This Week in European Tech: Qualcomm swoops in to buy Veoneer, GPS raises $300 million+, SumUp buys Fivestars, and more

Happy Friday!

This week, the Tech.eu research team tracked more than 110 tech funding deals worth almost €1.6 billion, and more than 10 exits, M&A transactions, and rumours, and related news stories across Europe, including Russia, 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).

Here's an overview of the 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).

This week:

1) Qualcomm scored the purchase of Swedish automotive tech company Veoneer, nudging out Magna International with a higher bid. Qualcomm and investment group SSW Partners said Monday they would acquire Veoneer for $37 per share in an all-cash transaction, valuing the company at $4.5 billion.

2) London’s global payments provider SumUp has successfully completed the acquisition of Fivestars, a US-based startup that delivers vertically integrated payments, loyalty programmes, and a marketing automation platform. The transaction amount totals $317 million in a mix of cash and stock.

3) Caller identification firm Truecaller, which earns tje majority of its revenues from India, made its trading debut at $6.82 (60 Swedish Krona) per share on Nasdaq Stockholm, up 15.4 percent from the company's listing price, giving the company a market cap of around $2.5 billion.

4) Global Processing Services (better known simply as ‘GPS’), the UK-based payment technology platform powering neobanks like Revolut, Curve, Starling Bank and Zilch, has bagged more than $300 million in a funding round from Advent International and Viking, who will henceforth “co-control” the company.

5) Munich-based HR software for SME’s Personio has raised $270 million in a Series E round at $6.3 billion valuation. The raise arrives in conjunction with Personio’s announcement of a new product launch, People Workflow Automation.

6) French startup Swile has raised a $200 million Series D funding round led by SoftBank Group International. With this funding round, the startup has now reached unicorn status, meaning that Swile has a valuation of $1 billion or more.

7) Hibob, a London, UK-based developer of HR software, announced closing series C funding round at $150 million. The money was raised from investors led by General Atlantic, joined by Bessemer Venture Partners, Battery Ventures, Eight Roads and Entrée Capital. The deal values the company at $1.65 billion.

8) Skipping the Series C raise and gunning straight for the listing, Stockholm-based Funnel has raised $66 million in a pre-IPO round. The company develops software that helps marketers automate the collection of data and reporting, and will be using the new shekels to continue its rapid expansion.

9) Just three months since the first announcement of their Series A raise at $21.5 million, the seemingly darling banking platform for e-commerce players, Juni has more than doubled the first portion of the raise to a hefty $73 million.

10) London-based Appsumer, a highly innovative marketing performance and user-acquisition insights platform for mobile app advertisers that provides a 360-degree view of marketing spend across channels, allowing advertisers to turn complex data into rich insights, has been acquired by Indian global adtech giant, InMobi.

Podcast:

🎧 Inside the CEE startup ecosystem — with Ragnar Sass, Salto Network

🎧 Unicorn bubble, VC disruption, and Berlin ecosystem — with Robert Lacher, Visionaries Club

Bonus links:

- Dutch online store Coolblue on Wednesday became the latest European company to shelve its plans for listing its shares as stock markets have become gripped by uncertainty.

- Facebook and Google will have to provide reams of detailed information on how political groups target people via online ads or face steep fines, according to European Commission draft proposals seen by POLITICO.

- The European Commission's European Innovation Council has selected 65 innovative start-ups and SMEs to receive €363 million of funding for breakthrough innovations.

- Accel 2021 Euroscape: On a path to global dominance?

- Ministers are planning to make it easier for UK-listed companies to raise capital as part of a wide-ranging strategy to boost London’s stock market after Brexit.

- With startup value up 19x in the last decade, investment on track to 3x in 2021, and 34 unicorns born in the region, CEE’s got a lot to shout about.