Cada vez vemos más inversores que deciden aprender a invertir mejor. ¿Por qué? Invertir en startups puede dar grandes retornos, sí, pero hay que saber cómo hacerlo. Y qué mejor manera que aprender de la experiencia de reconocidos business angels y analistas. ✅ Startupxplore te da un descuento del 20% para que empieces el año cumpliendo propósitos: NOVO20.

Startup funding news 💸

• Kippel01 and El Referente published a summary of the startup funding markets in 2018 in Spain. According to both publications, investment activity surpassed the €1.3 billion mark last year
• Cream Sports, an eSports team, raised funding from All Iron Ventures and Yago Arbeloa
• According to Cinco Dias, last mile logistics solution Citibox is looking to raise €246 million from investors to aggressively expand in Spain

Investor & accelerator news 🚀

• Sponsored
  Startupxplore launched an online course to teach investors how to better invest in startups. Also last week, EFE interviewed Javier Megías, CEO and co-founder of the company
• Kippel01 looked at investment activity in Spain from international VCs. I also recently published a post about this on K Fund’s blog, listing the 109 different foreign investors that have backed Spanish startups in the past few years
• Madrid-based Samaipata announced their 15th investment, in French condo management startup illiCopro
• El Correo interviewed K Fund’s Iñaki Arrola, following K Fund’s investment in Bilbao-based startup Chronoexpert

Startup news 💡

• El País interviewed Rafa de Ramón, CEO of coworking chain and real estate company Utopicus. In the interview Rafa says that he believes that the vast majority of coworking spaces in Spain lose money
• La Vanguardia profiled Instamaki, the food tech company that operates a network of ‘ghost kitchens’ that reached €2 million in sales in 2018
• Forbes interviewed Juan Carlos Riveiro, CEO and co-founder of Barcelona-based AI startup Vilynx: ’How artificial intelligence is transforming the media world’
• Carlos Pierre (CEO) published a tweet with some info on Badi’s activity in 2018: 1 million users, 120,000 rooms listed, 10 million rental requests and more

Big company news 🏦

• La Informacion looked into the acitivity of Spain’s main telcos in 2018 and predicts mergers and acquisitions in the coming year
• Amazon employees in Spanish distribution centres continue to protest regarding their working conditions
• Uber is looking for someone to lead its escooter business (Jump) in Spain

Interesting reads 🤓

• Xataka published an interesting analysis of Monzo, the UK neobank, featuring Jose Luis Antunez and Domingo Remo (iAsesoria, Civeta)
• El Pais published a profile of Gema Parreño, who works at BBVA but previously won a NASA project to predict the collision of asteroids with the Earth
• Ecommerce continues to grow in Spain at double digit figures. In Q2 2018, Spaniards spent more than €9.3 billion in online purchases (+27% year-on-year) which accounts for 1.7 million transactions per day
• Javier Escribano (OnTruck): ’Quality vs. time to build is a false dichotomy’
• Miguel Arias (Wayra): ’365 days and a new locomotive’ - interesting read about Arias’ experience working at a corporate like Telefonica for one year and differences with his previous stint at various startups

Podcasts of the week 🎧

• K Fund interviewed Sofia Benjumea, director of Google Campus Madrid
• Itnig interviewed Oscar Macia, CEO and co-founder of Barcelona-based Forcemanager
• In En.digital they talked to a bunch of entrepreneurs about their predictions and trends for 2019