El sector financiero está afrontando una profunda transformación, en buena parte motivada por el impacto de la tecnología. El Postgrado de Innovación Tecnológica en Finanzas, que dará inicio en enero del próximo año, aborda las principales innovaciones en el sector financiero que vienen de la mano de la tecnología.

Un repaso tanto a herramientas tecnológicas como la inteligencia artificial, el blockchain, el Internet of Things y otros más emergentes, profundizando en los casos de uso en el sector financiero y nuevos modelos de negocio como los que introducen los diferentes verticales del fintech o las nuevas formas de financiación que las criptomonedas y los STOs están proponiendo.

El programa se organiza por completo bajo una metodología en formato blended. Solicita información sin compromiso sobre el programa y sus condiciones especiales de financiación sin intereses, así como también la diferentes becas de hasta el 50% en función de la situación de cada alumno.

Startup funding news 💸

• Barcelona and Mexico-based fintech startup Belvo raised $10 million from Founders Fund and Kaszek to scale its API for financial services. More details about the company and this funding round here and the founders wrote about the deal here
• Barcelona-based Bloobirds gets €3 million for SaaS platform that helps qualify sales leads. The round round was led by PROfounders Capital with participation from us at K Fund and existing investor Encomenda
• Barcelona-based security company Quality Clouds raised €1.2 million from Adara Ventures
• Basque security startup Ironchip raised €500,000 from Inveready and Easo Ventures

M&A activity 🎊

• Malaga-based Freepik, a freemium graphics and stock photo marketplace, was acquired by EQT. Terms of the deal were not officially disclosed, but several sites report that it valued the company at more than €200 million. Freepik, which never raised any outside funding, posted revenues of €30 million in 2019 and a profit of €3 million in 2018. Joaquin Cuenca, CEO of the company, was interviewed here
• According to El Confidencial, Investment firms KKR and Cinven are planning to acquire a majority stake in MasMovil, Spain's fourth largest telco. The price offered would value MasMovil at €3 billion. The offer has been confirmed

Investor & accelerator news 🚀

• BBVA and UK VC firm Anthemis to launch a new fintech service out of its joint venture studio in the UK, Wollit
• The Venture City has invested more than €1 million in startups as part of its Growth Program in the first half of 2020
• Santander InnoVentures, Santander Group’s venture capital fund, announced its investment into a55, a Latin American income-secured alternative small and medium-sized enterprise lender

Startup news 💡

• Sponsored
  Last week Google for Startups shared the video story of GoParity, one of the Portuguese startups from their Residency 2020 program cohort. GoParity is a sustainable investment startup that used its platform to raise funds to provide Portugal with sanitary equipment when the COVID crisis started.
• Google for Startups also recently launched the first sessions of their Startup School:Restart, 2 weeks of online trainings provided by Google experts and entrepreneurs, targeting startups that have seen their businesses impacted by the crisis. Registrations are free.
• Edtech platform Genially launched a new version of its product and wrote about the development and new design here. The company's CTO also wrote a post about measures they've taken in the tech department to adapt to the current remote situation
• Ecommerce site Deporvillage claims to have increased orders by 150% during the pandemic, compared to the same period last year. Mattress ecommerce startup Marmota is another example of business increase during the pandemic, with 75% uplift and plans to reach €6 million in sales this year
• Recruiting platform Circular unveiled the 2.0 version of its product, with a special focus on developer and technical roles
• Tinybird launched an Analytics Dashboard, allowing customers to see in real-time how their API endpoints are performing and monitor their data operations
• Basque AI startup Sherpa announced the hiring of former Samsung executive Celestino Garcia to lead its business division
• Forbes wrote 'startups put fundraising on hold as Venture Capital gets ‘aggressive to invest'. The article features Avi Meir of TravelPerk, and he says that "before corona the plan was to go and do a big fundraise at the end of the year" but those plans are now on hold
• Idealista received approval by the Bank of Spain to act as a mortgage intermediary
• MyMask2020 is a new ecommerce website that sells personalised reusable masks. The company has gained quite a bit of traction amongst football clubs
• Danish podcast platform Podimo raised a big round of funding last week and announced that it has plans to launch in Spain soon
• Startup profiles: Devengo, Woom

Sitúate en la delantera del conocimiento financiero de la mano de IEF, la entidad formativa líder en el sector. Inicia o refuerza tu carrera profesional en todos los aspectos técnicos y prácticos de la banca y las finanzas.

En el Instituto de Estudios Financieros ofrecemos cursos abiertos (postgrados, de especialización y seminarios) y a medida para todo tipo de entidades. Con sesiones presenciales, online o mixtas. Para certificaciones profesionales, títulos académicos o como créditos de actualización. Los programas incluyen una combinación de sesiones altamente interactivas en el aula, discusiones de casos, ejercicios prácticos, soporte vía campus virtual... para motivar a los participantes con el máximo aprovechamiento de la formación y cumplir con los objetivos.

Somos financieros. ¡Infórmate sin compromiso!

Big company news 🏦

• La Informacion wrote about Telefonica's plans with the Tuenti brand

Interesting reads 🤓

• Albert Serrano, Managing Director of Veepee in Spain and previously of Privalia, wrote '10 years of adventures and learnings with Privalia and Veepee'
• Diego Mariño (Abiquo, Ducksboard) wrote 'Three businesses for a single project'
• Javi Santana (Tinybird) wrote 'The new normality'
• Samuel Gil (JME) wrote '¿Consumerprise o enterconsumer?'
• Expansion interviewed Marcos Alves (El Tenedor) to talk about the current situation and the short-term forecast for the startup sector
• As more companies start implementing work from home measures and consider remote as an option, employees could leave big and expensive cities for smaller villages. Xataka talked to various workers about this "new" trend

Podcasts 🎧

• Jordi Altimira interviewed Carmen Alfonso of Samaipata and Vincent Rosso of Consentio
• Avi Meir of TravelPerk was interviewed by Harry Stebbings of the 20MinuteVC
• Itnig interviewed Lupina Iturriaga, co-founder of Fintonic
• En.digital interviewed Vanesa Tejada to talk about product management