Hello!
Here's what happened today in European Tech.
Deals
- Shares in UK food delivery firm Deliveroo fell as much as 30% in its highly anticipated London IPO on Wednesday, wiping about £2.3 billion off the company's value, and dealing a blow to the city's renewed efforts to attract tech company listings.
- Amsterdam-based unsold fashion marketplace Otrium has raised $120 million in a fresh round of funding co-led by BOND and Index Ventures, and saw follow-on investment from Eight Roads Ventures. The series C round is expected to propel Otrium’s entry to the US market, ramp up additional unsold fashion capabilities, and recruit new staff.
- Pensions provider PensionBee has filed a confirmation statement with the London Stock Exchange, indicating that its listing is “expected to occur in April 2021”.
- Kaya VC’s new €72 million fund will focus on startups in Prague, Warsaw and the wider CEE region. Previously called Enern, the Central and Eastern European VC has changed its name to better reflect its modern focus.
- British Airways joined a list of investors in ZeroAvia, a company that is looking to develop a fleet of hydrogen-powered aircraft, as part of a $24.3 million round, as it looks to operate a zero-emissions free short-haul fleet by 2050.
- 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
- Britain's financial watchdog has fired the starting gun on plans to overhaul stock market rules in a bid to lure more SPACs to the London market.
- Google will contribute €25 million to the newly set up European Media and Information Fund to combat fake news, amid criticism tech giants are not doing enough to debunk online disinformation.
- Arm, the British technology firm whose chip technology powers most of the world’s smartphones, has released a new generation of technology aimed at taking over data centers and artificial intelligence applications ahead of its planned $40 billion merger with Nvidia.
- A contingent of EU nations has locked horns with the European Commission over plans to exclude third-countries from involvement in quantum and space research projects, in a move that could see the UK’s involvement significantly downgraded due to concerns over intellectual property.
- EIT Digital, a major pan-European digital innovation and entrepreneurial education organisation, has started accepting applications for its 'EIT Digital Challenge 2021' competition, looking for fast-growing deep tech startups from across the continent to help boost their growth.
- Mastercard and four other companies broke UK law by engaging in cartel behaviour in the pre-paid card market, according to the country's Payment Systems Regulator (PSR).
- The European Union’s institutional data protection watchdog has voiced ‘critical concerns’ about the European Parliament’s plans to install a biometric register that will allow EU lawmakers to collect their daily allowance and sign in for hearings on the Brussels premises.
Today's Top Tweets
From a source close to Deliveroo: IPO was overpriced by the investment banks, hard to justify a valuation jump from £5bn in private markets to nearly £9bn in just two months and seems the company dismissed concerns around gig work. https://t.co/eghPD04mEf
— Ryan Browne (@Ryan_Browne_) March 31, 2021
The More Than Money Report 2021 will launch tomorrow!
"38% of seed founders reported that a VC's mentoring and emotional support contributed to their business growth"
Join the launch event on Hopin tomorrow at 12pm - 1.30pm.
🎫 Claim your free ticket: https://t.co/HHrCgCiXEe pic.twitter.com/vVTNwramL1— Forward Partners (@ForwardPrt) March 31, 2021
Amidst pandemic, Icelandic tech and innovation firms are optimistic and expect future growth https://t.co/O7ZzBYjq2l
— Northstack (@northstack_is) March 31, 2021
Cat's out of the bag! 👀 @AstafyevaSasha has led our Series A investment into @tryzapp alongside friends at @lightspeedvp - if you're in London try it out at https://t.co/P2Qvk9pf3K https://t.co/RyaEc0ajzn
— Atomico (@atomico) March 31, 2021
We’re growing Sound Up to 14 countries, enabling us to support an additional 140+ emerging creators this year alone. Plus, we’re empowering podcast producers with a brand-new Behind the Mic program in the U.S. Learn more ⬇️ https://t.co/MOV9cuNPwj
— Spotify News (@SpotifyNews) March 31, 2021
€475k fine for Booking in the Netherlands for late notification of a data breach.https://t.co/n39qsnUlpT
— Jonathan Keane (@J_K9) March 31, 2021
Delighted to announce our partnership w/ investment data & risk analytics platform, Premialab! Premialab provides a unique data source of 5M+ data points, processed daily on 3,500+ investible systematic strategies from 17 leading investment banks.
👉 https://t.co/avzZuzDyKO pic.twitter.com/P9u8TFJylE— Balderton Capital (@balderton) March 31, 2021
With @YlvaJohansson & @nmitarakis in town, this week @_PMolnar travelled to the Moria 2.0 camp. In this insightful piece, she writes of how the EU's refugee camps are being used as sandboxes for drones, biometrics, & automated tech: https://t.co/Rejfw56ZDm
— Samuel Stolton (@SamuelStolton) March 31, 2021
London-based @groprotocol closes a $7.1mn seed funding round.
The #FinTech aims to make decentralised finance #DeFi more accessible.
It’s existing team is composed of former @RevolutApp @Spotify @GoldmanSachs and @Morgan stanley professionals. https://t.co/bdouNu0VQ9 pic.twitter.com/NfpMt6169i— FinTech Alliance (@AllianceFintech) March 31, 2021
The Annual Seedcamp Internship is open for applications🙌 Previous interns have gone on to forge careers in VC and found their own companies 🚀
Applications are open until April 14th! 🤝https://t.co/rbP52ovGRP— seedcamp (@seedcamp) March 31, 2021
In 2021, we strongly believe in the huge market potential of #quickcommerce, the next generation of #ecommerce. We are able to deliver items like groceries, pharmaceuticals & electronics at record speed - 15 min or less.#deliveryhero
Learn more here:https://t.co/CEi2jTNc1J pic.twitter.com/b2QQM9l13M— Delivery Hero (@deliveryherocom) March 31, 2021
We are happy to announce our strong exit – Merger of @HeidelbergInstr and @3D_Lithography!
Multiphoton Optics has become a wholly owned subsidiary of Heidelberg Instruments for production of direct-writing laser systems “Made in Germany”.
Press release ⬇ https://t.co/J3P8pC9wVD pic.twitter.com/uFjHyo55H2— HTGF (@HTGF) March 31, 2021
Congratulations to our #DBVN member @Blacklane for the successful closing of their latest €22 million round. It is a powerful momentum to further strengthen your ride-sharing and green travel initiatives! https://t.co/3ELemrOPSh #greenmobility #sustainability #ridesharing
— Deutsche Börse Venture Network (@DBVentureNet) March 31, 2021
Listen to today's interview special episode of our podcast with Jonathan Satchell (@jsatchellltg), chief executive of Learning Technologies Group (@ltgplc) 👇https://t.co/Ukaf2Z6OpE
— tech.eu (@tech_eu) March 31, 2021
25.5% of ecommerce in Europe is cross-border https://t.co/Uyin0d80iY @CBCommerceEU #crossborder #ecommerce #europe pic.twitter.com/rsISaHbK2Y
— Ecommerce News (@EcommercenewsEU) March 31, 2021
We are excited to launch the next generation of signal generators for #quantumcomputing. The SHFSG Signal Generator is designed to control #superconducting and #spin #qubits and give access to higher gate fidelities. Find out more here: https://t.co/86WtQwAYBl pic.twitter.com/4P82oiF1ww
— Zurich Instruments (@Zhinst) March 31, 2021
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