Happy Friday!
This week, our research team tracked nearly 100 tech funding deals worth about €2.75 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.
Barclays CEO Jes Staley said in 2019 that payments would be the battlefield in finance for the next decade — @checkout‘s phenomenal growth is testament to that. The company has twice tripled its value in just two years, riding the online shopping wave https://t.co/Bf4jmBmTdN
— Oscar Williams-Grut (@OscarWGrut) January 12, 2021
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.
Israel’s biggest ever tech IPO will come from a–drumbeat–mobile slots games company owned by a Chinese holding group. https://t.co/7IwzXVCkMZ
— Orr Hirschauge (@orr_hirsch) January 15, 2021
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.
We are pleased to announce today that we have secured additional funding from @SoftBank and @HughesConnects, bringing OneWeb’s total funding to $1.4 billion. Read more here: https://t.co/g09y58CyAb
— OneWeb (@OneWeb) January 15, 2021
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.
New: one of the hottest apps in the
— @telegram — in talks to raise convertible debt.
by @alexeheath @coryweinberg https://t.co/s5lUJOtcW9
— Amir Efrati (@amir) January 13, 2021
5) 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.
Another major milestone following the string of acquisitions. Nothing can stop the @sennder team in their quest to digitize the multi hundred billion (!) European road freight market. Who knew
could be this exciting…
https://t.co/rL2CPK3XjJ
— Sonali De Rycker (@sonalidr) January 14, 2021
6) 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.
Welcome to the @sparkcapital family @ashtilman and the entire @RapydPayments team! We are thrilled to be on this journey with you as you build the AWS of global paymentshttps://t.co/A786IepVg6
— Yasmin Razavi (@YasminRazavi) January 13, 2021
7) 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.
According to @didigital_se, Truecaller’s valuation upon its IPO could reach around €1 billion (though one can imagine a lot can change from now until the flotation):https://t.co/BNz3lO9tWS
— Tech.eu (@tech_eu) January 14, 2021
8) 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.
This has now been approved, making Germany the first jurisdiction with a hybrid competition-regulation regime to contain the market power of the likes of Google, Amazon and Facebook #GWB10 https://t.co/DNragN8lyf
— Simon Van Dorpe (@simonvandorpe) January 14, 2021
9) 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.
*taps mic*
During a global pandemic. Whew!
Huge S/O out to the team, the investors, and YOU for supporting us through our toughest year yet
BIG things ahead. But first, champagne
— Curve (@imaginecurve) January 12, 2021
10) A case in Belgium could open the floodgates for GDPR privacy suits
In a case involving Facebook and Belgium, one of the EU’s top legal experts has issued an opinion that could presage a change in how effectively the GDPR — which allows fines that could run into billions of euros — is enforced.
If the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) follows his advice, Big Tech could find itself facing more lawsuits, and perhaps more fines.
EU’s top court issues an opinion allowing GDPR complaints in any member state, which could lead to a flood of complaints against tech giants (@tconnellyrte / RTÉ)https://t.co/otfli5DWo2https://t.co/kBguUOd6wT
— Techmeme (@Techmeme) January 13, 2021
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.
The post This Week in European Tech: Mega funding rounds for OneWeb, Checkout and Sennder, Playtika holds Nasdaq IPO, and much more appeared first on Tech.eu.
Originally published on Tech.eu : Original article