These were the 10 biggest European tech stories this week

Happy Friday!

This week, our research team tracked over 60 tech funding deals worth more than €600 million, as well as a bunch of M&A transactions across Europe, including Russia, Israel, and Turkey.

We listed every single deal in our weekly newsletter. Here’s an extra overview of the 10 biggest European tech news items for this week:

1) German classified ads company Scout24 — mostly known by its real estate classified ads platform ImmobilienScout24 and the automotive one, AutoScout24 — has agreed to a €4.9 billion takeover bid by Hellman & Friedman and Blackstone Group LP.

2) Ant Financial, the financial services behemoth affiliated with Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, has made its first big move into Europe. It’s acquired London-headquartered payments company WorldFirst in a deal that sources tell TechCrunch is valued at around $700 million.

3) British mobile-first digital banking startup Starling Bank has raised £75 million in funding, of which £60 million comes from a round led by Merian Global Investors, and another £15 million from an existing investor. The company plans to use the money to accelerate its European expansion and further develop the banking offering for private customers and SMEs.

4) The European Union agreed on a new copyright law aimed at reining in tech giants and throwing a lifeline to news publishers. The Wednesday deal comes after months of opposition and lobbying from Internet giants and open-internet activists that led to a stalemate among EU governments.

5) Israeli networking software startup DriveNets emerged out of stealth mode with a cloud-based service that simplifies the deployment of new services for carriers at a time when many telcos are facing declining profit margins. The company announced $110 million in new funding from Bessemer Venture Partners, Pitango Growth and others.

6) British “AI-powered” VC firm InReach Ventures has announced the first closing of its new fund of €53 million, from which it’s going to invest in early-stage European technology startups.

7) Swedish investment powerhouse Kinnevik has committed to invest 0.9 billion Swedish kroner (roughly €86 million) in online grocer MatHem to increase its stake to 38%.

8) Sweden-based Peltarion, a 15-year old company that has developed a platform which essentially allows companies and governments to create and deploy artificial intelligence technology and processes for their own operations, has raised $20 million in fresh funding from Euclidean Capital, the family office for hedge fund billionaire James Simons.

9) Limerick-founded Teckro has landed $25 million in a Series C funding round led by Northpond Ventures, with participation from Founders Fund, Sands Capital Ventures, Section 32, and Borealis Ventures. The total amount of funding secured by the company to date stands at $43 million.

10) Amsterdam-headquartered HERE Technologies, a mapping and location services company that used to be part of Nokia, has announced the launch of the Institute for Advanced Research in Artificial Intelligence (IARAI) in Vienna. The new research institution, in which HERE plans to invest €25 million in the next five years, will focus on machine learning “machine learning that will deepen the location intelligence needed to build an autonomous world”.

Podcast: tech.eu Podcast #105: The Copyright Directive (again), autotech news, interview with Claire Novorol from Ada Health, and more

Bonus link: “A goldmine of tech talent:” Two reports highlight growing software export capacities in four Eastern European countries