These were the 10 biggest European tech stories this week

Happy Friday! This week, tech.eu tracked 11 technology M&A transactions and 63 funding deals (totalling €500 million) in Europe, Turkey 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) Rocket Internet’s ‘Global Fashion Group’ picked up €300 million in funding at a €1 billion valuation - roughly a third of the valuation it fetched less than a year ago. And boy did its stock price suffer.

2) Nokia announced plans to acquire Withings, a connected health product maker based in France, in a transaction that values the company at €170 million. Ben Rooney has a good take on the news.

3) According to Russian media reports, Pavel Durov – the founder of messaging app Telegram – met with Google CEO Sundar Pichai to discuss an acquisition valuing the startup at around $1 billion. Telegram has vehemently denied the rumours, though.

4) European mobile payment startups SumUp and Rocket Internet-backed Payleven are merging.

5) Slovenian company Bitstamp became the first Bitcoin exchange approved to operate in the EU (as in, all 28 member states).

6) EU leak reveals plans to rein in Google, Facebook, and encourage local alternatives.

7) SIRIN Labs, an Israeli-led venture with headquarters in London and initial R&D labs in both Tel Aviv and Lund (Sweden), has raised $72 million in funding to attempt to make some waves in the crowded global smartphone market. Also check out Geektime's coverage of the news.

8) Other notable investments in Europe included France-based car rental marketplace startup Drivy (€31 million) and p2p-lender Lendix ($13.5 million), and German IoT tech company Tado ($23 million).

9) In Germany, VC firms Heilemann Ventures and Earlybird are merging and will set up new fund with a target size of €150 million, while Project A Ventures plans to announce next month that it’s closed a new fund of at least €120 million. Mo' money for Berlin startups, in particular.

10) Germany is set to launch a new incentive scheme worth about 1 billion euros to get more consumers buying electric cars.

Bonus link: How Uber conquered London (The Guardian)

Have a great weekend!