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Gestoos raised €2m. Spotahome acquired Erasmusu. More details of Inditex and Mercadona's online strategy.

July 7, 2019 • Issue #106

360 Talent es la primera consultora de RRHH de España, que desde el año 2013 cuenta con una división especializada en startups. Somos expertos en procesos de selección en el área IT (fullstack, back-end, front-end, mobile, DevOps…), online marketing, operaciones, ventas, logística, finanzas, así como todas las posiciones C-Level. Nuestro objetivo es seguir creciendo con tu empresa! ¿Hablamos?

Startup funding news 💸

  • Gestoos, developers of an AI platform for cameras and sensors to see and understand real-time human movement, raised €2.5 million from Kibo Ventures and OneRagtime
  • Madrid’s reclamador closed a €1.5 million investment to scale legaltech services. The round was led by Marin Varsavsky, who expects to increase his investment activity in the next few months
  • Proptech startup Rentuos raised €150,000 from Cabiedes & Partners, Jordi Ber, Manu Arianoff, Yago Arbeloa and other investors
  • Fintonic to become a shareholder of P2P lending startup Zank

Startup exits 🎊

  • Spotahome acquired Erasmusu, a Murcia-based online community for international students. Terms of the deal were not disclosed

Investor & accelerator news 🚀

  • US company Scalefast announced an $8 million Series A funding round, which included the participation of Madrid-based VC Adara Ventures
  • Mexican edtech startup Yogome raised almost $27 million from various investors, including Seaya Ventures
  • Jesus Martinez looked at the current state of Grupo Intercom and how its plans to sell the majority of the companies it incubated a long time ago are taking longer than expected
  • Various trends that Nauta Capital is keeping an eye on
  • Esade’s business angel network closed 2017 with more than €4 million invested across 22 startups
  • El País profiled Ferran Martínez, former professional basketball player now turned investor (Lanzame)
  • Orizont seeks 8 startups for its AgriFood accelerator in Navarra

Startup news 💡

  • “The ultimate goal is to eradicate agencies.” – Interview with Carlos Pierre, CEO and founder at Barcelona startup Badi. In another interview, Pierre says that the company does not expect to start making money until at least next year
  • Citibox announced the hiring of David Muntañola, former sales and marketing director of Correos. Muntañola will become the company’s Chief Revenue Officer
  • Legaltech startup Easyoffer has a guide to know how and when you need to pay taxes if you own cryptocurrencies
  • Jesus Martinez looked at what could have happened at Spanish startup Carto, following the exit of several key people, including its CPO, COO and CTO
  • Xataka published a profile of Aceros de Hispania, an ecommerce selling more than €800,000 in swords and other similar items from a small village in Aragon
  • Parking app Wazypark has entered liquidation procedures
  • Topdoctors expects to reach €20 million in sales this year, 3X year-on-year
  • Barcelona startup Qrem pioneers medical device to treat osteoarthritis
  • Transportation marketplace OnTruck is now available in Euskadi and Navarra, as the company continues to expand within Spain and also abroad (UK for now)

Big company news 🏦

  • It was earnings week for Inditex, the Spanish fashion giant. The company beat revenues and earnings expectations and announced for the first time that online sales account for 10% of the company’s total, with growth of 41% year-on-year in the category. Inditex also announced several new initiatives this week, including changing rooms with AR technology
  • More messages coming out of BBVA about seeing Facebook, Amazon or Fintonic as real competitors in the future, more so than traditional banks. The company expects the number of banks (and branches) to decrease significantly in coming years
  • Mercadona said it expects to unveil its new ecommerce project in the second half of 2018. It will spend €141 million this year in digital transformation initiatives and €20 million in the new website
  • Amazon has told employees in its San Fernando distribution center that the company is willing to enter negotiations to improve worker conditions if the planned strike is cancelled. How much money do Amazon’s workers at the centre make? Here’s an analysis from La Informacion
  • Kippel01 takes a look at Ferrovial’s innovation initiatives, including the launch of car sharing platform Zity and other projects

Tech and policy 💂🏼

  • Taxi organisation Elite Taxi is trying to boycott bus company Alsa, due to ownership of VTC licenses by the latter. This coincides with the re-launch of Uber in Barcelona after several years off the Catalan market. By the way, up to 970 more VTC licenses are expected to hit the market in the next few months
  • Facebook and WhatsApp were fined with €600,000 for breaking Spanish data protection laws

Interesting reads 🤓

  • The Spanish woman that keeps an eye on Google and Facebook’s algorithms. A profile of Lorena Jaume-Palasí, founder of AlgorithmWatch
  • How Amazon’s distribution center in San Fernando de Henares works
  • Mar Galtes published in La Vanguardia an interesting overview of the evolution of Barcelona as a startup ecosystem in the past few years
  • Mauricio Prieto (eDreams): ’The pillars of an startup ecosystem

Podcasts of the week 🎧

  • K Fund interviewed Ramon Egea and Alicia Rivas about women in tech
  • MasQueStartups interviewed Jorge Garcia Betanzos, CEO of Runnea
  • Itnig interviewed insurtech and proptech expert Eugeni Morales

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