The Chicago-based Groupon has been valued at $280 million after closing their recent $30 million venture round with Accel Partners and previous investors. Clearly Groupon’s new take on group buying is a hot space right now.

Now DailyDeal.de in Berlin, a Groupon-like startup, has attracted Stefan Glänzer (an early investor in Last.fm), Michael Brehm (Ex-StudiVZ) and Jochen Maaß as seed investors. This investment effectively fires the starting gun on the race to build the European “take” on Groupon.

Meanwhile – even while at least five other UK startups prep their own versions – Groupon has already rolled out a London service, showing a London landing page to UK visitors to its .com site via IP targeting.