European business angels, first esport company to ever IPO, first country that makes public transportation free

#10

Dec 01, 2019

This is the tenth 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

🇱🇺 MiddleGame Ventures announces €150 million post-seed, FinTech-focused fund out of Luxembourg.

🇸🇪 Eequity announced closing its fourth fund at $100M.

🇸🇪 Blq Invest announced a first closing at $10M for an investment fund to back Swedish startups.

🇫🇮 Epistemic VC is a new VC fund in Finland making seed-to-beyond investments with strict focus on solutions within enterprise regtech and automating enterprise BPO.

🇮🇸 Minister of Innovation announces Kría, the Icelandic Venture Initiative

2. How others are doing it

🇩🇰 A good interview with Heini Zachariassen, one of Vivino’s founders.

Vivino is another great startup success story from Europe, together with Spotify - it has become the biggest online wine seller anywhere in the world three years after it pivoted their business model to e-commerce. Speaking of which:

🇱🇹 European unicorns: Vinted, the second-hand clothes marketplace, raises $141M at a $1B+ valuation

🇪🇺 Uefa is seeking to “experiment” with its own internet streaming channel in a few national markets outside Europe.

The NBA has been doing this for about 8-9 years. But then, NBA is a $8bn per year business, UEFA generates sales of about $3bn yearly. Slowly and surely, the old media built around the pay & FTA TV sport rights will diminish its importance.

🇫🇮 What does Icebreaker VC deliver on top of capital

TLDR: recruiting+strategy+biz devel+fundraising+wellbeing+mkting

🇫🇮 Slush put their videos online

🇬🇧 Inside “Angel’s Den”; London’s speed dating for startups

🇩🇰 The Danish esports firm Astralis Group plans first ever IPO for an esports team

🇪🇺 Google brings its Google for Startups Accelerator program to Europe.

🇪🇸 The Handbook for Expanding to Emerging Markets by Glovo

Bonus

Y Combinator abruptly shutters YC China

3. Interesting bets

🇩🇰 Denmark

global cellular operator for the Internet of Things | Maersk Growth

🇫🇮 Finland

bug tracking you actually want to use | $4.2 million | Sequoia, Index Ventures

🇫🇷 France

admin-panel builder | $7 million | Notion Capital, Runa Capital
property company | €2.1 million | Alven Capital, LocalGlobe, Kima Ventures, business angels
veterinary regenerative medicine | €1 million

🇩🇪 Germany

enterprise software vendor for self-service conversational AI automation | DN Capital, Nordic Makers, Inventure
platform connecting with more than 1,500 data providers across the globe | €1 million | High-Tech Gründerfonds
cloud-based platform for clinical validation of medical devices and pharmaceutical products | WestTech Ventures

🇪🇸 Spain

custom automated industrial inspection solutions for wind energy infrastructures using laser navigation technology | €1.2 million | Orza Investments, EASO Ventures
brand price monitoring | angel investors

🇸🇪 Sweden

mobile-based business for providing car washing services | $3 million | Bonnier Ventures, CSB Capital
software framework for game developers | $2.5 million | Firstminute Capital, Sisu Game Ventures

🇨🇭 Switzerland

B2B marketplace for health care | €1.4 million | ICT

🇬🇧 UK

Digital Twin Technology company | €7.5 million | IQ Capital, Talis Capital, Breed Reply.
hybrid solar collector which generates power as well as heat | £5.25 million | Earthworm Group, Taqa Holdings Ltd
independent games studio and virtual reality developer | £1.5 million | Praetura Ventures, ACT Capital Partners
end-to-end solution for workforce and supplier management | £500k | SeedCamp, Swiss Founders Fund, angel investors

4. Research, data, observations

🇪🇺 Eban: The value of angel investment deals targeting companies based in Western Europe reached the highest-recorded result for any month in the entire year to date in October

And a nice graph from Eban about European business angels:

🇸🇪 What are tech fastest growing tech company in Sweden, measured in revenues

🇸🇪 The Chinese invested in 65 companies from Sweden, according to a study made by a local newspaper.

🇱🇺 Luxembourg is set to become the world's first country to make all of its public transportation free.

🇩🇪 Germany has launched the first ever driverless tram

🇪🇺 Basic figures on the EU | Fourth quarter 2019

🇬🇧 UK taxes for dummies

Bonus:

Of the 108,000 mobile game publishers, the top 1% account for 82% of total downloads across Google Play and the App Store.
The games industry is larger than Hollywood & 5X the size of the music industry.
"Future of Work" myths
Myth: "Freelancing is exploding".
Reality: Employment (both part-time and full-time combined) levels are close to all-time high and has steadily been increasing since the 1960s. True, there was a dip in the great recession, but the long-term trend seems clear.

5. What others think

🇫🇮 Inklusiiv is challenging European VC firms to commit to advancing diversity and inclusion. They probably didn’t hear of this, covered by us in our last edition.

🇸🇪 Sweden is Becoming Europe’s Texas for Wind Power

🇪🇺 Ten rules for succeeding in academia through upward toxicity (applies to, cough, other industries as well)

🇫🇷 Go International. Period.

Bonus:

Happy Sunday!

Thanks for reading 🙌

Created by @drnovac every Sunday. Please share it with people who may find it interesting - thanks! Feedback at dragos@nordic9.com.

Sunday CET