This Week in European Tech: The crazy story of a ghost startup’s ‘funding’ round, IntegrityNext scores €100M, Rovio-Playtika sales talks break down, and more
This week, our research team tracked more than 100 tech funding deals worth over €877 million, and over 15 exits, M&A transactions, rumours, and related news stories across Europe.
As always, we are putting all weekly deals together for you in a list sent in our round-up newsletter (note: the full list is for paying customers only, and also comes in the form of a handy downloadable spreadsheet).
And don’t forget: we’re busy prepping for the next Tech.eu Summit, it’s gonna be epic!
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With that said, let’s get down to business with the biggest European tech news items for the past couple of days (subscribe to our free newsletter to get this round-up in your inbox).
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>> Notable and big funding rounds
eToro, a London headquartered fintech, recently completed a $250 million funding round at a valuation of $3.5 billion.
Munich-based sustainability and compliance monitoring platform IntegrityNext has welcomed its first investment at €100 million.
Berlin-based fintech Raisin has raised €60 million in a Series E funding round that welcomed two new investors, M&G’s Catalyst, and an undisclosed financial institution.
Best known for their EVE Online MMORPG, Reykjavík-based CCP Games has secured $40 million in financing via Andreessen Horowitz, Makers Fund, BITKRAFT, Kingsway Capital, Nexon, Hashed, and additional undisclosed participants.
Spanish fintech ID Finance has announced it has secured an investment of €30 million allowing it to to focus on the Spanish and Mexican roll out of financial wellness app Plazo – with co-founder Boris Batine in the role of Plazo’s CEO.
XXII, a Paris, France-based AI computer vision company, raised €22 million in Series A funding.
Zürich-based provider of professional mapping drones, developer of fully autonomous flights software, and the WingtraPilot app, Wingtra has raised $22 million in a Series B funding round.
Stockholm-based makers of electric hydrofoil watercraft, Candela have raised $20 million in a new funding round.
Oslo-based Two’s portal is making B2B transactions on e-commerce platforms ‘as frictionless as consumer payments’ on via its open API or plugins, and has just raised a €18 million Series A round.
Munich-based DeepDrive has received a €15 million investment from BMW i Ventures in a Series A funding round.
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>> Noteworthy acquisitions, mergers, IPOs and SPAC deals
Angry Birds maker Rovio confirms that talks with Playtika have come to a close but that acquisition offers from “certain parties” remain under review.
IWG, the serviced offices giant, is exploring the sale of a major stake in its digital operation Worka in a deal that could generate proceeds of about £800 million.
Payment infrastructure for platforms and marketplaces provider Mangopay is acquiring Dublin’s WhenThen, a payments technology company, which powers payment acceptance and automates payment operations for e-commerce players.
Kakao Mobility, the ride-hailing subsidiary of South Korean messaging and internet giant Kakao, has acquired Splyt, a startup out of London that works with apps in areas like travel, ride-hailing and finance to help them build out “super app” strategies by integrating other services.
In a Stockholm-to-Stockholm transaction, online grocer, and of course delivery service, Mathem has acquired crosstown competitor Kavall for an undisclosed sum.
Stockholm-based Baffin Bay Networks has been acquired by payments tech giant Mastercard for an undisclosed sum.
London-based creator of, well, let’s be honest, lots of cool stuff that are a feast for the senses, WPP has acquired cross-town global social influencer marketing agency Goat. The terms and conditions of the deal were undisclosed.
Maven Clinic has announced it acquired London-based women’s healthcare platform Naytal for an undisclosed figure. Maven Clinic is seeking to further accelerates its growth in the UK and Europe with the deal.
Zurich-based property valuations and market insights platform PriceHubble has acquired UK residential property market intelligence company Dataloft – sum undisclosed.
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>> Interesting moves from investors
Emblem has announced its first close of its new French-Nordic seed fund at €50 million. It’s planning a second close of €75 million in Q3 of this year.
