This Week in European Tech: TIER raises $200 million, a new €350 million climate tech VC fund is born, and more

Happy Friday!

This week, the Tech.eu research team tracked more than 100 tech funding deals worth over €1.3 billion, and almost 20 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) Business-to-business (B2B) buy now play later firm Berlin-based micro-mobility firm TIER has raised $200 million in a Series D funding round. Already on a tear, the three-year-old company plans to use the funding to continue steamrolling across Europe and the Middle East, namely via M&A activities.ter (BNPL) startup Billie raised $100 million in a Series C funding round at a $640 million valuation, four times what its value was at its last funding in July 2019. The round was led by Dawn Capital, with participation by Klarna, Tencent, Creandum, Speedinvest, Picus and GFC.

2) Monzo, one of the UK's crop of challenger banks, is in discussions with investors for new funding eight months after its last cash injection, according to reports. The digital bank, founded in 2015, is seeking to raise hundreds of millions of dollars in a new funding round, two industry sources told Insider. Monzo could raise around $400 million at a valuation of $4 billion or higher.

3) Storfund, a UK startup that provides e-commerce retailers with immediate payments on sales, a.k.a. factoring, has raised £300 million in a new financing deal. Fintech financing specialist Fasanara Capital has committed £100 million effective immediately, with another £200 million deliverable upon Storfund’s expansion into China.

4) The European Commission has launched an “in-depth investigation” into Nvidia’s acquisition of UK chip designer Arm, which is currently owned by SoftBank. Nvidia announced more than a year ago it wants to buy Arm for $40 billion.

5) Berlin-based search engine that uses advertising revenues to plant trees, Ecosia, has launched a €350 million climate tech venture capital fund, the largest of its kind on European shores. Looking at early to growth-stage startups with high climate performance potential, the fund will invest in companies ranging from alternative proteins to energy storage options and smart charging infrastructures as a service.

6) Munich-based solar car company Sono Motors filed for a US IPO and may be looking to price the company at a $1 billion+ valuation, as investors increasingly eyeball green transportation and renewable energy companies. Sono Motors’ fully electric car, dubbed Sion, features just south of 250 solar cells integrated into its body, and sports a range of more than 305 kilometres.

7) Business-to-business buy now play later (BNPL) startup Billie raised $100 million in a Series C funding round at a $640 million valuation, four times what its value was at its last funding in July 2019. The round was led by Dawn Capital, with participation by Klarna, Tencent, Creandum, Speedinvest, Picus and GFC.

8) Vistaprint, a Dutch company that provides printing and marketing services, is acquiring Cyprus-based online graphic design editor Crello and an online graphic design editor that competes against Canva — and its parent company, stock photo repository Despositphotos — for a total price of $85 million.

9) Luxembourg-anchored Orbital Ventures has closed a €120 million fund that takes aim at international early-stage, space-related companies, including telecom networks, location-based services, robotics, sensors and data, earth observation and monitoring, logistics, and space resources and exploration.

10) London/New York-based consumer research platform Attest has netted $60 million in a Series B funding round. The firm offers any B2C company access to audiences of 110 million consumers across 49 countries, and promises research answers at breakneck speed, thus allowing clients to make the right decision at the right time.

Podcast:

🎧 What’s next for the UK tech scene — with Gerard Grech, Tech Nation

Bonus links:

- The European Union wants to put forward a subsidy package for the microchips sector that rivals the United States' investments. But the plans are set to collide with the realities of the bloc's own competition rules and slow decision-making.

- The UK’s three spy agencies have contracted AWS, Amazon’s cloud computing arm, to host classified material in a deal aimed at boosting the use of data analytics and artificial intelligence for espionage.

- The European venture capital dealmaking boom continues.

- Uber is expanding its partnership with French grocery chain Carrefour to offer rapid delivery of groceries from nine micro-fulfillment centers across Paris.

- Lithuania’s capital Vilnius is emerging as one of the most active biotech and life sciences innovation hubs in Europe - here are three startups to keep an eye on.

- Inside Gaia-X: How chaos and infighting are killing Europe’s grand cloud project.

- What the 2021 Autumn Budget means for the UK tech sector.