Europe

More than three years in the making, the UK government today announced a new, sweeping set of rules it will be imposing on broadband and mobile carriers to tighten up their network security against cyber attacks — aimed at being “among the strongest in the world” when they are rolled out, said the Department for

Welcome to The TechCrunch Exchange, a weekly startups-and-markets newsletter. It’s inspired by the daily TechCrunch+ column where it gets its name. Want it in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here. Central and Eastern Europe have had less venture capital at their disposal than their GDP or population could warrant. But with new funds lured

Ah, email. Why did you send my friend’s birthday party invite to my spam folder? Why do you make it so easy to archive an email when I don’t even know what that means? Why are you … blue now … Gmail? Email is a necessary evil. So whenever I hear about startups looking to

Google is facing a fresh privacy complaint in Europe over ads it inserts into its Gmail email service in the guise of emails. Privacy advocacy group, noyb, has filed the complaint with France’s data protection watchdog, the CNIL, claiming the adtech giant has breached the European Union’s ePrivacy Directive rules on direct marketing by failing

The explosive Twitter whistleblower complaint that was made public yesterday — detailing a raft of damning allegations across security, privacy and data protection issues (among others) by Twitter’s former former head of security, Peiter “Mudge” Zatko — contained references to European regulators along with claims that the social media firm had misled or intended to

As developed-world populations increasingly get older, healthcare is being rapidly digitized and “platformized” in order to meet the huge scale of change heading our way. I recently covered how Cera in the U.K. just raised $320 million to shift monitoring of patients into the home rather than over-flowing hospitals. Now another startup aims to create

Welcome to The TechCrunch Exchange, a weekly startups-and-markets newsletter. It’s inspired by the daily TechCrunch+ column where it gets its name. Want it in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here. Reading recently about Germany’s €30 billion plan for its startups, I was intrigued. Did the country start to envy La French Tech? Is it

Vetster, a veterinary telehealth service which has raised $40 million, is launching in the U.K. following expansion in the U.S. Vetster connects licensed veterinarians with pet owners via video, voice and online chat. It hopes to fill a yawning gap in provision. In the U.K. one in two veterinary clinics are overbooked and unable to

Google is bringing its Workspace Individual subscription plan to Europe, a little more than a year after first introducing the service to other markets. Workspace is Google’s productivity and collaboration software suite formerly known as G Suite, constituting Gmail, Meet, Drive, Docs, Tasks, Forms, among other key applications. While many of these apps are available

European food ordering and delivery giant Just Eat Takeaway has revealed that it’s selling its stake in Brazil’s iFood for up to €1.8 billion ($1.8 billion) to Prosus. The initial deal will amount to €1.5 billion in cash, plus another €300 million depending on the performance of iFood over the next 12 months. News of the

A new company from the creators of the Godot game engine is setting out to grab a piece of the $200 billion global video game market — and to do so, it’s taking a cue from commercial open source software giant Red Hat. Godot, for the uninitiated, is a cross-platform game engine first released under

The world is entering a huge cost of living crisis, which will inevitably result in a rise in homelessness. But donating to homeless people has yet to go fully digital. Challenger bank Monzo allowed the opening of limited accounts for the homeless using methods like a benefits letter or one from a homeless shelter, for

Aero Technologies, which describes itself as a “next-generation air travel company” which currently operates on a limited number of routes in the U.S. and Europe, today announced that it has raised $65 million, with $50 million as a Series B funding round co-led by Albacore Capital Group and $15 million in convertible notes. Expa and

Health information publishing giant WebMD has announced that it’s acquiring Jim.fr, a French-language medical news and information website aimed at healthcare professionals (HCPs). Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Founded in 1979 as the Journal International de Médecine (JIM) by a hospital intern called Dr. Gilles Haroche, Paris-based Jim.fr collates and presents all manner

As the U.S. and Europe bake in abnormal summer heat, the climate continues to climb up the world’s agenda. With everyone now talking about energy, how commodities are traded is also becoming a talking point. Creating a “nutrition label” so that it would be possible to track the provenance of a commodity — be it

