Dear hustlers, founders, operators and visionaries,
Startupland had a mid-year Christmas after Fable 5 came back last week. Finally, we can burn our token budgets to the ground. Who doesn’t like Claude saying “You are right to push back”. Meanwhile, Milan's Bending Spoons went public on the Nasdaq, after spending years quietly buying up the internet's has-beens: AOL, Vimeo, Eventbrite, Evernote, WeTransfer. Follow the Gradient and stay tuned.
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Your talk track for this week's cocktail party
Airbus backs a drone startup that wants its lunch
Munich's Quantum Systems raised $1.2bn at an $8bn valuation, more than doubling its worth in one of Europe's largest private defence rounds. The Series D was co-led by Blackstone, Advent and Airbus, the exact kind of legacy prime co-CEO Florian Seibel says his autonomous drones can undercut. Quantum's systems flew over 19,000 missions in Ukraine last year.
France wants to lock the UK out of Europe's scaleup fund
France is pushing to restrict UK access to the EU's €5bn Scaleup Europe Fund, the bloc's flagship late-stage vehicle for AI, space and deep tech, according to Sifted. Brussels has floated a quota-based compromise to rescue months of negotiations. The fight exposes the core tension: Europe wants world-class scaleups, but keeps finding ways to shrink the capital pool they need.
What do you meme?
Food for thought
Is company size just ego wearing a blazer?
Former agency owner Keith Rumjahn ran a 42-person company across three countries and now says the headcount was never the achievement, revenue per person was. With reusable AI "skills," workflows that never get sick, quit, or need a quarterly review, he argues one operator can now do the work of forty.
Investors stopped funding potential
Swiss investor Olaf Hannemann of CV VC has a blunt message for founders raising in 2026: nobody funds potential anymore, they fund proof. Have you actually sold something, even an imperfect pilot? He also tells technical founders to hire for sales early, and to ask honestly whether they need the round at all, because arriving six months later with revenue beats arriving now with a story.
Smart hack
From our Partners
You find out days late. That ends now.
Spend spikes, conversions dip, and you find out days later, after the money's gone. SureThing posts one Slack report every morning so your team catches it in time.
From us
How many times can you repost the same video? Ahrefs CMO Tim Soulo says 8 to 10, with no changes at all, and the reach compounds every time.
Repost the winners. A video that pulled 5,000 views can hit 9,000 sixteen weeks later, then 12,000 after that, same file.
Most people never saw it. Algorithms serve content mostly to non-followers, so your own audience rarely catches the same post twice.
Build a "banger bank." Soulo took the idea from ex-Ryanair social lead Michael Corcoran, whose team of 8 drove 2bn organic impressions in 18 months on zero paid spend.
Your best post is not spent. It is inventory.
One good read
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
Working Student Special Operations (all genders) [📍Berlin, Germany], HELLOFRESH [Apply]
B2B Marketing Content & AI Intern [📍Barcelona, Spain], BEST TABLES [Apply]
Data Engineering & Analytics Intern [📍Bucharest, Romania], Showpad [Apply]
Intern AI & Management Consulting (Value Engineering) [📍Paris, France], Process Mining, Celonis [Apply]
Customer Success
Customer Success Manager, Central Europe (Frankfurt) [📍Frankfurt, Germany], Pigment [Apply]
Lead Quality & Knowledge [📍Paris, France], FinTech, Qonto [Apply]
Customer Success Consultant (Tech & Durables) [📍Milan, Italy], Foxintelligence [Apply]
VP, Customer Experience & Services [📍London, United Kingdom], ComplyAdvantage [Apply]
Marketing & Comms
Head of Performance Marketing [📍London, United Kingdom], FinTech, LemFi [Apply]
Operations Manager, Commercial Partnerships & Merchant Solutions [📍London, United Kingdom], Food Delivery, Deliveroo [Apply]
Sr. Marketing Strategy Manager (m/w/x) [📍Berlin, Germany], Grover [Apply]
Senior Marketing Data Analyst [📍Barcelona, Spain], Socialpoint [Apply]
UGC Creator Manager [📍Paris, France], Health & Bio, Opal [Apply]
Product Marketing Manager [📍Stockholm, Sweden], Tandem Health [Apply]
Sales
Senior B2B Local Sales / Business Development Manager (m/f/d) [📍Munich, Germany], Hospitality Tech, Limehome [Apply]
Growth Account Manager Benelux [📍Amsterdam, Netherlands], Silverfin [Apply]
Sales executive - Global data FMCG (Nordics) [📍Denmark], Foxintelligence [Apply]
Strategy & Ops
Finance Automation Specialist [📍Spain], Docplanner [Apply]
Associate Operations Client partner [📍Warsaw, Poland], Foxintelligence [Apply]
Finance Data Analyst [📍London, United Kingdom], ASOS [Apply]
Associate Recruiter/ Talent Acquisition Manager (m/f/d) [📍Germany], Auto Subscription, Finn [Apply]
Senior Operations Specialist, New Verticals & Drive Operations [📍Berlin, Germany], Wolt [Apply]
Strategy & Operations Analyst [📍Paris, France], Pennylane [Apply]
Product & Tech
UX/UI Designer - Remote Europe [📍United Kingdom], Marketplace, Reedsy [Apply]
Product Design Manager - Doctors & Clinics (100% Remote-friendly, Spain) [📍Barcelona, Spain], Docplanner [Apply]
Senior AI/ML Scientist [📍Paris, France], Arago [Apply]
Senior Software Engineer (Financial Statement Suite) [📍Amsterdam, Netherlands], DataSnipper [Apply]
Sales Engineer - EMEA [📍Amsterdam, Netherlands], Vapi [Apply]
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Follow the Gradient is a weekly newsletter and podcast by the serial founders Melanie Gabriel & Christian Woese about how to scale a business from Europe while staying sane.
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