Amy Lewin is the Deputy Editor at Sifted. Backed by the Financial Times, Sifted is a new media publication that provides In-depth reporting, news and analysis on European startups and their founders, investors and partners. Before joining Sifted Amy served as a writer and editorial assistant for IKEA Family Magazine at August Media before moving to Courier magazine to work as a features editor.
Amy was kind enough to sit down to discuss a range of fascinating topics including the growth of the high speed grocery delivery market, how information on VC news is sourced and the importance of good press coverage for companies that are looking to raise capital. Amy also opens up about her personal motivations and where she sees the future of Sifted heading.
Make sure to like and subscribe to the Riding Unicorns podcast to never miss an episode. Also don't forget to give Riding Unicorns a follow on Twitter and LinkedIn to keep on top of the latest developments.
Amy Lewin is the Deputy Editor at Sifted. Backed by the Financial Times, Sifted is a new media publication that provides In-depth reporting, news and analysis on European startups and their founders, investors and partners. Before joining Sifted Amy served as a writer and editorial assistant for IKEA Family Magazine at August Media before moving to Courier magazine to work as a features editor.
Amy was kind enough to sit down to discuss a range of fascinating topics including the growth of the high speed grocery delivery market, how information on VC news is sourced and the importance of good press coverage for companies that are looking to raise capital. Amy also opens up about her personal motivations and where she sees the future of Sifted heading.
Make sure to like and subscribe to the Riding Unicorns podcast to never miss an episode. Also don't forget to give Riding Unicorns a follow on Twitter and LinkedIn to keep on top of the latest developments.
[00:00:00] James: Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of writing unicorns, the podcast about growth startups. I'm James Pringle and my co-host is Hector Mason from episode one ventures.
[00:00:22] This week, we have Amy Lewin, Deputy Editor at Sifted. Sifted is the publication that provides in-depth reporting on startups in Europe, it's backed by the financial times and a great source of information for anyone covering the sector.
[00:00:37] Amy to riding unicorns. Thanks for joining
[00:00:40] Amy Lewin: us. Hello. Nice to be here.
[00:00:43] James: So, Amy, please, could you start by just giving us a background on your career and how you ended up at Cisco. Sure.
[00:00:49] Amy Lewin: So I joined sifted almost three years ago. Now as, a reporter.
[00:00:54] I was the first hire. So that was an interesting move on my part. Before [00:01:00] that I was features editor at a print magazine called . Which also writes about startups. So I've been covering startups for quite a while now, um, that that was obviously print, not web, so quite different. Um, and before that, I had a very glamorous job as an editorial assistant at the Ikea magazine, which is different from the catalog.
[00:01:20] Uh, I meant that I got to travel all around Europe and go visit people's homes who were slightly obsessed with Ikea.
[00:01:26] Hector: Is it as enthralling as the eyecare cat? It's
[00:01:29] Amy Lewin: even better. Check it out if it still exists. I care family life. Great publication.
[00:01:36] James: So maybe for our listeners, you could just explain what separated.
[00:01:40] Amy Lewin: Sure. So sifted is, a publication backed by the financial times, that covers startups and tech in Europe. So the idea behind setting up sifted is that the Ft oversee does a brilliant job of covering big businesses. But there are lots of businesses that are slightly too small or too young for the [00:02:00] FTE to cover just yet.
[00:02:01] And yet there's a lot of them. In, not that long a time, lots of them are going to be the big businesses of the future. And they'd all say there's a, there's a lot of brilliant journalism on startups in tech, particularly focused on the U S europe was missing a kind of voice to cover what was going on over here, not just for the European tech community, but also for example, investors in America or in China who wanted to know what was going.
[00:02:28] On over here as well. So that's what we want to be. One will be the voice and the kind of community. And I guess the source of truth for what's going on in the European startup scene.
[00:02:38] Hector: What is the connection with FTS? I looked on, I think it was PitchBook and it looked like you guys had raised around was
[00:02:45] Amy Lewin: that.
[00:02:47] So we are an entirely separate company from the Ft. However, our founder, John Thornhill is, uh, still an editor at the Ft and the Ft is an [00:03:00] investor in sifted. But otherwise we operate in tiny independently. We're very friendly towards one another, but our newsrooms is that per our teams are separate.