South Korean company Naver Z is the brain behind the popular 3D-avatar app Zepeto. Today, the company announced it made a strategic investment in the Danish animation and motion capture company Rokoko. The mocap (motion capture) company has more than 50,000 users all over the world, including some of the biggest names in the biz,

Internet usage continues to skyrocket, with 29.3 billion networked devices projected to be in use by 2023 and the growth rate currently at around 10%. Today, an enterprise startup called DriveNets that’s built a more cost-effective way for service providers and other outsized connectivity users to scale to meet that demand by leveraging software and

If you ask me, climate tech investor Contrarian Ventures isn’t so contrarian anymore. The five-year-old firm is targeting $100 million for its second seed-stage fund, and it’s doing so smack in the middle of a climate-tech dealmaking boom. So, if anything, it’s trendy. But when the seed-stage VC — a backer of e-bike maker Zoomo

Podcasting has emerged as a major billion-dollar industry, with ad revenue in the U.S. alone expected to hit $2 billion this year — a figure that’s set to double by 2024. Against that backdrop, major players in the field are bolstering their podcasting armory, with Spotify recently doling out around $85 million for two companies

According to BCG global assets under management are around $100 trillion, but only $715 billion, or less than 1%, goes on what you might term ‘impact’ companies or projects to tackle the world’s biggest environmental and social issues. Now, a Klarna founder plans to create what he calls a ‘Nobel Prize for Impact’. Niklas Adalberth

The U.K. government is rolling out a new scheme designed to create and promote cheaper broadband for lower-income households across the country. Several internet service providers (ISPs) in the U.K., including Virgin Media O2 and BT, already offer so-called “social tariffs,” which are cheaper broadband and phone packages for those who receive social security payments

Penfold, a digital pensions platform, has closed a £7m ($8.49m) Series A funding round led by Bridford Group, an investment group. Also participating in the round was Jeremy Coller, Chief Investment Officer and Chairman of Coller Capital. Penfold also raised additional funding via a crowdfund amongst its customer base. The cash will be used to

More funding for European end-to-end encrypted messaging app, Wire: The enterprise-focused messaging platform told TechCrunch it closed a €24 million Series C round of funding led by growth equity firm Cipio Partners and Iconical, the investment vehicle of Skype co-founder Janus Friis. Existing investor UVC Partners also participating, among other returning backers. The messaging tool

Facebook has avoided the risk of being forced to shut down its service in Europe this summer as a result of the latest twist in a long-running data protection complaint saga that relates to a clash between EU privacy and U.S. surveillance law. The delay — in what’s still widely expected to be a suspension

A final decision on a complaint against Instagram’s handling of children’s data in the European Union is set to land within weeks, TechCrunch has learned, following the completion of a procedural mechanism to resolve regulatory disputes over how to enforce the bloc’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The enquiry about Instagram’s handling of kids’ data

Amazon has been fined again for breaching labor laws in Catalonia, Spain. The ecommerce giant has been under investigation by regional labor authorities over its subcontracting practices for a number of years. According to local press reports, the latest fine for Amazon — of €3.2 million — follows a penalty of over €800,000 it received

The UK’s Enterprise Investment Scheme has been a power-house for startups out of the UK because it allowed Angel investors to invest in a very tax-efficient manner. Launched in 1994, it was designed to encourage investments in small unquoted companies. As Wikipedia will tell you, by end of the 2014-15 tax year, a cumulative total

So-called ‘Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance’, or DMARC, is a technical standard that is designed to protect the senders and recipients of email from spam, spoofing, and phishing. Before you fall asleep, it’s worth pointing out that this is a booming tech sector. What the fast-growing DMARC protocol is doing now is what “https”

Another European market exit looks to be on the cards for UK-based on-demand food delivery startup, Deliveroo, which says it’s consulting on shutting down its service in the Netherlands. The platform’s service footprint currently spans 11 markets — namely: Australia, Belgium, France, Hong Kong, Italy, Ireland, the Netherlands, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and the

The global problem of an over-abundance of CO2 in the atmosphere is ongoing, and a huge area that needs to be addressed, given the amount pumped out by industry. It’s hoped that if carbon dioxide could be converted at the point of emission, we could deal with the climate crisis a lot faster and create