Happy Friday!

This week, our research team tracked almost 70 tech funding deals worth over 1 billion euros, along with 15 M&A transactions, rumors, and related news stories across Europe, including Russia, Israel and Turkey. As always, we are putting all of them together for you in a handy list sent in our Friday afternoon roundup newsletter (note: the full list is for paying customers only).

Recently, we also started publishing “Today in European Tech,” a daily roundup of deals and news stories that caught our attention. Keeping you updated on all things EU tech is our priority.

Today, instead of a daily roundup we give you an overview of the 10 biggest European tech news items for the past week (subscribe to our free newsletter to get this roundup in your inbox every Monday morning):

1) Another European fintech giant is born: Italian payment technology service providers Nexi and SIA have reached an agreement to create what will be one of Europe’s largest fintech groups. After nearly two years of negotiations, the all-share deal will see Nexi receive 70 percent of the merged company and SIA around 30 percent, the partners said, adding that the new group will have a market valuation of around 15 billion euros based on current prices.

2) Ÿnsect, a French startup farming insects to improve food production, has raised $224 million in further funding, bringing its Series C round to $372 million with Robert Downey Jr.’s tech funding initiative joining the round.

3) Amsterdam-based cloud communications platform MessageBird has become Europe’s newest unicorn after announcing a $200 million Series C round at a valuation of $3 billion.

4) Japanese electronics giant NEC purchased Swiss banking software developer Avaloq for $2.2 billion.

5) British holographic tech company Envisics has raised around $50 million from several automotive companies for its tech used in augmented reality. Among the investors in the Series B round are Hyundai Mobis, General Motors’ GM Ventures, SAIC Capital, the venture arm of SAIC Motors, and Van Tuyl Companies.

6) European crowdfunding leaders Crowdcube and Seedrs have decided to merge to create “one of the world’s largest private equity marketplaces.” The combined company will be worth £140 million.

7) The European Parliament plenary approved the deal struck with the Council last December on common rules to boost EU crowdfunding platforms and protect investors. The new rules aim to help crowdfunding services to function smoothly in the internal market and to foster cross-border business funding in the EU, by providing for a single set of rules on crowdfunding services.

8) A French appeals court has confirmed the country’s antitrust authority’s order to Google to pay French publishing companies and news agencies for their content.

9) Facebook has decided to defy a new law in Turkey requiring social media companies to establish a formal presence in the country, setting the stage for a showdown with the government of Erdogan that could culminate in the platform being blocked.

10) Web Summit, Europe’s largest technology conference, will be held entirely online this year, as the coronavirus pandemic forces scores of major events to go digital.

Podcast:

Tech.eu Podcast #189: Northvolt raises even more money, Uber wants to go shopping, Jonathan Keane talks about the Irish startup ecosystem.

Bonus link:

You Are Not Alone: time to cancel the ‘hustle culture’ and for founders to invest in mental health.