[00:03:08] James: And did it initially start out as just covering FinTech
[00:03:11] Amy Lewin: so we never solely have focused on FinTech. However, we do have a brilliant FinTech reporter called Isabel Woodford.
[00:03:18] She's been with sifted from reasonably early on. Who's always focused specifically on FinTech. And I think when I first joined, for example, I wrote a few things about Monzo and stuff because I, I just knew that this is what the, especially the London startup scene. It's a company that everyone's obsessed with.
[00:03:36] So Isabel now solely focuses on FinTech, but we also cover things like on demand, grocery and scooters and health tech and deep tech and all sorts of other things as well.
[00:03:47] James: Yeah. And on demand. Grocery is a bit of an interesting area to be reading about at the moment, because there's lots going on. Lots of companies, big valuations, high growth, uh, it's kind of turning [00:04:00] everything upside down in that sector. What's your take on the sort of 10 or 15 minute grocery delivery model?
[00:04:07] Amy Lewin: Well, for starters, it's kind of a journalist dream because it's utterly ridiculous. As you say, there's loads of money going into it. There's a new story. Literally every week, if not every day, a new company has raised money or there's some sort of cultural hiring disaster or the re the VC room Amelie.
[00:04:27] Bidding and saying that someone's getting acquired or someone's not getting acquired anymore, or someone's expanding to this country or not expanding to this country. So it's a endless source of things I can write about. I started writing about it at the start of this year when most of the companies were first starting to raise big rounds because it seemed very similar to the scooter hype of a few years ago that I'd also written about yet even more highly.
[00:04:54] Um, and possibly even less of a business model. I'm not going to say anything super original here. It's what other people have [00:05:00] said, but I think we're going to see quite a few, um, like M and a things happening that's already underway. We reported that, Dasia, which is one of the London based ones is supposedly getting acquired by goPuff or they're in talks to do that.
[00:05:14] Could you, which is a French one recently to combatant from core four. Wouldn't be surprised if they end up buying them. You know, there's, there's going to be a lot of that happening. And then I think we'll see a few kind of giants emerge are my money's on turkeys, Getty, which is live in London. I think they get there.
[00:05:33] They're a solid contender in the race and they've got serious, serious funding behind them.
[00:05:39] Hector: Why do you guys tend to get your scoops from,
[00:05:41] Amy Lewin: vCs are the gossip, Gus best ones of the mole. Sure.
[00:05:46] Employees can be really useful people who, whose companies have maybe been acquired by these businesses, and then have left. So they've got good contacts, but they, you know, Kind of got, uh, our own particular interest in it anymore.[00:06:00] If you're doing a really good job, you make friends with bankers and lawyers and somehow get them to talk.
[00:06:06] But it's mostly, mostly VCs. It will tip you off for starters.
[00:06:09] Hector: Very interesting. Cause I guess it's um, like what's in it for them, for spilling the beans.
[00:06:16] Amy Lewin: Uh, the ego VCs, like, feel like they are on top of everything and like, to let you know that they're on top of everything that's happening.
[00:06:24] James: Yeah. And it's free press is meant.
[00:06:26] So, um, there's, there was a quote recently about from Richard Branson talking about the power of the press release and how important it is to get good press coverage. So apart from grocery delivery, which is, as you say, you know, sort of top of the mind at the moment, The crazy valuations. What other trends are you seeing or receiving a lot of press releases.
[00:06:53] Amy Lewin: Another big thing that everyone's talking about is the, the valuations are seeing just how fast companies are [00:07:00] raising. Since the pandemic has hit, that's really taken off, off to an initial, kind of big stall, like stall where every, where will the VCs were kind of checking in on their portfolio and companies were figuring out, you know, if they had any runway and how soon they would need to raise.
[00:07:14] Now things have gone quite bananas. I don't know when the bubble will burst, but that's something people are talking about quite a bit. It's also, it will be quite interesting to see when these companies that have raised at a really high valuation, they will soon need to go and raise again. And whether they can kind of fulfill the promise of that valuation might see a lot of down rounds coming up.
