This Week in European Tech: Mega funding rounds for OneWeb, Checkout and Deliveroo, Playtika holds Nasdaq IPO, and much more

This Week in European Tech: Mega funding rounds for OneWeb, Checkout and Deliveroo, Playtika holds Nasdaq IPO, and much more

Happy Friday!

This week, our research team tracked nearly 100 tech funding deals worth about €3 billion, and around 25 M&A transactions, rumours, and related news stories across Europe, including Russia, Israel, and Turkey.

As always, we are putting all of them together for you in a handy list sent in our roundup newsletter (note: the full list is for paying customers only).

Recently, we also started publishing 'Today in European Tech', a daily roundup of deals and news stories that caught our attention. Keeping you updated on all things EU tech is our priority!

Today, instead of a daily roundup we give you an overview of the 10 biggest European tech news items for the past week (subscribe to our free newsletter to get this roundup in your inbox every Monday morning):

1) UK fintech scale-up Checkout.com raises $450 million

Payments business Checkout.com is valued at $15 billion after a $450 million investment led by Tiger Global, according to CEO Guillaume Pousaz. The London-based company’s valuation is almost triple the $5.5 billion it was valued at in a round last year.

2) Playtika's stellar IPO

Israeli mobile gaming company Playtika has held its IPO on Nasdaq, giving it a $11 billion valuation. The Herzliya-based company raised nearly $1.9 billion at $27 per share.

3) OneWeb: from bankruptcy to now $1.4 billion in funding

After a troubled year that saw broadband satellite operator OneWeb file for bankruptcy, get rescue finance from the UK government and Bharti, and then emerge out of that with a launch of part of its fleet last month, the London-based company just raised $400 million in new funding, bringing its total raised to date to $1.4 billion.

4) Telegram is planning a mega-round of funding (and an IPO)

As Telegram’s user base has swelled in recent weeks, its billionaire co-founder, Pavel Durov, has held private talks with investors to raise hundreds of millions of dollars — possibly in a convertible debt offering, ahead of an eventual IPO.

5) Deliveroo gears up for an IPO, but first: $180 in fresh funding

UK-based food delivery giant Deliveroo has secured $180 million in growth funding by some of its prior backer, led by Durable Capital and Fidelity. The Series H round, which comes before an expected IPO later this year, values Deliveroo at north of $7 billion.

6) Sennder bags $160 million in new funding

Berlin-based digital freight forwarder sennder has secured $160 million at a $1 billion+ valuation in growth funding to “accelerate digitalization of European trucking” and boost its expansion plans.

7) Israel's Rapyd raises $300 million

Rapyd, an Israeli fintech-as-a-service company, has announced a whopping $300 million Series D round. The new financing will be used to double the engineering and product teams, as well as expand the platform’s “self-service” onboarding.

8) Truecaller is getting serious about its IPO plans

It ain’t exactly a secret that Swedish mobile phone directory and caller ID service Truecaller is keen to become a publicly-listed company at some point in the near future. The Stockholm-based company has announced that it has recruited Odd Bolin as its new CFO.

Bolin is tasked with preparing Truecaller for an upcoming IPO as it closed 2020 with around 267 million active users.

9) Germany reforms its competition law - beware, Big Tech

Germany is modernising its competition law to stand up to digital corporations. In the future, the Cartel Office will be able to act faster and tougher when companies dominate the market.

10) More funding for UK fintech firms as Curve secures $95 million

Curve, the London-based fintech startup that combines multiple cards and accounts into one smart card and app, is to launch in the US after sealing a $95 million equity round.

Podcast:

tech.eu Podcast #202: What’s up with EIC Fund, newly announced European IPOs, funding rounds big and small, and more

Bonus link:

Fun fact: Index Ventures has ranked Latvia as the most “startup-friendly” country in Europe, following a legislative change to the country’s stock option policy.

Another fun fact: Latvia's Baltic neighbours, Estonia and Lithuania, claim the next top spots.

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