Dealflow.es #418: Magnific & Onna exit. Sesame raised €23m. Typeform founder back at it.
Dealflow.es #418: Magnific & Onna exit. Sesame raised €23m. Typeform founder back at it.#418 edition of the DealflowES newsletter
Welcome to another edition of the Dealflow.es: a weekly summary of everything that’s happened in the Spanish startup and tech investing ecosystem. My name is Jaime Novoa and I’m a partner at Kfund. 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 This is a free newsletter supported by sponsors. If you’re interested in sponsorship opportunities, drop me an email at jaime@dealflow.es This week’s newsletter is sponsored by Google Cloud Summit:
Startup funding news 💸60% of VC investment in the healthcare sector in Catalonia in 2023 came from international funds, according to a study conducted by CataloniaBio & HealthTech and Ernst & Young. The study is available here Valencia-based Sesame, an HR software company, raised €23m, led by GP Bullhound. Previous investor PSG also participated in the round. Sesame has more than 8,000 customers Madrid-based Luzia, the AI assistant that can be integrated into messaging apps, raised $19m, led by Brazilian fund Monashees. As of last October, the company reported that the platform had nearly 17 million users. The app is free, but the company's terms and conditions include the possibility of paying a subscription of $0.99 per month to use all functionalities on Whatsapp Barcelona-based MLCode raised additional funding from Bullnet, which has invested a total of €3m in the company. Founded by Joan Raventós and Sergi Zapater, MLCode specializes in software that automates data management and security for AI applications. The startup, established following the sale of their previous company Zhilabs to Samsung, has developed technology for monitoring LLMs and addressing associated risks Madrid-based Muppy secured €2.3m in seed funding. Muppy specializes in short to mid-term accommodations, positioning itself as a leader in Flex-Living across Spain Barcelona-based Float, the new company co-founded by former Typeform founder David Okuniev, raised €1.6m, led by Point Nine Capital. The relationship between David and P9 goes back to the origins of Typeform, since P9 was an early investor in the company. The funds will be used to accelerate the development of Float's first product, called ツSupercut Valencia-based Internxt received €1.4 million in public funding from CDTI to develop post-quantum encryption algorithms and new services such as encrypted video calls, encrypted email, and an encrypted VPN A Coruña-based Codee, a deep tech company that helps large enterprises run faster and more secure code, raised €1.2m from CDTI Barcelona-based startup Routal closed a funding round of €1 million. The company has developed an AI-based platform to improve last-mile delivery management. The deal involved the participation of PE firm H Capital and the European innovation initiative EIT Innoenergy. More info here Other rounds of funding:
M&A news 🚀Magnific, the AI-based image enhancer company co-founded by Javi Lopez and Emilio Nicolas, was acquired by Freepik. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, although apparently this is Freepik’s most expensive acquisition to date, and the highest and known deal made by the Malaga company was €12m. Magnific has more than 700k users and had grown to this scale fully bootstrapped, with no external funding, and in less than one year. This is Javi and Emilio’s second exit, after successfully selling Erasmusu to Spotahome in 2018 US company Reveal, a global provider of AI-powered eDiscovery solutions, has acquired Barcelona-based Onna Technologies, a provider of unstructured data management from cloud-based collaboration tools. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The company had previously raised more than $50m in funding from Atomico, Dawn, Nauta and other investors Investor & accelerator news 🚀Zubi Capital is preparing to launch a VC fund focused on companies fighting against diabetes. The Zubi Capital Diabetes-Immune Fund will have a capacity of around €50m and will invest in 20 to 25 companies, primarily at seed and Series A Interview with Jose Cabiedes, of Cabiedes & Partners, to chat about their search fund activity. Cabiedes has been focused on the search fund sector since 2016, and to date has invested in 150 search funds and completed 50 acquisitions Anna Piñol has been promoted to Partner at US firm NFX Axon participated in the €14m round of Italian startup Futura. The round was led by Eurazeo Profile of Seaya, Kfund and Kibo Ventures: “así es la 'crème de la crème' del 'venture capital' español” Startup news 💡In the first quarter of 2024, Wallbox reported a revenue increase of 23% YoY, reaching €43.1m. The company, specializing in electric vehicle (EV) charging solutions, also saw an improvement in its financial performance, with gross margins at 39.6% and a narrowed adjusted EBITDA loss of €13.5 million. The stock is down by 15% so far this year, and Wallbox’s current market cap is $300m Holaluz is exploring a new refinancing option that includes potentially welcoming an industrial partner into its shareholding structure. This move comes as part of efforts to alleviate its liquidity issues, featuring a possible convertible loan of €7 million from an industrial sector investor. The company previously announced options including loans totaling €14.8 million from various sources. More info here Carlos Reines left RubiconMD, the company he co-founded in NYC, “after more than 10 years and hundreds of patients' lives impacted”. The company was acquired in 2021 by Oak Street Health for up to $190m Jorge Izquierdo introduced his new startup: Tuyo, “a next-gen app that combines the convenience of CEXs and the freedoms afforded by self-custodial wallets w/o tradeoffs” Talent agency Manfred published its 2024 Tech Salary guide Databricks announced that it will open its first office in Spain, in Madrid El Referente put together an overview of the Galician startup ecosystem, highlighting some of the most well known companies in the region Mobility platform Bolt plans to invest €7m over three years to expand its micromobility business in Spain Startup profiles:
Big company & policy news 💡Merlin Properties announced at its General Shareholders' Meeting a plan to raise €1b for the development of data centers. The Spanish real estate investment trust aims to leverage this investment, combined with debt, to expand its data center capacity by 200 megawatts within five years, expecting to generate annual revenues of €350m This was a bit surprising to me 👉 The Spanish Association of Startups, representing around 700 emerging companies, has filed a complaint against Microsoft with the Spanish Competition Authority (CNMC) for anti-competitive practices in the cloud services market. They accuse Microsoft of using its dominant position in operating systems and office software to unfairly promote its Azure cloud services Interesting reads 🤓Ana Asuero (Citibox) asked on Twitter if anyone knows of cases of people in startups in Spain who sold part or all of their phantoms or stock options in secondary rounds. Interesting replies Miguel Arias (Kfund) published his thoughts on trends he’s seeing in the VC and M&A market Marco Patiño (Pulpo) published “I analyzed code review best practices for a year. This is what I learned.” Ignacio Arriaga (Acumbamail), published “PR 101: una historia, un dato, algo novedoso” about PR and startups Samaipata interviewed Paulo Rodriguez (Vanta), to chat about “mastering the art of sales at early-stage startups” Podcasts 🔈Itnig interviewed Pablo Gil (PropHero) SeedRocket interviewed Xavi Ginesta (Voxel, recently sold for €113m) Crescenta interviewed Iñaki Arrola (Kfund) Historias de Crecimiento interviewed Adam Barbera (DOST) Product Hackers interviewed Héctor Mainar (Sports Emotion) Thanks for reading Dealflow.es Newsletter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
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