Hello!
Here's what happened today in European Tech.
Deals
- Germany-based online optician Mister Spex has confirmed its plans to go public on the stock exchange. The eyewear retailer targets a Q3 IPO to raise roughly €225 million.
- European online fashion platform ABOUT YOU has set the final offer for its private placement at €23.00 per share. Based on this price, the total offer size (including over-allotments) amounts to approximately €842 million, and brings its total market cap to €3.92 billion.
- Against the backdrop of an ongoing chip crisis and what could be a global shortage lasting years, a new Israeli unicorn aiming to increase semiconductor processing power is coming out of the shadows. NextSilicon, which has developed an innovative solution to boost supercomputers, has already raised more than $200 million, but has done so under the radar, despite recently being valued at $1.5 billion.
- London’s publicly-listed VC firm Draper Esprit has announced its intention to raise £111 million via the PrimaryBid platform.
- London-headquartered payments processor DNA Payments has banked a £100 million investment from Alchemy Partners.
- Bristol’s Immersive Labs, which measures and helps companies improve cybersecurity skills across technical and non-technical teams, has raised $75 million in a Series C round led by new investors Insight Partners.
- French cloud giant OVH is prepping to go public before the end of the year.
- London-based pre-loved car sales platform Motorway has raised £48 million in a Series B round led by Index Ventures. New investors BMW i Ventures and Unbound have also let out the clutch and now join existing investors Latitude and Marchmont Ventures.
- Stockholm-based electric scooter maker Vässla has raised $11 million in a new funding round led by the family-owned investment group headed by Anders Pettersson, Skabholmen Invest.
- SoftBank has reportedly backed Germany's Forto and France's Sorare as it continues to invest heavily in European tech.
- Meron Capital announced the closing of Meron II, its second $50 million fund to invest in early-stage deep-technology software startups led by Israeli entrepreneurs.
- 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
- Starting today, the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) and its eight innovator networks are operating under a revamped, more inclusive structure and with a renewed brief to improve the innovation potential of Europe’s regions.
- "Europe's unicorn herd grows bigger and faster in 2021” (PitchBook)
- Draper Esprit, the Dublin and London-listed venture capital firm, now has more than €1 billion in assets under management according to its annual report.
- The growing wave of Israeli tech company IPOs on Wall Street has generated billions of dollars 'on paper' for a range of entrepreneurs at these companies, as well as for individual investors who believed in those companies in their early stages.
- Scaling up internationally from France: le good, la bad and l’ugly
- British telecoms group Vodafone has chosen Samsung Electronics to supply its 5G network equipment in Britain.
- Germany-born VC firm Point Nine Capital now has 9 unicorns in its portfolio.
- European privacy group noyb, which recently kicked off a major campaign targeting rampant abuse of the region’s cookie consent rules, has followed up by publishing a technical proposal for an automated browser-level signal it believes could go even further to tackle the friction generated by endless ‘your data choices’ pop-ups.
Today's Top Tweets
We're celebrating nine unicorns today.
Thank you @mikkelsvane @primdahl @jack_newton @niklasoestberg @nstoronsky @levy @gronager @jony_levin @stefansmalla @lawrence and many others for making us bolder!https://t.co/f72i7qGyJnhttps://t.co/AfSIYRAsN8 pic.twitter.com/d6cPDVSfwf— Christoph Janz (@chrija) June 14, 2021
This 100% - Have seen this first hand lately in Europe, Tiger were quicker than 2 of the local VCs who were still trying to get comfortable with the business after 3 mths of questions and even more questions, Tiger had done all their homework upfront and it showed. https://t.co/6QTMVdisso
— Shakil Khan (@shak) June 13, 2021
The upcoming Netflix series about the story of @Spotify is in the making, interesting cast https://t.co/T2k3hOeqPr
— Robin Wauters @ Tech.eu (@robinwauters) June 14, 2021
French search engine Qwant was supposed to become a rival to Google and bolster the EU's tech sector.
