Today in European Tech: MTG buys Hutch Games for $375 million, TransferWise kicks off a major hiring effort, and much more

Today in European Tech: MTG buys Hutch Games for $375 million, TransferWise kicks off a major hiring effort, and much more

Hello!

Here is what happened today in European tech:

Deals

- Swedish holding company MTG has announced the acquisition of Hutch Games, a British developer and publisher of mobile racing games, for about $375 million total, further diversifying its portfolio of specialist gaming and esports companies.

- Israel cloud security company Wiz today emerged from stealth with a $100 million Series A financing round from Index Ventures, Sequoia, Insight Partners and Cyberstarts.

- Isar Aerospace, a Munich-based satellite launching startup, has secured €75 million in Series B financing. The round was led by Lakestar, with support from previous backers Earlybird Venture Capital and Vsquared Ventures.

- Israeli 3D printing company Stratasys announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire San Francisco-based 3D printing start-up Origin for up to $100 million in cash and stock.

- Ada Ventures, a UK/Europe focused VC with an ‘impact twist’ aiming to invest in diverse founders tacking societal problems, has closed its first fund at $50 million. Cornerstone LPs in the fund include Big Society Capital, one of the UK’s leading social impact investors, as well as the British Business Bank.

- Dataform, a UK startup that was building what it dubbed an “operating system” for data warehouses, has been quietly acquired by Google’s Cloud division.

- Israel's Firebolt, which has redesigned the concept of a data warehouse to work more efficiently and at a lower cost, today announced that it has raised $37 million from Zeev Ventures, TLV Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners and Angular Ventures.

- Chinese-born Swedish entrepreneur Carl Pei is on to his next trick, after co-founding smartphone giant OnePlus in 2013 and leaving the company just two months ago. Now based in London, Pei has raised $7 million in a seed financing round for his new venture, which will be unveiled in the next few months.

- Copenhagen-based legaltech company Contractbook has closed a $9.4 million Series A investment round led by Bessemer Venture Partners to bolster its contract management solution. The round saw participation from existing investors, including Gradient Ventures (Google’s AI-focused venture fund).

- Ukrainian face-swap video app maker Reface has raised $5.5 million in seed funding in a round led by Andreessen Horowitz. Lots of famous angel investors participating as well, including Supercell CEO Ilkka Paananen, Unity founder David Helgason, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, Josh Elman (ex-investment partner at Greylock) and and Sriram Krishnan (investor and former product lead at Microsoft, Facebook, Snap and Twitter).

- UK insurtech company Zego has acquired Portuguese telematics startup Drivit to up its data game. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

- 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

- Frontline Ventures, an early stage B2B SaaS venture capital firm specialising in global expansion, and Speedinvest, today released the findings of a report analysing the state of tech and venture capital in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

- Today Russian e-commerce giant Ozon announced the completion of its IPO. Taking into account the private placements and other subscriptions from Ozon’s existing shareholders, Baring Vostok and Sistema, the company received gross proceeds of $1.27 billion, or net proceeds of $1.2 billion.

- EU lawmakers have just unveiled a wide-ranging counter terrorism agenda as they set out plans to beef up regional security.

- International payments group TransferWise has laid out plans to bolster its employee numbers over the next six months. The fintech scale-up plans to create 750 roles globally, with 175 of the roles being based in London.

- The scope of online platforms that will come under new regulatory prohibitions as part of the European Commission’s forthcoming Digital Markets Act (DMA) will be narrowly targeted to a set of ‘big operators,’ the EU executive has revealed.

- Singapore is set to host the world’s first electric-powered air taxi service by the end of 2023, according to Volocopter, which is developing the vertical-takeoff craft.

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