It’s easy to assume the e-commerce ship has sailed when you consider we have giant platforms like Shopify, Woocommerce, and Wix dominating the sector.
E-commerce platform, ikas, has raised $20 million in a Series A funding round as it seeks to expand its operations into new markets in Europe.
The company currently operates in Turkey and Germany, and says its platform simplifies store management for companies that want to have a digital presence.
Also investing in ikas is Re-Pie Asset Management, which has grocery delivery startup Getir in its portfolio as well.
The round saw participation from ikas’ existing investor Revo Capital, best known as the first institutional investor in Getir, Param, Midas and Roamless.
The company announced on Tuesday that it’s expanding its dedicated STEM feed across Europe, starting in the U.K. and Ireland, after first launching it in the U.S. last year.
The STEM feed will begin to automatically appear alongside the “For You” and “Following” feeds for users under the age of 18.
Users above the age of 18 can enable the STEM feed via the app’s “content preferences” settings.
TikTok says that since launching the feed in the U.S. last year, 33% of users have the STEM feed enabled and a third of teens go to the STEM feed every week.
Content that doesn’t pass both of these checkpoints will not be eligible for the STEM feed.
Climate-tech VC Satgana has reached a final close of its first fund, which targets to back up to 30 early-stage startups in Africa and Europe.
“I ran it for like five years, and about six years ago I started to really have the awakening to the extent of climate change.
“We are entering the continent to pursue green growth objectives; so deploying renewable energy, low carbon buildings, mobility solutions and so on.
Satgana is among the new funds that are dedicated to the African climate tech sector.
These funds include Africa People + Planet Fund by Novastar Ventures, Equator’s fund and the Catalyst Fund.
Controversial crypto biometrics venture Worldcoin has been almost entirely booted out of Europe after being hit with another temporary ban — this time in Portugal.
The order from the country’s data protection authority comes hard on the heels of the same type of three-month stop-processing order from Spain’s DPA earlier this month.
Portugal’s data protection authority said it issued the three-month ban on Worldcoin’s local ops Tuesday after receiving complaints Worldcoin had scanned children’s eyeballs.
By contrast, EU data protection law gives people in the region a suite of rights over their personal data, including the ability to have data about them corrected, amended or deleted.
As Tools for Humanity’s lead DPA, under the one-stop-shop (OSS) mechanism in bloc’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), it is responsible for investigating privacy and data protection complaints about the company.
The one time that Europe is explicitly mentioned, however, is in relation to Apple’s grip on digital wallets, NFC and mobile payment technology within its iOS ecosystem.
For context, the EU filed charges against Apple in May 2022, concluding that Apple “abused a dominant position” around mobile wallets by preventing rival services from accessing the iPhone’s contactless NFC payment functionality.
For example, Apple allows merchants to use the iPhone’s NFC antenna to accept tap-to-pay payments from consumers.
Then there is cross-platform smartwatch compatibility, which the DOJ says Apple impedes by restricting certain features from third-party smartwatch makers.
However, NFC, digital wallets, and mobile payments are where they seem to be most neatly aligned on.
Giant Ventures in January closed two new funds totaling $250 million that it will invest in startups on both sides of the Atlantic, and today, TechCrunch has learned exclusively that Frontline Ventures has also raised $200 million across two funds, named Frontline Growth and Frontline Seed.
Frontline has historically invested in both Europe and North America, and its new funds will continue to follow that strategy, betting on B2B software companies.
The new seed fund will favor European ventures, while the growth fund will focus on U.S. startups.
Expansion roadmapO’Donnell told TechCrunch that when it helps portfolio companies navigate expansion to another market, Frontline focuses on four aspects: timing, go-to-market strategy, talent, and organizational design and location.
That’s by order of importance, and a company’s location should be a derivative of the previous three aspects, O’Donnell said.
Europe eyes LinkedIn’s use of data for ads in another DSA askMicrosoft-owned professional social network, LinkedIn, is the latest to get a formal request for information (RFI) from the EU.
Of specific concern is whether LinkedIn is breaching the DSA’s prohibition on larger platforms’ use of sensitive data for ad targeting.
Profiling based on such data to target ads is banned under the law.
The DSA also empowers the EU to impose fines for incorrect, incomplete, or misleading information in response to an RFI.
LinkedIn isn’t the only platform to be in the EU’s spotlight when it comes to use of data for ads.
After terminating Epic Games’ developer account on Wednesday, Apple said it will reinstate the Fortnite maker’s access to publish iOS apps in Europe.
This means that Epic can move forward with its plans for an Epic Games Store, and it can bring Fortnite back to iOS in Europe.
Last month, Epic announced it would be able to bring Fortnite and the Epic Games Store back because of Europe’s Digital Markets Act (DMA).
“We are moving forward as planned to launch the Epic Games Store and bring Fortnite back to iOS in Europe.
But under the new DMA law, third-party marketplaces like the Epic Games Store can come to iOS, lessening Apple’s control over apps in Europe.
New report confirms Europe’s tech investment doldrums, but there are signs of lifeEurope is suffering from a big hangover after the tech investment party of the 2020-2021 period.
That said, compared to pre-pandemic levels, VC investment in European startups is up, historically speaking, and reached $60 billion, according to a new report.
2023 marked a reset and major correction in investment levels globally.
According to the report, Europe is sitting on “record levels of dry powder” and “producing more new founders than the U.S.”, funding remains slow.
Climate Tech overtook FinTech as Europe’s most popular sectorAI’s share of total investment in Europe soared to a record high of 17%5.
Why some VCs are pulling back from Europe, Google’s AI push, and who is the CEO of Byju’s?
Hello, and welcome back to Equity, the podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.
This is our Monday show, in which we take a look back at the weekend and what’s ahead in the week.
We also had an extra episode this weekend digging into the Reddit IPO that you can find here.
On the pod this morning, here’s what we got into:For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website.
