Hello! ere is what happened today in European tech:
Deals
- Klarna, the Swedish global payments and shopping service, has raised $650 million in an equity funding round at a post-money valuation of $10.65 billion, ranking it as the highest-valued private fintech company in Europe and now the 4th highest worldwide.
- Clever: UK-based Smart City operator Connexin has raised an initial commitment of up to £80 million in funding to try and become a leader in the smart infrastructure and Internet of Things sector.
- Iraeli company-building venture Team8 has announced the launch of Team8 Fintech, which will focus on founding and growing innovative fintech companies. Team8 Fintech has already raised $30 million according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission out of a planned $100 million.
- Venture capital fund for investments in early stage Israeli startups Hetz Ventures announced today the closing of its second flagship fund, oversubscribed at $77 million.
- Israeli startup Medigate, which develops IoT and medical device cyber-security and asset management technologies, announced a $30 million Series B funding round.
- Spotawheel, the end-to-end digital platform for buying a used car in Poland and Greece, has raised €10 million in debt and equity funding.
- Antelope Dx, a Ghent-based company developing a palm-sized diagnostic device for home testing, has received €9 million in Series B funding to start clinical stages of a test for certain sexually-transmitted diseases.
- We are all fintechs: With the help of a €5 million seed round led by Creandum, Paris-based startup Swan is launching its fintech platform that lets any other company offer its own banking services. The funding, which includes capital from French bank Bpifrance, will go to meeting strict financial regulations and acquiring the startup’s first clients.
- MOAR FUNDING: Roboyo €21 million (Germany), Varada $12 million (Israel), Blue White Robotics $10 million (Israel), PLD Space €7 million (Spain), Sternum $6.5 million (Israel), 365 Response £3 million (UK), MRM Global £2.6 million (Scotland), AVIDA Global £1.6 million (UK), HR DataHub £1 million (UK), Senhive €650,000 (Belgium), B-Secur (Northern Ireland), etc.
MOAR M&A: Intersent ENT bought Fiagon in Germany, London-based digital transformation specialist Transforming Systems was acquired by Canada's Vitalhub, etc.
Worth Knowing
- We'll do it live! Spotify struck a deal with Songkick to promote live streaming events on its app, as the group branches into the burgeoning alternative to concerts during the pandemic.
- Star Awards: Today the European Space Agency awarded a €129.4 million contract covering the detailed design, manufacturing and testing of Hera, the Agency’s first mission for planetary defence. This ambitious mission will be Europe’s contribution to an international asteroid deflection effort, set to perform sustained exploration of a double asteroid system.
- Never give up: Europe has “lost” the global battle in cloud computing but should nevertheless resume the fight, French President Emmanuel Macron said. Oh and he also detailed plans to spend €7 billion on digital.
- Rate this: EU telcos will have to stop the practice of "zero rating," where they bundle their Internet access with services whose use is exempted from customers' data caps—data-intensive content-streaming services such as Spotify and Netflix, as well as operators' own rivals to those services. The EU's highest court effectively forbade zero rating in a landmark ruling handed down this morning.
- Insurtech Zego has joined forces with Swedish e-scooter operator Voi as the company launches its rental vehicles in the UK.
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