[00:07:36] This isn't really a new trend, but another thing I'm always interested in. every new VC fund that launches is doing things somehow very differently from everyone else. so any sort of iteration on the VC model, whether that's, you know, having a scout program or an angel program or, um, different kinds.
[00:07:56] Collectives that enabled people to [00:08:00] invest in BC without, you know, being a super, super high net worth individual or an institution. I find that all quite interesting. And I think we'll continue to see lots of that
[00:08:11] Hector: happening. It's interesting you to touch on that because I run an event called the seed stage, which is exactly that.
[00:08:18] Basically a pitching event where anyone can apply and then VCs vote on the companies they want to see pitch. And then the ones that received the most votes get to pitch in front of absolutely anyone who can join. I'm super passionate about getting young people and people. On high net worth and having already made their money investing for really small amounts then in top tier companies, which isn't often possible on Crowdcube in places.
[00:08:41] And so hopefully we're going to be spinning up sort of SPVs and vehicles for the companies who pitch it seed stage, to allow anyone, any of the attendees to invest in those companies. So yeah, I completely agree. I think that is, it seems to be the way the world is going
[00:08:54] Amy Lewin: I have a question for you on this. Do you think that's responsible though? Do you [00:09:00] think Joe and Jane Schmoe should be investing in startups or VC? Or is that just a way of very likely throwing your money down the toilet?
[00:09:09] Hector: Yeah, I think it's a great point and you know, people need to know what they are getting themselves into. I think if they do have a clue what that, what they're doing then private market investing can offer way better returns than public market investing.
[00:09:24] So potentially the reward is great. We need to be clear not to like. People, you don't know what they're doing invest.
[00:09:32] James: had C stage there's sort of a panel of VCs that help select the company. So it's still a selective entry model, which helps improve the quality.
[00:09:42] Also with all investing capital is at risk. And so people have to be aware of that. And that has to be disclosed. And things like that, but there is something incredible about investing early, even with very small tickets, whether it's 500 quid or 5,000 pounds, you know, anything in between. [00:10:00] You get to spend more time with founders, spend more time with other investors, see different business models, expose yourself to what a high growth company looks like or doesn't look like if it doesn't work out and with things like EIS, your maximum exposure is 40% of what you invest because you've got 30% income tax relief on the way in and potentially 30% loss relief on the way out.
[00:10:24] And that's, if it goes wrong. There are quite a lot of protections in place. And I think that that does need to be a kind of encouraging of a new generation of angels as well. Who are tech savvy, or maybe working in tech, you know, more and more people are being employed. Colwell deliver or Revolut. And so these people, they might not be the founders with lots of equity, making massive money on the exit, but they have lots of relevant experience they could recycle back into early stage.
[00:10:52] Amy Lewin: absolutely true. And that is actually another sort of trend that we been seeing or people who've been wanting to talk to us [00:11:00] about, which is. I guess whether it is investing or revising, how do people in Europe better, I guess, leverage the network of kind of operational experts that we have now. So people who are relatively senior in the bigger, more successful startups, like transfer wise, or like end 26, or, you know, the, kind of the big companies from an ecosystem, how, how.
[00:11:27] Did they kind of use get used best and, and yes, some of them are angel investing. Some of them are angel investing via things like Accell or Sequoia's scout program. Um, so yeah, I'm super interested to see how that develops and yeah, and I'm always interested when I start seeing someone's name crop up a lot on funding announcements as an angel, I'm like.
[00:11:50] Interesting. Have they, are they someone scout, uh, someone given them this dollar or did they like cash out at secondary recently and turned to angel on the [00:12:00] side?
[00:12:01] James: Yeah, I think it's also a really important move for the longterm diversity of VC, which is that if people do start investing with smaller tickets, from any backgrounds Uh, kind of selective entry model where they're building their portfolio, they're building their own track record. They're building that pattern matching. These are the future potential GPS of new VC firms. And so you've got to start somewhere and even if it's small tickets, you can still put your hat on it and say, I made that investment.
[00:12:34] So I definitely sit in the camp of everyone should dabble a little bit, obviously within reason. And if you really don't. The knowledge or expertise then consider being an LP in a fund first or going through some model where you're not necessarily the sole decision maker on each transaction.
