Happy Friday!
Our research team tracked 51 tech funding deals worth more than €478 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 last week:
1) Fast-growing UK startup bank Monzo is now valued at £1 billion, just three years after launching, as the company announced on Wednesday that it has raised £85 million in a Series E funding round. Investors include US-based VC firms General Catalyst and Accel, with existing investors Passion Capital, Goodwater, Thrive Capital, Orange Digital Ventures and Stripe chipping in.
2) NXMH, a Belgium-based investment company, has acquired digital currency exchange Bitstamp in an all-cash deal. The exchange’s CEO Nejc Kodrič declined to disclose terms of the deal, but Bitstamp was valued at $60 million back in 2016.
3) The UK government has announced a new “digital services” tax of two percent that it plans to start levying on the UK revenues of tech giants like Amazon, Google and Apple based on the money they make on digital services like advertising and streaming entertainment (but not online sales). Announced as part of the 2018 Budget by UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond, the tax is due to come into effect in April 2020. Hammond said that the government expects to raise more than £400 million ($512 million) annually based on current revenues.
4) Spotify sent its shares tumbling as much as 10 percent on Thursday after the world’s most popular paid music streaming service said it would continue to sacrifice profit margins to generate future growth. The Swedish company now boasts 87 million paid Premium subscribers and 191 million total active monthly users. Spotify jumped from posting a €73 million ($83.3 million) loss in Q3 last year to a €6 million ($6.8 million) loss in this year’s Q3 results.
5) Berlin-based startup unu has landed a $12 million funding round led by Ponooc, with participation from Capnamic Ventures, IRIS Capital, Michael Baum, and NRW.BANK. The company claims to have sold some 10,000 vehicles since its launch in 2013; now it’s going to use the raised capital to build a second generation of its scooter that will be connected to the internet. Moreover, the company’s vision goes well beyond two-wheelers all the way to autonomous car fleets.
6) Volkswagen and Intel's Mobileye have announced that they've partnered to form New Mobility, a self-driving ride-hailing service in Israel.
7) German insurtech startup omni:us has raised a $22.5 million funding round from Target Global, MMC Ventures, and Talis Capital, with participation from existing investors Unbound and Anthemis. The company plans to use the money to further develop its AI-powered platform and expand into the US later this year.
8) Starship Technologies, a robotics startup created by two of Skype’s founders, is launching what it’s claiming to be a world’s first today: a commercial, autonomous, ground-based robotic package delivery service.
9) A number of border control checkpoints in the European Union are about to get increasingly—and unsettlingly—futuristic. In Hungary, Latvia, and Greece, travellers will be given an automated lie-detection test—by an animated AI border agent. The system, called iBorderCtrl, is part of a six-month pilot led by the Hungarian National Police at four different border crossing points.
10) Siemens is planning to build a €600 million campus in Berlin.andle chores like changing the battery and various components.
Podcast: tech.eu Podcast #93: Google abandons Berlin campus plans; Ireland cracks down on Airbnb; interview with SevenVentures’ Florian Pauthner; and much more
Bonus link: Chinese take growing slice of Israeli tech investment (Globes)
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