This week, our research team tracked tracked more than 110 tech funding deals worth over €1.4 billion, and over 10 exits, M&A transactions, 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).
We've also got some news for you: we're already gearing up for the second edition of the Tech.eu Summit! Save the date:
24 May in Brussels.
If you haven't seen them yet, we've made all the videos from the Tech.eu Summit last May available as a playlist on our YouTube channel - enjoy!
With that said, let's get down to business with 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).
What happened this week in European Tech?
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>> Notable and big funding rounds
French insect protein startup InnovaFeed has raised $250 million in a Series D round of financing. Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, led the investment.
Britain's Intermediate Capital Group is investing €240 million in Zeplug, a French firm specialising in electric vehicle (EV) charging services in multi-occupant and office buildings.
French startup Bump has signed a multiyear financing partnership with DIF Capital Partners in order to roll out more charging stations for electric vehicles and double down on growth in general. It is an equity and quasi-equity $180 million deal that will be progressively unlocked from 2022 to 2030.
Helping SMEs and corporates navigate this reality, Munich-based data privacy, information security and compliance platform DataGuard has brought in €61 million in funding.
In a rapidly evolving restaurant market, French restaurant tech platform Zenchef has raised over €50 million from PSG Equity to develop technology solutions for the restaurant industry and accelerate growth across Europe and the U.S.
Latvia-based fintech that provides online consumer finance services, Sun Finance has launched its largest bond issue to date in the amount of €50 million.
Paris-based inventor of the advanced neuromorphic vision systems, Prophesee has announced the completion of its Series C round of funding with the addition of a new investment from Prosperity7 ventures. The round now totals €50 million.
Swiss non-profit GRN Association has secured an investment totalling $50 million for the GRNGrid project from GEM Digital Limited, a venture capital focused on digital currencies.
Estonia's 3Commas, an automated crypto trading bot platform, has raised $37 million in a Series B funding round led by investment firms Target Global, Alameda Research and Jump Crypto, as well as Dmitry Tokarev, founder and CEO of crypto custodian Copper.
London-based deep tech startup Hadean has raised $30 million in funding to build out its metaverse infrastructure technology to support virtual worlds in immersive entertainment and enterprise digital twins.
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>> Noteworthy acquisitions, mergers, IPOs and SPAC deals
Schneider Electric agreed to buy out minority shareholders in Aveva in a deal that values the UK industrial software company at £9.5 billion, the latest foreign takeover of British tech company.
As the last-mile delivery space market gets more intense, two Swedish-founded last mile delivery companies Instabox and Budbee have joined forces under a new holding company, Instabee to boost e-commerce shipping. The new combined company is valued at €1.67 billion and the founders will, together with Kinnevik, be the largest investors.
Consulting and digital services Capita is to sell its UK-based Pay360 business to Access PaySuite in a deal worth £150 million.
Kambi, a Malta-based sports betting company, acquired Shape Games, a Copenhagen, Denmark-based front end technology specialist, for €78.1 million.
Allurity has acquired Spanish multinational Aiuken Cybersecurity, as an important step in its journey to becoming Europe's leading cybersecurity provider.
Portugal-based pet products and wellness provider Barkyn has acquired Spanish rival Happets for an undisclosed figure.
Ukrainian software developer TechMagic has acquired the US company Dynamo Development.
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>> Interesting moves from investors
Visionaries Club has announced a second B2B-focused fund, with a new €150 million seed fund and €200 million early growth fund. It’s also launching the Visionaries Club science-driven, €50 million “Tomorrow Fund” to back science-driven startups at the pre-seed and seed stage.
Hamburg-based VC Digital Transformation Capital Partners (DTCP) has announced the first closing of its growth equity III fund at $300 million. It plans to continue to raise significant capital for the fund and aims to close fundraising in 2023.
Swisscom Ventures is scaling up its investment activities after raising a €300 million fund, the bulk of which has come from external investors
Berlin-based climate venture firm Extantia Capital has announced a €300 million platform to invest in and accelerate climate tech innovation.
Spanish investment firm Alantra and energy company Enagás, through its affiliate Enagás Emprende, has reached the final close of their energy transition fund with €210 million in commitments.
California-based Silicon Valley Bank has converted its UK branch into a wholly-owned subsidiary and hired a new leadership team and board to focus on UK growth.
Web Summit, one of the world’s largest events centered around technology startups, is to launch a brand new venture capital vehicle consisting of two new $20 million funds, reports TechCrunch.
Ignite Accelerator has appointed Jo York as its new CEO to oversee the delivery of its startup programmes and alumni engagement.
London is still at the top of European investors’ wishlists according to global tech VC investor Northzone.
Aiming to break down barriers and back meaningful innovation, Impact Shakers has made its first investments through its microfund that is supporting purpose-driven ventures led by underrepresented founders.
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>> In other (important) news
The UK's financial regulator has warned consumers against dealing with FTX, the cryptocurrency exchange.
Spain's labour ministry has fined Delivery Hero's local unit Glovo 79 million euros for violating a law requiring food delivery companies to formally hire riders.
The London-listed asset manager Jupiter is finalising the sale of a stake in Starling Bank at a big discount to its most recent valuation of £2.5 billion.
Europe is edging closer to a ban on facial recognition.
British media regulator Ofcom is investigating Amazon, Microsoft and Google’s tight grip on the cloud computing industry.
Nosediving online furniture retailer Made.com is considering a sale as part of a strategic review. The London-headquartered company joined the main market of the London Stock Exchange in June 2021 at a valuation of £775 million, but is worth less than £23 million today.
Swedish buy-now, pay-later provider Klarna aims to keep cutting costs by further reducing its employee headcount.
The European push to reform how the value of research is assessed is about to enter a new phase, with the action plan that was finalised in July opening up for organisations to endorse it next week.
After spending the past few years teasing its literary ambitions, Spotify has formally launched its audiobooks business with an à la carte model that will allow users to purchase and download individual audiobooks. At launch, Spotify’s audiobooks catalog includes 300,000 titles from major and independent publishers for users in the US.
European open banking platform TrueLayer is set to cut 10% of its workforce, around 40 employees, due to “challenging market conditions”.
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>> Recommended reads and listens
Big Deal: Denmark’s Podimo is quietly taking on the giants when it comes to podcasting
Inside Pollen’s Collapse: “$200M Raised” but Staff Unpaid
🎙️ Rock steady with Rockstart’s managing partner Emerging Tech Fund Europe - Michael Bjørnlund
Moving people and things: What’s next for mobility and green transport?
Inclusivity platform Include Me has launched a directory of “exceptional entrepreneurs” from diverse backgrounds, based across all of the UK, to provide more role models to groups under-represented in Britain’s business and tech industry.
Europe and France want to make make a kinder, gentler metaverse that isn't dominated by craven American bullies.
🎙️ From zero to hero in record time with Zilch CEO and co-founder Philip Belamant
Elon Musk May Regret Putting Tesla’s First European Plant in Germany
rancophonie Avenir (@Francophonie9), an association dedicated to the defense of the French language, is taking a number of French government startup orgs to court over their use of Anglicisms in their names.
Female angel investors put £2 billion into UK companies over last decade