The Netherlands will host the headquarters for the NATO Innovation Fund, and Lakestar’s Dr. Klaus Hommels has been appointed as its chair of the board of directors.
Brussels-based Roundtable has raised €3 million from some 100 angel investors in order to boost angel investing operations in Europe, and simplify the process in the process, as it were.
Plural VC is adding another former operator to its list of “peers” (their in-house term for what everyone else in VC-land calls general partners) in the shape of Carina Namih, a pioneer in mRNA technology and former CEO of HelixNano.
Twenty entrepreneurs and investors who graduated from the same business school in France have banded together to invest in “impactful startups” across Europe, under the name of Neo Founders.
Techstars is shutting down its programme in Stockholm immediately, despite a new cohort having just started the course.
The Mensch of Eastern European Venture – A session with Borys Musielak, Founding partner of SMOK
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>> In other (important) news
Just Eat is planning to oust 1,700 couriers in the UK as the takeaway delivery firm shifts back towards a gig economy model and scraps guaranteed minimum pay, sick pay and holiday pay.
Atlantic Money is taking its dispute with British fintech Wise to the European Commission after Wise delisted the payments firm from its price comparison tool.
The European Commission has approved a €100 million Irish scheme to support the microelectronics-manufacturing sector in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Klarna has just become the latest company to integrate with ChatGPT. The ‘buy now, pay later’ (BNPL) giant is collaborating with OpenAI to bring ‘smoooth’ shopping to the AI chatbot.
The Swedish presidency of the EU Council proposed narrowing down the derogation for the presumption of employment, one of the most contentious parts of the platform workers directive, in a new attempt to bridge differences after negotiations broke down in December.
The European Commission on Wednesday (22 March) presented the final piece in a series of proposals to reduce product waste.
Maranello-based maker of all things exotic and on four wheels, Ferrari informed clients this week that they, and subsequently owners, have been victim(s) of a ransomware attack.
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>> Recommended reads and listens
An investment fund announced a $16 million investment in an Estonian startup. But there’s a problem — the startup doesn’t exist, and the funding didn’t happen. We unearthed the wild scam beneath the headlines.
Across Europe, the emergence of neobanks has been one of the landmark disruptions to financial services over the past eight years. But despite the hype, these financial disruptors have enjoyed only mixed success and those neobanks which are winning out now face the conundrum of profiting from their increasingly enlarged businesses.
Report: Big data is big business. And big government.
Is Europe losing top tech founders?
The creation of so-called tech unicorns in the UK slowed by more than ten times last year as venture capital dried up and companies reined in their valuations to raise cash, new data has revealed.
The EUROe with Membrane Finance CEO and co-founder Juha Viitala and Maki.vc’s Partner Paavo Räisänen
In a tech landscape where layoffs have been rife since the middle of 2022, the fear that your workplace might be next is a really understandable worry.
The UK government has been vocal about its ambition to make the country a “science and tech superpower”. In that spirit, it has unveiled a 10-year strategy, backed by £2.5 billion of public funding, to support Britain’s quantum computing industry.
The Ecosystem: drone start-ups get ready for Europe’s new space race
EU commissioner for research and innovation Mariya Gabriel and a delegation of more than 50 representatives of the EU research and innovation community visited Silicon Valley this week to showcase the EU innovation ecosystem to investors in the US.
European investors lead the way in net-zero commitments
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>> European tech startups to watch
Be My Eyes, the app for blind and low-vision people, has announced a collaboration with OpenAI to develop a powerful new AI-powered Virtual Volunteer feature.
Finnish scale-up MVision AI, a cloud-based software service provider for radiotherapy treatment planning, has announced it raised €5.4 million to scale its service globally.
Vilnius-based sustainable agri-finance marketplace HeavyFinance has raised a €3 million seed round to fuel an expansion and double its head count.
German climate tech start-up ampere.cloud has raised a €5 million Series A financing round which will help its plans for a European expansion.
London-based social fitness app, GoJoe announce a seed round of £1.2 million, add another sports star to its investor list and prepare to internationalise its B2B SaaS product.
