Happy Friday!
This week, our research team tracked about 95 tech funding deals worth nearly €1.3 billion, and 15 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) SoftBank will become a significant shareholder in Sinch, as it takes over a 10th of the Swedish cloud-based platform provider behind an almost 300% stock-price surge this year. Sinch’s co-founders have agreed to sell SoftBank 5.2 million shares.
2) Voi, the Stockholm-headquartered micro mobility company known for its e-scooter rentals, has raised $160 million in new funding. The round, about two thirds equity and one third debt, is led by The Raine Group.
3) S&P Global has agreed a deal to buy UK-based IHS Markit for $44 billion, creating a powerhouse in the provision of market data information services.
4) Bizzabo, an Israeli-born events platform, has raised $138 million in Series E funding. The investment is led by Insight Partners, with participation from previous investors Viola Growth, Next47 and OurCrowd.
5) Monzo, the UK challenger bank now with more than 4.8 million customers, has closed another £60 million in funding, priced the same as and effectively an extension of the its previous -up round in June (which valued the company at around £1.2 billion).
6) Pan-European VC firm Target Global has reached first close on a new €300 million fund, with the firm looking to invest in fintech, SaaS and wellness startups. The firm hopes to close the fund at €400 million by next summer.
7) London-based HungryPanda, which provides a specialist online ordering platform for Chinese customers living abroad in cities around the globe, has raised $70 million in funding. The round was disclosed this morning by Swedish investment powerhouse Kinnevik, which has put up $35 million or half the total amount for the round, joining previous investors 83North and Felix Capital – who between them have backed the likes of Wolt, Deliveroo and Just Eat – and other investors like Piton Capital, VNV Global and Burda Principal Investment.
8) The European Investment Bank Group (EIB Group) has unveiled a brand new financing instrument to support artificial intelligence companies across Europe. The co-investment facility of (up to) €150 million will allow the EIB Group to invest in promising early-stage and growth-stage AI tech companies alongside funds backed by the European Investment Fund.
9) A consumer advocacy group is suing Apple for about €180 million in four European countries for allegedly duping users into downloading updates that deliberately slowed down their iPhones.
10) London HQ’d Firstminute Capital has announced its second early-stage venture fund of $111 million. Founded and corner-stoned in 2016 by Brent Hoberman (best known as co-founder of lastminute.com and MADE.com), together with Spencer Crawley (formerly of Goldman Sachs), this new fund comes after the first fund of $100 million, giving Firstminute $211 million in assets under management, investing across Europe and the US at the seed stage.
Podcast(s):
tech.eu Podcast #198: Even more money for e-scooters, new VC funds, protein folding, and we talk to Sebastian Peck of InMotion Ventures
Bonus links:
Scale-up operating model: insights from Jacob Quartier of sales enablement platform Showpad
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