(Tech.eu) – Here’s an overview of the 10 biggest European tech news items for this week:
1) There’s no getting around it: the biggest world news item this week (the people in the UK voting to leave the European Union in a referendum) will have a major impact on the technology industry in both Great Britain and the EU. It’s too soon to say actually how big an impact, but we’ll obviously be watching this closely in the coming months and years.
2) We’ve got a European ‘decacorn’, as Tencent agreed to buy SoftBank’s stake in Finnish ‘Clash of Clans’ maker Supercell in a transaction that values the company at approximately $10.2 billion.
3) In other acquisition news, Twitter has made another noteworthy move in European tech land after investing in SoundCloud, by buying London-based machine learning startup Magic Pony Technology for a reported $150 million.
AI Weekly
The must-read newsletter for AI and Big Data industry written by Khari Johnson, Kyle Wiggers, and Seth Colaner.
Included with VentureBeat Insider and VentureBeat VIP memberships.
4) Germany-based mobile banking startup Number26 has secured $40 million in Series B round.
5) Swedish music streaming service Spotify said its user base had grown to 100 million, up from 75 million previously, with 30 million users paying to listen.
6) German startup Movinga was growing fast, but too fast as it turns out. The result is lay-offs, rapid burning of cash, the founders leaving, shutting down in certain markets – and it’s probably just the beginning.
7) Meanwhile, the European Union and the United States have agreed changes to a data transfer pact that is key to transatlantic business, including stricter rules for companies holding information on Europeans and clearer limits on US surveillance.
8) The European Investment Bank has agreed to make a £100 million (€129 million) investment in loans to UK small businesses originated through Funding Circle, the London-based operator of a marketplace for business loans.
9) Business Insider caught up with Google Ventures’s only two partners left in Europe.
10) A new bill in the Russian Duma, the country’s lower legislative house, has proposed to make cryptographic backdoors mandatory in all messaging apps in the country (think WhatsApp, Viber, and Telegram).
Bonus link(s): Europe has 47 unicorns! Europe doesn’t have 47 unicorns!
You can subscribe to Tech.eu’s newsletter here.
VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact. Learn More