It’s the first weekend of March, and spring is around the corner. But if the weather where you live is anything like here in Amsterdam, you’re likely stuck inside hiding from freezing rain, sleet, or some other bothersome, moist form of precipitation. A perfect time to play catch up with the state of the tech industry, in other words.
At Index we spend every day gathering news on tech companies from around the world so that there’s a convenient platform for tech enthusiasts everywhere to access that data. In this series, we catch you up every week on what’s been happening in Tech.
A look at the world
In the past week, Index logged 275 funding events from 39 different countries. Notably, a new unicorn was born in Japan, with online marketplace Mercari hauling in a $75 million Series D round. The top five countries in terms of number of rounds can be seen below:
North America
This week in North America there were 148 investments made at a total of $1.06 billion. The largest round was pulled in by Health Catalyst , a Salt Lake City based data warehouse company focused on the healthcare sector. They received a $70 million Series E round co-led by Norwest Venture Partners and UPMC.
Europe
Europe saw 57 funding rounds for a total of $246 million. Barcelona based hiring app CornerJob reeled in a $10 million Series A round from nine investors including Media Digital Ventures and Caixa Capital Risc. Below you can see the breakdown of rounds in Europe for the week.
North America vs Europe
Below is a comparison of the average size of funding rounds this week between Europe and North America. There aren’t any notable discrepancies this week, although it is important to note that the difference in average sizes of the Series B rounds can be entirely explained by the fact that Europe counts only two in this category, and the average is therefore quite inflated.
This week’s must reads in tech
Facebook launches interactive full-screen ads called Canvas [The Next Web]
Apple’s $120M jury verdict against Samsung destroyed on appeal [Ars Technica]
Yahoo spent $1 billion to buy Tumblr — now it’s hinting it may write off nearly the entire deal [Business Insider]
Bitcoin’s nightmare scenario has come to pass [The Verge]
7 Google changes that will make or break your SEO [The Next Web]
Snapchat Employee Data Leaks Out Following Phishing Attack [Techcrunch]
Tune in next week for another update on the state of tech. If you can’t wait that long, consider signing up to the Index.co newsletter to get the week’s hottest tech news straight in your inbox!
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