New data published today by Dealroom reveal that European VC investment rose 5% year-on-year for the first quarter of 2024. What’s more, the Netherlands is showing a particularly strong comeback. Amsterdam funding rose a highly encouraging 107%.

Overall, European VC investment reached $13.7bn in Q1 2024, an increase fuelled to a great extent by the energy transition. Energy was the biggest sector for tech startup and scaleup investment for the fourth quarter in a row, having raised $3.1bn in the first three months of the year.

The top five energy deals of the period were:

Electra — $330mn, Paris
H2 Green Steel — $325mn, Stockholm
Deep Green — $253mn, London
Sunfire — $233mn, Dresden
ENVIRIA — $200mn, Frankfurt

Deep tech and climate tech companies raised 27% and 26% of the total funding in the first quarter. Naturally, these two sectors often intersect, and companies belonging to both categories accounted for 13% of total funds raised, with large sums allocated to technological efforts to combat climate change.

Europe leading segments by VC investment, Q1 2024. Credit: Dealroom
Amsterdam startup ecosystem on a funding roll

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Dutch startups were, as previously mentioned, off to a flying start. This was driven in large part by substantial raises by grocery delivery service Picnic and recently-turned-unicorn hotel management platform Mews, as well as mobility financing company Moove and intelligent audit platform DataSnipper.

This puts the Netherlands in fourth spot in terms of money raised in Q1 $1.3bn. Unsurprisingly, the UK tops the chart with $3.9bn. London accounted for $2.4bn of this, however, this figure was down 18% from last year. In second place was Germany with $2.3bn, followed by France, where VCs invested $1.7bn.

European countries by VC investment Q1 2024. Credit: Dealroom

Across the board, there were over 500 deals of $2mn or more. Meanwhile, generative AI accounted for 38 of investments (up from 24 in Q1 2023 and totalling $399mn), including Berlin-based Qdrant with $28mn, and Paris’ PhotoRoom with $43mn.

“It’s particularly encouraging to see that over 500 companies raised at least $2mn or more, showcasing the strong pipeline of startups who will scale up to build the next generation of category-defining companies,” said Sahar Meghani, partner at Visionaries Club, a VC based in Berlin, adding that the firm was bullish that Europe would continue this momentum into 2024.

Today — on Earth Day — non-profit search engine Ecosia has launched the “greenest browser on Earth” as it seeks to offer customers a more sustainable alternative to Google Chrome or Apple’s Safari. 

Just like Ecosia’s search engine, the more you use the browser, the more trees you will help plant. The Berlin-based company says it has already planted 200 million trees since 2009. 

The new browser will be powered by renewable energy from Ecosia’s own solar farms.  In fact, the company says the browser will actually generate green energy — 25Wh per user each day they browse. That’s enough to power a lightbulb for 3 hours. This may not seem like much,, but it’ll add up if Ecosia’s 20 million existing search engine customers start using the browser too. 

Ecosia’s browser has been optimised for speed. It claims that loading pages is up to three times faster than most mainstream browsers. This is thanks to an inbuilt ad-blocker that reduces user data and energy consumption. 

The <3 of EU tech

The latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol’ founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It’s free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!

Michael Metcalf, Ecosia’s chief product officer, told TNW  that the company wanted to create a browser that wasn’t only more sustainable, but also competitive.

“Ecosia is in building mode, and we’re confident our product has never been stronger when it comes to user experience,” Metcalf said.

As of March 2024, Google Chrome and Safari had 65% and 19% of browser market share respectively. Microsoft Edge comes in third place with 5%, while Firefox — which in 2011, took 30% of the browser market — now only has 2.8%.

With the dominance of Chrome and Safari, changing consumers’ browsing habits is no easy feat. However, the EU’s recent Digital Markets Act, which in March, may help level the playing field. 

“We welcome recent moves like the DMA,” said Ecosia CEO and founder Christian Kroll. “Our browser is also another way for them to become more independent from big tech.” 

“We look forward to seeing how it’s received as we continue to broaden our climate commitments across reforestation, green investments, and advocacy.” 

Built on Google’s open-source platform Chromium, the browser will be familiar to anyone who already uses Chrome. This includes customisable browsing and security features like password management and SSL encryption. 

Users will have access to Ecosia’s existing features, such as its green leaf icon, climate pledge rating, and newly launched AI Chat, powered by OpenAI. The chatbot generates “greener answers,” directing users to sustainable solutions. 

The browser also contains a “sponsored links” feature, where users can shop online, while supporting Ecosia’s climate action projects at no extra cost. This will create a new revenue stream for the company which previously made all of its money via ad revenue.

Ecosia claims all of its profits go directly to tree-planting projects across the world. And now, with the new browser, to clean energy generation. 

In 2018, Ecosia gave away its shares to the Purpose Foundation, to assure that it can never be sold and that no one, including the founder, can profit or receive dividends from the company.

