Dealflow.es is the best way to keep up with Spain’s startup ecosystem, manually curated by Jaime Novoa.

Dealflow is a side project. I spend the vast majority of my time investing in early stage startups as part of Kfund. We make investments of €100k to €10m. If you want to chat, drop me an email at jaime@kfund.vc

En Soluble trabajamos marcas para que las empresas buenas parezcan tan buenas como son.

Lo hicimos con Ontruck, con Dozen y Aplazame. Lo hemos hecho con Quaderno y Declarando, ambas adquiridas por Visma.

Lo estamos haciendo con NTT DATA, Minsait, Mi Tienda de Arte, IESE, Cuerva…

Conoce cómo les ayudamos a crecer

Contamos con un equipo de equipos. Perfiles especialistas coordinados por perfiles generalistas para construir estrategias, identidades de marca, webs, productos digitales, contenido y espacios. Marcas como palancas de crecimiento para un impacto maximizado y real.

¿Cuándo es buen momento para trabajar tu marca? Cuando es momento de crecer para perdurar: captar clientes y talento, fidelizarlos, resultar atractivos para inversión o compra…

Escríbeme por LinkedIn y te cuento cómo podríamos ayudar.

Startup funding news 💸

According to people La Informacion has talked to, Spanish startups are preparing for a year of recovery after the "great setback" in 2023. Although investment has been cut in half and mega-rounds are scarce, a rebound is expected in the early stages of financing. The capital shortage has led companies to reduce costs and improve profitability. It is expected that in 2024 forces will balance out and more transactions will be closed, especially with the increase of specialized funds

Madrid-based Cabify raised €15m in venture debt from BBVA Spark, to support its strategic plan for sustainable mobility, which includes decarbonization and electrification of its trips. Cabify has announced the addition of 200 new electric cars in Madrid, advancing its goal of being a more sustainable mobility option.

Elche-based crypto company Bit2Me secured a venture debt financing agreement with BBVA Spark, joining the investment received from Investcorp, Telefónica Ventures, Stratminds, and Emurgo. The total funding round amounts to €14m

Madrid-based Crisalion Mobility, formerly known as UMILES Next, secured €5.4m in funding from CDTI Innovación and Grupo Valdemira. The company's objective is to revolutionize mobility through electric and environmentally friendly solutions, and it has already achieved noteworthy milestones with the introduction of the first Spanish eVTOL and a prototype remote driving center for land vehicles

Barcelona-based satellite company Sateliot raised €5m for its 5G IoT nanosatellite constellation

Sevilla-based MYHIXEL, specialized in male sexual health, raised €1.4m, led by SEGO Venture and with the contribution of Zubi Capital

Other rounds of funding: Avamed Synergy (€800k), tradEAsy (€484k),

M&A activity 🎊

Madrid-based location intelligence company Geoblink and French company Mytraffic have merged. The merger combines Geoblink's geospatial technology with Mytraffic's analytics platform, creating a comprehensive suite of solutions. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Geoblink had raised more than €6m in funding from Nauta, Elaia, Mundi and others

H2B2 hydrogen company, founded by Felipe Benjumea, has reached a definitive agreement to merge with RMG Acquisition Corporation III for €365m and go public on the Nasdaq. H2B2 is a Sevilla-based company that operates systems based on electrolyzers for hydrogen production from water and electricity. The value of the SPAC is 50% less than what was discussed in the press a few months ago

Investor & accelerator news 🚀

Encomenda Capital Partners launched the Encomenda II fund in 2024, aiming to invest between €40m to €50m in early-stage tech startups. The fund has already made 7 investments. The fund primarily targets Spanish market startups, with potential for operations in LatAm and Southern Europe. Encomenda plans to build a portfolio of 40 to 50 companies, investing up up to €500,000 euros per startup and potentially up to €4m depending on the project. More info here

Paul Murphy, general partner at Lightspeed, announced that he’s moving to Madrid for a few months and expressed interest in meeting new companies and players in the ecosystem

Arcano launched a €500m fund to address the lack of liquidity in venture capital, with the aim of improving the diversity and quality of its content offerings. The fund will mostly buy secondary stakes in other funds, providing liquidity to LPs and managers

Portuguese cybersecurity fund 33N, led by Alantra, achieved its first closing with commitments of €50m. Target size is €150m. The main investors are Caixa Capital (the Portuguese entity, not the Spanish bank) and Golden Wealth Management. The fund aims to invest in cybersecurity companies and infrastructure software globally, with a focus on early-stage investments (Series A and B) of around €10m

Interview with Lanai Partners’ Diego Camilleri. Lanai has recently launched a new €20m pre-seed fund to invest tickets of €100k to €1m in Spanish companies. Among the LPs is Speedinvest, the Austrian and German VC firm

Ship2B co-led a €6m funding round in British biotech company FA Bio

Cardumen Capital invested $10m in US startup Tomato.ai, which is developing an AI-based solution to smooth the accents of contact center agents in real time

US startup XRHealth, a leader in spatial computing healthcare platforms, secured $6m in funding led by Spanish fund Asabys Partners

