Happy Friday!
This week, our research team tracked more than 40 tech funding deals worth over €800 million, as well as some 15 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) Mastercard has agreed to buy the majority of payment provider Nets' corporate services businesses in its largest-ever acquisition. The US banking giant will pay €2.85 billion (around $3.19 billion) for the Danish target's clearing and instant payment services and e-billing solutions.
2) Klarna, the Sweden-born payments and banking service provider, has raised $460 million in an equity funding round at a post-money valuation of $5.5 billion. The company points out that the valuation makes it the largest private fintech company in Europe.
3) Heidelpay, a payment processing provider for online shops and marketplaces, and its majority shareholder AnaCap Financial Partners, have reached an agreement with investment firm KKR, which will acquire a majority stake in the German payments group for more than €600 million.
4) Fever, a startup that analyses consumer data to curate unique events and experiences to match demand, has just announced a $35 million funding round. The round was led by Rakuten Capital, with participation from Accel Partners and Atresmedia, and it brings the total funding raised by the startup to date to over $70 million.
5) Bitpanda, the Viennese fintech company with more than 1 million users, just reached a significant milestone. The startup sold out their first Initial Exchange Offering (IEO) for its own ecosystem token BEST, having successfully raised €43.6 million. This makes BEST Europe’s most successful IEO to date.
6) The NHS in England is setting up a national artificial intelligence laboratory to enhance care of patients and research. The Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, said AI had "enormous power" to improve care, save lives and ensure doctors had more time to spend with patients. He has announced that £250 million will be spent on boosting the role of AI within the health service.
7) UK-based car marketplace Carwow has announced a £25 million strategic funding round, led by German car manufacturer Daimler, the parent company of the Mercedes-Benz brand.
8) WSC Sports, a Tel Aviv, Israel-based leader in AI-powered sports video content, has raised $23 million in Series C funding. The round, which brought its total funding to $39 million, was led by Eyal Ofer’s O.G. Tech Ventures with participation from NTT DOCOMO Ventures, HBSE Ventures and others.
9) Amazon has extended its anti-counterfeiting program Project Zero to Europe. With this initiative, which launches in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom, the e-commerce giant wants to drive the number of counterfeits on its platform to zero.
10) Vonage said it is acquiring the technical team and intellectual property of Over.ai, an Israeli company focused on conversational AI for enterprises. The unified communications provider bought the Over.ai assets and talent from i.am+, a platform co-owned by musician will.i.am.
Podcast: tech.eu Podcast #129: Babylon Health and Saudi funding, Rockstar taxes kerfuffle, e-scooters and climate risks, Cloudflare and 8chan, and more
Bonus link: These are Europe’s top tech diversity initiatives and communities (Sifted)
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