The European startup ecosystem is full of interesting and exciting news, twists and turns. At EU-Startups, our aim is to keep you informed on everything that’s going on and share the inspiring entrepreneurial spirit this continent has to offer. From big funding announcements, duocorns picking up pace, to new partnerships and conscious collaborations – there’s never a dull day!
So, with this in mind, we decided to pull together all the big milestones that we saw this week into one place. It’s impossible for us to cover every announcement with an article, but perhaps this is one way we can continue to share as much as possible about up-and-coming innovators and ideas. Let us know what you think!
This week, discover the celebrity ambassadors advocating tech for good, there’s a new centaur in town and foodtech is entering the metaverse.
Launches and Expansions
- Foodtech goes meta: Europe’s fastest-growing plant-based meat brand, Heura, launched its newest product through the Metaverse.
- Kanvas.ai announced becoming the first Baltic art NFT marketplace to offer art NFTs created on the Tezos blockchain. The Estonian art startup offers a curated platform for art NFT collectors with the support of the Tezos Foundation.
- Axeleo Capital (AXC), announced the first closing of its new €50 million fund AXC2. The Fonds National d’Amorçage du Programme d’Investissement d’Avenir managed by BpiFrance and Tikehau Capital are investing in this new fund alongside some 60 experienced tech entrepreneurs. It’ll be used to support B2B technology startups specialized in cybersecurity, B2B FinTech, and SaaS.
- Hamburg-based proptech Evernest is expanding internationally and has opened its first office outside of Germany in Madrid after growing and tripling its revenues compared to 2021.
- Laka the micromobility Insurtech has launched in Germany following new funding from Porsche Ventures, the venture capital unit of Porsche AG
- The Cultivated B. launched to develop lab-grown protein at an industrial scale
- Einride, the autonomous electric freight company, announced its expansion into Germany, Europe’s largest transportation market.
- Apheris, the Berlin-based platform for building collaborative data ecosystems, officially launched, allowing organizations to overcome significant regulatory, technical and commercial challenges by extracting value from each other’s decentralised data sets.
- Dataddo, an SaaS startup that provides an automated, no-code data integration platform, announced the launch of its Free plan—the first ever free data integration plan with no extraction limits.
- Payhawk launched in the US The unicorn has opened an office in New York and is introducing a US credit card to support companies with multiple offices across the UK, Europe, and the US.
- Plum, the European smart money app, announced that it is launching stock investing and a debit card for its customers in France, Belgium, Spain and Ireland.
Acquisitions and Collaborations
- Tiqets and Klook are partnering up to offer travellers worldwide the ultimate selection of museum & attraction-related experiences.
- DRONAMICS, the leading middle-mile cargo drone developer and operator, announced a strategic manufacturing partnership with Cotesa, a European manufacturer of high-quality composite fibre components for aerospace and automotive companies.
- YOOBIC, the all-in-one digital workplace for frontline teams, acquired Heystan, a digital training and knowledge management platform serving the catering and hospitality industries.
- ETFmatic and Aion Bank announced their partnership, offering an end-to-end turnkey investment solution to companies across Europe, that can easily integrate into any bank or fintech’s existing ecosystem.
- RatedPower was snapped by Enverus to meet solar planning challenges
- Wirtualna Polska Holding S.A., a leading provider of online travel and tourism services in Poland, took control of Portfolion Capital Partner’s investment, Szallas Group.
- Tuum, an Estonian-born core banking platform, has partnered with Salt Edge to enable financial services providers from all over Europe to leverage the full spectrum of open banking features.
- Romanian healthtech startup SanoPass announced that MedLife, the largest private medical services group in Romania, has acquired its majority package.
Other Milestones & Insights
- TechChill Milano announced the finalists for the pitch competition at this year’s inaugural event:
- Bes Test, MY3D.Cloud, Vado, Livetrend, Holifya, Deliverart, Hyperjob, BonusX, TA-DAAN, Agrovisio
- Patch raised a €55 million Series B round to embed climate action directly into the global economy
- Seven Web3 projects have teamed up with leading enterprises within moveID, a three-year European project with funding of more than €20 million. Focusing on decentralized digital identities, a real-world public blockchain use case with enterprise support, moveID will support up-and-coming web3 players: Chainstep, peaq, Datarella, 51nodes, Ocean Protocol, Fetch.ai, and deltaDAO
- Boardwave, a new high-powered community for European software leaders at all stages of development, has emerged to help foster a generation of businesses capable of competing on a global scale.
- Helen Skelton, Héctor Bellerín, Neil Robertson and Zak Abel have become ForGood ‘Changemakers’, forming the initial network of Chris Smalling’s new investment company ForGood.
- Global climate tech accelerator Subak announced its latest funding round targeting £ 20 million.
- Digital for Planet (D4P) and the FIWARE Foundation (FIWARE) signed a memorandum of understanding that sets the stage for the further development and adoption of green digital technologies to help businesses, public institutions, communities, and cities grow sustainably.
- Laundryheap revealed that over the past 6 months, the platform has secured 71 new partnerships with individual and chain hotels across the UK, including Holiday Inn and Point A Hotels, and Z Hotels.
- MVP Match has created a marketplace for matchmaking fast-growing companies with global vetted tech talents who are based in non-traditional tech hubs. The company announces, that it had raised a €5 million seed round led by Stage 2 Capital and is to launch a new hub in Egypt. This will be the third hub opened following the company’s operations in Portugal and Georgia .
- EQT Growth announced its final close, having raised €2.2 billion, with total commitments of €2.4 billion. The record final close positions EQT Growth to help take leading tech companies to the next level, supported by the global power of EQT
- Fireblocks announced that its 2022 Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) surpassed $100 million just four years after the company’s inception and three years since Fireblocks’ first product went to market. This achievement places Fireblocks among a rare subset of SaaS unicorns — including Slack and Twilio — that have reached this coveted centaur milestone in less than five years.
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