These were the 10 biggest European tech stories this week

Happy Saturday!

This week, we tracked 75 tech funding deals worth more than €502 million, as well as 9 M&A transactions across Europe, including Russia, Israel, and Turkey.

We listed every single deal in our weekly newsletter (note: the full newsletter is now available to paying subscribers only). Here’s an extra overview of the 10 biggest European tech news items for this week:

1) This week, the new EU-wide data protection rules became applicable after a two-year transition period. Some high-profile US news websites, including The Chicago Tribune and LA Times were temporarily unavailable after new EU data protection rules came into effect because apparently two years was not enough time to prepare.

2) Also, Facebook and Google were promptly hit with a raft of lawsuits accusing the companies of coercing users into sharing personal data. The lawsuits, which seek to fine Facebook 3.9 billion and Google 3.7 billion euro (roughly $8.8 billion in dollars), were filed by Austrian privacy activist Max Schrems, a longtime critic of the companies’ data collection practices.

3) Adyen, a Dutch company that powers payments for large and smaller e-commerce merchants and others, plans to list on the Euronext Amsterdam exchange and sell up to 15 percent of its shares, valuing the firm at between €6 billion and €9 billion after the IPO.

4) Europe's early-stage investment firm Seedcamp has announced the final close of its fourth fund at £60 million. This is over 30 times larger than the Seedcamp's first fund of $2.5 million raised in 2007.

5) Yelp has filed a complaint with the EU’s antitrust watchdog against Google, arguing that the search company has abused its dominance in local search and pressuring Brussels to launch new charges against the tech giant.

6) Ireland-based online gaming company Paddy Power Betfair has agreed to buy New York-based fantasy sports site FanDuel, will merge its US assets with the latter and invest $158 million in cash.

7) Uber will build a new Advanced Technologies Center in Paris focused on its ambitious Uber Elevate project, the ride-hail company’s first R&D hub located outside North America. Uber says it will spend €20 million over five years to engineer all the backend technology, including AI algorithms and air traffic control systems, necessary to support a full-scale aerial taxi service. The company also announced that its contractors will get better insurance coverage in 21 European countries.

8) Tallin, Estonia-based Karma Ventures has announced the closing of its maiden fund at €70 million, to invest in early-stage deep tech startups across Europe. UK-based Isomer Capital has joined as a limited partner in the fund, and the rest of the increased capital has come from family offices, pension funds, and existing investors.

9) IBM CEO Ginni Rometty announced a plan to create 1,800 jobs over the next two years in France in areas like AI, blockchain, cloud computing and IoT.

10) French startup Platform.sh has raised a $34 million funding round. The company wants to help you manage your cloud infrastructure by handling the most tedious part of the job.

Bonus link: Macron Vowed to Make France a ‘Start-Up Nation.’ Is It Getting There? (NYT)