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This Week in European Tech: Northvolt scores $2.75 billion in equity funding, Klarna valuation hits $45.6 billion, and more

Robin Wauters 11 June 2021
This Week in European Tech: Northvolt scores $2.75 billion in equity funding, Klarna valuation hits $45.6 billion, and more
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Happy Friday!

This week, our research team tracked more than 100 funding deals worth north of €4 billion in total, and about 20 M&A deals 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) Swedish battery developer nabs $2.75 billion in funding

Stockholm-based sustainable lithium-ion battery maker Northvolt has raised $2.75 billion.

2) Klarna raises yet another mega-round, upping its valuation

Stockholm’s BNPL juggernaut Klarna has confirmed a new equity funding round of $639 million led by SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2. With this raise Klarna now clocks in at a post-money valuation of $45.6 billion, a figure that is only eclipsed by Stripe in the fintech world.

3) French crypto scale-up Ledger secures $380 million in funding

Ledger, the Paris-based producer of crypto hardware wallets, has closed a $380 million Series C fundraise valuing the startup at more than $1.5 billion.

4) Balderton raises $680 million for its 'early growth fund'

After two decades of being one of Europe’s leading Series A venture firms, Balderton Capital has raised a mammoth $680 million to launch an early growth fund.

5) Sinch buys MessageMedia for roughly $1.3 billion

Hot on the heels of their $1.1 billion share issue raise, Stockholm’s Sinch has announced its intention to acquire the Melbourne-based firm MessageMedia for $1.1 billion in cash and 1,128,487 new shares in Sinch.

6) Fashion e-commerce firm About You to raise close to €1 billion in IPO

About You, the German fashion e-commerce company that aims to digitalise mall visits by creating a personalised shopping experience on smartphones for young teens, is looking to raise €941 million euros in a Frankfurt IPO. Tuesday’s implied price range of between 21 euros and 26 euros implies its equity is worth up to €4.4 billion.

7) Carlyle acquires London-based 1E.com is $270 million deal

Private equity firm Carlyle has picked up London-based 1E.com, an endpoint and hybrid working specialist, in a deal that values the company at $270 million.

8) Scalable Capital raises $180 million for its investment platform

Munich’s investment platform Scalable Capital has raised more than $180 million in a Series E funding round led by Chinese giant Tencent.

9) Ireland's LetsGetChecked raises $150 million

LetsGetChecked, the Irish home health testing kit startup, is now valued at more than $1 billion after its latest funding round. The company has raised $150 million in a Series D round led by Casdin Capital with pro golfer Rory McIlroy investing again.

10) SoftBank partners with SpeedInvest on European accelerator program

SoftBank has launched the SoftBank Vision Fund Emerge accelerator in Europe with the goal of connecting underrepresented entrepreneurs with capital, tools, and networks to help them scale. The programme is open to European startups that have at least one founder who identifies as non-white, female, LGBTQ+, disabled and/or is a refugee.

Podcast(s):

Healthy eating, remote working, and drunken downloads — with Marcus Gners, Lifesum

Venture builder as a marketplace of ideas, with Michaël Niddam of Kamet Ventures

Improving clinical trials with Sergey Jakimov, Longenesis

Bonus link(s):

- Google said it would make changes to its global advertising business to ensure it did not abuse its dominance, bowing to antitrust pressure for the first time in a landmark settlement with French authorities. The deal with the French competition watchdog saw Google fined €220 million and marks the first time the US tech giant has agreed to make changes to its huge advertising business, which brings in the bulk of its revenue.

- Robert Bosch opened a €1 billion chip plant in Germany today, a record investment by the automotive supplier as it stakes a claim to equipping the latest electric and self-driving cars.

- A European Union privacy regulator has proposed a fine of more than $425 million against Amazon, part of a process that could yield the biggest-yet penalty under the bloc’s privacy law.

- Google has bowed to pressure from rivals and will let them compete for free to be the default search engines on Android devices in Europe, widening a pledge to EU antitrust regulators two years ago.

- Britain's competition watchdog is planning a formal competition investigation into e-commerce company Amazon over its use of data.

- The market dominance of Amazon's Alexa, Apple's Siri and Alphabet's Google Assistant has triggered concerns of potential anti-competitive practices, EU antitrust regulators said on Wednesday.

This Week in European Tech: Northvolt scores $2.75 billion in equity funding, Klarna valuation hits $45.6 billion, and more
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