Tech.eu

Live and direct from the Tech.eu newsroom, it's been a short week, but topics abound.This week we're talkin':00:57 - Spotted Zebra raised a seed round of $1.8 million for its workforce platform. Fiona sees this as great news for the skills gap sector, as the 'zebras are 'powering the shift to skill-based organisations’.01:24 - Lithuania’s SME Finance added another €100 million to its pot thanks to London-based Fasanara Capital.01:45 - Czech Republic has a new investment fund for AI start-ups. (AISI) AI Start-up Incubator is aiming to raise €20 million to support early-stage AI-driven companies.02:03 - CampX by Volvo Group announced that they will also be adding a focus on fintech innovations going forward to ‘better support their customers with productivity and sustainable solutions’. 03:10 - OpenAI’s ChatGPT is entering a world of regulatory pain in Europe.03:20 - Would you like to see the video version of these podcasts? Hit us up on the Tweeters and let us know.06:16 - Who's enforcing this? Is this like a Sicilian task force?08:00 - The horse has already bolted.08:24 - Remember EyeEm? Well, it looks like they're now ByeEm. Here's the story. 😞08:45 - Robin sold a photo. 10:39 - Lifetime earnings: $4.28.15:45 - Cate brings us death tech. Again. I'm starting to sense an obsession. 20:27 - Do they have to be dead?20:44 - I want to be smoked after I'm dead.22:37 - Robin's one more thing: Raspberry Pi has received fresh investment from Sony’s semiconductor unit.24:24 - Could it get me a beer?All this and a whole lot more on this week's Drive at Five!

Up this week:01:10 - Tech startup tackles Ireland's housing crisis by connecting buyers with vacant properties.08:27 - Quantexa raises a $129 million round at a $1.8 billion valuation.09:37 - Acorns has acquired GoHenry.11:49 - Parisians have voted to ban rental electric scooters in their city.12:32 - Fitfck, the dating app for ‘fit as’ singles, launches with an OnlyFans connection.15:53 - Hyperjob raises €435k to bring marketing tactics to the recruitment process.17:14 - Electric boat maker X Shore sees bow lift after €26.6 million raise.18:08 - Electric motorcycle producer STILRIDE pulls back the curtain on final design, reveals price.All this and a whole lot more!

As to be expected, lots of wheeling and dealing this week with a news cycle that was ringing off the hook. To put it mildly, if we discussed everything that happened this week, this show would run well into the wee hours of the morning.Up this week:01:10 - No Label Ventures - the new VC Firm for immigrant founders02:55 - Ireland has a new sustainability accelerator programme and everyone's invited06:25 - Norway’s 1X raised $23.5 million in OpenAi-led round, and is working its robots into the security sector. What could possibly go wrong?10:11 - Tech Nation is in talks with Founders Forum Group. Yay!12:35 - Isar Aerospace closed a €155 million round, while Virgin Orbit called it a day and is shuttering its doors effective immediately.15:00 - The European Champions Alliance is helping scaleups maintain and foster innovation in Europe. Suhweeet!18:38 - There's another event that's also helping scaleups maintain and foster innovation in Europe. Hint: May 24, Brussels.19:36 - Fiona's one more thing. That she forgot. No Lable Ventures helps folks with visas.20:28 - Robin's one more thing. By Dan. Sweden's Zound Industries turned the partnership up to 11 and acquired Marshall.All this and a whole lot more on this week's episode of the Drive at Five.

