🌟 QUICK INTRO
Hello and welcome back.
This week GoCardless was acquired by Mollie, Revolut is buying shares from its ex-employees and startups scramble to get their funding announcements out before Christmas.
On a personal note my X is starting to see good traction - if that’s of interest please follow along here.
💰 BIG ROUNDS
Swedish Elvy secured a €500m financing package from Scayl and a banking partner to fund home energy packages offered through a monthly subscription model. Read more here.
Turkish Fal raised a $140m Series D from Sequoia, Kleiner Perkins, and NVentures for its real-time generative media platform. Read more here.
UK-based Nu Quantum raised a $60m Series A from National Grid Partners, to create the internet of quantum computers. Read more here.
UK-based Runware raised a $50m Series A led by Dawn Capital to build a single, low-cost API for AI media generation. Read more here.
UK-based Solve Intelligence raised a $40m Series B just 6 months after its Series A, co-led by Visionaries Club and 20VC. Read more here.
Belgian Qargo TMS raised a $33m Series B led by Sofina to expand its intelligent transport management system. Read more here.
Swiss Assaia raised a $26m Series B led by Armira Growth for AI aviation platform. Read more here.
UK-based Matta raised an $14m seed round led by Lakestar to build industrial AI for smarter "sentient" factories. Read more here.
Italian Equixly raised a €10m Series A led by 33N Ventures to scale its proprietary agentic AI hacking platform. Read more here.
French Evertrust, the cybersecurity software vendor, raised a €10m Series A from the fund Elephant. Read more here.
💸 SMALLER BUT INTERESTING ROUNDS
UK-based conveyd, an AI conveyance tool, raised a £2.5m seed led by Eka Ventures. Read more here.
German FION Energy raised a €1.4m pre-seed led by HTGF and Norrsken Evolve for its AI-optimised battery systems. Read more here.
Finnish AI news service Freepress raised €1m in seed funding to expand its AI news outlet. Read more here.
🇪🇺 THE SCALING EUROPE SHOW
This week I published interviews with:
Alice Bentinck: CEO of Entrepreneurs First. Check it out here.
Michiel Kotting: Partner at Northzone and early investor into Personio, Fiverr and Vinted. Check it out here.
Paul Rippon: Cofounder of Monzo Bank and Starling who was announcing his new fund. Check it out here.
Omid Ekhlasi: Founder & CEO of TECHARENA. Check it out here.
📰 STARTUP NEWS
GoCardless / Mollie
The Dutch Fintech acquired the UK Fintech for €1.05bn in a deal composed primarily of stock with a small cash component.
The UK fintech was last valued at $2.1bn in 2022 and achieved profitability for the first time earlier this year (on an EBITDA basis), while Mollie was last valued at $6.5bn.
The deal, which values the combined entity at €3.5bn, means both companies have seen a large reduction in valuations from their 2021/2022 heights, but overall it's a good result for them both.
Read more here.
Revolut
Not long after announcing a $75bn secondary sale, it's been reported that Revolut is conducting a share buy back scheme purchasing shares from ex-employees.
This is an amazing opportunity for ex-employees to access real liquidity, despite being at a $52bn valuation.
This is at a 30% discount to the $75bn valuation but still significantly more than the $45bn valuation at the secondary sale last year.
Read more here.
💶 FUND NEWS
German VC FoodLabs raised its third fund (this one of €105m) to invest across agriculture, food security, and health. Read more here.
Belgian KBC unveiled a new €100m “Start it Fund”, targeting Belgium’s most promising startups from idea to IPO. Read more here.
Three Earlybird partners launched an independent €60m fund for deeptech university spinouts aptly names U2V - University2Ventures. Read more here.
UK-based Twin Track Ventures raised £5m from NATO Innovation Fund for compute, sensors and defence tech bets. It’s headed up by Solo GP Nicola Sinclair who is an 18-year veteran of the British Air Force. Read more here.
🔎 IN OTHER NEWS
Nick Clegg, the ex-Deputy Prime Minister of the UK and Meta Exec has joined Hiro Capital as it looks to raise its third fund - this one of $500m.
Google DeepMind is opening an automated research lab in the UK next year as part of an expanded partnership between the company and the UK government. Read more here.
THAT’S ALL. Thank you.
Seb