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Ironhack raised $4m. Prosegur launches €30m fund. Freepik did €18m in revenues in 2018. Openness from Manfred and Minimalism.

August 23, 2019 • Issue #171

Cuatrecasas está buscando startups que ayuden a transformar el sector legal o que trabajen en ámbitos de elevada complejidad jurídica (fintech, insurtech, proptech, eHealth, blockchain, etc.)

CUATRECASAS ACELERA ofrece un programa de aceleración para startups que tengan al menos un MVP y también un programa Fast-Track para el desarrollo de pilotos con startups que estén en fase scale-up. Si tienes un proyecto en ese ámbito, te interesará hablar con ellos.

Startup funding news 💸

  • According to El Referente, there were 19 startup investments in June combining for €81 million
  • Madrid-based Ironhack raised $4 million to grow coding bootcamps across Europe and Latin America. More than 3,000 students have graduated from Ironhack to date. The round was led by JME and included the participation of All Iron Ventures and Brighteye Ventures
  • Barcelona-based corporate travel management company Aervio raised €750,000 from The Venture City, The Crowd Angel and Palladium Corporate
  • Ecommerce startup Project Lobster raised €300,000 from Cabiedes & Partners
  • Basque startup CIN Advanced Systems Group raised funding from Geroa and Easo Ventures

M&A activity 🎊

  • According to La Informacion, Barcelona-based startup Tviso is trying to get acquired by Japanese giant Rakuten
  • Spanish startup Legaline acquired Valencia-based SkyClaim

Investor & accelerator news 🚀

  • Nauta Capital led a £2.5 million seed round in Blaize, a UK-based customer experience platform for the subscription economy
  • Spanish security giant Prosegur announced the launch of a new €30 million fund to invest in startups
  • Renta4 and Bewater Funds announced the launch of a new fund to invest in startups. The firm plans to focus on cash-flow positive companies and will be active in both secondary and primary transactions
  • Noso Capital is a new Galician €20 million fund to back local SMBs
  • Catalan public entity Instituto Catalan de Finances announced two new funds to invest in startups: Capital Expansio II (€50 million) and Venture Tech II (€20 million)
  • Cybersecurity public institution INCIBE announced the name of the 10 startups that will participate in its accelerator program
  • Repsol announced the name of the six companies that will participate in its accelerator program

Startup news 💡

  • Málaga-based stock image startup Freepik now features 5 million resources, reaches over 100 million monthly downloads and posted €17 million in revenues in 2018
  • After 14 years, Red Karaoke is shutting down. Its founder, Miguel Angel Diaz Ferreira published a long post mortem on Linkedin
  • Cinco Dias published a profile of Basque cybersecurity firm Countercraft and its CEO, David Barroso. Countercraft currently has 28 employees across offices in Donostia, Madrid, London and LA, and says that it plans to 4X its revenues this year compared to 2018
  • Ecommerce company Minimalism continued with its tradition of publishing its financials and other relevant data. Here are their numbers for Q2 2019
  • Talent hiring platform Manfred also did the same, with a new post about its June performance that includes a bunch of metrics, goals for the next few months and an open roadmap
  • Madrid-based Spotahome announced the hiring of its new Chief Growth Officer, Amanda Symonds, who joins from TripAdvisor
  • Valencia-based PLD Space took an important step forward last week in their attempt to develop a European reusable launcher, with a successful recovery drop of one of its rockets
  • Galician indoor positioning startup Situm announced that it has already deployed its solution in five hospitals and two medical specialties centers of Quirónsalud to guide patients and visitors
  • El Pais interviewed Marcos Alves, co-founder of ElTenedor (owned by TripAdvisor): “Restaurants have yet to discover the potential of the Internet”
  • Israeli transportation startup Moovit says that it has 23 million users in Spain. Seems too many users to me…
  • Startup profiles: Joyners, OnAid

Coverfy es una startup insurtech fundada en 2016 en Barcelona que cuenta con el soporte de más de 40 compañías de seguros, y el apoyo de algunos de los fondos de inversión más importantes a nivel nacional e internacional.

La app de Coverfy es utilizada por más de 100.000 usuarios para organizar sus seguros y optimizar los precios y coberturas sin esfuerzo.

La compañía está buscando un Product Owner que será responsable de todo el ciclo del producto/proyecto asignado. Un reto muy apetecible para personas con experiencia en producto y sobre todo en mobile. Puedes encontrar más información sobre la posición aquí.

Big company news 🏦

  • El Español interviewed Gonzalo Martin-Villa, head of innovation at Telefonica. Topics include changes made at Wayra, how Telefonica innovates and Telefonica Alpha, its moonshot division
  • Huawei opened its biggest store in the world last week in Madrid, says it plans to open more retail stores in Spain in the next few months
  • WeWork to open its first building made of wood in the world, in Barcelona

Tech and policy 💂🏼

  • Spain’s Supreme Court says that bitcoin is not a currency

Interesting reads 🤓

  • Eduardo Manchon (Panoramio, Mailtrack) published an interesting Twitter thread about how successful first time founders can (or should) approach their new ventures
  • Faraday Venture Partners: ’The increase in the number of women entrepreneurs and founders in Spain
  • Manuel Gonzalez Merino (Jobandtalent): ’Command pattern: how and why we use it

Podcasts of the week 🎧

  • Itnig interviewed Ignacio Fonts of Inveready
  • K Fund interviewed Alberto Knapp, founder of The Cocktail
  • Lunes Inspiradores interviewed Eva Polío, co-founder of Femmefleur and Cocorointim
  • En.digital interviewed David Tomas, founder of Cyberclick
  • MasQueStartups interviewed Alberto Bravo, co-founder of We Are Knitters

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