The Next Global Tech Champions will be European

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.
The company has picked up €81 million ($87.4 million), which it will be investing into its operations in Spain, Italy and Portugal after seeing its 2.4 million downloads in the first half of the year in Italy (a newer market for the app) and a 600% increase in cross-border activity between Spain and Italy in that period. The company also plans to put more into data science and other areas of R&D — critical given that discovery, personalization and other tools to connect buyers with items they want is critical to people coming back and using Wallapop again and again.

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.