Dear hustlers, founders, operators and visionaries,

Saudi Arabia’s 2029 Asian Winter Games - yes, winter - are at risk of delay in building its snow mountain. Leaders are weighing a handoff to another host. For lessons in pivots, they could ask Mark Zuckerberg: Meta just reshuffled its AI unit for the fourth time in six months, announcing a tie-up with Midjourney. One of their team’s new goals: bring beauty to billions. Who can compete with that? Follow the Gradient and stay tuned.

🫶🏼 Melanie & Christian

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Your talk track for this week’s cocktail party

VCs pour into European drone defence

With governments alarmed on security and eyeing “Iron Dome”–style tech, Europe’s air defence startup scene is heating up fast. Cambridge Aerospace raised $100m at a $400m valuation to build fast, smart interceptors for drones and cruise missiles. Germany’s Tytan and Sweden’s Nordic Air Defence also closed new rounds as investors bet on low-cost alternatives to expensive missiles.

Too small to scale, too big to be nimble

Peter Thiel–backed SNÖ Ventures is shutting down after nearly a decade, with partners Magne Uppman, Teodor Bjerrang and Max Samuel launching their own solo funds. Despite strong returns from its early funds, they felt SNÖ risked being stuck between too small and too big to compete. The portfolio – including Sky Mavis, Nordic Air Defence and Aris Machina – will still be supported.

What do you meme?

Food for thought

Less traffic for websites?

AI summaries in search engines like Google or chatbots like ChatGPT eliminate the need for the human user to visit a website. Traffic is dropping significantly. As Tomasz Tunguz writes, users click just 8% of AI search results vs. 15% on classic search results. How will website owners handle this?
Recommendation: check out the yesterday’s Financial Times article on the effects on the media business.

Are Marketing budgets being wasted?

The questions of all questions: where do you allocate your Marketing budget? Ideally where your revenue comes from. As Jack Saper of Emergence Capital writes, the mismatch is highest on the referral channel for B2B SaaS. Instead of pushing events, focus on building customer advocacy?

What is an attractive offer?

Events happening this week

We constantly update this quarter’s must-attend events for startups in Europe list.

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Smart hack

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From us

We wrote about how the personal CEO brand is key in your growth efforts. But how to best capture the knowledge they have, given that CEOs rarely have time?

Carilu Dietrich posted this beautiful hack of creating a CEO GPT, as exemplified with the AntonGPT of the Founder of Loveable. Capture the content of your CEO’s messages, quotes from All Hands, customer conversations and interviews in one GPT - and have it churn out content for your social media whenever you need it.

One good read

Situational Anxiety - On Europe's Reluctance to Seriously Compete in AI

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

Growth intern [📍City or Remote], Industry, telli [Apply, Hiring manager]
Logistics Intern [📍Bordeaux], Space Tech, The Exploration Company [Apply]
Customer Success Intern [📍Zurich], InsurTech, grape [Apply]
Working Student Support & Success Specialist [📍Hamburg], CleanTech, 1KOMMA5° [Apply]

Customer Success

Customer Success Manager [📍Hybrid, Berlin], ESG Data, PlanA [Apply]
Account Management Specialist [📍Remote, France], Carbon Tracking, OneClick LCA [Apply]
Customer Success Manager [📍Bern], MarkTech, hypt [Apply, Hiring manager]

Marketing & Comms

Senior Product Marketing Manager [📍Hybrid, Frankfurt], Process Optimization, Operations1 [Apply]
Marketing Lead [📍Zurich], LegalTech, Omnilex [Apply, Hiring manager]

Sales

Enterprise Account Executive [📍Hybrid, Berlin], Construction, Cosuno [Apply]
Account Executive [📍Zurich], Video, expeerly [Apply, Hiring manager]

Strategy & Ops

Private Equity Lead EMEA [📍London], FinTech, Stripe [Apply, Hiring manager]
Analyst Deeptech Early Stage Team [📍Berlin, London, or Munich], VC, HV Capital [Apply]
Chief of Staff [📍Berlin], HR Tech, JOIN [Apply]

Product & Tech

Senior Product Manager [📍Remote], Subscription Management, RevenueCat [Apply]
Director of Product [📍Hybrid, Berlin], Earth Observation, LiveEO [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!