These were the 10 biggest European tech stories this week

Happy Friday!

This week, our research team tracked more than 70 tech funding deals worth over €1.6 billion, as well as some 10 M&A transactions and related news stories across Europe, including Russia, Israel, and Turkey.

Meanwhile, here's an overview of the 10 biggest European tech news items for this week:

1) Swedish startup Northvolt has raised $1 billion to build a battery farm to rival Tesla’s "gigafactory".

2) Shares of Fiverr skyrocketed 90% on the Israeli freelancer match-making platform’s public debut Thursday.

3) Belgium-born Combell has merged with The Netherlands-based TransIP Group to create an entirely new holding dubbed team.blue. The deal creates a new European tech unicorn, with the combined entity reaching a valuation that exceeds $1 billion. Together, Combell and TransIP will offer a range of digital tools such as hosting, email and applications to over 1.2 million customers across Europe.

4) German-founded Urban farming startup Infarm has secured a $100 million funding round described as a mix of equity and debt financing led by Atomico, with participation from existing investors Balderton Capital, Astanor Ventures, Cherry Ventures, and TriplePoint Capital.

5) The UK’s Crane Venture Partners, an early-stage VC that focuses on data-driven enterprise startups, has closed its first $90 million institutional fund. Crane’s founders, Scott Sage and Krishna Visvanathan, have previously invested as a team in companies like Icera, H2O.ai, Netronome, Onfido, and Trustpilot.

6) German startup Adjust, which specialises in mobile advertising measurement and analytics, has landed a $227 million mega-round led by Eurazeo Growth, Highland Europe, Morgan Stanley Alternative Investment Partners, and Sofina.

7) US-based private equity group KKR has announced an offer to buy the stakes in the German publisher Axel Springer from minority shareholders at €63 per share. The offer represents a 40 percent premium on the price of Axel Springer’s shares as of May 29.

8) London-based data privacy software startup Privitar has secured a funding round of $40 million led by Accel, with participation from existing investors Partech, Salesforce Ventures, 24Haymarket, and IQ Capital.

9) ivi, one of Russia’s largest over the top (OTT) video-on-demand platforms, has secured $40 million in funding from the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), Mubadala Investment Company (UAE), Baring Vostok, Flashpoint VC, RTP Global, and Winter Capital.

10) McMakler, a Berlin, Germany-based proptech startup, has raised €50 million in Series C financing in a round led by Target Global and Israel Growth Partners. Existing investors, including Frog Capital, also chipped in, although it’s worth noting the round comes with a rather big debt component of more than €10 million.

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