Dealflow.es #408: Santander buys 33% of Seaya. Embat raises €16m. Freepik and AI.
Welcome to another edition of the DealflowES. A weekly newsletter about 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 €15m. 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 Over the years, many of you have requested a Telegram version of this newsletter. Well, here it is. From now on, I’ll also send every newsletter issue via Telegram and you can subscribe to our channel here: https://t.me/dealflowes
The channel also allows for comments from readers, and I’m very much looking forward (and also a bit scared!) to seeing if there’s any community engagement on Telegram. This week’s newsletter is sponsored by Zenital:
Startup funding news 💸Barcelona-based Wallapop received a €20m investment from ICO’s Next Tech initiative. This is an extension of Wallapop’s 2021 and 2023 rounds, at the same valuation as before (€800m) Madrid-based Embat raised a $16m Series A round for the expansion of its corporate treasury management solution. The round was led by Creandum and included the participation of previous investors 4Founders Capital, Samaipata and others. SeedRocket published an interview with the founders Barelona-based Cocunat, a cosmetic brand specializing in toxin-free products, raised €6 million to fuel its international expansion and business growth. Plans include opening up to 20 stores from 2024 to 2027, starting in Spain then moving internationally, alongside strengthening its online platform in Europe, the USA, and Mexico. International markets currently account for 65% of Cocunat's sales, with Italy being its largest market Madrid and Stockholm-based Plexigrid secured over $6m from the European Innovation Council for Electric Grid Innovation. Plexigrid aims to advance its technology aimed at modernizing electrical grid infrastructure Barcelona-based BiteRight, a medtech company focusing on dental treatments, raised €2.8m, led by Inibsa, with participation from Inveready FC Barcelona to become a shareholder of biotech company Made of Genes, specializing in personalized health. This partnership with Barça Innovation Hub will develop new biomedical intelligence solutions for elite athletes, focusing on performance optimization, injury prevention, and gender-specific health management Other rounds of funding: Modular DS (€300k), CDTI announced investments in SimpleCloud and LeanXcale, Vixion (backed by Zayer) M&A activity 🎊Signaturit announced plans to acquire French company Vialink, a startup specialized in identity verification and customer onboarding process automation. Signaturit was acquired several years ago by PE firm PSG Investor & accelerator news 🚀The name of the financial sponsor that was set to acquire a stake in Seaya Ventures was announced: Banco Santander. In a strategic move, Banco Santander enters the Spanish VC space by purchasing a significant stake in the firm founded by Beatriz Gonzalez Successful Capital launches with up to €30m fund: Successful Capital debuts its first investment fund, aiming to raise up to €30m to support emerging startups Demium Capital said that it invested over €6m in 2023 Aldea Ventures enhanced its advisory board with four international experts in entrepreneurship, VC, and tech: Yann de Vries (co-founder of Jumia), and Ulrich Geilinger. This strategic move aims to guide the firm's investment policy as it launches its second startup fund Nauta led a €2.2m round in UK cybersecurity startup esProfiler Startup news 💡Freepik has doubled down on its AI initiatives. Omar Pera (formerly of Meta) recently joined the company, which already had a strong AI department led by Ivan de Prado. Freepik announced last week that its users are generating more than 1m images per day. Also last week, the team unveiled a new photorealistic real-time image generator Profile of edtech startup Lingokids. The company said that its interactive app has become the No. 1 app for preschoolers, reaching more than 78 million families worldwide, and that it’s profitable. In 2021, then it announced its last $40m round, Lingokids said that it had reached $30m in sales Wallbox narrowed losses but misses EBITDA goal. The EV charging company, despite reducing its losses, fell short of achieving a positive EBITDA in Q4 2023, underlining the competitive challenges in the EV charging sector. The company also announced the closing of its factory in Sant Andreu de la Barca, reflecting on the company's efforts to optimize operations In an interview at MWC, Glovo co-founder Oscar Pierre said, in the context of providing liquidity to investors as a VC-backed company, that “Glovo would have a big problem without Delivery Hero”. More context: “Habría inversores que llevarían ocho años en la empresa y necesitarían salir, mientras que otros nuevos que buscasen multiplicar por dos, tres o cinco su inversión no lo podrían hacer porque realmente nuestra valoración ahora mismo sería de 0,5x o 0,25x”. Also last week, Sifted published an article on the company’s recent legal and financial issues In 2023, Novicap, a fintech company offering B2B working capital solutions, achieved a 55% increase in revenue. Novicap's progress is attributed to its new Working Capital Loans product and the ongoing retrenchment in the banking sector. The company has provided more than €1.5b in financing since 2018 Capchase and BBVA Spark signed a partnership agreement, integrating Capchase’s technology for digital client analysis through open banking and ERP connections into BBVA Spark's services. This collaboration will offer companies with recurring revenue models access to tailored financial products through BBVA Spark's online banking in Spain Gaming startup Codigames to initiate a workforce reduction program. The Valencian tech company announced an ERE affecting 20% of its staff (20 employees). The company closed 2023 with €18m in sales, vs. €32m in the previous year Clikalia is innovating the real estate business by integrating VR and gaming technologies through a new business division named Space. This approach aims to offer 3D project visualizations to Socimis, developers, and funds, marking a significant step towards blending high-tech solutions with real estate EU-Startups put together a list of “10 Fast-Growing Spanish Startups to Watch in 2024” Expansion published a market overview of startups that sell products and services for the elderly, featuring companies such as Cuideo, Qida, Envita and others Big company & policy news 🏦eDreams ODIGEO reported a 10% increase in revenue, surpassing €500m for the first time, largely due to its subscription model. The travel company credits its Prime subscription service, which offers exclusive deals and discounts, for this growth Merlin Properties plans to boost its data center investments to add up to €320m to its annual revenues by 2028, advancing its 2035 plans. This initiative, combined with €100m expected from logistics, means data centers and logistics will generate over half of Merlin's income in four years Two government news out of MWC: Spain is developing an open-source LLM trained in Spanish and regional languages like Basque, Catalan, Galician, and Valencian. And the set up of a new official body to accelerate the injection of €20b through various funds into deeptech and audiovisual companies in the country. More info on this here and here Amadeus closed the year 2023 with a profit of €1b, representing a 68.3% increase, and increased its dividend to 1.24 euros per share Interesting reads 🤓Tinybird published a 101 on “How to choose the right type of database” David Bonilla published “Hacker Culture” Samuel Gil’s sumapositiva focused last week on “La filosofia de Bitcoin”, coinciding with Bitcoin’s recent impressive performance Simon Muñoz, platform PM at Voicemod, published “El programar se va a acabar“ Podcasts 🎧Long profile and video interview with Laura Urquizu, CEO of RedPoints Interview with Gonzalo Noy, co-founder of Dogfy Diet: "Facturamos 30M en 2023 y queremos facturar 60M en 2024" Interview with Pablo Lopez, co-founder of fashion brand Silbon Interview with Rebeca Ricoy, Duolingo’s Regional Marketing Director in LATAM and EMEA Thanks for reading Dealflow.es Newsletter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
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