Mistral swings big, Italian founders in demand and Germany scores $273M for chips

This week we tracked more than 65 tech funding deals worth over €2.2 billion, and over 10 exits, M&A transactions, rumours, and related news stories across Europe.

In addition to this week’s top financials, we’ve also indexed the most important/industry-related news items you need to know about.

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Either way, let’s get you up to speed.

💸 Notable and big funding rounds

🇬🇧 Highview Power lands €356.5M to build the UK’s first commercial-scale energy storage plant

🇫🇷 AI challenger Mistral AI raises €600M

🇩🇪 Black Semiconductor nabs $273M in Germany to supercharge how chips work together

🫱🏽‍🫲🏻 Noteworthy acquisitions and mergers

🇫🇷 Voodoo acquires BeReal for €500M

🇨🇭 FemtoTools acquired by Oxford Instruments plc for €25M

🇳🇴 LeadDesk acquires Telemagic

🚀 Interesting moves from investors

🇮🇹 Italian Founders Fund launch debut €50M fund

🇩🇪 Vsqared Ventures unveils €214M for European deeptech

🇬🇧 Corten Capital has closed its second private equity fund at €680 million

🇸🇪 Sweden’s Creandum announces closing of €500M fund amid shifting market conditions

🗞️ In other (important) news

💸 Revolut adds new in-app verification layer to counteract theft from stolen mobiles

🎶 Spotify and Klarna top Scandi founder factory charts amid “talent war”

🇸🇪 Parquest closes third fund, at €414M

🌎 Aira secures €200M to remove this one huge barrier to heat pump adoption

📡 Recommended reads and listens

♿️ UK tech companies are failing disabled people – here’s how to fix it

⏰ Majority of businesses aren’t ready for AI

🇪🇺 Navigating startup success in Europe: speed, strategy, and the single market

🔭 European tech startups to watch

🇩🇰 Danish fintech Ageras eyes acquisitions

🇫🇷 Sanofi forms cloud partnership with Benchling

🇬🇧 Wazoku partners with NATO DIANA accelerator