Sifted's Home desk is the front door of European tech news — the general news vertical that carries the stories the whole ecosystem reads over coffee. Winning here means understanding that Sifted Home reporters are not a press-release triage unit; they are news-breaking journalists writing for founders, VCs and operators who can smell a canned pitch at 50 metres.

This guide gives you the angles, the cadence and the contact discipline needed to land coverage with the Sifted Home desk.

Home is the pan-European general news vertical: funding rounds with real numbers, founder and operator stories, startup launches, market shifts, talent and regulation pressure points. The lens is always European tech, seen from inside.

The desk prizes exclusives, proprietary data and named sources who will say something on record. It deprioritises US-centric stories with a thin "and here's the Europe angle" tail, product feature announcements and anything that reads like a vendor narrative.

Start with the Sifted Home reporters list in your media database and keep it warm — beats rotate, and Home sits close to every other vertical. Two active names to build around:

• Daphne Leprince-Ringuet — deep tech, AI and French/continental European ecosystem stories.
• Freya Pratty — climate tech, VC and the capital side of the European startup economy.

Because Home intersects with Capital, Climate and Deep Tech, a story that straddles two beats is easier to place than a pure single-vertical pitch.

Sifted Home journalists contacts should be assembled from three sources: the outlet's author pages, their own X/LinkedIn presence, and your database record. Verify the current beat before every send — do not rely on a list built last quarter.

Sifted Home journalists respond to tension: a market that looks healthy but isn't, a funding number that contradicts the narrative, a founder willing to name the problem. Build the pitch around one sharp claim.

Strong angles include: a round with an undisclosed-but-now-disclosed figure; a regional comparison (e.g. why Nordic seed rounds are shrinking while Iberian ones grow); a talent or cost shift with named sources; a founder's contrarian post-mortem.

Email is the channel. Send short, plain-text pitches in the morning CET, Monday to Thursday, and skip attachments on the first touch. Subject lines should read like a headline you'd want to click, not a campaign name.

Offer a specific exclusive window and be precise about what's on the table — numbers, a quote, a document. Follow up once, after 72 hours, with something additive rather than a nudge.

When you're accessing Sifted Home journalists contacts, treat the desk as small and interconnected: a sloppy pitch to one reporter is visible to the other. Never cc the whole desk on a generic note, and if a reporter declines, ask what would have made it work — the answer is worth more than the placement.

• ☐ One-line claim in the subject that a stranger would repeat to a colleague
• ☐ Fresh number the reporter cannot get from a press release
• ☐ Named, on-record source confirmed and briefed before you hit send
• ☐ Exclusivity window stated explicitly (and honoured)
• ☐ European relevance articulated in one sentence, not implied
• ☐ Under 180 words, no attachments, signature with a direct mobile
• ☐ Reporter's current beat verified against the Sifted Home reporters list
• ☐ Single follow-up scheduled at 72 hours with a new detail attached

Ship the pitch, log the response, and update your Home desk record the same day — the beat moves faster than your CRM.