Hello!
Here's what happened today in European Tech.
Deals
- Wise, the UK payments group formerly known as Transferwise, has confirmed plans to go public in what will be the first direct listing of a tech firm in London. The company said it has been profitable since 2017 and sales hit £421 million this year. The float could reportedly value the company at as much as £9 billion.
- Subject to regulatory approval, JPMorgan Chase, the fourth-largest bank on the planet (in total assets) has confirmed its intent to acquire London’s longtime fintech player, Nutmeg. Founded in 2011 by Nick Hungerford and William Todd, Nutmeg has a customer base of over 140,000 investors with over £3.5 billion of assets under management.
- Netherlands-based challenger bank Bunq has agreed on the terms of €160 million in investment by a British private equity firm, valuing the Dutch business at $2 billion.
- London’s talent acquisition, engagement, and retention platform Beamery has raised $138 million in Series C funding led by the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board (Ontario Teachers’), through its Teachers’ Innovation Platform (TIP).
- VTB-Capital, a division of the Russian state bank VTB, is in the process of acquiring a 15% stake in the Delimobil car-sharing service. VTB Capital will pay $75 million for the Delimobil stake, which values the company at $500 million.
- Swedish podcasting tech company Acast went public today, but it was a rough landing.
- London-based accident and disaster recovery platform Tractable has raised $60 million in a Series D funding round led by Insight Partners and Georgian.
- Antwerp/Amsterdam’s Fortino Capital has closed its second venture capital fund at €105 million.
- Israeli fintech company Unit today announced the completion of a $51 million Series B financing round led by Accel and with the participation of existing investors Better Tomorrow Ventures, Aleph, Flourish Ventures, and TLV Partners.
- Akur8, who uses a proprietary “Transparent AI” to automate insurance pricing, has landed $30 million from BlackFin Capital and MTech Capital in order to help actuaries and pricing teams make better, faster decisions.
- Bulgaria has a new early and growth-stage fund in Vitosha Venture Partners. Based in Sofia, the €26 million fund aims to support companies that are based in, or related to Bulgaria.
- Open payments gateway Volt has raised $23.5 million to fuel global expansion plans as well as further product development efforts.
- It’s a banner day at Berlin’s coliving platform Habyt, as they’ve closed a Series B round totaling €20 million, and have announced their third acquisition in six months, this time Frankfurt’s homefully.
- 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
- Here’s how the European Commission intends to ‘greenify’ innovation with €14.7 billion worth of research funds.
- Wise's unconventional listing is big test for London.
- Russian lawmakers passed legislation on Thursday that would oblige US tech giants to open offices in Russia by January 2022 or face punitive measures, part of a push by Russia to beef up what it calls internet "sovereignty".
- Deeptech Labs is a newly launched accelerator based in Cambridge that seeks to position post-seed stage deeptech startups from across the UK and Europe before leading deeptech investors.
- Tech.eu Podcast: Building company culture, remotely — with Valerie Krämer and Rebecca Görres, Remi
- Ukraine’s parliament recently passed a billthat imposes additional taxes on foreign tech companies like Apple, Netflix, Amazon and Facebook.
Today's Top Tweets
We’re 10 years into this mission of building a much better way for people to move money around the world — faster, cheaper, easier and transparent.
Today, we have some big news that will not change, but enhance this mission we’re on. https://t.co/EHoFpKHV3L— Wise (ex-TransferWise) (@Wise) June 17, 2021
Our CEO commenting on today's announcement about Nutmeg becoming part of the @jpmorgan @Chase family https://t.co/OCCR8eIXWz pic.twitter.com/uXXPGU72el
— Nutmeg (@thenutmegteam) June 17, 2021
@PascalCagni, @JohnTChambers and #JoeSchoendorf talking about the future of Europe & Silicon Valley. Great discussion moderated by @jennschenker! "Often in agreement, sometimes in debate, but always sharing this conclusion: European tech ecosystem is becoming mature". pic.twitter.com/wBnLZmUpEQ
— Nicolas VASSITCH (@NicolasVassitch) June 17, 2021
I started with $50 and zero orders in Europe. Starting with 816 million orders in the US can hardly be called a weaker position. https://t.co/IgIGZ6T2jR
— Jitse Groen (@jitsegroen) June 16, 2021
Yesterday we announced our funding round. @adegeler asked us a few questions about how we raised so much money as first time founders, about our vision and next steps for @join_remi + what we are planning to do with the money.
( ♀️hint: we're hiring!)https://t.co/k0W61djBuk— Valerie Krämer (she/her) (@valeriekraemer) June 17, 2021
Every entrepreneur should be aware of how incredibly valuable @Landscape_vc is as a resource. Particularly reviews from non-portfolio companies. Well done @changeventures https://t.co/55xoIWeTFJ
— jon bradford ✈️ ⛴ (@jd) June 17, 2021
#ECJ : The registration of IP addresses of users and the communication of their names and postal addresses to the holder of #IntellectualPropertyRights or to a third party in order to enable an action for damages to be brought is permissible under certain conditions #BitTorrent
— EU Court of Justice (@EUCourtPress) June 17, 2021
With this amazing Nutmeg acquisition and the (Transfer) Wise IPO on the same day, the UK fintech sector has dispelled any final critics to the dustbins of VC history… https://t.co/JVT9kLZ8NE
— James Wise (@jpwiseuk) June 17, 2021
« The goals for @LaFrenchTech on 5 years are clear :
- More jobs
- Dozens of unicorns
- European #Tech giants
- Inclusive and young leaders
- Carbon-less ecosystem »@VivaTech @cedric_o @ScaleUpEuropeEN @businessfrance @JohnTChambers @jennschenker— Pascal Cagni (@PascalCagni) June 17, 2021
.@waldec: our goal is to grow the startup sector 10x in ten years: 10,000 #startups in #Estonia by 2030.
— Invest in Estonia (@EstoniaInvest) June 17, 2021
Big Tech top execs slam EU, US antitrust bills at @VivaTech conference. Yesterday, Apple's Tim Cook warned the #DigitalMarketsAct could harm security and privacy on iPhones. Today, Facebook's Nick Clegg said rules are a "rigid straight jacket." https://t.co/BuwaIDjSMG
— Laura Kayali (@LauKaya) June 17, 2021
"Progress in #genderdiversity in European Tech has stagnated, with all-male teams capturing more than 90% of all capital raised.
Women continue to be underrepresented. That's why this #FemaleFounderChallenge is so important for our 10 finalists." @carolineramade#VivaTech pic.twitter.com/TNI72JUSau— 50inTech (@50inTech) June 17, 2021
We should be a team of 8 by September. I’m excited to welcome new members to the team.
Currently @pinverrr @burgessshane @cleo_sham @wa1dey and I working hard with our founders on boring stuff like, you know, hiring, scaling, fundraising, strategy etc.— Fred Destin (@fdestin) June 17, 2021
BREAKING: Commission spokesperson just confirmed to https://t.co/XlFJhfgCKd that EU member states "voted unanimously in favour" of UK data protection adequacy decision. That means data flows will go interrupted post-Brexit. Watch this space for details. https://t.co/XD0bRZgijb
— Alexander Fanta (@FantaAlexx) June 17, 2021
Oooooh my first angel investment exit!! Big congrats @thenutmegteam @nickhungerford & William Todd https://t.co/QoX6DaI1pj
— Emma Sinclair MBE (@ES_Entrepreneur) June 17, 2021
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