The Next Global Tech Champions will be European

ifeel, a leading European mental health solution for the enterprise and insurance world, has raised a €18.5 Series B investment co-led by FinTLV Ventures and Korelya Capital, and with the participation of its’ existing investors SCOR Ventures, Nauta and UNIQA Ventures. ifeel has filled a much-needed gap in the market as corporates and insurance companies struggle to face the costs associated with mental health among employees and insured collectives.

Rebellions, a South Korean fabless AI chip startup, said today it has closed $124 million (165 billion KRW) in a Series B round of funding to develop its third AI chip, called Rebel. The startup will also use the new capital, oversubscribed with an initial target of $90 million, to ramp up production of its data center-focused chip, Atom, and for hiring.
This Series B values the three-year-old startup at approximately $658 million (880 billion KRW) post-money, CFO of Rebellions Sungkyue Shin said in an exclusive interview with TechCrunch. This latest capital infusion brings the total raised to around $210 million since Rebellions’ inception in 2020.
KT, the South Korean telecom giant, led this latest round as a strategic investor. Previous backers Temasek’s Pavilion Capital and Korea Development Bank, and new investors including Korelya Capital and DG Daiwa Ventures, also participated.

Myrealtrip is the latest travel tech company to ride a growing post-pandemic tourism industry. The Seoul-based startup said today it has raised $56.7 million (75.6 billion KRW) in a Series F equity round of funding to accelerate its business and product innovation and ramp up its hiring.
Global tourism has rebounded to pre-pandemic levels in the third quarter of 2023, according to a recent UN World Tourism Organization report. Travel tech companies again prepare to speed up their business expansion.
“The travel industry was fragmented 12 years ago in South Korea, and there was no platform that provided travel information,” CEO of Myrealtrip Donggun Lee said in an exclusive interview with TechCrunch. Now the 12-year-old company, which has 7.9 million users in South Korea, aims to be a super app in the travel industry, offering travel booking services, from flights, accommodations, activities, to local transportation.

Munich, January 11, 2024 – The car subscription provider FINN has announced the closing of its Series C equity funding round of 100 million euros. The round was led by Planet First Partners, the European growth equity sustainable investment platform. In addition, existing investors reaffirmed their confidence in FINN and participated strongly in the new funding round, including HV Capital, Korelya Capital, UVC Partners, White Star Capital and Picus Capital. The round increases FINN's valuation to more than 600 million US dollars.
The Munich-based company will use the capital to accelerate growth in the electric car sector, with the goal to more than double the share of low-emission vehicles in its fleet from 40% to over 80% by 2028. FINN's car subscription model is contributing to the adoption of electric mobility by offering customers the opportunity to use electric cars flexibly in their everyday lives – without risks such as technological obsolescence or the development of residual values associated with ownership.

Upway, the French startup that refurbishes and resells electric bikes and recently launched in the U.S., has brought on new funding at a higher valuation than its previous round.
The $30 million Series B up round, led by Korelya Capital, into a startup that deals in e-bikes signals that Upway is proving out an impressive enough business case to boost its market capitalization at a time when most valuations are coming back down to earth.
Upway didn’t share its new valuation, but the fresh capital brings its total funding to $60 million.

When it comes to visiting new cities, Airbnb changed the game for people who might have previously considered only hotels or guest houses: now, flexible alternatives in private homes, powered by a modern, digital interface for hosts and guests to connect with each other to book a stay, are a significant part of the mix for travelers.

Wallapop — a peer-to-peer marketplace based out of Barcelona that made a splash at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic with consumers who were looking for more localized, less wasteful, and more ecofriendly routes for buying and selling items — has raised more money to continue its expansion in Europe.

Cryptocurrency payments startup Ramp, with offices in Poland and in London, has raised $70m of fresh investment, despite a difficult fundraising environment and turmoil in the crypto industry.
Their Series B, co-led by the UAE’s Mubadala Capital and France’s Korelya Capital, comes less than a year after the startup raised a $53m Series A. It’s one of the biggest funding rounds in the history of the Polish startup ecosystem.

VCs can’t seem to get enough of buy now, pay later’s B2B counterpart right now. Last month saw raises from Berlin’s Mondu, and the UK’s Tranch and Previse — one of Sifted’s UK startups to watch in 2022. Yesterday London’s Playter bagged a $55m seed, and today it’s Hokodo’s turn.

Car subscription platform Finn has raised $110 million in equity to expand in the U.S. and Europe and reach 30,000 subscriptions by the end of the year, according to the company.
The funding, which brings Finn’s valuation to “more than $500 million,” comes at a time when consumers are starting to shift away from traditional car ownership models like leasing or financing. Car subscription platforms, especially ones that offer electric vehicles like Onto in the U.K. and imove in Norway, are taking off as trends like usership over ownership, online shopping and EV usage rise.

A growing number of people are looking for ways to live more sustainably amid increasing concerns over the environment and what we humans keep doing to pollute it. Today, a startup called Grover, which has built a business around one aspect of that — enticing people to buy and eventually discard fewer consumer electronics such as phones, monitors and electric scooters by offering them attractive subscriptions to use their stock of new or used gadgets instead — is announcing a big round of funding to expand its business.

French startup Synapse Medicine has raised a new $28 million funding round (€25 million) led by Korelya Capital. The company has built a product that helps healthcare professionals get reliable drug information and prevent medication errors.