Hello!
Here's what happened today in European Tech.
Deals
- Online greeting card retailer Moonpig saw its shares rise by 25% within minutes of pricing its London IPO on Tuesday, underlining bullish investor appetite and setting the stage for other e-commerce companies to follow. The listing price valued the company at around £1.2 billion ($1.64 billion).
- Just Eat Takeaway.com, the Amsterdam-based food ordering and delivery juggernaut, has raised €1.1 billion through a two-tranche convertible bonds offering, for general purposes but also to bankroll “strategic opportunities which may arise”.
- PSG, a growth equity firm "partnering with lower middle-market software and technology-enabled service companies", today announced that it closed PSG Europe, the firm’s debut Europe-focused fund, with €1.25 billion in LP commitments.
- Israeli solar energy AI diagnostics company Raycatch has reportedly filed for an initial public offering (IPO) on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.
- German gym equipment startup EGYM has managed to raise €28 million after a year of business cuts and downsized dreams. The new funding, which comes from previous backers Nokia Growth Capital, Highland Europe, HPE Growth Capital and Bayern Kapital, will help the company survive through the coronavirus lockdowns.
- London-based Vortexa has secured $19 million in Series B financing for its energy analytics platform, which the startup says gives its clients a view on the flow of energy at a global level in real time.
- Global payments player SumUp has acquired the Lithuanian-born core banking system provider Paysolut. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.
- Brussels-based Soda has secured €11.5 million in fresh funding to bolster its data monitoring platform. The round was led by Singular, with participation from prior seed investors Point Nine Capital, Hummingbird Ventures, the US-based Data Community Fund and a number of angel investors.
- 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 Reading/Knowing
- In the UK, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has published the long-awaited Woolard Review, calling for tighter regulation of buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) firms.
- The European Commission today announced its plans for the launch of Horizon Europe, its next R&D programme. In an essay for Science|Business, Commissioner Mariya Gabriel restates the broad goals of the programme.
- German lawmakers have turned their sights on finance ministers in the Wirecard fraud fiasco.
- How digital sommelier Vivino is becoming a Netflix for wine.
- Accelerated Payments, the invoice financing provider, with bases in London, Dublin and Toronto, anticipates a rocky period as companies emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic and come to terms with the post-Brexit environment. It sees opportunities, though, and plans €100 million in funding by the end of 2021 to bank on that.
- Generally, venture capital is doing better in Poland. In 2020, VC funds invested over PLN 2.1 billion in Polish companies. This is a record result – by as much as 70 percent better compared to 2019, according to the data contained in the report of PFR Ventures and Inovo Venture Partners.
Today's Top Tweets
~ Some personal news ~
I am joining @eldsjal and @shak as Head of Research at Prima Materia!
So excited to partner with the world's most ambitious engineers and scientists to build breakthrough technology companies out of Europe!https://t.co/B4z6Zdznh9 / @PrimaMateria_ pic.twitter.com/W3l6TezdzX— Brett Bivens (@brettbivens) February 2, 2021
Welcome to the @checkout team @ottk and @nworswick! https://t.co/erxS6vFKiD
— Guillaume Pousaz (@GuillaumePousaz) February 2, 2021
A decade of connecting the world. Watch this video to explore how @Viber - Rakuten's messaging service - evolved over the past 10 years. #connectingtheworld #WalkTogether pic.twitter.com/Nen6AxnkSn
— Rakuten Europe (@RakutenEurope) February 1, 2021
New French Tech Journal (@FRTechJournal): Talking with Jérôme Berger on the future of Orange Ventures (@Orange_DV) and why it spun out of the mothership at @Orange_France.https://t.co/58ER156zOR
— Chris O'Brien (@obrien) February 2, 2021
🇪🇺 wants to give its police force, Europol, more 💪🏽
The proposal, in a nutshell:
🖥️ partnering with Big Tech
🖱️ more big data analytics
🤑 more moolah (178M + extra headcount) https://t.co/m0uQynve9N— Vincent Manancourt (@vmanancourt) February 2, 2021
Excited to welcome @CuongVietDo, who until recently led Samsung's Global Strategy Group, to join @imaginecurve Board. Cuong brings with him a host of experience leading strategy for @Samsung @Merck @Lenovo and many others. https://t.co/CRSrm2VPgY pic.twitter.com/nXLRwP2ZLL
— Shachar Bialick (@ShacharBialick) February 2, 2021
🚨NEW VIEWS🚨
👶London East End working class kid
🚀Operator scaling from $0 to $200M rev
💸Selling startup for $700M
🔥Co-founder & GP @NotionCapital ($500M+ AUM VC)
💜Co-founder @INCLUDED_VC
Today we interview @ChrisTottman1 !!https://t.co/pSk02moYRU— Pol Fañanás (@polfananas) February 2, 2021
🇮🇪More Tech money pours into Ireland:
🇺🇸: 200 new Microsoft jobs in Dublin (Tuesday)
🇨🇳: 110 new jobs from Huawei & further €80m investment (Monday) https://t.co/0nlKnVop4f— Samuel Stolton (@SamuelStolton) February 2, 2021
To confirm the capability of fiber access networks being able to deliver ultra-high speeds, we're pleased to have worked with @VodafoneGroup, enabling them to become the first major operator in the world to trial 100G on a passive optical network (PON). https://t.co/Az8oJ6vUeS pic.twitter.com/3HYR7VJeFy
— Nokia (@nokia) February 2, 2021
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