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This week’s newsletter is sponsored by zenital:

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Startup funding news 💸

Barcelona-based biotech Deepull has raised €50M in a Series C round to accelerate the development and commercialization of its rapid diagnostic platform for sepsis. The round was led by new and existing international investors, including Wellington Partners and Kurma Partners, and will support clinical trials in Europe and the US as Deepull prepares for market entry

Seville-based LiveLink, developer of IoT safety tech for motorcyclists, raised €2.4M in a round led by private investors and AXON via venture debt

Zazume, the Barcelona-based proptech, raised €2.3M in a round led by Banco Sabadell and Nordstar. The startup uses AI to streamline rental property management, from tenant onboarding to payments. More here

M&A 🎉

According to Ecotechers, Lighthouse paid an initial €67M for The Hotels Network, with additional payments to be made depending on the company’s future performance

Profile of Visma, the Norwegian software giant that has quietly become one of the most active acquirers of Spanish startups. With over €100M invested in Spain, Visma focuses on B2B SaaS companies with solid local customer bases and strong recurring revenue. The company prefers majority acquisitions while keeping teams independent, and has already bought firms like Declarando, Holded, and Woffu

US-based Rover, backed by Blackstone, acquired Gudog, adding 20,000 sitters across Europe and expanding into Ireland and Denmark. Gudog and UK’s HouseMyDog merged in 2019 to join forces in their European expansion

Italian and Spanish corporate travel management startup BizAway acquired Catalan Aervio to strengthen its position in the European business travel market

Martech company Samy Alliance acquired German influencer marketing agency Intermate, including its content production studio Truemates

Investor & accelerator news 🚀

Institut Català de Finances (ICF) invested €9M in 2024 in over 20 Catalan startups. ICF is shifting its strategy toward direct coinvestment with private VCs

BeWater Funds updated its ranking of Spanish startups that are both profitable and capital-efficient—defined as companies that have raised less than €11M, generate over €1M in annual revenue, and maintain positive gross profit

Plug and Play has relaunched its startup accelerator model in Valencia, aiming to recover its early-stage focus with public-private collaboration. The initiative mirrors its original 2012 approach, when Plug and Play played a pivotal role in the earlier stages of the Spanish startup ecosystem

Ship2B Ventures launched Montana Impact Fese, the first EU-approved social impact fund focused on pediatrics and children’s quality of life. Backed by the CNMV, the fund has a target of €55M

Spanish fund of funds VC4 (IDC Ventures) has invested €2M in Dream Capital, the new investment firm launched by Tejinder Gill (ex-Country Manager at The Trade Desk)

Spanish investors active abroad:

• We at Kfund participated in the €37M round of Switzerland-based healthtech startup Hilo (formerly Aktiia), co-founded by Spaniard Josep Solà. Hilo develops cuffless blood pressure monitoring tech and is launching operations in Spain

Batir a largo plazo al mercado es complicado, y poca gente lo consigue. Si además no tienes tiempo o conocimientos para invertir en bolsa, lo mejor que puedes hacer es utilizar Indexa Capital.

Invierte con Indexa

Startup news 💡

New startups and product launches:

• Freepik and FAL.ai released F-Lite, a new open-source text-to-image model trained entirely on licensed and proprietary data. The model, which rivals tools like Stable Diffusion and DALL·E, is optimized for generating commercial-use visuals. Interesting threads from Ivan de Prado (Head of AI) and Javilop here and here

• Uri Riera, formerly of TravelPerk, announced the launch LongStories.ai, a product that allows users to generate AI-powered video stories—up to 10 minutes long—in just a few clicks. The tool automates everything: scriptwriting, voiceover, visuals, and editing, supporting 32 languages and multiple styles

• Proptech startup Prophero launched a new wealth division to attract high-net-worth individuals willing to invest €1M+ in residential buildings for renovation and resale

• Piper.ai launched Piper Agent, a sales automation chatbot that integrates directly with your CRM to help manage deals via natural conversation

Startup financials:

• PLD Space said it expects to generate €430M in annual revenue by 2030, driven by demand for its Miura 5 rocket, set to launch in early 2026. With over €60M in signed contracts and full bookings for 2027, the Elche-based company aims to scale from 6 to 30 launches per year and reach profitability by 2027. It’s also developing Miura Next, a larger rocket targeting a €30B market. Defense clients could soon represent 40% of its business

Startup profiles & interviews:

• Zylon has developed a fully self-contained, on-premise AI platform designed for enterprises that prioritize data sovereignty. Built by the creators of PrivateGPT (55K+ GitHub stars), Zylon’s solution enables companies to run advanced AI workflows entirely on their own infrastructure—eliminating external token costs and keeping data private

• Alberto Gimeno, co-founder of Invofox, shared the story behind the AI-powered document automation startup, which helps businesses process invoices and other documents without templates

Other news:

• Maisa.ai published a deep dive into its architecture, revealing how its AI agent platform blends neuroscience-inspired models with LLMs to create more adaptive and autonomous agents

• Tutellus plans to tokenize MXN 2B (€108M) worth of assets in Mexico over the next three years through its tokenization platform. Tutellus has partnered with local firms to navigate the regulatory landscape and scale adoption in the region

• RE crowdfunding platform Urbanitae has strengthened its debt division by appointing Juan Mínguez, formerly of Alantra and Arcano, as Head of Debt. The real estate crowdfunding platform doubled down on this financing model in 2024
  

Big company & policy news 🤓

A week after Spain’s massive blackout, the country’s ambition to become a major European data center hub is being seriously questioned. As reported by El Confidencial, the outage exposed systemic vulnerabilities—especially concerns around the grid’s stability amid a heavy reliance on renewables and the political phase-out of nuclear power

Silba Deep Dives published an in-depth analysis of Cellnex’s transformation from a telecom tower operator into a leading European digital infrastructure company. The piece highlights how Cellnex leveraged aggressive M&A to scale across 12 countries, but now faces a new phase focused on profitability, cash flow, and operational efficiency

Interesting reads 🤓

Julio Martinez (co-founder of Abacum) published “Don’t stay high-level when it comes to the sales”. The post urges finance teams to go beyond high-level metrics and engage more deeply with sales data

Ignacio Arriaga (formerly Acumbamail) wrote “Regulaciones: donde unos solamente ven tapones de plástico otros ven negocios”

Sumapositiva wrote “La innovación antes del Valle del Silicio”

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