This Week in European Tech: All aboard the Wise IPO train, JP Morgan to buy UK fintech Nutmeg in $1 billion deal, and more

This Week in European Tech: All aboard the Wise IPO train, JP Morgan to buy UK fintech Nutmeg in $1 billion deal, and more

Happy Friday!

This week, our research team tracked 129 deals funding deals worth close to €2.4 billion in total, as well as 21 exits and relatied 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) Wise has confirmed plans for a direct listing in London

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.

2) JP Morgan chases Nutmeg acquisition in $1 billion deal

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 in a reportedly $1 billion deal. 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.

3) Scaling Up Europe: A plan to level up from Macron and friends

Announced in December 2020 by French president Emmanuel Macron, the Scale-Up Europe initiative brings together more than 200 members of the European tech ecosystem (entrepreneurs, investors, researchers, corporates and public decision makers). This week at Vivatech, after several months of consultation, the recommendations drawn up by the initiative were presented to Macron at the Elysée Palace. The French President said he wants to foster 10 European tech giants valued at €100 billion by 2030.

4) Made, Listed

Made.com, the online furniture retailer, has endured a rocky start to its London stock market flotation with shares falling as much as 9%. The UK firm, which also operates a small network of stores, said ahead of the start of trading on Wednesday that it would list its shares at 200p - giving it a market value of £775.3 million.

5) How About You went public in Frankfurt

German fashion e-commerce company About You has jumped as much as 17% on its first trading day in Frankfurt, bolstered by investor expectations that easing lockdown restrictions will boost sales of its party and evening wear.

6) Norwegian software giant Visma picks up Holded

Scandinavian accounting and admin software maker Visma has acquired Holded, an ERP and accounting platform hailing from Barcelona, for more than €120 million.

7) Young podcaster scores $140 million worth of funds for his side business

Harry Stebbings, a 24-year-old law school dropout from south-west London who, as a teenager started a popular podcast about tech investing, has raised $140 million in new funds to back tech startups.

8) Listed VC firm Draper Esprit goes looking for more dry powder

London’s publicly-listed VC firm Draper Esprit has announced its intention to raise £111 million via the PrimaryBid platform.

9) Naspers' Prosus buys The Netherlands' GoodHabitz in €212 million deal

Prosus — the international assets holding arm of South African multinational Naspers, has announced tday that it has acquired a majority stake in GoodHabitza provider of online training for businesses. The deal was completed for approx €212 million.

10) London fintech scale-up 10x raised $187 million to boost growth

10x Future Technologies, a London-based fintech startup that helps larger, established banks build both next-generation services as well as tools to help their older services work more efficiently, has raised $187 million.

Podcast(s):

A unicorn a week over in France - an hour-long conversation with La French Tech queen Kat Borlongan and veteran journalist Chris O'Brien

Building company culture, remotely — with Valerie Krämer and Rebecca Görres, Remi

Bonus link(s):

- Here’s how the European Commission intends to ‘greenify’ innovation with €14.7 billion worth of research funds.

- After four years of strained relations between Washington and Brussels, US President Joe Biden this week agreed a series of new joint measures with the EU on research, technology and trade.

- IBM and the Fraunhofer Institute in Munich, Germany, unveiled a collaborative effort in the form of an IBM Quantum System One computer. IBM said it is Europe's first and most powerful quantum computer.

- British inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee is selling the original code for the World Wide Web as a non-fungible token (NFT) with a starting bid of $1,000. Digitally-signed source code documents written by the computer scientist three decades ago will go under the hammer next week.

- "Europe's unicorn herd grows bigger and faster in 2021” (PitchBook)

- Big Tech is likely to face more privacy enforcements — and more fines — in the European Union, thanks to a major ruling by the union's highest court in a case involving Facebook.

- Scaling up internationally from France: le good, la bad and l’ugly

- 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".

Follow the developments in the technology world. What would you like us to deliver to you?
Your subscription registration has been successfully created.