This Week in European Tech: Bloom blossoms with £300 million, Paddle purchases Profitwell, The Family’s feud continues, and more!

Here's a roundup of this week's biggest European Tech funding rounds, exits, 'other news' that you need to be aware of, topped off with an overview of must-read articles on all things #EUtech.
This Week in European Tech: Bloom blossoms with £300 million, Paddle purchases Profitwell, The Family’s feud continues, and more!

This week, our research team nevertheless tracked more than 80 tech funding deals worth over €1.1 billion, and over 10 exits, M&A transactions, and rumours, and related news stories across Europe.

As always, we are putting all of them together for you in a list sent in our round-up newsletter next Monday (note: the full list is for paying customers only, and also comes in the form of a handy downloadable spreadsheet).

Below, please find an overview of the biggest European tech news items for the past couple of days (subscribe to our free newsletter to get this round-up in your inbox every Monday morning).

What happened this week in European Tech?

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>> Notable and big funding rounds

London-based RBF player Bloom has secured £300 million in a Credo and Fortress-led Series A round. According to the company, this capital makes Bloom the highest-funded revenue-based lending business in Europe. Wayflyer anyone?

Finn, a Munich, Germany-based car subscription platform, raised $110 million to be used in both Grman and U.S. market expansion plans. The Series B round, which valued the company at more than $500 million, was led by Korelya Capital.

Dublin-based TransferMate, a global B2B payments technology startup that enables companies to send and receive payments cheaper, faster, and easier than before, announced on Monday that it has raised $70 million in a fresh round of funding.

London-based location technology company what3words has raked in up to €66 million worth of gross media volume from Berlin-based independent media for equity fund, German Media Pool, to make inroads in the German market.

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>> Noteworthy acquisitions, mergers, IPOs and SPAC deals

Just off the back of its Series D fundraise, newly-minted payments infrastructure for SaaS businesses, Paddle has acquired the US-based subscription metrics and retention automation startup Profitwell. The deal is valued at over $200 million in cash and equity.

Moonpig Group has made a £124 million swoop for a gift experiences platform. The London-listed online greeting card firm is eyeing a £6 billion UK market with the deal for Smartbox Group UK, the company behind brands Buyagift and Red Letter Days.

Munich-based HR software company for SMEs, Personio has acquired Berlin-based Back to improve employee experience. The acquisition is in line with the startup’s strategy to expand the people workflow automation category, which enables HR teams in SMEs to work efficiently across departments and tools.

Brussels-based business communications platform Dstny has acquired Tactful AI, a technology startup based in the U.K. and Egypt.

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>> Interesting moves from investors

Cathay Capital has launched Cathay Health, a new €500 million global fund dedicated to investing in the convergence of healthcare, life sciences, and technology.

London’s Synthesis Capital has assembled a $300+ million fund aimed squarely at supporting approximately 15 food technology and alternative protein-focused startups across the globe with an average ticket size of $15 million.

Sequoia Capital has announced the inaugural class of 17 startups to participate in its seed-stage accelerator, Arc.

After posting a >75 percent graduation rate from seed to Series A with its first fund, London’s Crane Venture Partners is back for round two; armed with $140 million and aimed squarely at backing European, Israeli, and American startups.

Dutch early-stage impact investment firm SHIFT Invest has expanded its fund to €110 million from its previous closing at €70 million in 2020 to accelerate the sustainable transition of mobility and logistics.

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>> In other (important) news

The plot thickens in The Family’s feud with former co-founder Oussama Ammar

British challenger bank Atom is reportedly considering a US public listing as interest from a New York-based special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) increases.

The tech company layoffs have hit Europe. Several of Europe’s best-known startups including Klarna, Getir, Gorillas, Zapp and Kry have made drastic cuts to their teams in order to cut costs and preserve their cash runway as the global economy takes a downturn.

The U.K.’s competition regulator has opened a fresh investigation into Google, taking aim at the company’s role in the advertising technology market.It’s the second major antitrust probe to target Google’s ad practices in the U.K.

Britain’s business secretary has ordered a full national security assessment of the £63 million acquisition last year of the country’s biggest semiconductor maker by Nexperia, a Dutch subsidiary of China’s Wingtech Technology.

France's digital regulator is putting in place a system to give technology researchers broad access to Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, TikTok and other platforms, in an effort to fight abuse, discrimination and misinformation online.

The UK’s data watchdog has fined a facial recognition company £7.5 million for collecting images of people from social media platforms and the web to add to a global database. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) also ordered US-based Clearview AI to delete the data of UK residents from its systems.

ProtonMail is rebranding and adding a lot more storage to all its plans.

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>> Recommended reads and listens

Why the EU Chips Act can’t deliver semiconductor sovereignty

The bankers of the Square Mile ruled London for centuries. Now private money is making the running.

The number of new European investors setting up shop dipped in 2021 from the year before, as the landscape became more competitive for new entrants.

Blue Lake Founding Partner David Gilgur highlights the increasing frequency and ticket sizes of later-stage investments in Ukrainian startups and urges investors not to overlook the early-stage gems

The world is falling out of love with Europe’s privacy rules.

As Klarna cuts jobs, rival fintechs say they’re recruiting for hundreds of roles.

A host of major European tech founders and investors are backing the launch of OneUkraine, a new charity providing sustainable humanitarian relief for the Ukrainian people.

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