Happy Friday - and Merry Christmas!
This week, our research team tracked a large number of tech funding deals, M&A transactions and IPOs, 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 roundup newsletter (note: the full list is for paying customers only). Due to the holidays, the roundup by email may be a few days later than usual.
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)
Israeli fintech company Payoneer is reportedly in advanced negotiations to merge with a SPAC company, apparently an American one, at a valuation of $2.5 billion to $3 billion.
2)
London-based online money transfer service TransferWise has asked investment banks to pitch in the new year for roles on an impending IPO.
3)
Liberis, a London-based company that helps small businesses get the financing they need, has secured £70 million in financing for itself. The mix of equity and debt comes from long term partners British Business Investments, Paragon Bank, BCI Europe, as well as new partner Silicon Valley Bank (SVB).
4)
Tel Aviv-based Trigo, which develops store checkout technology that aims to rival Amazon Go, has raised a $60 million Series B funding round led by 83North and joined by Tesco and others. The Israeli startup uses computer vision technology together with off-the-shelf hardware to, basically, retrofit existing retail stores and enable its customers to simply walk in, pick up their desired items, and walk out without the need to stop at the checkout.
5)
Northzone has sold 12 million of its shares – or half of its ownership – in Kahoot, the Norwegian game-based learning platform, to SoftBank at a price of 79 Norwegian Krone apiece, netting the investment firm roughly €90 million at the current exchange rate. The deal gives SoftBank a total of 60 million shares, or an equivalent 13.45% of the share capital of Kahoot.
6)
Italy's data protection regulator has initiated formal proceedings against TikTok alleging that the Chinese-owned video sharing app violates privacy, especially of minors.
7)
Hopin has acquired Topi, a US-based event tech company.
8)
The European Investment Bank (EIB) is backing Spanish company Wenea with €50 million so an investment of around €100 million in total can be carried out to increase long-distance mobility in Spain by installing a host of electric vehicle charging stations alongside many of its motorways.
9)
Australian communication platform Dubber has acquired UK-based mobile recording startup Speik for $38 million, if performance milestones are met.
10)
Bristol, UK-based Brightpearl, which currently helps approximately 1,000 retailers streamline their operations and boost sales, has raised $33 million in funding to scale its business.
Podcast:
tech.eu Podcast — Interview Special: Jade Francine (WeMaintain) and Matti Rönkkö (Cooler Future)
Bonus link:
Hardt Hyperloop and the European promise of innovative transportation
Would you like to write the first comment?
Login to post comments