These were the 10 biggest European tech stories this week

Happy Friday!

We sincerely hope you and yours are keeping healthy and safe. Please take care of yourself and others.

This week, our research team tracked more than 70 tech funding deals worth over €2 billion (!), as well as 15 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 (subscribe to our free newsletter to get this roundup in your inbox every Monday morning):

1) Just Eat Takeaway.com agreed to acquire US-based Grubhub for $7.3 billion in a deal that creates one of the world’s largest meal-delivery companies as the coronavirus pandemic drives a surge in orders.

2) Online supermarket Ocado is to raise more than £1 billion of fresh equity and debt as it seeks to capitalise on a surge of interest during the coronavirus crisis.

3) Lilium, a German startup that’s making an all-electric vertical takeoff and landing passenger jet became a 'unicorn' after raising $35 million from Baillie Gifford, the largest investor in Tesla after its billionaire owner Elon Musk. Lilium’s new funding came with a post-money valuation of more than a billion dollars, a person familiar with the situation told Bloomberg.

4) The European Union’s antitrust watchdog is planning to file charges against Amazon over its treatment of third-party sellers, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. The charges could come as early as next week or the week after and would focus on Amazon’s dual role as both a seller and operator of the marketplace, according to the Journal.

5) Meanwhile, the UK's watchdog on Friday announced that it has launched an investigation into Facebook’s (reportedly for $400 million) acquisition of Giphy, the popular GIF repository and search engine.

6) Trustly, a startup from Sweden that has built a platform to make it as easy for merchants to accept bank transfers as it is to take card payments to complete online transactions, has raised 'a significant round' of funding from a group of investors led by BlackRock at a +$1 billion valuation.

7) Belgian fintech startup Silverfin has raised a Series B round of $30 million, according to De Tijd. The round was led by Hg Capital with participation from Index Ventures and SmartFin Ventures.

8) A group of prominent German tech entrepreneurs - former Rocket Internet execs - has raised €170 million to set up a 'deep tech'-focused VC firm.

9) Babylon Health has acknowledged that its GP video appointment app has suffered a data breach. The UK tech firm was alerted to the problem after one of its users discovered he had been given access to dozens of video recordings of other patients' consultations.

10) Israeli e-commerce startup Global-e has raised $60 million from international investment fund Vitruvian Partners, a person with knowledge of the matter told Calcalist.

Podcast(s):

tech.eu Podcast #172: Just Eat Grub Takeaway Hub

"We take a look at the role that European startups may play in the food delivery industry in the US. Later in the show, you’ll hear an interview with Antti-Jussi Suominen, CEO at the Finnish fintech startup Holvi." + Check out our guide to European tech and startup podcasts in English!

Bonus link(s):

The World Economic Forum this week released a great report entitled ‘Bridging the Gap in European Scale-up Funding: The Green Imperative in an Unprecedented Time’.