Dear hustlers, founders, operators and visionaries,

Winter has arrived and we were wondering if all this heat from the data centres powering AI models could be used to warm some of those freezing train platforms out there. More heat is probably the opposite of what is needed in the boardroom of fallen battery star Northvolt, which is reportedly close to bankruptcy within the next days. With the year drawing to a close, the stage is set for intense final weeks. Follow the Gradient and stay tuned.

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Your talk track for this week’s cocktail party

Klarna files for an IPO

Swedish buy now, pay later unicorn Klarna is preparing an IPO. It is the second time in three years the company is seeking a public listing, despite its valuation being battered. Klarna is one of the few unicorns on the European fintech horizon besides Revolut (and rumors go they will also list next year). It will use the US as its IPO base - a further slap in the face of European capital markets.

Building up Europe’s resilience through Tech investing

Tech investor and founder of venture firm Lakestar Klaus Hommels announced a new fund to back European defence startups to increase the continents resilience. Certainly impressive is that he pledged a private sum of at least €100m to supply the fund. While these dynamics are specific to Europe, Defence Tech as a whole has been gaining sympathy with venture capitalists: only in August, Y Combinator committed its first funding with defence aviation firm Ares Industries.

Big bags for a space star

Munich-based space company The Exploration Company secured a $160m Series B funding round. Developing its own space capsule in direct competition to the one of SpaceX, the firm was able to commit these funds in one of the largest recent financing rounds on the continent - outside the AI domain. Their funding track record is impressive for both being outside the US, and mostly coming from private investors: SpaceX’s capsule was funded mostly by NASA.

What do you meme?

Food for thought

Ownership, not FOMO?

The startup world teaches us to generate FOMO as a key pillar to create traction in a funding round. As Chris Neumann outlines, the right level of ownership a fund secures may be more important than any type of FOMO. Ownership in a 100x venture will return the fund and a supposedly oversubscribed opportunity may rather generate the impression that appropriate ownership levels are hard to achieve. Next time, rather not do an outreach à la “Pre-Seed — Proven Founder — Round Almost Full — AI, Robotics”?

AI on a fight against vertical SaaS

The story of a Claude-powered expense receipt bot built in 15min and handling 1.2k invoices in a month made waves on LinkedIn last week. LLM-based architectures, enhanced with “agents” who allow an “AI to orchestrate an AI” fundamentally question the right to exist for many SaaS solutions. Will AI indeed eat software?

What happens when robots don’t need us anymore

Looking for a thought-provoking documentary? Check out Bloomberg Originals series “Posthuman” and let us know how you feel about the future. 🤖

Mark your calendar

Austria

TechDay in Vienna, 21 November [Program]

Finnland

Slush in Helsinki, 19-21 November [Program]

Are you going there? We just arrived yesterday night, reply to this email and let’s meet up!

Germany

Insurance Summit in Düsseldorf, 19 November [Program]
KI Summit in Munich, 20-21 November [Program]

Switzerland

Open-i in Zurich, 21-22 November [Program]
Founders Dinner: Basel, 19 November [Register]

Did we miss an important event? Let us know by replying to this email.

Do you like what we do at Follow the Gradient? Help us grow this community and share a like and add a comment to our LinkedIn post that just went live:

Smart hack

Most CTAs are too generic and hurt conversion. To change this, design expert Joumana Eloumar advices these simple tricks:
✅ Add in social proof to create FOMO: Join 70,000+ creators instead of Get started
✅ Address objections to reduce friction: Try X in 5mins instead of Sign-up
✅ Give something away to reduce friction: Get first chapter free instead of Buy it now
✅ Make the value clear in each action: Get a free 15mins consult instead of Contact us
✅ Make it clear what happens: Take a 2min tour instead of Explore

One good read

Klarna’s Seb Siemiatkowski — from burger flipping to billionaire club

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

Market Launcher, Sales Intern (6 months)[📍Lisbon], TravelTech, Bounce [Apply]
Working Student - Communications & Branding [📍Berlin], CleanTech, Dunia [Apply]
Student job energy consultant: 40-80% [📍Zurich], CleanTech, Norm [Apply]

Customer Success

Customer Success Manager [📍Paris], Cybersecurity, Filigran [Apply]
Customer Success Director [📍Remote, Europe], AI Testing Platform, OfferFit [Apply]

HR & Finance

Director People [📍Munich], OTC Trading, enmacc [Apply]
Senior Accountant [📍Berlin, Hamburg], Fintech, Raisin [Apply]

Marketing & Comms

Editorial Assistant [📍London], Tech News, Sifted [Apply, Hiring manager]
Event and Customer Marketing [📍Zurich], MarTech, Brame [Apply]
Marketing Designer [📍London] B2B SaaS, Conduktor [Apply]

Sales

Head of Sales Europe at bootstrapped startup (80-100%) [📍Zurich], eCommerce, Expeerly [Apply, Hiring manager]
Director of Sales [📍Remote], Vacation rental SaaS, Hostaway [Apply]

Strategy & Ops

Founding Ops Manager [📍London], AI, Granola [Apply]
Chief of Staff [📍Remote], Desk Booking, Deskbird [Apply]

Product & Tech

Product Designer [📍Berlin], FemTech, Clue [Apply, Hiring manager]
Founding Full Stack Engineer [📍Winterthur], Real Estate, AssetOS [Apply]
Head of Product [📍Munich], Real Estate, Predium [Apply]
Backend Software Engineer [📍Europe], B2B SaaS, Northflank [Apply]

Final words — take what you need

Talk to you on Thursday for this week’s podcast for which we will do something slightly different! In the meantime, let’s continue the discussion on LinkedIn, X, Insta and YouTube!

🫶🏼 Melanie & Christian

Each week, a lot of work goes into the Follow the Gradient project to help you navigate this crazy jungle called entrepreneurship. Help us grow this community and we’ll make sure that you or your project gets a shoutout in the weekly newsletter!