TalkTalk bags £100M, Klarna granted UK EMI licence, and European DIGITAL SME Alliance slams EU–US trade deal

This week we tracked more than 50 tech funding deals worth over €967 million, and over 20 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

🇬🇧 TalkTalk secures £100M funding injection from Ares

🇹🇷Fal.ai raises $125M at a $1.5B valuation

🇪🇸 Cofides (FOCO) invests €90M to boost the growth of Proeduca, controlled by Portobello

🇬🇧 Roadsurfer raises €85M

🇩🇪 1KOMMA5° extends pre-IPO round

🫱🏽‍🫲🏻 Noteworthy acquisitions and mergers

🇩🇪 German AI startup Cognigy hoovered up by US customer service firm NiCE in a near $1B deal

🇩🇪 Pina Earth and Tree.ly merge to create Europe’s largest forest carbon platform

🇬🇧 Manchester-based Hydrogen Safe acquired by IACS

🇵🇱 Montagu to acquire digital retail solutions provider IAI Group

🇦🇹 The Pasching-based pet tracking scaleup Tractive is acquiring its US competitor Whistle

🚀 Interesting moves from investors

💰 BlackWood Ventures closes debut fund at $25M to back Europe’s next-gen founders

🔧  Chasing tech milestones, not just capital: key lessons from the Deeptech Hardware Napkin

🇬🇷 €600 million mobilised: Greek Guarantee Fund concludes with major impact on SMEs

🇬🇧 Cambridge Innovation Capital commits £100M to University of Cambridge spinouts

🗞️ In other (important) news

🇬🇧 Klarna granted UK EMI licence, as looks to position itself as "global digital bank"

🇪🇺 Google to sign EU's AI code of practice

🔋 Ore Energy connects world’s first grid-connected iron-air battery in Delft

🇪🇺 European DIGITAL SME Alliance slams EU–US trade deal undermines local tech sovereignty

🇬🇧 UK’s AISI launches coalition to protect against advanced AI

📡 Recommended reads and listens

📱 SASHA’s mission to end image-based abuse is reshaping the rules of the digital world

🇱🇹 Most LLMs ignore Baltic and Eastern European languages — TildeLM is the solution

🇱🇺 Smart, connected, global: Luxembourg’s digital innovation hub

💰 What comes after a €250M Exit? For Martin Klässner, it was building a better way to scale

⚛️ UK Quantum computing is going universal through scaling

🔭 European tech startups to watch

🇩🇪 Tilla raises €2M to accelerate global growth of crew logistics platform

🇮🇹 Cultipharm closes a $1M round

🇬🇧 Fluid Focus raises £640,000 to grow screen time productivity app globally

🇱🇹 Coinvest Capital backs Psylink’s next-gen mental health biotech solution with €501,521

🇺🇦  IoT startup Uniot received $25,000 from YEP Accelerator