Happy Friday!
This week, the Tech.eu research team tracked more than 115 tech funding deals worth over €3.1 billion, and over 25 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).
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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) Madrid-based Jobandtalent has raised a robust $500 million in equity funding and $75 million in debt financing in a Series E funding round. The company provides individually tailored matches between workers and companies in a wide range of sectors including logistics, e-commerce, warehousing, and manufacturing.
2) Investment and wealth management firm Abrdn has agreed a deal to acquire subscription-based investment platform Interactive Investor for £1.49 billion.
3) With 12 unicorns already in the portfolio, global investment firm Partech has announced the close of their second fund at a healthy €650 million. The reloading of the cannons will be used to continue the firm’s sector-agnostic early to late-stage investments in European scale-ups, with 12-15 investments planned with ticket sizes ranging from €20 to €70 million.
4) London’s fintech Thought Machine has announced the close of a $200 million Series C round, now giving the company a valuation of over $1 billion. The copy focuses on building software solutions that help banks and financial institutions transition away from legacy IT systems and join the 21st century.
5) Grover, the European tech rental platform, has inked a $250 million asset-backed facility with London-based Fasanara Capital. The financing, which comes only a few months after Grover secured $1 billion in debt and equity funding, is meant to allow the tech subscription startup to accelerate growth for its US business.
6) Chegg, the NYSE-listed student media learning platform, is acquiring Busuu, the online language learning startup established in Europe in 2008, for approximately $436 million in an all-cash transaction.
7) Rapid delivery firm Jokr raised $260 million in new financing from its investors, giving the Germany-born company fresh cash to expand its business across the US and Latin America. Founded by CEO Ralf Wenzel, a former Delivery Hero executive, Jokr aims to bring consumers fresh groceries and other consumer goods in 15 minutes from urban micro-fulfillment centers.
8) Not satisfied with simply drafting to a second-place finish, London’s Motorway pulls into pit lane to fuel up with 94 octane in a $190 million in Series C round. As the company rejoins the field, crew chief Tom Leathes slaps the unicorn sticker on the bonnet.
9) The United Kingdom’s antitrust watchdog has blocked Facebook’s acquisition of Giphy and ordered the social network to sell off the GIF-sharing platform, saying the deal hurts social media users and advertisers by stifling competition for animated images.
10) Longtime crowdfunding champion Seedrs has announced that it has entered a definitive agreement to be acquired by US-based private investment firm Republic for approximately $100 million (£75 million).
Latest podcast(s):
🎧 Revolutionizing the pig farming industry — with Kristóf Nagy, Serket
🎧 Must-have healthcare technologies — with Martin Herman, Powerful Medical
Bonus links:
- There's a new venture capitalist in town, as the European Union launches into a new role taking ownership stakes in technology companies that receive injections of public funds.
- The U.S. Federal Trade Commission on Thursday sued to block US chip company Nvidia's more than $80 billion planned acquisition of British chip technology provider Arm, adding to already significant global regulatory challenges of the deal.
- Germany's Volocopter has canceled its plans to go public via its anticipated merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC).
- Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s competition and digital policy chief, has urged the European Parliament and European Council to approve rules to curb the power of Big Tech as a matter of urgency, even if they are imperfect.
- Is the UK’s competition watchdog really helping Britain? The sale of Seedrs suggests not.
- Gorillas, the delivery app maker, raced to a $1 billion valuation, promising to transform a problem-prone industry. Striking riders say it’s no different from its peers.
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