These were the 10 biggest European tech stories this week

Happy Friday!

This week, our research team tracked nearly 60 tech funding deals worth over €1.1 billion, along with a dozen 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) Apple has won its court fight over a record €13 billion Irish tax bill in a crushing blow to European Union antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager’s crackdown on preferential fiscal deals to selected companies. The EU General Court sided with the iPhone maker, ruling on Wednesday that Ireland’s tax arrangements with the company weren’t illegal state aid. The decision can be appealed.

2) Romania-born robotic process automation (RPA) startup UiPath announced it has closed a $225 million funding round, bringing its total raised to over $1.2 billion. While the new round is roughly half the $568 million UiPath raised last April, it catapults the now New York-based company’s post-money valuation to $10.2 billion, up from $7 billion in 2019.

3) Europe's highest court struck down the agreement by which companies operating in the EU are allowed to transfer data to the United States. The court ruled that the agreement leaves European customers' data too exposed to US government surveillance. The agreement, known as Privacy Shield, has been in place since 2016, and more than 5,000 companies operate under its terms. Boiled down, the Court of Justice of the European Union basically ruled that US law is too weak to protect EU citizens' data to the extent EU law demands.

4) Karma Kitchen has raised £252 million (about $317 million) from investors including real estate investment firm Vengrove Asset Management, according to Business Insider. The London-based startup, which offers shared and private commercial kitchen spaces to rent, is also backed by early-stage venture firm Omakase Investment Club.

5) The British government said it would bar telecom companies from purchasing new equipment made by China’s Huawei and gave them until 2027 to remove its technology from their 5G networks, a sharp about-face that marks a significant victory for the US. The decision follows new US restrictions on the sale of Huawei computer chips and comes amid a broader deterioration of relations between the UK and China.

6) Alibaba is reportedly looking to acquire Glovo, the Spanish startup that specialises in on-demand courier services.

7) Vivense, a Turkish online marketplace for furniture, has secured a $130 million investment from Turkish private equity fund Actera Group. The funding will fuel the company’s continued growth in Turkey and ignite its global expansion plans, starting from the UK this year.

8) SoftBank is exploring alternatives including a full or partial sale or public offering of British chip designer Arm, which the Japanese conglomerate bought four years ago for $32 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal.

9) D1 Capital Partners, an American hedge fund which has placed substantial bets on some of the world's biggest technology companies is taking a stake in TransferWise, the British fintech champion which has just hit a $5 billion valuation.

10) German software company Teamviewer has agreed to acquire peer Ubimax to expand its offering in augmented reality and IoT. The transaction values the maker of augmented reality software and wearable computing devices at €136.5 million, which will be paid in cash and shares.

Podcast(s):

tech.eu Podcast #177: Opera goes fintech, Travelperk buys Albatross, and a conversation with Blippar’s new CEO

Bonus link(s):

The Rise of Intelligent Enterprise Automation (a tech.eu guest post by OpenOcean partner Tom Henriksson)