Features/Profiles

This Week in European Tech: Used car marketplace Cinch clinches £1 billion+ in funding, "Europe's Robinhood" raises $900 million, etc.

Robin Wauters 21 May 2021
This Week in European Tech: Used car marketplace Cinch clinches £1 billion+ in funding,
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Happy Friday!

This week, our research team tracked more than 100 tech funding deals worth more than €3.6 billion, and about 18 exits, M&A transactions, and 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 round-up newsletter (note: the full list is for paying customers only).

Recently, we also started publishing 'Today in European Tech', a daily round-up 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 round-up 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 round-up in your inbox every Monday morning).

1) Cazoo rival Cinch clinches more than £1 billion in funding

The owner of Cinch, the digital used car platform, has secured £1 billion of new equity funding as it vies to capture a big slice of the growing international market for online vehicle sales.

2) "Europe's Robinhood" Trade Republic scores $900 million round

Berlin’s neobroker Trade Republic has raised $900 million in a Series C investment round led by Sequoia. New investors TCV and Thrive Capital participated and existing investors Accel, Founders Fund, Creandum, and Project A all followed on.

3) Irish fintech scale-up Fenergo acquired by two European PE firms

Fenergo, the Irish fintech startup focused on regulatory compliance, is to be acquired by a pair of private equity firms in a deal worth $600 million.

4) UK fund manager Hedosophia's SPAC raised €400 million in an Amsterdam listing

Hedosophia European Growth, a blank-check company launched by UK fund manager Hedosophia, has raised €400 million in its Amsterdam listing. The Financial Times reported earlier that the SPAC plans to target European tech companies worth up to €5 billion.

5) Snap buys UK-based WaveOptics for $500 million

Snap has agreed to acquire WaveOptics, the supplier of the augmented reality displays that power its new Spectacles glasses, for more than $500 million, The Verge reports. Based in the UK and founded in 2014, WaveOptics raised a total of $65 million in funding to date.

6) Germany opens ‘anti-competition’ probe into Amazon with tougher law

Germany’s anti-trust watchdog is investigating whether Amazon has exploited its market dominance.

7) French refurbished electronics marketplace Back Market backed by $335 million

Parisian refurbished electronics marketplace Back Market has raised $335 million in a Series D round led by General Atlantic. The round also saw participation from Generation Investment Management, as well as existing investors Goldman Sachs Growth Equity, Aglaé Ventures, Eurazeo and daphni.

8) Entering the Amazon roll-up race with $200 million in fresh financing

An Amazon business-acquiring startup called Factory14 — based in Luxembourg (with offices in Madrid, London, Shanghai and Taipei) — came out of stealth mode in Europe with $200 million in funding and an announcement that it's acquired Pro Bike Tool, a popular D2C seller of its own-brand bike accessories and tools, for an undisclosed sum. The majority of the financing is coming in the form of debt to acquire companies.

9) Another French marketplace raises funding: Ankorstore nabs €82.4 million

Ankorstore, an online wholesale marketplace from France, has raised €82.4 million in a Series B funding round.

10) Good Pitch: Berlin-based presentation platform secures $85 million

Berlin-based collaborative presentation platform Pitch has raised $85 million in a Series B round led by Lakestar and, yep you guessed it, Tiger Global. The round also saw participation from existing investors Index Ventures and Thrive Capital.

Podcast(s):

Tech.eu Podcast #220: The “paradigm shift in how people work” with Tariq Rauf of Qatalog

Bonus link(s):

- ‘Better done than perfect’: Berlin-based micro-mobility scale-up TIER opens up about its expansion journey.

- Europe has been slow to catch on to the boom in SPACs, but signs of oversaturation in the US suggest the continent's turn is coming.

- Change Ventures' Baltic Startup Funding Report is out! It's a semi-annual publication of detailed data about funding rounds for startups in the Baltics.

- Flying in the face of the traditional entrepreneurship model, Franco-Belgian startup think tank/incubator/VC facilitator eFounders celebrates its 10 year anniversary today with the formal announcement of a $2 billion portfolio valuation.

- An insider’s look at one year at Hopin, the fastest growing startup in Europe.

This Week in European Tech: Used car marketplace Cinch clinches £1 billion+ in funding, "Europe's Robinhood" raises $900 million, etc.
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