[00:12:52] But it's a really important thing for diversity and on diversity. I mean, that's a huge topic at the moment. How do [00:13:00] sift it, cover that? And how do you guys see things moving and what's changed in the last sort of year or two?
[00:13:07] Amy Lewin: I think unfortunately not enough has changed. So the classic example is you looked at the amount of money that's gone into female founders that basically hasn't changed.
[00:13:16] I think it actually got worse last year. That's not great. Really not great. There's definitely more communities springing up. There were more funds that specifically focus on whether it's underrepresented founders or black founders or female founders. They exist now and they didn't maybe exist. Or anywhere near as many of them sort of five or so years ago, but it's absolutely embarrassing and unbelievable if you actually think about it, that basically over 90% of funding goes to all male founding teams.
[00:13:49] Like it's, it's 2021. How is that still happening? So that masses needs to be done. A good thing is that yes, there are more female investors. [00:14:00] There are still really not enough female partners. Uh, we did a list recently of basically every single female partner, like a decision-making a Jeep, a general partner at a fund in Europe.
[00:14:11] And there are about 200, I don't know how many men there are, but it's a lot more than 200. A lot needs to be done in terms of how sick covers it. From when I joined, I think there's always a challenge with kind of news or any journalism of how do you choose what stories to write about anything, a challenge.
[00:14:28] Tech journalism has been, if your main criteria for kind of what makes a top story is like the amount of money that has been raised or kind of how well known a founder or an investor is then you're basically excluding female founders from the start because they do raise less money or they are less well known because there aren't that many of them.
[00:14:48] So you kind of changed the criteria, but I think there's also. And then there's different things you can write about if you're writing about kind of operational expertise or you're, you're picking the brains of [00:15:00] VCs about companies that are interested in, just make sure you speak to a goddamn woman or a person of color.
[00:15:04] Like it's not, it's not that hard. You just need to ask to interview different people and, and then it's. Representation thing. So it's separated whenever we do events, we never have any manuals and the female journalists don't count. Cause most of our, most of our reporters are actually women.
[00:15:21] So we have to make sure we have women on our panels and um, you know, we'll often pick as the top photo in a store. If we interviewed a bunch of people and one of them is a woman we'll make that the top picture. So we were at least kind of presenting the kind of industry that we want to say.
[00:15:38] Another area of diversity that I, we are like even way further behind on is kind of people's backgrounds, especially people from less privileged kind of economic backgrounds. That's a whole other thing that is, I mean, it's crazy to me because tech should and could be the kind of industry where [00:16:00] anyone can make it.
[00:16:01] You don't need to go to uni, you can teach yourself staff. Like, we probably need to be like really good at networking, but it's like ease possible. And it's just, like I said, there's such, such a shamed me that we're so far off that yet, but I have, I have, I have hope. If you just do things the way things have always been done. You're excluding the people you've always been excluding. Um, and if you think about doing things a bit differently, you give people a different way to present their idea and pitch
[00:16:30] That's, that's what we need.
[00:16:32] James: And I think when we're hopefully past the warm intro, only VCs as well. Kind of try to keep that as a thing a couple of years ago and quickly got shot down and rightly so. I think all VCs should have their emails on their LinkedIn and stuff, so that just the accessibility is available to all.
[00:16:50] But much more needs to be done. I think we can all agree with that. So the next thing I wanted to just chat a bit about is, We've talked a little bit [00:17:00] about VCs changing that models are being much more community-based, but there's also been a big change around kind of VC structures, whether it be rolling funds or solo GPS.
[00:17:12] So what kind of trends are you seeing around like the BC structure space?
[00:17:18] Amy Lewin: There was quite a lot of talk about how things like rolling funds in the us has been working out really well and how we need stuff over here. I think fundamentally for all that VC likes to present itself is like this very innovative and exciting industry. It's exceedingly old school. Um, and that's partly because, you know, it's financially regulated and, and, you know, lots of money at stake and all sorts of legal stuff.
