Happy Friday! This week, tech.eu tracked 16 technology M&A transactions and 71 funding deals (totalling €337 million) in Europe and Israel.
Like every week, we listed every single one of them in our free weekly newsletter, along with interesting news regarding fledgling European startups, tech investors old and new, a number of good reads published elsewhere, government and policy news, as well as an overview of interesting lists, facts and figures from a wide variety of sources.
You can subscribe to our newsletter below to receive all this information in your inbox every Friday afternoon for free, but here's an overview of the 10 biggest European tech news items for this week:
1) A group of Chinese Internet firms made a $1.2 billion offer to acquire Opera Software. The Norwegian company's board recommended the deal, which means that Opera might soon have new owners.
2) London-based and student accommodation startup Student.com raised the largest round of the week: $60 million led by VY Capital.
3) Spanish bank BBVA shut down its in-house venture arm and announced it has allocated $250 million into new FinTech and London-based VC Propel Venture Partners.
4) WorldRemit closed a $45 million round at a $500 million valuation to grow its mobile money transfer business.
5) Also in the FinTech space, and a competitor of BBVA-backed SumUp, German payments startup Payleven raised $10 million.
6) SoundCloud's revenue numbers for 2014 were disclosed and they don't paint a pretty picture for the music startup (i.e. a $44 million loss). This week it was also revealed that the previously announced debt round of €32 million was much larger, of €77 million.
7) Well-funded startups Delivery Hero and YPlan announced significant staff cuts.
8) French data privacy regulator cracked down on Facebook, which could hammer the social network's advertising business model.
9) Uber's problems in Europe continue: its French executives are on trial in France over 'illegal taxi' charges and protests from black-cab drivers' brought London traffic to a standstill.
10) Badoo, arguably the world's largest dating site, acquired Lulu and its founder Alexandra Chong will join the London-based company as president.
Bonus link: New Europe VCs vow Valley-size returns with small, targeted bets
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