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Startup funding news 💸
- According to El Referente, the pace of unicorn minting in Spain has slowed down in 2023 compared to the past couple of years. Something which has also happened across the world. The publication also talked to investors to come up with a list of potential local unicorns
- Madrid-based magnetics company Frenetic raised $12m, led by Kibo Ventures
- Granada-based Adaion raised €2.6m, led by IPW. Adaion is a "cloud data platform that digitizes your grid to pave the way to a smart and sustainable future"
- Barcelona-based proptech startup Nester raised €1.2m, led by Successful Ventures and Zone2Boost
- Barcelona-based IoT startup Kamleon raised €1m. Iker Casillas and Gerard Pique invested
- Startups looking for funding: Pulso (health),
Investor & accelerator news 🚀
- Yellow is a new VC firm with headquarters in Barcelona founded by Oscar Pierre and Sacha Michaud, founders of Glovo, as well as Adam Lasri, formerly of Atomico. Victor Navarro is also part of the original team. The new €30m pre-seed fund that wants to invest at the earliest stage possible in Southern European companies
- Carlos Blanco acquired investment management company Nekko Capital, which will be transformed into Encomenda Capital Partners. The new entity plans to launch a €50m fund
- Profile of Mutter Ventures, the venture builder and investment firm that became a public company last year with a float on the Euronext Access Paris. Christian Rodriguez, founder of the firm, recently appeared on the itnig podcast
- DraperB1 invested in US real estate blockchain company Mogul
- Miguel Arias, general partner at Kfund, published "La integración de la IA en la empresa: A must" and also a Twitter thread on the topic: "AI will not be a mere tool, it's becoming the enterprise fabric. But the journey presents a mix of challenges and openings"
Startup news 💡
- Cabify says that sales in the first six months of 2023 are up 30% YoY. According to the article, the company is still interested in selling the 49% stake owned by Rakuten.
- Wallbox's sales are slowing down. In Q3, sales were 26% lower than in the year-ago period and also lower than in Q2. Despite this, margins did improve (gross margins at 35%) and investors reacted well to the news
- Meal delivery company Wetaca said that it plans to close 2023 with €13m in sales, up 30% YoY. In 2022, the company did €11m in net sales and posted a profit of €300k. To improve margins, the company has not increased prices since the pandemic-fueled inflation period, and has opted instead to lower the size of the food containers. The company also said that it has no plans to expand internationally or to raise more money (it has raised €2.5m to date)
- Profile of Citibox and David Bernabeu, where he shares some data on the company, which recently acquired also logistics player Celeritas for €21m. The company did €65m in gross sales in 2022 and expects to close 2023 at €130m, and has installed 50k mailboxes in 10k buildings across Madrid and Valencia
- A new EU directive that will soon go into effect will impact the operations of up to 400 fintech companies in Spain. The new law will limit the lending capabilities of fintech startups, forcing them to be registered or regulated. "En España, cualquier empresa puede conceder préstamos sin necesidad de contar con ficha bancaria. Tampoco es necesario estar dada de alta como entidad de pagos o como entidad de dinero electrónico. (...) Sin embargo, la directiva europea recién aprobada va a acabar con eso. "Los intermediarios de crédito deben estar autorizados o inscritos en un registro y bajo los mecanismos de supervisión aplicados por una autoridad competente", recoge el texto legal."
- More logistics news: Amphora, the startup that enables ecommerce companies to outsource and digitize logistics, says that it expects to close 2023 with €12m in sales
- One more profile with financial data: this one of solar energy startup Volt. They did €2.5m in sales last year and expect to get to €20m this year
- Interview with Rob Cassedy, CEO of Wallapop. He says that he expects Spain to become profitable this year
- Enric Gabarro, previously founder of Picker (which shut down and Enric wrote about lessons learned here), announced that he's working on a new project: Korner. A tool for brands to manage their social sellers
- Pelayo Cortina Koplowitz, one of the early backers of Jobandtalent, will take the company's founders to court. The investor, who's no longer on the cap table, claims that its shares were sold in a secondary transaction at an unfair price. All of the details of this story are here
- Pedro Trujillano, co-founder of data analytics startup Trackingplan, wrote "Time is Money: Trackingplan's Role in Digital Analytics Efficiency"
- Gonzalo Ruiz published a long interview with Giorgio Semenzato, co-founder of roboadvisor Finizens. Giorgio says in the interview that they closed the first half of 2023 with positive EBITDA of €78k
- Latam-focused open banking and fintech infra startup Belvo announced that it's bringing variable recurring payments to Colombia and Mexico through direct debit
- Valencia's Zeleros is determined to bring hyperloop travel to reality by 2030
- Startup profiles:
- Bcome: fashion sustainability
Big company news 🏦
- BBVA invested $25m into climate tech fund Decarbonization Partners I. So far, BBVA has invested more than $100m into climate-focused funds
- Repsol invested in renewable energy company DACMa
- El Confidencial published that Indra plans to sell Minsait, its tech consulting business. But one day later, the company said that it was not true
- The CNMV could impose a fine on Twitter (X) for allowing advertising of crypto scams
- WeWork filed for bankruptcy last week. Expansion has a list of the Spanish real estate companies that could be impacted by this, those that own the buildings that WeWork leases
- Amadeus announced good financial results for Q3 and a €600m+ stock buyback program
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