Happy Friday! This week, Tech.eu tracked 7 technology M&A transactions and 23 tech funding deals totaling €67.7 million ($71.3 million) in Europe, Turkey and Israel. Here’s an overview of the 10 biggest European tech news items for this week:
1) HERE, a digital maps company co-owned by German automotive companies Audi, BMW, and Daimler, has welcomed three Asian companies as new shareholders as it plans to expand in China.
Chinese mapping company NavInfo, Internet services group Tencent (QQ, WeChat etc.) and Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC are jointly buying a 10% stake in HERE.
2) Danish eyetracking tech company The Eye Tribe has been acquired by Facebook‘s Oculus.
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3) Snapchat has reportedly made its first Israeli acquisition with the purchase of augmented reality (AR) startup Cimagine for $30-$40 million.
4) Tel Aviv-based database security company Hexatier has reportedly been acquired by Chinese phone manufacturer Huawei. The deal would be Huawei’s second acquisition in Israel in the last three weeks and is worth $42 million according to Israeli financial daily Calcalist.
5) Turns out SoundCloud didn’t just strike licensing deals with Sony Music, Warner Music and Universal Music in the past, the three music labels also became investors/shareholders of the Berlin company.
6) French cosmetics giant L’Oreal is investing ‘several millions of euros’ in an early stage fund managed by private equity firm Partech Ventures.
7) UK fintech firm Nutmeg has raised £12 million in a Series D funding round led by Taipei Fubon Bank, Taiwan’s second largest financial services firm.
8) Iceland’s QuizUp has been sold to Glu Mobile for $7.5 million.
9) Danish eSports agency RFRSH Entertainment has raised €4 million.
10) Russia’s national savings bank Sberbank has announced a “strategic agreement” with Sistema, a major Russian conglomerate, and Sistema_VC, the venture arm of Sistema, in the fields of advertising technology and Big Data monetization.
Bonus link: Helsinki is turning an abandoned hospital into a massive startup campus.
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