Llega a Madrid la próxima edición de Circus, un proyecto que busca ayudar a personas a transformarse digitalmente. El evento será el 16 y 17 de marzo en La N@ve, y contará con la colaboración de empresas como Sanitas, Eventbrite, Spotahome, Ironhack, The Key Talent, entre otras.

Los participantes podrán asistir a charlas de introducción a conceptos digitales, escuchar casos de éxito de empresas que lograron transformarse y asistir a talleres donde podrán ver los básicos de programación o diseño. El evento es totalmente gratuito pero con proceso de selección. Solicita tu plaza ya en insidecircus.org. ULTIMAS PLAZAS DISPONIBLES

Startup funding news 💸

• According to La Vanguardia, energy company HolaLuz is about to raise between €30 and €60 million in funding
• Madrid-based Citibox says that it’s looking for €31 million in funding to continue with its Spanish expansion
• Barcelona-based e-signature startup Signaturit landed a €7 million Series A investment. The round was led by 360 Capital and Bonsai Partners
• Basque medical technology startup Fesia raised €750,000 from Capital Cell and other investors
• Singerfy raised €138,000 from ARABAN
• RedCollectors, an exclusive private digital community for art collector, raised an undisclosed investment sum from François Derbaix and Marta Esteve

Investor & accelerator news 🚀

• German-founded customer feedback analysis startup zenloop raised $6 million, led by Spanish VC Nauta Capital
• El Pais profiled Lanzadera, the Valencia-based accelerator founded by Juan Roig. The company also announced this week a partnership with Airbus to support and promote aerospace projects
• EFE Emprende published a profile of oil giant Repsol and its approach to invest and support tech companies. The company has a kind of accelerator program that invests up to €1 million in 10 different startups per year

Startup news 💡

• Sponsored
  On March 7th and in Barcelona, The SaaS Institute and LinkedIn are putting together a free workshop to talk about the influence of marketing in B2B sales
• El Confidencial published a profile of SlidesCarnival, a project founded by Jimena Catalina that sells presentation templates for Google Slides and PowerPoint. She says she makes €200,000 per year and only works four hours per week on the project
• Coches.com announced the launch of Paycar, a transactional marketplace to buy and sell second hand cars
• Actualidad Economica published a profile of energy startup Lucera. The company claims to have 2,000 new clients every month
• Madrid-based Shoppermotion, a company that’s built a product for on-store analytics and intelligence, published: ’Why should you analyze your in-store shopping missions’
• Tippin is a Chrome and Firefox browser extension that enables tipping on Twitter by adding a tip button on every single tweet. The developer behind the project is Spaniard Sergio Abril
• ExpandToSpain published: ’Which startups will win the scooter race in the Spanish capital? And in Spain?’
• El Referente interviewed Oriol Vinzia, co-founder of Gymforless, the Barcelona-based startup that got acquired by Sodexo last year
• Startup profile(s):
• Capaball: edtech platform for companies)
• SeedCash: SaaS to help SMEs manage their working capital)
• YouCheck: platform to help media journalists find experts to quote in their articles
• Wibson: a company that facilitates individuals selling their validated private data securely and anonymously
• ApplyDS: low-code platform to create react native apps with no coding skills
• Neboola: subscription service for contact lenses and more direct-to-consumer products

Big company news 🏦

• Telefonica to launch a connectivity service aimed at rural areas in Latam with the help of Facebook and other entities
• El Pais talked to Dario Gil, Director of Research at IBM. The interview mostly evolves around the topic of quantum computing
• Amazon is looking for someone in Spain to manage its relationship with public entities, especially to try to sell AWS
• A few years ago, the Spanish Tax Office fined Microsoft with more than €18 million. Both entities are now in negotiations to lower the fine and find an outcome that works for both sides
• Vodafone Spain will lay off 1,000 employees in the next few months, 200 fewer than what was previously announced
• BBVA issues the first blockchain-supported structured green bond for Mapfre

Tech and policy 💂🏼

• A Spanish judge declared that BlaBlaCar is not a transportation company, and thus it does not compete against traditional bus/coach companies. Confebus, the Spanish bus association, sued the company a few years ago, accusing it of unfair competition
• Spanish political parties PP and Ciudadanos say that, if elected in April’s national elections, they will not implement the tech tax as designed by PSOE. They did say that they’re in favour of such tax, but that it needs to be designed with international consensus
• Barcelona’s city government to implement a €71 tax per vehicle that will mostly affect escooter and bike sharing companies

Interesting reads 🤓

• Emprendedores published a long interview with Bernardo Hernandez (idealista, Google, Flickr) that covers the topic of entrepreneurship in Spain and what’s needed to improve
• Andy Areitio (TheVentureCity): ’From Idea to Scaleup: Startup Stages. Understanding the milestones at every stage toward success’
• David Miranda (lawyer at Osborne Clarke): ’It’s not an option’ - about the need for Spain to change its taxation of stock options
• Javier Escribano (OnTruck): ’From six week roadmaps to OKRs’
• Carlos Beneytio (Startupxplore): ’The value of product in a startup’
• ExpandToSpain: ’From bull to unicorn. Why the Spanish Startup Scene is fertile ground for more $billion valuations’
• Product Management 101: ’Ignacio Larru and Diego Mariño talk about when to hire your first PM, who she should report to, where to look for a PM and how to measure their work’

Podcasts of the week 🎧

• K Fund interviewed David Bernabeu, founder and CEO of Citibox
• Itnig interviewed David Jordan (Softonic, Jarvis Digital)
• Carlos Blanco interviewed David Riudor, co-founder and CEO of Goin
• Lunes Inspiradores interviewed Gala Freixa (Sheedo)