As per a report by Atomico in collaboration with Dealroom, 2020 is on track to be a record year as the investments in European tech startups is all set to hit a minimum of $35B (nearly £26.3M) and reach a potential to surpass $41B (nearly £30.8M) in $100M+ (nearly £75M) deals.
The successful companies in Europe have continued to smash records by raising massive funding that has taken their valuations at new heights at a rapid speed. While many founders faced challenging times to get funding during the COVID-19 pandemic, the situation is taking a turn as we near the end of this year.
As the economic crisis is eventually easing now with the announcement of the vaccine, the European startups are witnessing several rounds of funding in December 2020. To mention a few, Tink, a Swedish startup backed by PayPal secured £78M, Dutch meat substitute Mosa Meat secured £56M, and London-based Ada Venture bagged £37M as they continue to be successful in their respective businesses. Having said that, UKTN has listed some funding rounds raised by European tech startups that we think are important for December 2020 for our readers.
Catawiki bags £136M by Permira
Founder/s: René Schoenmakers, Marco Jansen
Founded year: 2008
Total funding: £213M
Earlier this month, Amsterdam-based online auction platform Catawiki bagged €150M (nearly £136M) equity funding in a round led by Permira, a private equity firm via its Growth Opportunities Fund. Other investors included existing backers Accel and its partner Martin Gibson who served as chairman of its board. The investment will help Catawiki grow its user base and invest in marketing, technology and hire more experts all over Europe.
HungryPanda bags £52M from Kinnevik
Founder/s: Eric Liu
Founded year: 2016
Total funding: £74.2M
London-based HungryPanda, an online ordering platform for Chinese users $70M (nearly £52M) Series C funding. The round was led by Swedish investment powerhouse Kinnevik along with previous investors – Felix Capital and 83North and others including VNV Global, Piton Capital and BurdaPrincipal Investments. HungryPanda will use the investment to double its team size and take it to 1,000.
Sensyne Health raises £27.5M from Phesi
Founder/s: Lord Drayson
Founded year: 2012
Total funding: NA
UK-based big data analytics and clinical AI company Sensyne Health raised £27.5M from Phesi, a US-based clinical trial firm. This investment will be used to industrialise and scale the data platform. Further, they will use the fund to boost its ability to market an improved offering to the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries.
EclecticIQ secures £18.1M from Ace Management
Founder/s: Joep Gommers, Raymon van der Velde
Founded year: 2014
Total funding: £36.7M
A cybersecurity scaleup based out of Amsterdam, EclecticIQ bagged €20M (nearly £18.1M) in Series C funding round led by Ace Management. Also, others including Quest for Growth, Capricorn Digital Fund, Arches Capital, and Invest-NL Capital and existing investors including KEEN Venture Partners, KPN Ventures and INKEF Capital took part in the round. The company will expand both its product portfolio and global footprint with this fresh funding.
ROXi bags £13M from Sun Capital Partners
Founder/s: Rob Lewis
Founded year: 2014
Total funding: £14.2M
London-based ROXi, a music tech firm closed £13M growth capital led by Sun Capital Partners along with new investors including Guy Hands (Founder and Chairman of Terra Firm), Lorna Tilbian (Chairman of Dowgate Capital) and Chris Wright CBE (founder of Chrysalis Record). Also, a slew of existing shareholders took part in the funding round. Sun Capital Partners teams up with ROXi to accelerate its global and platform expansion. It lets the platform ROXi Music Video Jukebox, a 55 million song music video streaming service built for the TV to be rolled out to Smart TV and Pay TV platforms.
Contractbook secures £7M from Bessemer Venture Partners
Founder/s: Jarek Owczarek, Niels Martin Brochner, Viktor Heide
Founded year: 2017
Total funding: £11M
Copenhagen-based legal tech startup Contractbook secured $9.4M (nearly £7M) Series A investment in a round led by Venture Partners along with existing investor Gradient Ventures, an AI-focused venture fund of Google. The fresh investment will be used to accelerate the rollout of its new smart contract analysis features and expand its business in the US.
New Venture from OnePlus co-founder secures $7M
Founder/s: Carl Pei
Founded year: NA
Total funding: NA
Carl Pei, the co-founder of OnePlus, one of the fast-growing smartphone brands, secured $7M (nearly £5.2M) seed funding from high-profile investors for his new hardware venture. The investors include Tony Fadell (Principal at Future Shape and iPod inventor), YouTuber Casey Neistat, Steve Huffman (CEO of Reddit), Kevin Lin (Twitch co-founder), Liam Casey (co-founder and CEO of PCH), Josh Buckley (CEO of Product Hunt) and Paddy Cosgrave (Web Summit) among others. As of now, Pei remains tight-lipped about the new venture and we expect details to be out in 2021.
WikiFactory bags £2.7M from impact investors
Founder/s: Christina Rebel, Maximilian Kampik, Nicolai Peitersen, Tom Salfield
Founded year: 2016
Total funding: £3.36M
Madrid-based Wikifactory known as ‘GitHub for hardware’ announced that it closed
$3M (nearly £2.7M) funding from a set of unnamed investors called impact investors. The company intends to use the investment to build a ‘quality-assured’ manufacturing marketplace. Also, mirrored servers in China can have open access to its hardware capital Shenzhen.
CurrencyCloud raises £60M from Visa, BNP Paribas and others
Founder/s: Richard Arundel, Stephen Lemon
Founded year: 2012
Total funding: £155.1M
London-based CurrencyCloud, a cross-border payments company secured $80M (nearly £60M) Series E funding in a round led by Visa, BNP Paribas, International Finance Corporation, Notion Capital, Siam Commercial Bank, Accomplice, Sapphire Ventures, and Anthemis. This company intends to use the investment to expand its portfolio of payment methods and develop its partner ecosystem.
Rundit secures £0.91M from angel invetors
Founder/s: Pekka Viilto
Founded year: 2015
Total funding: £1.72M
Helsinki-based Rundit bagged €1m (nearly £0.91M) seed funding in a round led by two angel investors – Pierre Weimerskirch and the LPEA Luxembourg Private Equity Association. The Finnish platform will use the investment to scale across Europe and the US and develop the product for GPs.
The post Catawiki, HungryPanda, OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei and all the sizzling tech funding rounds of Dec 2020 appeared first on UKTN (UK Tech News).