The Ecosia browser is now available for desktop on Mac and Windows via a download page, and for mobile via Android and iOS app stores.

Becoming a board member is relatively straightforward at most associations. You demonstrate expertise in a profession, volunteer with the association that serves it, then make your way through the association’s particular governance pipeline to get a board seat.

Becoming a good, strategy-minded board member is often another matter, though. Boards don’t always come in with a solid grounding of the work they’re being asked to do, or how to do it. That can lead to divisiveness, inaction, and even outright toxicity. Last month I participated in an Association Forum of Chicagoland webinar on the topic, and much of the conversation turned on the importance of solid onboarding processes.

But as long as I’ve been covering associations, leaders have struggled to get their boards to fully grasp their responsibilities. Mark Engle, DM, FASAE, CAE, principal of Association Management Center (and who helps run ASAE’s Exceptional Boards program), has recently been trying to address that on two fronts. First, he’s been working on something close to a one-size-fits-all introductory video that walks board members through the basics of their duties. It’s not a video AMC shares publicly, but it does a fine job of clarifying the duties specific to boards—in under ten minutes.

Engle’s process distills governance down to three pillars—strategy, structure, and culture.

That brevity is a response to our ever-shortening attention spans, of course. But it also reflects an effort to boil board work down to governance essentials. “What’s the centerpiece that you alone as a board member are responsible for?” Engle says. “We need to be careful, or various things can really undo what a board is trying to achieve. That means having a mindset of asking what we’re doing with strategy, what you’re doing with structure, and what you’re doing with culture. That helps shape where the conversation goes.”

The emphasis on those three pillars of governance—strategy, structure, and culture—helps streamline the conversation during orientation. And when it comes to avoiding some of the toxicity that can infect boards, Engle stresses that culture can’t be talked about too much. Culture, he points out, simply means how a board gets its work done. But it also speaks to the roadblocks that keep a board from doing its best strategic work—interpersonal disagreements, lack of trust, influence poorly or unethically wielded.

To that end, the lion’s share of the questions that AMC uses in its board member self-assessment [PDF] deal with cultural matters. Among the traits board members are asked to rate themselves on: “I attend all board meetings—physically, mentally, and emotionally”; “I challenge issues and assumptions, not individuals”; “I am respectful of the opinions of other board members”; “I actively recruit new members and leaders.” Those matters can seem straightforward, like a board is setting a low bar for itself. But when those things don’t happen is when boards tend to go awry.

“Building a healthy governance culture is an ongoing process [PDF], not an intermittent task to rescue you if you inherit the ‘board from hell,’ Nancy R. Axelrod wrote years back in an Association Management article that foregrounds the importance of culture. How association boards handle the culture piece will be as distinct as the pipelines they use to fill board seats. But however they handle culture will have a direct influence on how the association will handle strategy and leadership of the association as a whole.

Scott McKain and I have had countless discussions on the nuances of customer service—a subject where he is an undisputed expert. His insights are always invaluable, so whenever Scott writes a new book, it captures my attention.

In his books and speeches, he challenges businesses not just to excel, but to “create distinction” in their fields. But what happens after a business achieves that pinnacle of becoming best-in-class? According to Scott, the next step is to attain an iconic status that sets a company apart so profoundly that it becomes a benchmark within its industry. It’s like being named “the Nike” or “the Cadillac”. As both Scott and I believe in the power of continuous improvement, our conversation naturally evolved to explore what comes next after reaching iconic heights.

Scott takes us there in his latest book, The Ultimate Customer Service Experience. While many of his other books are for business leadership, this one is for everybody. Why? Because everyone at your organization is responsible for creating the ultimate customer experience.

Have you ever:

tried to shop in a store and had multiple employees tell you, “That’s not my job?”
waited at a restaurant for your server while multiple staff walked by your empty table?
been passed from one person to another on the phone only to end up where you started?

Those all point to an organization’s failure to give every employee a sense of ownership over the customer experience. And while many companies have very “vertical” organizations where different departments are in charge of different aspects of customer service… Scott reminds us that the experience is always “horizontal” from the customer’s point of view. I know that I don’t care what department someone is in. Do you?

This must be modeled from the top down, of course. We all know companies where the leader’s attitude is more “throw anyone under the bus” instead of “the buck stops here.” And we know that creating the ultimate customer experience requires leadership. But if you can’t count on everyone to be part of that team? Then no one person—not even the CEO—can save the day.

As always, Scott isn’t just smart, he’s fun to listen to. His books and presentations are always filled with interesting and inspiring stories because he understands that, in his case, that’s part of creating the experience for us, his audience.

I hope you’ll listen in. It’s a fast-paced conversation with some great takeaways for everyone.

For more information, see The Ultimate Customer Service Experience

Image Credit: Bence Boros

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