Today in European Tech: Moonpig soars after its London IPO, Just Eat Takeaway.com raises €1.1 billion in bonds issue, and more

Today in European Tech: Moonpig soars after its London IPO, Just Eat Takeaway.com raises €1.1 billion in bonds issue, and more

Hello!

Here's what happened today in European Tech.

Deals

- Online greeting card retailer Moonpig saw its shares rise by 25% within minutes of pricing its London IPO on Tuesday, underlining bullish investor appetite and setting the stage for other e-commerce companies to follow. The listing price valued the company at around £1.2 billion ($1.64 billion).

- Just Eat Takeaway.com, the Amsterdam-based food ordering and delivery juggernaut, has raised €1.1 billion through a two-tranche convertible bonds offering, for general purposes but also to bankroll “strategic opportunities which may arise”.

- PSG, a growth equity firm "partnering with lower middle-market software and technology-enabled service companies", today announced that it closed PSG Europe, the firm’s debut Europe-focused fund, with €1.25 billion in LP commitments.

- Israeli solar energy AI diagnostics company Raycatch has reportedly filed for an initial public offering (IPO) on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.

- German gym equipment startup EGYM has managed to raise €28 million after a year of business cuts and downsized dreams. The new funding, which comes from previous backers Nokia Growth Capital, Highland Europe, HPE Growth Capital and Bayern Kapital, will help the company survive through the coronavirus lockdowns.

- London-based Vortexa has secured $19 million in Series B financing for its energy analytics platform, which the startup says gives its clients a view on the flow of energy at a global level in real time.

- Global payments player SumUp has acquired the Lithuanian-born core banking system provider Paysolut. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

- Brussels-based Soda has secured €11.5 million in fresh funding to bolster its data monitoring platform. The round was led by Singular, with participation from prior seed investors Point Nine Capital, Hummingbird Ventures, the US-based Data Community Fund and a number of angel investors.

- We also tracked a large number of (other) European tech funding rounds and M&A transactions, all of which we are putting in a handy list for you on Friday afternoon in our weekly roundup newsletter (note: the full list is for paying customers only). Also check out our European tech news section for ongoing coverage.

Worth Reading/Knowing

- In the UK, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has published the long-awaited Woolard Review, calling for tighter regulation of buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) firms.

- The European Commission today announced its plans for the launch of Horizon Europe, its next R&D programme. In an essay for Science|Business, Commissioner Mariya Gabriel restates the broad goals of the programme.

- German lawmakers have turned their sights on finance ministers in the Wirecard fraud fiasco.

- How digital sommelier Vivino is becoming a Netflix for wine.

- Accelerated Payments, the invoice financing provider, with bases in London, Dublin and Toronto, anticipates a rocky period as companies emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic and come to terms with the post-Brexit environment. It sees opportunities, though, and plans €100 million in funding by the end of 2021 to bank on that.

- Generally, venture capital is doing better in Poland. In 2020, VC funds invested over PLN 2.1 billion in Polish companies. This is a record result – by as much as 70 percent better compared to 2019, according to the data contained in the report of PFR Ventures and Inovo Venture Partners.

Today's Top Tweets

Tell us what you think about this daily roundup and how we can improve it!

And follow us on Twitter of course.

Follow the developments in the technology world. What would you like us to deliver to you?
Your subscription registration has been successfully created.