[00:17:43] But, a lot could change in how, kind of, how we see these raised Barnes. The LP side of things is another massive one for diversity. So, um, a group of female general partners from, I think it's 25 different countries [00:18:00] in Europe recently kind of did this big thing with the European commissioner.
[00:18:04] For the European commission for kind of tech and research, who's basically calling on the EU to kind of set a set, create certain programs to invest in female general partners because they have these programs to invest in like space tech and deep tech. And it's like, is. He's investing in, in women, investors who are then way more likely to invest in women founders who are more likely to create things that are useful for 51% of the population.
[00:18:35] Is that not like of equal benefit to the continent as investing in space tech? So I think LPs and, if you just, the further up the chain you go, the more focus those people are placing on whether it's diversity or whether it's connect sustainability credentials, and really like collecting data on this and holding people to account, not just greenwashing or diversity washing like, oh, well done, you created this.
[00:18:59] [00:19:00] Presentation on your ESG, but really alike. What's going on here? Why, why have you only invested in these kinds of companies then that would really, uh, move the dial a bit? I think, yeah,
[00:19:11] Hector: I, I completely agree. I think there's a massive irony in VC, which invests in the most innovative technologies, probably being the last industry to be innovated on.
[00:19:21] But I think another thing that feeds into the diversity conversation, as well as the kind of general democratization and sort of access, topics, uh, secondaries, because I think at the moment like VC or private private markets in general are just pretty closed off.
[00:19:36] And only those kinds of who are VCs. Employees can access them and can kind of gain from them. But I think as we get towards a place where there's kind of exchanges where you can trade private shareholdings, and then suddenly you get, you know, employees at these amazing startups who got some share options from day one, which are now worth like a million pounds.
[00:19:59] We'll certainly be able [00:20:00] to be those kind of sole GP funds and we'll be able to be doing lots more angel investing, and I think it's all bubbling up, but just things need to be accepted.
[00:20:09] Amy Lewin: Yeah, a hundred percent of the secondary things you are.
[00:20:12] We are starting to see more again, it's those like really quite big companies already like Alan and blah, blah car in France had done a few like secondary things. Transfer wise has been doing it a lot here. But, yeah, it's, it's kind of this, you've got to wait for companies to reach a certain size and it's still not, I think kind of easy enough for them to make these things happen.
[00:20:34] And then I think there's also the reticence isn't there from some VCs, you still have this mindset of like, no, if a founder cashes out even anything, so they can like have a baby that will be the worst thing ever, you know? Like they're not gonna, they're not going leave the company.
[00:20:49] They're just gonna, you know, have, have some money to like buy a nice coffee machine or whatever, you know, is employees can then can then do, do a bit of angel investing on the side and [00:21:00] find that for selling, you know, I just think that again, a bit kind of VC for all, it's being very innovative, a little bit stuck in the past.
[00:21:07] Hector: I see. Great. And I think, you know, hopefully that is becoming an old fashioned view. Yeah. I think most VCs that I speak to now are like, the founder of a business worth hundreds of millions of pounds should not be stressed about like, you know, putting food on the table or about paying their mortgage and whatever that might allow them to sell a bit of their shares.
[00:21:29] Um, allow them to live a little, um, and hopefully they'll run their business better. In a less stressful way. So yeah, super interesting topic but
[00:21:38] I wanted to ask you what motivates you as a journalist?
[00:21:42] Amy Lewin: I guess I wear a few hats. As a journalist, I'm just like most journalists, very, very nosy, very curious. I love learning about new things. I really like people. I like hearing stories and then I like writing them up in a way that is hopefully enjoyable for people to read and enjoyable for [00:22:00] me to write. And then why I really love my job at Sifted is because I also get to be a person who is a first employee at a start-up which comes with.
[00:22:10] Okay. I guess lots of people listening will know about, which is being like interim chief people officer and the person who I don't know, organizes the team rounders event and, you know, does a whole load of other random crap. Um, and that is super fulfilling for me and I hope it also makes me a better reporter on this space because I've lived some of it.
[00:22:34] Hector: Yeah, I think it's, I think it's fascinating. I mean, we've spoken to Amun at textile. Um, who was a journalist prior to becoming a VC and then obviously Karen Ascension, um, journalists report before becoming a VC. I think there's a lot of shared skills in, you know, knowing the right question to ask, having a bit of hustle.
