The European Union’s consumer watchdogs are probing nine video-game publishers, among them Sweden’s King and Mojang, to examine how virtual currencies are used in their games and whether they comply with EU consumer protection rules.
Swedish travel‑search startup Avionero has pulled the plug on its intended public listing on Spotlight after a capital‑raising round fell short of its target, despite having secured half of the planned amount beforehand.
Traveltech startup Tryp.com, founded in 2021 by six engineering students in Odense, Denmark, has raised €1.9 million in a seed round led by Point Capital Partners, with participation from Iberis Capital and angel investors. The funding brings its total capital to €5.9 million and will be used to broaden partnerships with travel brands, launch new product experiences and support geographic expansion into Asia and the Americas. The company now serves over 10 million users and processes around 14,000 tickets per month.
German travel‑booking startup Blookery, founded in 2016, raised €500k on TV but the investment fell through; the company now works with the investor as a strategic partner to cut costs and boost marketing.
Dutch price comparison platform Beslist.nl reports a noticeable drop in organic traffic after Google changed its Shopping results to comply with the EU Digital Markets Act, reducing the visibility of price comparers.
Swedish coffee-tech brand Lykke is expanding into the Japanese market after a chance meeting earlier this year, opening doors to 1,000 stores in Japan and eyeing South Korea and Taiwan next. The founder and CEO Johan Damgaard highlighted the huge potential of the market.
Tip Top Food Industry SRL, operator of the Tip Top pastry chain, was fined €5,000 by the National Authority for the Supervision of Personal Data Processing (ANSPDCP) for processing biometric fingerprint data of its employees for attendance tracking without a legal basis, violating GDPR articles 5 and 9. The authority also ordered the company to replace the biometric system with a non‑intrusive alternative.
Shelly Group, a Sofia‑based provider of IoT and smart‑building solutions, is being acquired by French energy‑management giant Schneider Electric for about €1.2 billion. The deal, priced at €70 per share, aims to combine Shelly’s hardware‑software platform with Schneider’s global reach while preserving Shelly’s entrepreneurial culture.
The Anna app for parents of children with non‑profit foundations (NPF) has attracted 10,000 users in six months without any marketing spend. The founders, Tommy Jacobson and Karl-Johan Persson, are now investing an additional 5 million SEK to boost the app’s growth.
The platform Mommy HAI, which connects about 30,000 parents, held a two‑day fair in Bucharest to showcase a wide variety of extracurricular activities for children, including science, robotics, arts and sports, bringing together dozens of organisations and offering hands‑on experiences.