This Week in European Tech: Accel's fresh new funds, Mister Spex goes public, an IPO and monster funding round in Turkey, and more

This Week in European Tech: Accel's fresh new funds, Mister Spex goes public, an IPO and monster funding round in Turkey, and more

Happy Friday!

This week, our research team tracked more than 100 tech funding deals worth more than €1.9 billion, and 21 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) Turkish online shopping giant Hepsiburada goes public

Hepsiburada.com was valued at $3.9 billion in its initial public offering on Nasdaq, the first such listing on the exchange by a Turkish firm. The company, one of Turkey’s largest online shopping platforms, sold shares at $12 apiece and is planning to use the proceeds to offer additional services such as booking flights and money transfers.

2) More dry powder for Accel to put to good use

Accel has closed $3 billion across three new funds: its fifteenth US early-stage fund of $650 million, its seventh early-stage fund for Europe and Israel of $650 million, and its sixth 'growth fund' of $1.75 billion.

3) Mister Spex sees strong IPO debut

Shares in German online spectacles retailer Mister Spex opened 1.5% above its offer price in a stock market debut on Friday. The company opened at 25.38 euros per share, compared to its offer price of 25 euros per share, valuing the Berlin-based company at around 829 million euros.

4) UK-based medtech firm CMR Surgical scores £425 million in funding

CMR Surgical has raised £425 million in Series D financing, a world record for a private medtech company. Cambridge-headquartered CMR works with surgeons and hospitals to provide an optimal tool to make robotic keyhole surgery universally accessible and affordable.

5) Dream Games secures $155 million in financing to scale

Dream Games, a fledgling mobile games outfit based in Istanbul, has scored a $155 million Series B round led by Index Ventures and Makers Fund that gives the company a post-money valuation of $1 billion.

6) British savings tech firm Smart raises £165 million round

Smart, the global retirement savings technology platform provider that powers the Smart Pension Master Trust, one of the ‘big four’ UK auto enrolment master trusts, has concluded a £165 million Series D funding round. Chrysalis Investments led Smart’s Series D funding round with a £75 million equity investment.

7) A big check for Czech grocery delivery scale-up Rohlik

Prague-based online grocery delivery startup Rohlik has secured a €100 million Series C funding round at a valuation of €1 billion. Led by Index Ventures, the capital injection will support Rohlik’s expansion; the company has already launched in Hungary and Austria and is planning to start operating in Munich in the coming months.

8) MTG buys Indian game developer/publisher PlaySimple for $360 million

Swedish gaming giant Modern Times Group (MTG) has acquired Indian startup PlaySimple for $360 million.

9) Ably nabs $70 million in Series D funding

Real-time data synchonisation platform Ably has raised $70 million in a Series B round led by Insight Partners and Dawn Capital, with existing investors Triple Point, Digital Horizon, Forward Partners, and MMC, also participating.

10) Grocery delivery scale-up Getir buys its way into Spain and Italy

Getir, the Turkish startup that has built a $7.5 billion business out a mobile app that lets consumers buy groceries and get them delivered in minutes, is acquiring Blok, another “instant delivery” grocery service based out of Barcelona.

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Bonus link(s):

- The European Commission has adopted two adequacy decisions for the UK - one under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the other for the Law Enforcement Directive. Personal data can now flow freely from the EU to the United Kingdom where it benefits from an essentially equivalent level of protection to that guaranteed under EU law.

- Late-stage capital is having a ‘cascading effect’ on European VC activity.

- The EU put more than a billion euros in a fund meant to boost startups. But they're quickly running out of cash.

- Retail giant Amazon has announced the launch of a new development centre in Helsinki that has been established specifically to support Amazon Scout, the autonomous delivery vehicle active in the US.

- Invest Europe released its 2020 Central and Eastern Europe Private Equity Statistics. The report shows that the number of CEE companies receiving private equity investment increased by 15% on the previous year’s record and beat the five-year average by 46%.

- N26’s chief growth officer sheds light on the neobank’s US expansion, and its plans for Brazil.

- A supercomputer battle in Barcelona points up the potential pitfalls in Europe's push for strategic autonomy. The "MareNostrum 5" in the Catalan capital is supposed to be the latest and most expensive of eight high-performance computers in the EU — a European effort to catch up with the US, China and Japan in a technology race that's crucial for scientific and industrial development. But the powerful machine is now in limbo amid an argument over competing bids by US-Chinese consortium IBM-Lenovo and France's Atos for the contract.

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