Lesara and Travelbird go under; Facebook cooperates with Macron; interview with Paddle's Christian Owens; and much more

The biggest deal of the week: Bitfury, a Latvian-founded company headquartered in Amsterdam that describes itself as the “largest full-service blockchain technology company in the world,” has just closed an $80 million funding round. Lesara and Travelbird, which raised more than €100 million in total and employed more than 600 people, have filed for insolvency in a span of two weeks. - Dutch travel booking platform Travelbird suspends operations after failing to raise emergency funding - German online fashion startup Lesara files for insolvency Facebook will allow French regulators to access inside the company in an effort to combat hate speech across the platform - France to 'embed' regulators at Facebook to combat hate speech - France and Facebook announce partnership against online hate speech - Facebook is the least trusted major tech company when it comes to safeguarding personal data, poll finds Interview: Christian Owens, CEO and founder of Paddle (recorded at the SaaStock conference in Dublin) Events coming up soon: - Slush in Helsinki; December 4­–5 - Seedstars CEE Summit in Kyiv; December 14 - Techstars Startup Weeks around Europe; November - Global Entrepreneurship Week around the world; November - Investors Day & BETAPITCH Global 2018 in Berlin; November 15 - RockTech Paris; November 21 - Robotex in Tallinn; November 26 ­– December 2 Did we miss something? Let us know by filling out the event submission form. Our reading recommendations: - Dave Lee on the BBC: “Why Big Tech pays poor Kenyans to teach self-driving cars” (video) - Our free report “Seed the future – A deep dive into European early-stage tech startup activity” We hope you enjoy the podcast! Please feel free to email us with any questions, suggestions, and opinions at [email protected] or tweet at @tech_eu, @nnovick, and @adegeler. For information regarding your data privacy, visit acast.com/privacy