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Dear hustlers, founders, operators and visionaries,
Google handed its CEO a pay package worth up to $692m, most of it in Alphabet stock plus shares in Waymo and Wing. Nothing says "we believe in moonshots" like tying your CEO's wealth to autonomous cars and delivery drones. Meanwhile, Anthropic released a list of jobs that will be impacted by AI. Reads like a Doom’s Day report for white-collar workers. Follow the Gradient and stay tuned.
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Your talk track for this week’s cocktail party
Europe’s AI cloud contender lands $2bn megadeal
Nvidia-backed AI cloud start-up Nscale has raised $2bn in a record Series C round for Europe, valuing the two-year-old UK company at $14.6bn. The round underscores surging investor appetite for AI infrastructure despite market jitters. Former Meta heavyweights Sheryl Sandberg and Nick Clegg are joining the board as Nscale ramps up data centre projects for customers including OpenAI and Microsoft.
Flink raises $100m as quick commerce stages a comeback
Berlin-based Flink raised $100m at a $900m valuation, led by Prosus. The company claims it now operates profitably at EBITDA level across Germany and the Netherlands. A far cry from its $5bn peak in 2022, but a signal that quick commerce may finally have a sustainable business model after the sector shakeout.
Nvidia and UK government back self-driving startup Oxa
Oxford spinout Oxa raised $103m in a Series D first close, with $50m from the UK National Wealth Fund and backing from Nvidia's venture arm and BP Ventures. The company builds autonomous vehicle software for industrial settings like ports, airports and factories, not public roads. It plans to raise more by mid-2026.
What do you meme?
Food for thought
Are European startups hiding as Delaware corps?
We analyzed all 5,690 Y Combinator companies ever funded. 402 had European headquarters. Europe's share of YC batches dropped from 13.1% in 2021 to 5.5% in 2025. Looks like decline, but probably isn't. Incorporations in Delaware or European founders moving to SF show up as American. Is this a sign of Europe not being attractive?
Are more people coming from the US to Europe?
The Economist flags a reversal in tech talent migration: for the first time, more tech workers are moving from the US to Europe than the other way around. Notable, though: migration patterns in general are declining. Is this the rise of Europe, or the collapse of a global tech scene?
We are so, so early with AI
Steven Bartlett shared a visualization that reframes the AI hype: out of 8.1bn people, 6.8bn have never used AI in any form. Only 2-5m use it for coding. 82% of American businesses aren't using AI for anything. Paying for one AI tool and using it daily for a month puts you in the top 1% of AI knowledge on the planet.
Andreas Goeldi made a similar observation on our podcast (Youtube / Spotify): the shift from SaaS to service-as-software will take longer than the hype suggests, but will be more profound than anyone expects.
Smart hack
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From us
Growing your LinkedIn audience is tough. Adam Robinson hit 150,000 followers and shared the 9 lessons from 36 months and 700+ posts. The ones that stood out:
Storytelling beats updates. Monthly build-in-public posts about emotional journeys outperform factual company updates every time.
Hook or die. If people don't click "see more", you wasted your time writing that post. The hook is everything.
Establish credibility immediately. Treat every post as if nobody has ever heard of you. Lead with proof of work.
Pattern match from the greats. Study high-performing creators, adapt their playbook to your niche.
Ride the wave. When AI was eating all attention, Robinson crafted a stunt about his business running on AI for a week. It worked. Relevance compounds.
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
Founder's Associate Intern [📍Berlin, Germany], Scale Energy [Apply]
Community Intern [📍Munich, Germany], Process Mining, Celonis [Apply]
Marketing Internship [📍Madrid, Spain], Financial Services, Dojo [Apply]
Founders Associate (Intern) (f/m/d) [📍Munich, Germany], Datagon AI [Apply]
Finance & Strategy Intern [📍Paris, France], Food Delivery, Deliveroo [Apply]
Project Management Intern [📍Munich, Germany], Logistics / Supply Chain, The Exploration Company [Apply]
Founder's Associate Intern - Sales (m/f/d) [📍Berlin, Germany], Data & AI, forward earth [Apply]
Product Manager Intern - Platform [📍Paris, France], Marketplace Tech, Mirakl [Apply]
Working Student - Data Operations (F/M/D) [📍Munich, Germany], NavVis [Apply]
Customer Success
Senior Customer Success Manager [📍France], API Infrastructure, Kong [Apply]
Implementation Manager - Secondary Care & Enterprise [📍London, UK], Accurx [Apply]
Customer Success Manager - Mid-Market (f/m/d) [📍Berlin, Germany], enterprise, doinstruct [Apply]
Marketing & Comms
AI-Native Commercial Operator (f/m/d) [📍Berlin, Germany], Digital Health, Vara [Apply]
Food content creator [📍Paris, France], Jow [Apply]
Lead Field Marketing | North EMEA [📍London, UK], AI Translation, DeepL [Apply]
Eleven Creative - B2B Marketing Lead [📍UK], AI Voice, Eleven Labs [Apply]
Senior Brand & Content Designer [📍Lausanne, Switzerland], Data & AI, Neural Concept [Apply]
Sr. Trade Marketing Manager (m/f/d) [📍Berlin, Germany], Consumer Food, Holy [Apply]
Product Marketing Manager:in [📍Berlin, Germany], Health Tech, Nelly [Apply]
Marketing Manager (Demand Generation) [📍London, UK], Artificial Intelligence, Tessl [Apply]
Sales
Enterprise Account Manager (EMEA) [📍London, UK], Choco [Apply]
(Senior) Account Executive [📍Berlin, Germany], Scale Energy [Apply]
Sales Enablement Specialist [📍Hamburg, Germany], marketplace, CarOnSale [Apply]
Sales Manager - Regional (SME & Key Accounts) [📍London, UK], Zoopla [Apply]
Revenue Operations Manager - Revenue Insights (m/f/d) [📍Munich, Germany], EGYM [Apply]
Enterprise Account Executive | Switzerland [📍Zurich, Switzerland], AI Translation, DeepL [Apply]
Founding Growth Marketer [📍London, UK], greenpixie [Apply]
Sales Development Rep (Nordics) [📍Munich, Germany], Emidat [Apply]
Strategy & Ops
Accounting Specialist (w/m/d) [📍Munich, Germany], FTAPI [Apply]
EU Head of Compliance (2LOD) [📍Copenhagen, Denmark], FinTech, Pleo [Apply]
(Senior) Deal Strategy & Operations Manager [📍London, UK], SaaS Procurement, Vertice [Apply]
Chief of Staff (Maternity leave cover – 6-month fixed-term contract) [📍France], Payment Infrastructure, Formance [Apply]
Operations Insights Analyst [📍London, UK], FinTech, Ebury [Apply]
Product & Tech
Head of Computer Vision [📍Paris, France], AI Photo Editing, Photoroom [Apply]
Product Manager - Connectivity - Full Remote or Hybrid (m/f/d) [📍France], E-Commerce & Marketplace, Splendia [Apply]
Staff Software Engineer - Full Remote or Hybrid (m/f/d) [📍France], E-Commerce & Marketplace, Splendia [Apply]
Head of Platform & Security [📍Berlin, Germany], Construction Tech, Cosuno [Apply]
Technical Product Manager, Integrations (m/f/d) [📍Berlin, Germany], Mobility & Transportation, Mercanis [Apply]
Final words — take what you need
Stay connected and spread the word! If you found this newsletter insightful, why not share it with your network? Thanks for reading, and we look forward to bringing you even more insights in the next edition!
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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