Wayve bags $1.05B, milk peptides to treat depression, and 10 Irish startups to watch

This week our research tracked more than,65 tech funding deals worth over €2.9 billion, and over 10 exits, M&A transactions, rumours, and related news stories across Europe. In addition to this week's top financials, we've also indexed the most important/industry-related news items you need to know about.

If email is more your thing, you can always subscribe to our newsletter and receive a more robust version of this round-up delivered to your inbox.

Either way, let's get you up to speed. 

💸 Notable and big funding rounds

🇬🇧 Microsoft, NVIDIA, and Softbank invest $1.05B in autonomous driving company Wayve

🇬🇧 UK fintech Abound secures up to £800M to expand access to fair credit

#🇬🇧 iwoca secures £270M in debt funding to support SME lending

🫱🏽‍🫲🏻 Noteworthy acquisitions and mergers

🇫🇷 Samsung Medison to acquire French AI ultrasound startup Sonio for $92.7 million

🇪🇸 Freepik acquires Spanish AI image upscaler Magnific

🇬🇧 Regtech CUBE acquires peer Reg-Room#

🚀 Interesting moves from investors

🇬🇧 Coreweave invests £1B in UK data centres

🛟 Investcorp closes $570M fund for cybersecurity and fintech

🔫 EIB steps up defence support with SME-friendly policies

🇪🇺 Arjun closes Infrastructure Alliance Europe 2 fund at €1.1bn

💲Innova Capital closes latest fund at €407m

🗞️ In other (important) news

🇬🇧 Scale AI chooses UK for European HQ

💲 Monument Bank latest challenger bank to sell "in a box" tech, as snaps up first client

🇹🇷 Highlights of corporate venture capital in Turkey

📡 Recommended reads and listens

🇮🇪 10 Irish startups to watch in 2024

🥛 Using milk peptides to treat depression

🛵 PURE EV and PDSL collaborate to develop an electric 2-wheeler with a solid-state battery tech

🥩 Meatly protein-free medium enables affordable, scalable cell-cultivated meat

🤖 Deep tech has dodged the worst of the funding downturn – here’s why

🔭 European tech startups to watch

🇧🇪 Oisoi Studio secures €450,000 funding for VR art tools

🇬🇧 Hexis, which uses advanced analytics to optimise athletes’ nutrition plans, has raised a £1.6M pre-seed round

🇨🇭Mimic raises $2.5M to challenge US robotics dominance with AI-driven humanoid hands

🇩🇰 Electricity Maps raises €5M for time-optimised energy usage

🇪🇸 BeAble Capital invests €174,000 in Ecogranular's wastewater treatment tech