Multihelpers es la manera más rápida y económica para mejorar tu hogar. Líderes en Madrid y recién llegados a Barcelona, queremos seguir expandiéndonos en los próximos meses. Como sabemos que la mejor manera de conocer un servicio es probándolo, os ofrecemos un 10% de descuento en vuestra primera tarea con el código NOVOHELP. Descuento válido en el mes de octubre y solo aplicable a los 150 primeros euros de mano de obra)

Startup funding news 💸

• Barcelona-based biotech and pharma startup Minoryx Therapeutics raised €21.3 million from various investors
• Madrid-based Stratio raised €13 million for its big data analytics platform. The round was led by local VC Adara Ventures and also included the participation of GP Bullhound
• Barcelona-based AI health startup Mediktor raised €3 million from Alta Life Sciences
• Car marketplace ValueCar raised €320,000
• Tavola News raised €142,000 through equity crowdfunding

M&A activity 🎊

• Jesus Martinez has a great story on the exit of Aplazame to Wizink. The article includes a conversation with CEO Fernando Cabello about the process and a rumoured €20 million price tag on the company
• Indra bought US firm Advanced Control System for almost €40 million
• Seidor acquired Murcia-based Inforges for an undisclosed sum

Investor & accelerator news 🚀

• Startupxplore will invest in startups from Spain’s top 8 accelerators. Under the agreement, Startupxplore will analyze startups from each accelerator to make sure they meet the proper criteria for investment
• Axon Partners published a report: ’The case for VC and the opportunity in Europe’
• Madrid-based VC Samaipata Ventures announced a new brand and website

Startup news 💡

• Amazon Launchpad arrives in Spain for startups to ‘showcase their products’
• Bonofit is a new startup coming out of Madrid-based startup studio Neboola that offers consumers a subscription service to multiple fitness studios in Madrid and Barcelona
• Barcelona-based travel startup TravelPerk continues its international expansion with the launch of a German version of its product, set its sights on the US market by 2020
• El Confidencial profiled Easypromos, a Barcelona-based company that sells a product to create online sweepstakes and contests that has more than €1 million in annual revenues with just 18 employees
• bnc10 is the first neobank created in Barcelona, becoming the first digital alternative to traditional banking created in the Catalan capital
• Marketing4Ecommerce interviewed María Fierro, CFO of Spanish AI startup Vylinx
• German neobank currently has 100,000 users in Spain. The company said that it expects to reach 1 million by 2020 and to reach 100 employees in its Barcelona office in coming months
• Deliveroo is now available in 22 Spanish cities, following its recent launch in Palma de Mallorca and Murcia

Big company news 🏦

• BBVA unveiled Open Marketplace, a way for fintech startups to offer their services to BBVA clients
• Facebook is quietly building a team of content moderators in Barcelona, who are housed in the city’s famous Torre Agbar. The US company announced said this week that it reached €10 million in sales in 2017 in Spain, which seem quite low based on its activity, and a loss of almost €1 million in the period
• El Pais interviewed Pablo Rodriguez, the CEO of Telefonica Alpha, the moonshot arm of the Spanish telco to talk about AI
• Virgin could open in March its Spanish hyperloop testing centre
• According to El Español, Amazon is in conversations with Telefonica to include its Alexa technology into the telco’s Movistar Home device
• Siemens to open in Madrid a global centre to be specialised in industry 4.0

Tech and policy 💂🏼

• The Spanish government finally announced a new regulatory framework to limit/regulate the activity of Cabify, Uber and other VTC-reliant companies in Spain. As usual, it seems as if the regulation doesn’t please either side (taxi companies or entities who own VTC licenses). The deal gives rights to Spain’s 17 ‘comunidades autónomas’ to impose specific regulation on VTC licenses in four years
• Spanish political party Podemos wants to stop the promotion of sports online betting platforms on Spanish media, which could put an end to the more than €130 million that these platforms spend on advertising every year

Interesting reads 🤓

• Adeyemi Ajao (Tuenti, Cabify) wrote a letter to Spain’s secretary of science and innovation, Pedro Duque: ’We must choose our future’
• Avi Meir (Travelperk): ’The pros and cons of basing your company in Barcelona’

Podcasts of the week 🎧

• K Fund interviewed Christophe Primault (GetApp, Elaia Partners): the founder-to-VC transition: founding and selling GetApp to Gartner, distribution channels for B2B SaaS startups and the move to the VC side with Elaia Partners
• Itnig interviewed Iñaki Arrola (K Fund, Coches.com)
• En.Digital interviewed the founders of foodtech startup Wetaca