Airbnb betting Dutch, Spotify exploring the kids market, Brits testing self driving cars and an overview of the luxury secondary market.

#6

Nov 03, 2019

This is the sixth edition of Sunday CET, a weekly curation of what we found interesting in the European investment tech landscape.

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1. More money in the market
2. How others are doing it
3. Interesting bets
4. Data, research, observations
5. What others think

1. More money in the market

🇪🇺 Crestline Investors Closes European Opportunity Strategy with $360 Million

🇬🇧 Frog Capital announces €150 million fund for European software scale-ups

🇪🇸 Alantra announced the launch of a new €150 million real estate debt fund.

🇪🇸 The ICF Group - owned by Government of Catalonia - financed 1,512 companies for an amount of 600 million euros in 2018

2. How others are doing it

🇳🇱 Airbnb becomes a minority investor in Amsterdam-based Tiqets.

Tiquets operates a platform for booking tickets for museums and attractions and, since its founding in 2014, it has raised total funding of more than $105 million.

Airbnb kept exploring to become a provider of so-called unique experiences, with moderate success after having launched Airbnb Experiences 3 years ago in its growth quest become a global travel seller.

Betting on outsiders is another angle to explore in addition to building from within.

The space is quite crowded, with Tripadvisor active through Viator, bought in 2014, and with the Germans from Getyourguide having raised a significant amount from Softbank and others earlier this year.

🇸🇪 Spotify for kids

Spotify Kids, essentially, is a set of hand-picked playlists across categories programmed by human editors, not algorithms, and which allows children three and up to listen to their own music, both online and offline, as well as explore playlists and recommendations picked by experts

The app is in beta, available in Ireland on an initial phase.

It is a very lucrative and interesting growth avenue, if it’s executed right - the Swedes have been working to launch it for about 3 years.

🇬🇧 London’s top consumer VCs share which trends they’re tracking

🇫🇮 Best Practices for B2B SaaS Landing Pages

🇪🇸 Why we fell in love with Procurement - why the space is hot, how we slice it and what we look for when making an investment

🇫🇮 How to implement a six hour work day in a company - Inscripta.

🇬🇧 A London startup chief executive explains how he recruited his founding team

🇫🇮 Content marketing made by one of the better tech events from the Nordics - Soaked by Slush

🇸🇪 Curious about some high profile names from the online retail vertical from Sweden? Here is a list.

3. Interesting bets

🇫🇷 France

wearable assistant for senior people | €1.3 million | Finovam, Nord France Amorçage.

🇩🇪 Germany

female health startup enabling women to decode their bodies | €8 million | Blossom Capital, Monkfish Equity, angel investors
open decentralized operating system with focus to connect the global supply chain financing | $3.6 million | Crane Venture Partners, Atlantic Labs, Inflection Capital, Fabric Ventures
D2C coffee chain | €3 million | Tengelmann Ventures, Howzat Partners, Kassos Ventures

🇮🇸 Iceland

real-time surveillance for high-voltage powerline infrastructure | Brunnur Ventures

🇳🇴 Norway

manufacturer of elegant video meeting devices for Zoom | Zoom

🇪🇸 Spain

big data analytics provider for financial services | $10 million | GP Bullhound

🇸🇪 Sweden

grocery ecommerce provider | $1.8 million | angel investors

🇨🇭 Switzerland

social media marketplace of influencers in Switzerland and Germany | CHF 2.3 million | Tamedia, the Zurich Cantonal Bank, Privilege Ventures
Connectivity-as-a-Service for the Internet of Things applications | Momenta Ventures

🇬🇧 UK

marketplace connecting farmers with local suppliers of goods and gear such as seed and fertilizers | $13 million | True Ventures, AgFunder, June Fund, LocalGlobe, ADV, Norrsken Foundation
tech platform enabling consumers to shop customizable products, in-store or online | $12 million
virtual reality medical training and data analysis platform | $5.6 million | Downing Ventures, Epic Private Equity, Brighteyes Ventures
provider of software that instantly verifies passenger data to reduce the need for manual document checks in airports | $5 million | LocalGlobe, Oxford Capital
startup using open banking to offer loans to people with thin credit files | $4.9 million | Seedcamp, Forward Partners
fintech startup developing mobile digital payment and saving tools | £4 million | Eurizon

4. Research, data, observations

🇫🇷 An overview of the luxury secondary market

🇮🇱 Israel's most valuable VC-backed companies according to Pitchbook

🇫🇮 Over 150 megawatt hours of energy was created from the 100 tons of manure collected from competing horses during a World Cup event in Helsinki.

🇮🇸 Iceland government proposal for 0% VAT on e-bikes and bikes

🇬🇧 McDonald’s delivery accounts for just over 10% of all its UK business, available across 950 of its sites across the UK

🇸🇪 Police given green light for facial recognition software to speed up crime investigations.

🇸🇪 10 Swedish Innovations

🇬🇧 The UK launched a commuter research trial for the most advanced demonstration of self-driving vehicles on mixed-use public roads.

The invite-only research trials are taking place on public roads on a fixed route in two London boroughs, Croydon and Bromley, throughout October and November 2019

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