🎄🎄 We're heading down the final stretch - there are only 23 days left until Christmas! 🎄🎄

Up this week:

🇸🇪 From the brains behind Motherbrain, Ark Kapital releases AI-driven forecasting platform AIM to founders everywhere. You can hear more from Henrik Landgren himself at the Tech.eu Summit, this coming May in Brussels. Tickets are now on sale!

🇺🇸 US-based acquisition specialist Carlyle Group has raised $3.12 billion as it targets European B2B technology businesses.

🇧🇪 Crypto market maker Keyrock raises $72 million as it plans to further develop its offer and seek regulatory licences across Europe, the US, and Singapore.

🇳🇱 Dutch e-commerce brand buyer Dwarfs has secured €30 million in a Series B funding round, one that was initially anticipated to be much, much larger. €120 million larger in fact.

🇪🇺 Infarm, Zilch, MessageBird, Lyst, and a whole lotta others announced layoffs this week.

🇮🇪 Facebook parent company Meta has been fined €265 million by the Irish Data Protection Commission.

Fintech acquisitions abound:
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Equals Group to acquire fintech startup Roqqett for up to £2.25 million
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Business banking platform Tide acquires Funding Options
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Toucan has been acquired by PayaCharity
🇱🇺 Mangopay acquires fraud detection and prevention company Nethone

🇫🇮 Breathing new life into spent Tesla EV batteries, Cactos raises €2.5 million to meet growing customer demand.

And there's one more thing:

🇧🇪 Antler has released its 2022 Benelux Unicorn Founder Roadmap: How to build unicorns in Benelux report
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Atomico is releasing its State of European Tech report next week
🇺🇸 Accel's "Europe and Israel’s Startup Founder Factories" reveals that of the 344 VC-backed unicorns since 2008, nearly two-thirds (203) have led to at least one startup being founded by former employees, with 1,018 tech startups emerging in total.

All this, and a whole lot more in Episode 17 of Tech.eu's Drive at Five!