Dear hustlers, founders, operators and visionaries,

The founder of e-commerce startup Nate was charged with fraud for claiming AI-powered shopping while in fact relying on human workers in Romania and the Philippines. Some founders are more advanced in using AI to make their (crazy) dreams come true: the venture “De-extincted” says it revived an ancient dire wolf using AI-driven genetics. Are we protecting the environment - or distorting progress in the name of innovation? Follow the Gradient and stay tuned.

🫶🏼 Melanie & Christian

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Your talk track for this week’s cocktail party

Defence tech star Helsing faced with underperformance

Munich-based defence tech startup Helsing faces criticism of severely underdelivering on their promises. Despite major contracts, it has received backlashes over high prices, underperformance in missions in Ukraine, and a collapsed partnership with Rheinmetall. With its recent valuation standing at €5bn, it continues to expand and position itself for Europe’s defence spending surge.

French Mistral strikes 100m customer deal

European AI prodigy Mistral has signed a €100m deal with French shipping giant CMA CGM to deploy AI across operations, in a sign that European enterprises are starting to deploy "(European) AI. As margins tighten and global competition rises, the shift toward high-ROI, homegrown solutions is accelerating.

What do you meme?

Food for thought

The new baseline expectation?

Shopify Founder Tobias Lütke shared his views on the impact of AI when circulating a company-wide memo. The baseline expectation for anyone at Shopify is now to use AI effectively in as many contexts as possible. Is this a glimpse into the future of a workplace fundamentally changed by AI?

A trend back to smaller VC funds?

Top-Level venture capitalists are flocking away from their firms to open up or join smaller funds. CNBC investigated their reasons: “When you're a very large fund, it becomes very hard for the senior partners to focus on early stage. Seed and Series A startups are often left to younger team members, which is not the best product for the founders.”

Will we see a trend back to smaller, high-focused funds?

Fake job seekers in your recruiting pipeline?

Job applicants getting through a recruiting process entirely with AI are making headlines: (AI-generated) fake photos, work histories, references as well as entire video interviews being answered with help of AI - how do you select for the ideal applicant in these crazy times?

Mark your calendar

Switzerland

Swiss Startup Association Founders Day in Zurich, 15 April [Program]

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Smart hack

Boards, their structure and how to deal with them are things driving many founders mad. What you need are principles to guide you. Nicole Herzog made this crisp list on her lessons learned. Below are her most important ones:

• Know your runway

• Too much money is as dangerous as too little

• Plans are nothing. Planning is everything.

• Separate strategic from operational discussions

• Lead by asking questions

• Never assume

And if you want to learn about how to set up a startup board and work with them throughout your exit, Nicole has been a guest on our podcast a few weeks ago.

One good read

AI 2027

Join the entrepreneurial journey

Are you ready to take your first steps into the startup ecosystem or seeking an exciting new opportunity? Below is a curated list of startup job openings across Europe for you to explore.

Internships

Visiting Analyst [📍London], VC, Creandum [Apply, Hiring manager]
Process Development Intern [📍Munich], Sustainable Food, Planet A Foods [Apply]
Werkstudent oder Masterarbeit - Computer Vision, Deep Learning & Multimodale KI [📍Munich], Warehouse Logistics, Advastore [Apply]

Customer Success

Customer Success Engineer - Energy [📍Remote, Munich], Environmental Engineering, RIZM [Apply]
Customer Success Manager [📍Remote, Germany], Big Data platform, Albert Invent [Apply]

HR & Finance

People & Recruiting Manager [📍Berlin], ESG Platform, Atlas Metrics [Apply]

Marketing & Comms

Head of Corporate Communication [📍London], AI, Anthropic [Apply, Hiring manager]
Digital Designer [📍Barcelona, Madrid, London, Lisbin or Porto], FinTech, Revolut [Apply]

Sales

Account Manager, Italy [📍Berlin], Renewable Energy, Reonic [Apply]
SMB Account Executive [📍London], AI Search Solutions, Algolia [Apply]

Product & Tech

Senior Product Designer [📍Amsterdam], Cybersecurity, Hadrian [Apply]
Credit Product Manager [📍Berlin], Banking, Revolut [Apply]

Final words — take what you need