These were the 10 biggest European tech stories this week

Happy Saturday!

This week, we tracked 39 tech funding deals worth more than €143 million, as well as 10 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) Farfetch plans to float on the New York Stock Exchange, the Portuguese-born but now London-based online fashion retailer said in a regulatory filing on Monday.

2) The Netherlands-based WeTransfer has acquired the team, patent/IP and trademark portfolio, and all assets for the popular 'Paper' and 'Paste' apps from New York and Seattle-based FiftyThree for an undisclosed sum. Founded in 2009, WeTransfer boasts 42 million monthly users, who are able to send and share large files of all types around the world with ease. But, clearly, it wants to be more than just a file-sharing service.

3) Brussels plans to force companies including Facebook, YouTube and Twitter to identify and delete online terrorist propaganda and extremist violence or face the threat of fines, the FT reported. The European Commission has decided to abandon a voluntary approach to get big internet platforms to remove terror-related videos, posts and audio clips from their websites, in favour of tougher draft regulation due to be published next month. 

4) Volkswagen will invest 3.5 billion euros ($4 billion) by 2025 to build digital businesses and products including a cloud computing-based platform to connect vehicles and customers to offer services such as car sharing.

5) Cologne-founded long-term business apartment marketplace Homelike has raised $14 million in a funding round led by Spark Capital with the participation of existing investors Cherry Ventures, Lürssen and coparion. The company, which currently employs 85 people, will use the capital injection for further scaling.

6) Startup builder/investment firm Rocket Internet will have one of its co-founders assume the responsibilities of chief financial officer as its current executive will soon be leaving the role and the company to pursue "a new management challenge". Having joined Rocket in 2014 from Goldman Sachs, Peter Kimpel (pictured above) will depart the company in the beginning of October.

7) Simple Feast, a Copenhagen-founded startup that delivers environmentally-conscious vegetarian ready-to-eat meals, has raised a $12 million Series A funding round led by Balderton Capital, with participation from 14W in New York.

8) To help avoid future 5G licensing-related fights, Nokia disclosed its licensing fee for 5G standard essential patents: €3 (U.S. $3.48) per device, a flat rate notably lower than 5G licenses announced by rivals Ericsson and Qualcomm.

9) German engineering giant Siemens sees potential for 20,000 job cuts at its as part of its “Vision 2020” strategy, Manager Magazin said in its online edition on Thursday.

10) SoftBank has invested $10 million into German football startup BePro, alongside Altos Ventures and Korea Telekom.

Bonus link: The number of tracking cookies on EU news sites has gone down by 22% according to a report by the Reuters Institute at the University of Oxford, who looked at cookie usage across EU news sites in two phases, in April 2018 and July 2018, pre and post the introduction of the new GDPR.