Well alright, alright, alright. Spring has sprung and what would a week without a little controversy be? This week we're looking at Hedonova and Carbonomy, or not, the JET and some not-so-nice labour actions, ridiculous funding round names, SerenityNow, DeepDrive's neck breaker of a new EV drivetrain, and Ferrari getting h4x0r3d, again. And one more thing: a Neobanks Report to end all neobanks reports.Keen listeners will recognise that we've taken a staple of the show and moved it from the very end to the very beginning. Because lulz.Up this week:00:50 - Shady actors called Carbonomy and a questionable-at-best hedge fund named Hedonova.06:16 - Tech.eu has invited Hedonova to join us for a rebuttal in a video interview format.08:11 - Just Eat Takeway, the sage continues as it said on Tuesday it will reorganise in Britain, ending an employment model called Scoober by which it employs its own couriers. 08:43 - SCOOBER!12:39 - HeavyFinance raised €3 million in a seed round aimed at fuelling expansion efforts.12:48 - Social fitness app GoJoe bags a sports star and £1.2 million in its Seed round.13:26 - emma raised $6 million in Seed funding to hire engineers for no-code platform.13:45 - Finland’s MVision AI raised €5.4 million for an AI-powered Cancer treatment planning platform.14:07 - Fiona gets creative with funding round nomenclature.15:32 - After seven years bootstrapped, IntegrityNext takes on €100 million via EQT Growth. 15:49 - Serenity NOW!17:47 - Lieferkettensorgfalts­pflichtengesetz.18:55 - i Ventures. iPod? iPad? iPhone? i Series cars ... lightbulb moment.19:16 - BMW i Ventures shifts €15 million DeepDrive’s way.20:10 - Italia’s pride tarnished as the Prancing Horse of Ferrari falls prey to ransomware.22:05 - Winningest. It is a word.22:46 - One more thing: A Neobanks Report. Go read it. Lots of numbers. And a pretty table.All this and a whole lot more on this week's episode of the Drive at Five!

Digital currencies. Love 'em, hate 'em, or ambivalent about 'em, the financial instruments are here to stay. But for all the volatility that we've seen in the markets, where exactly does Europe stake its claim in the ecosystem? And what's the deal with MiCA?I sat down with Membrane Finance co-founder and CEO Juha Viitala, and Maki.vc Partner Paavo Räisänen to find out.In this episode:02:19 - Intros and who and what Membrane Finance is, and why it matters.03:25 - What's the big deal with crypto and what's the Golden Promise?04:33 - Where it all started and where we're going.07:40 - Why is crypto plagued with horror stories?08:50 - What's the deal with the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation?09:20 - What's a stablecoin?10:27 - Who's backing the majority of stablecoins and why isn't it Europe?13:00 - A safe haven. In a good way.14:25 - Well-timed regulation.15:45 - The EUROe, a stablecoin that's tied to the Euro.17:38 - The digitally native Euro.19:32 - Where can I get my EUROe?20:42 - Better regulation in the EU market.21:43 - A "safe gateway".23:00 - The European standard.23:56 - Maki.vc's take on Membrane Finance and European crypto.

Providing one of the biggest language learning platforms on the planet, Berlin-based veteran tech scale-up Babbel has only raised a little over $30 million to date. An IPO attempt in 2021 failed to materialise, but that doesn't leave the company desperate for funding - at all. We saw down for a good (remote) chat with CEO Arne Schepker to learn more about its current status, and future plans.Babbel, the edtech company behind the eponymous popular subscription-based online language learning service, is not exactly a spring chicken anymore. Born back in 2007, the scale-up has - weirdly - picked up no more than $30 million in funding to date, despite running one of the biggest subscription-based language learning businesses on the planet.Or maybe it's not despite but thanks to that status, as the company - now with more than 1,000 employees - is generating enough cash not to think about external funding all that much. It also doesn't need to think about pursuing an IPO any time soon, which in this market is hard enough as it is.Babbel famously launched an IPO on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in 2021, but those plans were cancelled rather quickly.But meanwhile, the company kept on growing, got really big in the US, and continues to hire at a fast pace.More than enough reasons to sit down for a chat with Babbel CEO Arne Schepker, who joined the company back in 2015 and seems to have enjoyed the rollercoaster years that followed.You can watch the interview above or directly on YouTube.Also read:By helping displaced Ukrainians learn a new language, Berlin's Babbel tries to make a difference

