These were the 10 biggest European tech stories this week

Happy Friday!

This week, our research team tracked over 50 tech funding deals worth more than €600 million, as well as over 10 M&A transactions, rumours, 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) EU antitrust regulators are investigating Google’s collection of data.

2) Ogury, the London-based digital marketing engine driven by customer consent, has raised $50 million to fuel expansion across Europe, the US, and APAC. Idinvest Partners and various banks participated in the round.

3) US semiconductor giant Intel is in advanced talks to buy Israeli startup Habana Labs for an estimated $1 billion.

4) Hastee, a London-based on-demand wages app, announced this morning it has secured about $270 million in equity and debt financing. Umbra Capital (a one-year-old self-described modern merchant bank that invests in UK-based small-to-medium enterprises) led the equity portion of the funding, which amounted to about $20 million. The startup also secured a $250 million credit line.

5) Denmark's Astralis Group is set to become the first esports team franchise to go public.

6) Mustafa Suleyman — one of the three co-founders of the company’s influential AI lab DeepMind — is moving to a policy role at Google. Suleyman said on Twitter that after a “wonderful decade” at DeepMind, he would be joining Google to work with the company’s head of AI Jeff Dean and its chief legal officer Kent Walker.

7) Cuvva, the London-based neo insurance startup, has raised a £15 million Series A from RTP Global, Breega and Digital Horizon. The insurtech company wants to offer mobile-first insurance solutions that fit modern consumers’ lifestyles and expectations of service providers.

8) Cazoo, a London, UK-based tech platform for used car buying, raised £25 million in further funding. Investors included General Catalyst and Mubadala Capital.

9) GitGuardian, the Paris-based cybersecurity startup specialising in finding company “secrets” in online code, has raised $12 million in Series A funding, led by Balderton Capital.

10) Uncapped, Europe’s first revenue-based finance provider, has set out to help European founders raise working capital without giving up control of their business or going deep into debt. Based in London with an office in Warsaw, the new financing firm has raised a £10 million seed round from White Star Capital, Global Founders Capital, and Seedcamp.

Podcast:

tech.eu Podcast #145: Mega-round for Picnic, October is more than just a month, the Apostrophe Protection Society, interview with Raphaël Meyer of Lancey + Slush Interview Special: Sophie Adelman (WhiteHat) and Pieter van der Does (Adyen)

Bonus link: “The VC Factor” is a large-scale study of VC-backed startups located in the European Union. Thanks to the joint effort of the EIF and Invest Europe, the research looks at about 9,000 firms invested in 2007-15 and analyses their characteristics as well as their post-investment performance.