initiatives in recent years, such as the government-backed Fit4Star program. Another is House of Startups, a place where incubators, accelerators, investors, and startups are all housed under one roof in the downtown Gare district of Luxembourg City. Funded by the Chamber of Commerce, the centre houses a whopping 200 of the country’s 521 tech startups.
All of this puts Luxembourg’s tech ecosystem on track to continue its upward growth trajectory in coming years, not just in fintech but also SaaS, climatetech, spacetech, and manufacturing.
Five startups to watch
1. Circu Li-ion
Founded just two years ago, this climatetech startup has developed an automated upcycling solution that enables the sustainable recycling of lithium-ion cells for reuse at scale. Last month, the company raised €8.5mn in seed funding.
Circu Li-ion’s services come at an opportune moment for the company (and the planet), following the EU’s new battery regulation, which aims to ensure a circular economy and will require mandatory minimum levels of recycled elements for EV batteries.
2. Salonkee
Founded in 2016, Salonkee has developed an online reservation platform to streamline the booking of hair or beauty appointments. The startup has raised €35mn so far and is already profitable. It currently has 110 employees across offices in Luxembourg, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands.
3. Next Gate Tech
Next Gate Tech is a data-driven fintech that provides SaaS solutions for the asset management industry. Basically, it helps banks and the like automate the boring and repetitive aspects of data management (I thought it was all boring!). Since launching in 2020, the startup has raised €17mn, and is valued at close to €50mn, according to data from Dealroom.
4. OQ Tech
This spacetech startup has developed a constellation of satellites that allow IoT devices on Earth to stay connected even when there is no cellphone reception. It can also support bi-directional communication to machines such as banking ATMs in poor connectivity areas. Five of the company’s satellites are already in orbit. Oil and gas giant Saudi Aramco is OQ Tech’s largest customer and invested €13mn into the startup last year.
5. nZero
Last but not least is nZero, a carbon management platform that gives NGOs, government agencies, and organisations accurate data on their carbon emissions. It offers insights across all three emissions scopes, including embodied carbon which is often left out from many carbon calculating tools. So far the company has raised €15mn and racked in almost €8mn in revenues last year.
The UK university spinout ecosystem is flourishing, with 1,116 active companies as of January 2023.
But to further facilitate this growth, British universities should cut down on their equity stakes, a spinout review commissioned by the government advises.
According to data from Beauhurst, between 2013 and 2022, academic institutions took an average stake of 23.9%. For instance, Oxford, the UK’s top spinout generator, owns an average stake of 21.6%, while the University of Manchester and the University of Leeds own higher percentages of equity, at 30.9% and 42.3%, respectively.
The review recommended a 10% or lower stake for software spinouts, which are less IP-intensive and typically require a smaller amount of university support. For life sciences startups, it suggested a higher limit between 10-25%, while equity for hardware and engineering companies should be somewhere between the other two categories.
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“UK universities tend to retain more than double the amount of equity compared to their European counterparts. This disparity is even higher for US university spinouts,” said Ekaterina Almasque, General Partner at OpenOcean VC.
“This reduces the likelihood of funding from investors, as the potential returns are comparatively smaller,” Almasque added, noting the importance of a call for equity limits.
Other recommendations in the review included further government support for proof-of-concept funds, more data and transparency through a national register of spinouts, and increased support for founders.
Academic institutions across the country, such as the University of Oxford, the University of Birmingham, and Imperial College London (ICL), have largely welcomed the report.
“This review recognises the importance of universities investing in sustained, curated support and infrastructure for innovation,” said Simon Hepworth, Director of Imperial Enterprise at ICL.
“We welcome its findings and hope its recommendations will galvanise stakeholders across the university innovation ecosystem to help UK spinouts generate even more impact.”
