Hello!
Here is what happened today in European tech:
Deals
- German micro-mobility company TIER has raised a $250 million Series C round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2i. Existing investors joined, including Mubadala Capital, Northzone, Goodwater Capital, White Star Capital, Novator and RTP Global. The Berlin-based business, already profitable, will use the funding to build an electric charging network and continue expanding coverage in European cities.
- Take-Two Interactive, the company behind popular video games including Grand Theft Auto and NBA 2K, has agreed to buy British developer Codemasters in a cash-and-stock deal valued at about 726 million pounds ($956 million).
- Hopin, a fledgling UK startup that is rapidly gaining ground in the burgeoning virtual events space, has raised $125 million in a series B round led by IVP and Tiger Global. This raise values the 17-month-old company at a staggering $2.1 billion.
- Spotify has entered into an agreement to acquire ad tech company Megaphone in a $235 million deal. Megaphone offers technology for podcast publishers and advertisers seeking targeted slots on podcasts.
- Israeli insurance software solutions company Sapiens has acquired Danish digital software solutions vendor Tia Technology for $78 million in cash.
- Finnish deep tech startup IQM Quantum Computers (IQM) has raised €39 million in a Series A round led by MIG Fonds, bringing its total amount of funding raised to €71 million. The round brought in new investors Tencent, Vsquared, Salvia and Santo Venture Capital, and welcomed back existing investors Tesi, OpenOcean, Maki.vc, Vito Ventures and Matadero QED.
- HR tech startup Remote has already pulled in a $35 million Series A round after raising $11 million in seed funding this past April. This latest round was led by Index Ventures and Sequoia Capital, with participation from angel investors including Aaron Levie, Zach Weinberg, and Kevin and Julia Hartz.
- Aidexa, an Italian challenger bank for SMEs, has raised €45 million in seed financing.
- French technology firm OVH said on Tuesday it is partnering with Google to build up its capacities in cloud computing, leaning on the US giant’s technology to speed up a push towards developing a European contender in the area.
- Lightico, a Tel Aviv startup building a digital platform to wrap up customer interactions, has closed $12.6 million in a funding round led by Oxx, with participation from Capital One Ventures and Harmony Partners. Previous backers lool Ventures, Crescendo Venture Partners, Mangrove Capital Partners and Spinach Angels also joined the round.
- Israeli venture capital firm Peregrine Ventures today announced the launch of a new fund, Peregrine Growth, for late-stage life science companies. Peregrine has already closed $101 million of the planned $300 million fund.
- German fintech startup auxmoney has secured funding from the French bank BNP Paribas, which it will use to start buying loans on its own platform. Auxmoney, which did not disclose how much funding it had received from BNP Paribas, said it will invest up to €500 million in loans originated on its platform.
- Two European providers of image recognition and visual search technology are combining with an American counterpart to create a one-stop solution to help industrial companies and retail warehouses get a bit more organised. Austrian startup Humai, Barcelona-based Catchoom and US-based Slyce will merge to become Partium, a technology that can recognise, identify and locate spare parts.
- We also tracked a large number of (other) European tech funding rounds and M&A transactions, all of which we are putting in a handy list for you on Friday afternoon in our weekly roundup newsletter (note: the full list is for paying customers only). Also check out our European tech news section for ongoing coverage.
Worth Knowing
- The European Commission has concluded that Amazon breached European antitrust rules by using independent sellers’ data for its own benefit. It also announced Tuesday a second investigation into the company’s e-commerce processes. The decision comes after the Commission, which is the executive arm of the European Union, launched a probe into the online retailer in July 2019 on the back of concerns over anti-competitive behaviour.
- The Council of the EU and the European Parliament reached an agreement today on the 2021-2027 EU budget, putting the bloc one step closer to implementing its historic €1.8 trillion budget-and-recovery package.
- Negotiators from the European Council and the Parliament have signed off on new export rules that restrict the sale of cyber-surveillance goods to worldwide regimes engaging in the repression of human rights.
- ING subsidiary Payvision, a payments processing firm, is accused of facilitating fraudulent transactions worth €131.2 million.
- Sapphire Ventures, the venture capital firm that spun out of German software company SAP in 2011, is opening an office in London, coming back to its European roots after years of having its main focus on the US market.
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Also, check out our podcast's interview special published earlier today - we talked to two entrepreneurs who founded very different ventures: the language-learning startup Drops and the gaming company Kolibri Games, which was acquired by Ubisoft earlier this year.
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