Happy Friday!
This week, our research team tracked about 80 tech funding deals worth over €900 million, along with 20 M&A transactions, rumours, and related news stories across Europe, including Russia, Israel, and Turkey. As always, we are putting all of them together for you in a handy list sent in our Friday afternoon roundup newsletter (note: the full list is for paying customers only).
Recently, we also started publishing 'Today in European Tech', a daily roundup of deals and news stories that caught our attention. Keeping you updated on all things EU tech is our priority!
Today, instead of a daily roundup we give you an overview of the 10 biggest European tech news items for the past week (subscribe to our free newsletter to get this roundup in your inbox every Monday morning):
1)
Germany will introduce regulatory reforms on stock options to “incentivize start-up investment in our country,” finance ministry official Jörg Kukies said Thursday. Hundreds of European tech entrepreneurs have been calling for pan-European reforms to update and align EU rules on staff share schemes.
2)
Kodit.io, a Finnish real estate startup using tech to speed up sales in the housing market, has raised €100 million in a combination of equity and debt. The round, led by Nordic real estate investor NREP, will be used to purchase new homes for Kodit’s real estate portfolio.
3)
Germany-based GetYourGuide, a booking platform for tours, activities, and attractions, has landed €114 million in funding in the form of a convertible note. The deal could be viewed as a loan, although the note is expected to convert into equity when GetYourGuide raises the next funding round. The company, however, doesn't expect that to happen for another 12-18 months.
4)
Spotify has published its results for Q3'2020, and thinks look reasonably optimistic for the company. The number of monthly active users grew to 320 million, and so did the number of paying subscribers, which reached 144 million. Revenue from subscriptions went up 15 percent YoY to €1.79 billion. Advertising revenue also increased — though only by 9 percent — to reach €185 million.
5)
Munich-based VC firm EMH Partners has closed a €650 million fund. The Fund II almost doubles in size the previous fund, which was closed in 2017 at over €350 million. The fund will be focused on high-growth companies working in the DACH region — that is, in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.
6)
Israeli-born Monday.com is preparing for a $4 billion IPO on Nasdaq in the first half of 2021. Calcalist reports that Monday.com is already lining up meetings with international investment banks, although the company's board is yet to give its final approval for the move.
7)
Uber has been sued by the App Drivers & Couriers Union, which claims that “four drivers in the UK and Portugal were unfairly dismissed by the platform’s algorithm.” Uber claims that the drivers were allegedly involved in fraudulent activities, and that the dismissals were assessed by human employees.
8)
Israel-based web analytics platform SimilarWeb has secured $120 million in a funding round led by ION Crossover Partners and Viola Growth. The company’s technology gathers information from hundreds of sources and uses them in advanced machine learning algorithms to provide a complete picture of digital activity in real-time. Its tools are used by large leading brand name companies to analyze customer behavior and compare it to competitors, Calcalist reports.
9)
Lithuanian unicorn company Vinted, creator of an online marketplace for second-hand fashion, has acquired United Wardrobe, the largest second-hand fashion platform in the Netherlands. With a combined member base of 34 million buyers and sellers across 11 countries in Europe, the two companies say they share a goal of encouraging responsible fashion and growing the circular economy. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.
10)
Swiss-headquartered investment bank UBS, the world’s largest wealth manager, is going to invest $200 million in fintech and other digital startups through a freshly announced UBS Next portfolio.
Podcast:
tech.eu Podcast #193: Two €100M rounds, Spotify’s numbers, SAP and Uber in crosshairs, and we talk to Job van der Voort of Remote.com
Bonus link:
Leif Nissen Lundbæk: “How Facebook is threatening EU privacy laws”
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