Today in European Tech: Russia's Ozon nails its IPO, EU moves to take control of its data, France proceeds with its 'digital tax', and more

Hello!

Here is what happened today in European tech:

Deals

- Shares in Russian online retail giant Ozon surged by more than 40% in the first minutes of trading after the most eagerly anticipated Russian IPO in years. Ozon is the country’s second-largest e-commerce player, and the first-day jump gave Ozon a valuation of more than $7 billion in what analysts saw as a wildly successful launch.

- In the first-ever food tech IPO on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE), meat alternative startup SavorEat has raised NIS 42.6 million (about $13 million) from leading Israeli institutional investors.

- Shortly before it goes public on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, Israeli combustion engine developer Aquarius Engines has raised $10 million from Japanese giant TPR, which manufactures functional engine components.

- WeGift, the London-based startup that has built an “incentive marketing” platform that lets businesses easily issue e-gift cards and other digital rewards to customers, has raised $8 million in new funding.

- Israel-based Zesty, which develops a real-time cloud cost optimization solution, announced a $6.6 million seed round led by S Capital.

- Dutch nanotech company Innatera has raised €5 million in seed funding to bring its brain-inspired processing technology to sensors and sensor-based devices. The round was led by Munich-based deeptech investors MIG Verwaltungs and the Industrial Technologies Fund of btov.

- Icelandic airline software vendor Dohop announced an undisclosed growth equity round from Scottish Equity Partners (SEP). While the total amount remains undisclosed, Northstack’s sources place it in the ‘multi-million pound’ range.

- RevLifter, a London-based business that helps companies execute e-commerce deals, has raised £3.3 million from Gresham House Ventures and Maven Capital Partners.

- Cumul.io, a Belgian startup which bills itself as ‘the building block’ for dashboards inside other SaaS applications, has raised €3.5 million in funding to fuel further growth. The round was led by Axeleo Capital, LRM and SmartFin, who led their previous investment round in 2017.

- 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 EU wants to take control of its own data, part of a broader effort to wrest digital influence from large companies in the US and China. The EU’s executive arm today proposed new legislation aimed at creating an EU-wide data marketplace to facilitate sharing of industrial and government information—provided the data is protected according to European standards, under the eyes of the bloc’s regulators.

- French tax authorities have begun demanding millions of euros from US technology groups as they push ahead with a new digital services tax that has enraged Washington. Facebook and Amazon are among the companies to have received communication from French authorities in recent days

- Amazon announced that its IP Accelerator in now live in Europe — specifically France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Netherlands and the United Kingdom — to help SMBs selling on Amazon obtain trademarks on their intellectual property, protect their brands and tackle the sale of counterfeit goods, connecting companies with recommended legal firms to carry out work.

- IBM is planning to cut about 10,000 jobs in Europe in an attempt to lower costs at its slow-growth services unit and prepare the business for a spinoff.

- Worldline and Nets have become shareholders in the European Payments Initiative, a bank-backed joint venture that aims to build a rival to Mastercard and Visa.

- French investor Marie Ekeland is back with a new fund, dubbed 2050, which will focus on impact companies.

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