These were the 10 biggest European tech stories this week

Happy Friday!

This week, our research team tracked 60 tech funding deals worth over €650 million, along with a handful of 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) Israeli ride-hailing company Gett announced Tuesday it has completed a $100 million funding, having raised an additional $76 million. According to the company, the vast majority of the round was raised in equity and a small portion of it in credit and bonds. The round was made at a $1.5 billion valuation.

2) eBay has agreed to sell its online classifieds business to Norway’s Adevinta for $9.2 billion, ending one of the largest auctions of the year. Under the deal, eBay will get $2.5 billion of cash and 540 million shares in the Norwegian firm.

3) Quantexa, a London-based contextual decision intelligence software, has raised $64.7 million in Series C funding. The round was led by Evolution Equity Partners, with ‘major participation’ from existing investors Dawn Capital, AlbionVC and HSBC. New investors ABN AMRO Ventures also joined previous investor Accenture.

4) One Peak Partners, a London, UK-based tech investment firm, is announcing today that it has closed its second growth fund at its hard cap of €443 million, taking the firm’s assets under management to approximately €700 million in total.

5) Brussels-based e-bike company Cowboy has secured €23 million in Series B funding to pursue its mission of replacing city cars with sustainable transportation. Leading the round is Exor Seeds, the early stage investment arm of Exor, controlling shareholder of Ferrari and FCA. HCVC, Isomer Capital, Future Positive Capital and Index Ventures also participated.

6) London-based Selina Finance, which provides loans to SMBs in the form of flexible credit facilities — you pay back only what you borrow, and you do that over time, rather than in one lump sum — that are backed by the value of your personal home, has raised £42 million ($53 million): £12 million in equity and £30 million in debt to distribute as loans.

7) Paris has chosen its electric scooter operators. The city, which has quickly become a haven for biking, walking, and scootering thanks to the forward-thinking leadership of Mayor Anne Hidalgo, has selected Lime, Tier, and Dott as its e-scooter companies. Each company will be awarded a two-year contract which allows it to deploy 5,000 electric scooters throughout the city, for a total of 15,000 scooters.

8) Scalable Capital, a Munich-based startup that has built a platform to monitor and manage investment portfolios investing in shares, manage trades and exchange traded funds for a flat fee of €2.99 per month, has closed a round of €50 million to expand its business.

9) The founders of Berlin music-streaming app Soundcloud are launching an e-bike subscription startup called DANCE. VC fund BlueYard backed its €4.4 million seed round, along with a group of entrepreneurs and individual investors.

10) Rome and London-based Lumen Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm, has launched its approx. €25 million maiden fund. After obtaining authorization from the Bank of Italy as the first Simple Investment Company (SiS) in Italy, Lumen Ventures begins its adventure of investing in tech SMEs and startups with high growth potential.

Podcast(s):

tech.eu Podcast #178: Apple (and Ireland)’s win against the EU, Privacy Shield invalidated, and we interview Sinch CEO Oscar Werner

Bonus link(s):

European Venture Report Q2 2020: Funding down to 2018 levels after record high in 2019