But now Qwant is seeking a bailout loan from Huawei which could mean the Chinese player gains a say over its operations. https://t.co/bZAYRw87cw— POLITICOEurope (@POLITICOEurope) June 13, 2021
iZettle co-founder Magnus Nilsson @mnwire joins KRY as chairman. Brilliant to see the @IndexVentures family individuals coming together. An other example of the European ecosystem flywheel in action. https://t.co/OQ6JcSUXwF
— Martin Mignot (@martinmignot) June 14, 2021
Quite late to the party on this but I too must say huge congrats to @cee and @rsohoni for this well deserved honor. These two are powerhouse investors and truly pillars of European tech. https://t.co/GMmEsPmMHU
— Matt Wichrowski (@mattwichrowski) June 14, 2021
The UK doesn’t do enough to recognise its world class inventors, innovators and tech geniuses.
To help fix this, @antonhowes and I have written a paper out today advocating for a new honour for these people: The Elizabethan Order https://t.co/UXm6AvULv5— Ned Donovan | فارس دونوفان (@Ned_Donovan) June 14, 2021
In Q1, 2021 we secured our customers against
✔️ 2 billion web attacks,
✔️ identified 614M unique #phishing links,
✔️ protected 118K customers against banking #malware
✔️ protected 92K customers against #ransomware
Learn more ⇒ https://t.co/VVWhwphWG4 pic.twitter.com/4sBAQ04pYP— Kaspersky (@kaspersky) June 13, 2021
Want to invest in a VC? @DraperEsprit is raising via @PrimaryBid. Very cool. https://t.co/04TMdZ0xJt
— Jason Ball (@jasonball) June 14, 2021
what a journey it has been, omg! but we are very proud to share that we have raised our first-ever investment round at @TicketSwap. congratulations to everyone involved and we just getting started! https://t.co/jOuEp8GdR2
— nurkan.kirkan (@nkirkan) June 14, 2021
Sign up now for this free webinar, "To The Point: Checking in on Cyprus, a gateway to innovation" on June 16th, here: https://t.co/L4IXknJRfk #cyrpus #innovation #tech #cyprustech pic.twitter.com/4YyzaAEcH6
— StartUpEU (@StartUpEU) June 14, 2021
A great overview of the Greek startup industry's current state by @KitGillet @Siftedeu
Greece is back, for good! https://t.co/9LDq9X6Nva— Greek Startup Pirate (@StartupPirateGR) June 14, 2021
New fund from UK
Fuel Ventures (.@fuelventures) announced a new €52M fund 'IV' backed by undisclosed LPs.
Focus: Generalist at Pre-seed stage.https://t.co/zt4JsFjYBZ— euroVC bot (@Euro_VC) June 14, 2021
Delighted to announce @MannaAero partnership with @CocaCola today. https://t.co/UTxkpzG2IB
— ⚕ (@realBobbyHealy) June 14, 2021
MEET @THEEUROPAS 2021 FINALISTS#TheEuropas https://t.co/pK4igRIMEm
— Mike Butcher (@mikebutcher) June 14, 2021
Aligned with the launch of Tech Zero today, we’re also launching a dedicated Sustainability page.
Read out about everything we’re up to and all the different initiatives we’re involved in to help build a more sustainable future.https://t.co/dLOI9A8Uus— Tech Nation (@TechNation) June 14, 2021
Adyen has been granted US branch license.
Pieter van der Does, co-founder and CEO says: “This license was a logical next step for Adyen...I’m excited to see this positively impact our merchants operating in the US…”https://t.co/9XLfAHVjE2— Adyen Payments (@Adyen) June 14, 2021
2 days (23-24 June)
️ 200+ speakers
60+ live sessions
The Europe's largest research & innovation event will took place next week .
Don’t miss your chance to join in & register now https://t.co/pPMNRAVgu3#RiDaysEU pic.twitter.com/L6IhDOmeGU— Digital EU (@DigitalEU) June 14, 2021
For anyone working in HR & recruitment: @BlackTechBerlin has launched a fantastic new platform for recruiting diverse talent https://t.co/g8qvCDwUVS
— Miriam Partington (@mparts_) June 14, 2021
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