Wetaca, es la solución perfecta para que comer de tupper sea sano y delicioso. Si eres de los que no tiene tiempo y “comer bien” lleva en tu lista de propósitos de año nuevo desde 2010 ¡déjate de excusas! Cada semana lanzan una carta con hasta 30 platos distintos que sus chefs cocinan sin conservantes ni aditivos. Si quieres probar la próxima semana, haz tu pedido antes del miércoles con el código NOVOBRIEF12 y tendrás 12€ de descuento. *Respecto a las condiciones de código son 12€ sólo para nuevos clientes. El pedido mínimo son 22€.

Startup funding news 💸

• Barcelona-based Badi raised $30 million for AI-aided room rentals. The 2015-founded startup has now raised $45 million in total, while its platform has passed 12 million rental requests and it has one million registered users. The Series B is led by U.S.-based consumer tech VC firm Goodwater Capital, making its first investment in a Spanish startup. Also investing are Target Global and existing VCs Spark Capital and Mangrove Capital. Carlos Pierre, CEO of the company, wrote about the fundraise here
• Valencia-based Mr Jeff announced a $12 million Series A to replace trips to continue the expansion of its dry cleaning and laundry services. The round was led by All Iron Ventures. The company closed 2018 with more than 1,000 franchises operating, and more than 150 direct employees plus 2,400 indirect employees
• Galician nanomaterials startup Nanogap raised €1.8 million from Repsol’s venture arm, valuing the company at €20 million
• Barcelona-based legaltech startup Pridatect raised at least €1 million from Encomenda and Esade Ban
• Antifraud fintech startup Pibisi raised €150,000 in funding from François Derbaix, Unai Asenjo, Fernando Cabello-Astolfi and others
• French PE firm Capzanine acquired a minority stake in Valencia-based company Ivnosys

Startup exits 🎊

• A Coruña-based startup Enxendra Technologies announced the acquisition of payments fintech startup Besepa. Besepa had raised funding from Cabiedes & Partners, François Derbaix and other investors. Enxendra Technologies provides invoicing and digital signature services and is bootstrapped

Investor & accelerator news 🚀

• BBVA’s investment arm, Propel Venture Partners, has led the latest funding round into US-based invisible payments startup Grabango
• Barcelona-based Itnig announced a €2 million fund to invest tickets of €100,000 in 20 startups in the next couple of years
• Tech Transfer Agrifood is a new fund from Clave Mayor to invest in agritech startups

Startup news 💡

• El Confidencial published a profile of Chollometro, a Spanish platform to buy cheap and discounted products and services online. The company reached €1 million in sales last year
• Lingokids numbers in 2018: +70% employees (54), +92% money raised ($12.5m), +180% registered users (7.5 million), +300% in sales
• Javi Lopez, co-founder and CEO of Erasmusu, published some data and learnings on the company’s performance in recent years (Erasmusu got recently acquired by Spotahome)
• According to Kippel01, Glovo could soon try to fundraise again, with the objective of opening a tech development centre in Latam
• More changes at Hawkers. The company’s retail director, Diego Sebastián, who was hired in 2017 from Apple, left the company at the end of last year. Hawkers also recently changed CEOs
• NYC-and-Madrid-based insurtech startup Coverwallet to open its tech platform to carriers and independent agents
• One of Verse’s co-founders is suing the other three for fraud
• Spanish SaaS startup MarketGoo, signed a partnership with Endurance International Group, to power SEO Tools for key brands, including Bluehost and HostGator. The hosting giant, with more than 82 brands and 4,8 million subscribers, considers SEO ‘need-to-have’ for many customers.
• Proptech startup Housfy to start its European expansion via Italy
• Lessons from a startup leader: an interview with Philippe Gelis, co-founder of fintech startup Kantox about the company’s evolution and pivot
• Xataka published a profile of neobank and fintech startup Bnext
• Verone is a startup out of Nuclio Venture Builder that offers a subscription product for jewelry
• El Confidencial wrote about Chiara, a Spanish startup that’s built a system to help executives learn how to speak in public by using VR
• El Referente interviewed Ricardo Sanchez, CEO of Clicksurance, an insurtech company that builds niche insurance products
• Long interview in Marketing4Ecommerce of Juan Carlos Cortizo, founder and CMO of marketing automation company BrainSINS
• Madrid-based consulting firm Findasense launched EXE, a digital school focused on Customer Experience

Big company news 🏦

• Major layoffs at Vodafone Spain. The company announced plans to lay off 22% of its workforce in the country, or 1,200 employees out of a total of 5,300
• Telefonica has won a big contract from Madrid’s local government that could amount to as much as €40 million

Tech and policy 💂🏼

• El Confidencial had access to documents that show that Cataluña’s regional government prepares a law that could kill Cabify and Uber in the local market. The Generalitat wants to restrict the activity of VTC companies to bookings made two hours in advance. VTC companies could ask for as much as €1 billion in compensation

Interesting reads 🤓

• According to Arcano, penetration of food delivery services in Spain is much lower than in other European countries. The study claims that the two local leaders in the space are Just Eat and Glovo
• There are more and more coding bootcamps in Spain. Can these programs teach you how to write code in three months? Xataka talked to Ironhack, Tech Talent South and students to expose this trend
• This is a great tweetstorm by Jota Jaiber about the development of iOS and Android game Logos Quiz Game. As a solo developer his app has been downloaded more than 40 million times over the years
• 10 Spanish startups to look out for in 2019, according to EU Startups
• Mauricio Prieto (eDreams): ’Retail’s Transformation: Four encouraging trends shine a light at brick and mortar retail’
• Maximo Gavete (Soluble): ’Are you building a startup without the right foundation?’

Podcasts of the week 🎧

• K Fund interviewed Iker Marcaide, founder and former CEO of fintech startup Flywire
• 20minuteVC interviewed Avi Meir, co-founder and CEO of Barcelona-based travel startup TravelPerk
• En.digital recorded a discussion about AI applied to businesses
• CppCast interviewed Pablo Santos, co-founder and CTO of PlasticSCM
• Félix Lopez (Google) gave a talk (video) at CommitConf about ‘engineering manager vs. tech lead’