These were the 10 biggest European tech stories this week

These were the 10 biggest European tech stories this week

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Happy Friday!

This week, tech.eu tracked 16 technology M&A transactions and 45 tech funding deals totalling about €1.14 billion in Europe, Turkey and Israel - including a €1 billion funding deal for Swiss biotech company Roivant Sciences.

Like every week, we listed every single one of them in our free weekly newsletter, along with interesting news regarding fledgling European startups, tech investors old and new, a number of good reads published elsewhere, government and policy news, as well as an overview of interesting lists, facts and figures from a wide variety of sources.

You can subscribe to our newsletter below to receive all this information in your inbox every Friday afternoon for free, but here’s an overview of the 10 biggest European tech news items for this week:

1) France is working with Germany and other partners to plug loopholes that have allowed US tech giants like Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon to minimize taxes and grab market share in Europe at the expense of the continent’s own companies.

2) Investors want to replace the CEO of SoundCloud, the troubled Berlin-based music-streaming service provider, as part of a new 'do-or-die' round of investment. Under terms of a proposed funding deal circulated this week, former Vimeo CEO Kerry Trainor would run SoundCloud in place of founder and current chief exec Alex Ljung.

3) Facebook has reportedly bought a small German video modification and motion tracking technology startup called fayteq.

4) People in the UK will get a new right to force social media companies and online traders to delete their personal data under laws to be brought forward by their government this summer.

5) Israeli Oryx Vision, which develops depth sensors for autonomous vehicles, has raised $50 million in Series B funding. The round was led by Third Point Ventures and WRV, with participation from Union Tech Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, Maniv Mobility and Trucks VC.

6) Moscow-based cyber security firm Kaspersky Lab said on Wednesday it would withdraw antitrust complaints made in Europe against Microsoft after the latter agreed to change how it delivers security updates to Windows users.

7) UK tech startup Huddle is being sold to Turn/River, a San Francisco-based private equity firm, for a reported $89 million.

8) Digital-only or so-called ‘challenger’ bank Tandem has signed an agreement to acquire Harrods Bank, the banking arm of the UK’s most famous luxury department store.

9) Russian internet firm Yandex and Sberbank have announced plans to build a new ecommerce ecosystem on the Yandex.Market platform with Sberbank investing 30 billion rubles ($500 million) into the shopping site.

10) Israeli gaming company Plarium has been acquired by the Australian casino company Aristocrat, in a deal worth $500 million.

Bonus link: In the heart of the #Estonianmafia (part 1): Government and the public sector’s focus on Digital Europe and startups

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