These were the 10 biggest European tech stories this week

Happy Friday!

This week, we tracked 39 tech funding deals worth more than €251 million, as well as 4 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) Alibaba has acquired a majority stake in Turkish e-commerce company called Trendyol at an enterprise value of at least $750 million, according to multiple sources. Trendyol, which focuses on fashion sales, was founded by a female entrepreneur named Demet Mutlu in 2009. It had raised around $36 million in VC funding from firms like Tiger Global, Kleiner Perkins and Earlybird Venture Capital.

2) Deposit Solutions, a 7-year old fintech company out of Hamburg, Germany, has raised $100 million in a new funding round at a valuation of more than half a billion dollars. The big round was led by private equity firm Vitruvian Partners, with Kinnevik and existing shareholders such as e.ventures participating. Peter Thiel has also backed the fintech company in the past, though it is not known whether he participated in this round.

3) Norwegian online grocery retailer Kolonial.no has raised €31.4 million from Kinnevik, which in turn will receive a 15% stake in the company. Kolonial.no was founded in 2013 and offers grocery delivery to approximately 40% of Norwegian households.

4) Web Summit founder Paddy Cosgrave has rescinded an invitation to far right politician Marine Le Pen to this year’s conference after earlier defending it. In a series of tweets, Cosgrave said that “based on advice we have received on the large reaction online overnight, her presence is disrespectful in particular to our host country.”

5) Stockholm-based Karma, an app the helps restaurants and supermarkets reduce food waste, has raised a $12 million Series A round led by Kinnevik, with participation from Bessemer, e.ventures, and Electrolux. Karma has now raised over $18 million in total.

6) Rovio Entertainment, the maker of the 'Angry Birds' mobile game series and movie, on Friday reported an increase in second-quarter sales at its games business, providing a positive sign for investors after a profit warning in February.

7) DeepMind has successfully developed a system that can analyse retinal scans and spot symptoms of sight-threatening eye diseases. Today, the AI division - owned by Alphabet - published "early results" of a research project with the UK's Moorfields Eye Hospital. They show that the company's algorithms can quickly examine optical coherence tomography (OCT) scans and make diagnoses with the same accuracy as human clinicians.

8) Tel Aviv-based public safety startup Carbyne has raised $15 million in series B financing. The round was led by Elsted Capital Partners and joined by Founders Fund.

9) Russian search giant Yandex is reportedly planning to launch a Chinese-made smartphone under its own brand later this year. Dubbed 'Yandex.Telefon', the device appeared last month in the registry of cryptographic devices authorised for import in the Eurasian Economic Union, of which Russia is a member.

10) London-based Threads has raised $20 million in funding for an operation that courts high-end, millennial, mostly female customers with tailored selections of luxury fashion, which it then sells to them on services like WeChat, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Instagram and Apple’s iMessage for their primary interactions with a team of human (not AI) shopping assistants.

Bonus link: A look at Europe's struggle to build a truly global tech giant and some of the challenges facing its startup ecosystem (Bloomberg)