europe News of 04/09/20

Deliveroo, Graphcore And Other Big UK Startups Say They’Re Being Cut Out Of COVID-19 Lending Relief

The UK government, like a number of other countries around the world such as the US, has stepped up its pace in providing relief in the form of loans for businesses being impacted by the coronavirus health crisis and the related shutdown that ...

How One European VC Firm Is Reacting To The Economic Crisis

How one European VC firm is reacting to the economic crisis image Public markets around the world have been tanking for the past few weeks, and many companies simply can’t operate during a lockdown. Sheltering in place has had some terrible economic consequences, with a record number of Americans getting laid off, ...

France Is Officially Working On ‘Stop Covid’ Contact-Tracing App

France is officially working on ‘Stop Covid’ contact-tracing app image France’s health minister Olivier Véran and digital minister Cédric O have officially announced that the French government is working on a smartphone app to slow the spread of coronavirus. The government is putting a stamp of approval on the ...

Builder.Ai Launches Pre-Packaged Apps For Small Businesses Hit By COVID-19

Last year Builder.ai raised one of Europe’s largest Series A investments at $29.5 million, led by Lakestar and Jungle Ventures, with participation from SoftBank’s DeepCore. The company’s platform, which allows for the fast-build of software ...

Move Fast, Make Things – UK Fintech’S Response To The Coronavirus Crisis Continues

The U.K.’s fintech’s response to the coronavirus pandemic so far might best be described as “move fast, [and] make things,” as multiple and sometimes impromptu teams roll out financial technology solutions to help combat the ...

Call For Common EU Approach To Apps And Data To Fight COVID-19 And Protect Citizens’ Rights

Call for common EU approach to apps and data to fight COVID-19 and protect citizens’ rights image The European Commission has responded to the regional scramble for apps and data to help tackle the coronavirus crisis by calling for a common EU approach to boost the effectiveness of digital interventions and ensure key rights and freedoms are ...

Visa Backs Open Banking And Compliance Platform Railsbank

Railsbank , the open banking and compliance platform, has picked up further investment, following the company’s $10 million Series A in September 2019. This time backing comes from Visa — a strategic investment, if you will — ...

Phos, The UK Fintech That Offers A Software-Only POS For Smartphones, Raises €1.3m

Phos , the U.K. fintech that offers a software-only PoS so that merchants can accept payments directly on their phones without the need for additional hardware, has raised €1.3 million in funding. The round was led by New Vision 3, an early-stage ...

CyberMDX Raises $20m To Help Improve Medical Device Security

Healthcare security startup CyberMDX has raised $20 million in its latest round of fundraising, the company confirmed Tuesday. The New York-based security company works primarily to secure medical devices and improve hospital network security ...

Cookie Consent Still A Compliance Trash-Fire In Latest Watchdog Peek

The latest confirmation of the online tracking industry’s continued flouting of EU privacy laws which — at least on paper — are supposed to protect citizens from consent-less digital surveillance comes by via Ireland’s Data ...

Bringg Nabs $30m To Expand Its Delivery Logistics Platform Used By Walmart And Others

Over the last several years, delivery services have become a key component of how retailers, or anyone selling or distributing products and services, do business. Now, with a global health pandemic in full swing keeping people indoors (and away from ...

Blossom Capital’S ‘Cultivate’ Is An Angel Program Seeking To Back European Unicorn Alumnus

Just a few months after closing a new $185 million fund to continue backing early-stage European startups, Blossom Capital , the VC firm founded by Ophelia Brown, is announcing a new angel investment program seeking to back European unicorn ...

COVID-19 Crisis Spurs Triple-Digit Growth For Refurbishing Startup Back Market

Eva Yoo Contributor Eva Yoo is founder of Seek Road , the project wherein she cycles from Seoul to London while interviewing startups on the Silk Road. More posts by this contributor How this Kazakhstan internet ...

EU Privacy Experts Push A Decentralized Approach To COVID-19 Contacts Tracing

EU privacy experts push a decentralized approach to COVID-19 contacts tracing image A group of European privacy experts has proposed a decentralized system for Bluetooth-based COVID-19 contacts tracing which they argue offers greater protection against abuse and misuse of people’s data than apps which pull data into centralized ...

COVID-Hit UK Startups Cry Out For Help, As UK Gov Trails Europe In Its Response

The UK government is reportedly looking at a range of options to support the startup industry, possibly involving a co-investment model involving state-owned funds (via the British Business Bank) and private VC funds. Investors have been warning ...

Lydia Lets You Donate To Hospitals And Charities

Lydia lets you donate to hospitals and charities image Fintech startup Lydia is the dominating mobile payment app in France with most of its 3.3 million users in its home country. That’s why the startup has been working hard over the past ten days to ship a feature that was originally planned for ...

Open Banking Fintech Yapily Raises $13m Series A

Yapily , one of a number of fintech startups that offer an opening banking API to let enterprises, such as financial service providers and merchants, connect to banks, has raised $13 million in Series A funding. Leading the round is Lakestar, which ...

Germany’S Xpension Pension Platform Raises €25m In A Series C Growth Round

The German pension and insurance industry was a laggard in the world of online a few years ago, but in recent times it has quickly caught up. There’s further evidence of this trend with the news that Xpension (trading as xbAV), an online platform ...

Valispace Raises $2.4m To Become The ‘Github For Hardware’, Joins Fight Against COVID-19

Hardware engineering is mostly document-based. A typical satellite might be described in several hundred thousand PDF documents, spreadsheets, simulation files and more; all potentially inconsistent between each other. This can lead to costly ...

In The Wake Of COVID-19, UK Puts Up £20m In Grants To Develop Resilient Tech For Critical Industries

Most of the world — despite the  canaries in the coal mine — was unprepared to cope with the coronavirus outbreak that’s now besieging us. Now, work is starting to get underway both to help manage what is going on now and better ...