Post-SVB drama, this week might just go down as the week that the world woke up to AI, as GPT-4 dropped, Microsoft and Google unleashed the beast, and people both cheered and feared.Up this week:01:38 - GPT-4, Microsoft, and Google, oh my!.02:55 - Climate Policy Radar and GPT-4.04:16 - Tech.eu's collective thoughts on AI.06:47 - is SXSW best in show and best in entertainment, media, and content winner PentoPix killing creativity? Cate finds out. And explains Cocaine Bear.11:47 - Dan visits a lot of sketchy places on the interwebz; Cate helps us all stay private in our travels via Gener8.16:08 - Robin's still burning dead dinosaurs with his kid transportation device, and it looks like the UK's EV developer Arrival isn't arriving any time soon.19:12 - Speaking of delistings - Just Eat Takeaway.com and Rocket Internet.20:50 - Happy St. Patrick's Day, what's what with Manna Drone Delivery, and Fiona dives deep with Starship Technologies.25:56 - Robin's One More Thing - International law firm Orrick has analysed 500+ transactions it closed for European clients last year, with an aggregate value of more than $12 billion, and released a very comprehensive report based on all that useful data.All this and a whole lot more on this week's episode of the Drive at Five!

International law firm Orrick has analysed 500+ transactions it closed for European clients last year, with an aggregate value of more than $12 billion, and released a very comprehensive report based on all that useful data.We caught up with the firm's partner Jamie Moore, and Raph Crouan, who is Orrick's Managing Director for 'Tech Clients' in Europe, to learn more.You can and should check out the report proper, but both gentlemen did a great job summarising the main findings of the research, which includes things like term sheet terms have become 'more investor-friendly' (so, less founder-friendly) in recent times, the average deal size in Europe declining, the rise of debt funding in these parts, and more.You can also watch the interview directly on YouTube.

We caught up with Pedro Barros, Partner and Head of Fundraising & Investor Relations at Target Global, the pan-European technology investment firm with more than €3 billion in assets under management.Last Friday was an interesting day to talk to Pedro Barros, a Partner at multi-billion euros VC firm Target Global who's in charge of fundraising and investor relations at the investment company, as the SVB saga started unfolding.So of course the first questions were about Silicon Valley Bank, but it quickly turned to how the past 3.5 years after Pedro joined Target Global have been for the man, given that there wasn't a dull moment in European tech and VC in recent history.Target Global is focused on Europe and Israel, and has made investments in the likes of Delivery Hero, Grover, WeFox, Revolut, Cazoo, Auto1, Omio, and plenty more.Pedro discussed the current trends in the European tech innovation and investment space, given the downturn and market volatility that's defined it in the past 15 months or so, and what the sentiment is like in LP and fund manager circles these days.We also talked about interesting sectors and geographies that are on Target's, well, target list, and how long it will be before things get back to 'normal' (whatever that means).You can also watch the interview directly on YouTube.

The overarching, and still developing story of what's going on at Silicon Valley Bank has overshadowed pretty much every piece of news that came out this week. And perhaps many more stories to come. But as we watch events unfold ...Up this week:00:25 - Moody's downgrades Silicon Valley Bank, stock price falls 60%, and all hell breaks loose.05:03 - International Women's Day: European tech startups – a long way off gender pay equality, UK Women tech founders are taking a bigger share – 24 percent capital increase in 2022 compared to 2021, and Geraldine MacCarthy, Chief Revenue Officer at Personio offers her advice on how we bring more females into the tech sector.07:38 - Meet the rising female founders building the Metaverse.10:58 - Once looking at a unicorn valuation, UK fintech Railsr has been sold to a consortium of investors.12:52 - Is this the same Nigerian prince?13:23 - Italian unicorn Scalapay pays out as it acquires Cabel IP.15:11 - UK Government unveils £360 million plan to ‘cement the UK’s place as a science and technology superpower by 2030’17:00 - Would you keep your money in SVB?All this and a whole lot more on this week's episode of the Drive at Five!