Startup news 💡

Online sports commerce company Tradeinn generated a record-breaking revenue of €500m in 2023. To enhance efficiency and delivery times, the company intends to commence construction on the expansion of their headquarters and relocate their logistics warehouse in Germany. Despite facing a 40% increase in transportation costs, Tradeinn witnessed growth across all European countries, with significant sales in cycling, mountain sports, and other disciplines

In 2023, the Spanish tech consulting firm Babel achieved a turnover of €180m, representing 30% YoY growth, and EBITDA of €21m. Babel's growth strategy includes international expansion and acquisitions, such as the recent purchase of the Mexican tech company Ironbit

Profile of Glovo House, the company’s “community and a springboard to help accelerate ideas founded by Glovo alumni”. Since its inception in 2015, the Glovo Mafia (ex-Glovo employees) have created 50 startups with a combined valuation of €590m

Neobank Bnext has seen a significant increase in customer deposits, increasing from €7m to €140m thanks to a partnership with Correos to launch a prepaid card. To meet the requirements of the Bank of Spain, Bnext has raised its capital by €150k. The neobank aims to achieve profitability with its growing business volume and customer deposits

Mario Nemirovsky, co-founder of several startups such as Vilynx and Clevernet, said in an interview that Spain lacks both technological talents and brilliant CEOs. He talks about the need for more support and empowerment of tech professionals, especially in the photonic sector where Spain leads. Nemirovsky believes that technological knowledge contributes to less than 20% of a company's success, underscoring the importance of management and operational skills

Vera, the telco born from the merger of three operators in central Catalonia, plans to expand its fiber optic network to various regions in Catalonia and achieve a revenue of €40m in 2024

Ecommerce and fashion company Blue Banana expects to reach sales of €30m in 2024 and will open in Mexico

Logistics startup Rever initiated its expansion plan and has established itself in France and Italy. Rever specializes in reverse logistics services for managing online purchase returns

Profile of Celia is an AI virtual assistant developed by the Communication Technologies Research Center at the University of Vigo. Designed to accompany and entertain elderly people, Celia also detects mental illnesses such as Alzheimer's or depression through voice analysis

Tech + government news 👩🏼‍⚖️

In 2024, the Spanish government faces the challenge of completing key digital initiatives delayed by recent political events. These include the partially implemented AI sandbox, a digital environment to connect authorities and tech companies for AI regulation, and the delayed launch of the latest Kit Digital call for SMBs, among other challenges

Big company news 🏦

Intel has ruled out building a chip factory in Spain, but admits "conversations" with the Government regarding the PERTE Chip. The PERTE Chip is an ambitious project by the Spanish Government to attract investments in the semiconductor industry. Although Intel does not plan to construct a factory in Spain, it remains in discussions with the Government to collaborate in other areas

Online sales for fashion company Scalpers have grown by 30% in 2023, already representing 23% of total sales. The company reached €200m in sales, a 31.5% YoY increase

Amazon Web Services will expand its presence in Aragon with the construction of six new buildings in the data centers of El Burgo de Ebro, Villanueva de Gállego, and Huesca. This expansion is part of a €2.5b investment project over 10 years and will generate 1,300 job positions

Tesla is accelerating its expansion project in Germany while putting its decision on a possible investment in Spain on hold

Indra has won the contract to manage the data repository of the Bank of Spain, beating Telefónica. The contract, with a budget of up to €40m, covers computer services related to data management

PagoNxt, Banco Santander's bet in the world of payments, has managed to close the third quarter of 2023 in the black, achieving a profit of €3m. With a YoY growth of 23% in revenue and an increase in activity and business volumes, PagoNxt seeks to establish itself as one of the major growth drivers of the financial institution

According to a study by Aliexpress, Spanish consumers are the ones who spend the least on online purchases, despite being the ones who buy the most items

Spain's second-largest mobile operator, Orange España, experienced a major outage after an unknown party gained access to their account using a weak password. The party made changes to the global routing table, causing disruptions to the company's internet traffic

Interesting reads 🤓

Talent company Nova wrote a post explaining “why and how we turned Nova into a paying membership - the learnings from the best (and toughest) decision in Nova’s history”

Simon Muñoz, platform PM at Voicemod, published “Realidad y ficción de los consejos sobre Product Management“

Miguel Carranza, co-founder of RevenueCat, published “My role as a founder CTO: Year Six“

Podcasts 🎧

Life On Mars interviewed David Tomas, co-founder of Cyberclick

Ancla Life interviewed Diego Ballesteros, co-founder of Bewe (and previously SinDelantal) and one of the directors of Ancla

Kfund interviewed Gonzalo Úrculo⁠ and ⁠Juliette Simonin⁠, co-founders of ⁠CrowdFarming⁠

Dealmakers interviewed Gonzalo Parejo, co-founder of Brazilian startup Kamino, and previously also co-founder of Ontruck

Itnig interviewed Paola Sasplugas, CEO and founder of PDPAOLA

Rompiendo Barreras interviewed Laura Velásquez, president of Arkangel AI