North is a digital product studio that works with industry leaders and fast-growing startups to design and build digital products that transform their business.

They have partnered with clients such as SEAT, CaixaBank, ID Finance or Antai Venture Builder in building their digital experiences and identifying and launching new value propositions to market.

Right now they are working on the e-commerce redesign for a sunglasses brand with +70M€ of revenue, optimizing the conversion funnel for leading online lending service in LatAm or designing the next version of an renewable energy platform for a startup in the US.

Their team is made of product managers, designers and developers working together in an extremely pragmatic way: We don’t make expensive decks. We design, build, prototype, validate. And repeat.

For more information on their services and to check out their previos work, click here.

Startup funding news 💸

• Barcelona-based flower marketplace Colvin raised €14 million from Milano Investment Partners, Samaipata and P101
• Madrid-based fashion ecommerce Sepiia raised €500,000 from Faraday Venture Partners and Bolsa Social
• Barcelona-based home repairment service Taclia raised €500,000 from THCAP
• Galician legaltech startup Emerita Legal raised €260,000 from SociosQ and ArchipélagoNext
• Madrid-based meal kit startup foodStories raised €200,000
• Madrid-based bitcoin wallet HandCash secured further funding from Two Hop Ventures and Unbounded Capital

M&A activity 🎊

• In this El Pais article about the Spanish startup ecosystem, the newspaper claims that US/Spanish insurtech startup Coverwallet was sold to AON for $330 million
• Adevinta announced the acquisition of Spanish jobs portal JobisJob
• La Informacion continued to cover the M&A process involving MasMovil, as certain hedge funds that are shareholders have opposing views about the deal
• Spanish regulator CNMC approved the merger of pet ecommerce businesses Kiwoko and TiendAnimal. Both stores combined for €250 million in sales last year
• Italian group Esprinet acquired Spanish tech consultancy GTI for almost €34 million
• Tech consulting firm Cuatrochenta says it expects to IPO on the MAB after the summer

Investor & accelerator news 🚀

• Aldea Ventures is a new Barcelona-based firm that wants to raise €100 million to invest in funds as well as directly in startups. The fund is led by Gonzalo Rodés(GBS Finance), Carlos Trenchs (Caixa Capital Risk), Alfonso Bassols (Nauta Capital) and Javier Faus (Meridia Capital)
• Portuguese pet care startup Barkyn raised €5 million Series A, co-led by Spanish fund All Iron Ventures and Portuguese VC Indico Capital Partners
• Spaniard Adeyemi Ajao announced that his firm Base10 Ventures has raised a new $250 million from investors to back startups

Startup news 💡

• Sponsored
  If you're a fast-growing startup or big company looking for a development studio to help you with a new product or big feature, you should take a look at what digital product studio North has to offer.
• El Referente published a list and analysis of the best Spanish law firms specialised in startup
• El Pais talked to Iñaki Berenguer (Coverwallet), Iñigo Juantegui (Ontruck), Aquilino Peña (Kibo Ventures) and others about the impact of covid-19 in their respective industries and how they see the short term future
• Cinco Dias interviewed Víctor Mayoral, co-founder of Alias Robotics, developers of cybersecurity solutions for robotics
• Open banking solutions provider Unnax Payments became the first Spanish fintech to get full PSD2 licence
• European publication Sifted published a list of 20 Spanish healthtech companies to watch
• Money saving app Goin now allows users to use savings on Amazon and Zalando directly
• German fintech startup N26 says it will postpone plans to offer credit to consumers and businesses in Spain
• Spain aims for global leadership in cleantech and transportation
• Startup profiles: Dropier, Swipcar

Big company news 🏦

• Indra to cut costs as a consequence of covid-19. In this article, the president of the company talks about their future prospects
• Structural changes at Microsoft Spain, as the company disassembles its Spanish holding and sells assets to Microsoft Ireland for €430 million
• Netflix has big plans for its Madrid filming centre, which says it wants to transform into the audiovisual hub of Southern Europe

Interesting reads 🤓

• Analía Plaza wrote in eldiario about the opportunity Spain has to attract foreigners to work remotely from here for their international companies
• Javi Santana, co-founder of Tinybird, wrote about the mix of professional and non-professional skills when hiring people
• Samuel Gil of JME wrote about the VC model and what raising funding from VCs entails. And why it's not the only option available for entrepreneurs
• Yago Cousiño of Manfred wrote about the story of NBA media publication The Wing. Lessons learned in the building and winding down process
• Jordi Altimira wrote about scalability levers

Podcasts 🎧

• SeedRocket interviewed Carlos Larraz of Funidelia
• En.digital interviewed Eduardo Fernandez of Shuttlecloud
• Itnig interviewed the co-founder of Kubbo, Victor García and Eric Fernandez