[00:22:56] Um, do you think there's a career in VC?
[00:22:59] Amy Lewin: I [00:23:00] have been asked this before, and I also have a very well-known angel investor who has promised that he will write me my first check whenever I want to do that. I think that is ethically problematic if I'm investing in company. So I'm not doing that. Um, I'm also still convinced that VC is obviously the dark side, so I will stick with journalism for now, but you can call me up on this in 20 years time or whatever, if I'm suddenly running Sequoia.
[00:23:25] James: Well, so Michael Moritz, he as a journalist. So it's a, it's the right one to go with. And Amy what's what's next for sifted. So obviously the publication is doing really well, but are there plans to expand to even more formats?
[00:23:39] Amy Lewin: As it sounds. We have a website, we have mode, good news letters.
[00:23:43] We have digital events. We're also going to be doing in person events soon. Uh, people are always asking us to do a podcast. We would love to do a podcast. If anyone listening to this would like to sponsor our podcast. Please get in touch. What else do you wanna do? We launched membership earlier this year, so [00:24:00] we need to make membership even better.
[00:24:03] Get more people signed up. I guess that whole product, what it takes to be a really good subscription publication. We would love to do more stuff around. Yeah. Talk about that buzz word community and kind of making things to way, because we don't just want to be a publication where we kind of, um, we broadcast stuff out to people.
[00:24:24] We want it to be much more, two way. And we think that, especially in an industry likes startups, that makes a lot of sense, but it's creating the right. What's the right platform to do that where like what's the best way to engage with our readers. So we've got all of this stuff to figure out, And then like any startup we're hiring loads, uh, super fired, all those people on board them do all of that stuff.
[00:24:46] Um, so how are you feeling you just kind of bigger and better if the say.
[00:24:52] James: Yeah. And if there's someone listening is thinking about joining sifted, what are the sort of cultural traits that you need or what you [00:25:00] look for when hiring.
[00:25:02] Amy Lewin: So I am delighted that whenever anyone joins sifted, everyone, always comments on how friendly and how helpful everyone is.
[00:25:09] We all are very friendly and a very helpful team. We are a team. We help each other out. We do. Yet, hopefully we're in ever have kind of road divides between different teams, partly because we haven't really had any different departments for a long time. Um, just kind of willing to, to roll your sleeves up, be interested in doing lots of different things.
[00:25:31] Um, yeah, and be generally a decent human beings.
[00:25:36] James: Yeah. Sounds like a nice place to work. Um, Amy getting sort of towards the end of the episode now, so we always like to ask people if they was up dinner with three people, who would that be?
[00:25:49] Amy Lewin: So we did a big investigation this week into gorillas that on demand delivery company that has just a few issues behind the [00:26:00] scenes. So I'd probably like to invite their founder con. Do a dinner party and then maybe I'd throw in like Adam Newman or someone else just to make that a really ridiculous, dinner party.
[00:26:13] And then if I wanted to have a dinner party that was more kind of like inspirational people. Um, I might invite, I'd probably invite a bunch of, sort of. Um, female leader or journalistic legends. So people like the FTS assistant editor, Janine Gibson, who's the person who set up the guardian in the U S and Buzzfeed in the UK. Who's just absolutely awesome. I would love to learn from her and maybe a founder, like Sharma Dean Reed, because she is always great fun to be around.
[00:26:42] James: You've got four points left before you need people, so that's, that's great.
[00:26:46] Amy Lewin: Maybe we throw in a Tory politician as well, just to make that a real riot.
[00:26:51] James: Yeah. Well, Amy, thank you so much for taking the time to do a recording with us. It's great to hear you guys have a really interesting perspective on the tech [00:27:00] scene. Kind of getting to see a bit of everything. Um, so it was great to hear about different trends you're seeing and changes.
[00:27:07] There's more to be done. So, um, we're fully behind that. And, uh, thanks for coming on and having a chat with us.
[00:27:14] Amy Lewin: Thanks for having me. I'll let you know if I ever make that data party happen.
[00:27:19] James: Thanks Amy.
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