Digital55 es una empresa especializada en desarrollo de software y plataformas digitales innovadoras. Trabajamos con una cultura de desarrollo ágil y un enfoque lean en el diseño de productos digitales. Desde hace más de diez años colaboramos con grandes empresas y startups en fase avanzadas de crecimiento.

Apoyamos a las grandes empresas en su proceso de transformación digital. Nuestros desarrolladores son especialistas en programación web y móvil usando frameworks de Javascript: Angular, React o Node y otras tecnologías web. Aportamos personal formado en las últimas tecnologías a los departamentos de tecnología e innovación de las grandes empresas: Project managers, lead developers, ingenieros de sistemas y programadores con diferentes niveles de experiencia.

Nuestros técnicos también refuerzan el área de tecnología de las startups más avanzadas que necesitan evolucionar su producto rápidamente. Hacemos posible lo que parecía imposible.

Startup funding news 💸

• Valencia-based gaming startup Streamloots raised $5.6 million, led by Bessemer Venture Partners. More info on the round here
• BotXO, the Danish startup developing AI chatbot technology for businesses, closed a €4 million funding round led by Seed Capital and The Danish Growth Fund. BotXO was founded in 2017 in Copenhagen and quickly expanded to Madrid
• Barcelona-based car rental startup Swipcar raised €1.5 million, led by Inveready
• Barcelona-based coding and engineering school Assembler School raised €800,000 in new funding
• Other funding rounds, of €500,000 or less: Incapto Coffee, Atribus, Deliberry, Brava Fabrics, Oroi, Ciclogreen, Wolo Fancision

M&A activity 🎊

• EQT is in negotiations with Banco Santander, BNP Paribas and Caixabank to finance the €1.3 billion acquisition of idealista

Investor & accelerator news 🚀

• Uncapped, a London-headquartered and Warsaw-based startup that offers “revenue-based” finance to European businesses so that founders don’t have to give up equity stipulated by venture capital, announced $26 million in new funding led by Mouro Capital (formerly known as Santander InnoVentures). Bilbao-based VC firm All Iron Ventures also participated in the deal
• Startupxplore published an overview of 2020. The investment platform disclosed the following numbers: twice as many investment rounds were completed compared to the same year ago period, 40% more funding channeled to startups, 30% more revenues and profitability for the first time ever
• Jordi Altimira of Lanzame Capital explained in a blog post their investment in Nemuru, which last week announced a €1.9 million round led by Lanzame and Encomenda
• ASCRI, the association that groups various Spaniard VC and PE firms, said in an interview with Merca2 that the sector should benefit from the €140 billion EU stimulus plan, as allocators of such capital in relevant tech companies and VC firms
• Avançsa is a public entity controlled by the Generalitat de Catalunya. In this article they list the €25 million that they've provided to Catalan startups over the years, as well as other metrics about its activity

Startup news 💡

• Sponsored
• Digital55 has helped a ton of companies build and maintain great Javascript products. Whether your company uses Angular, React, Vue, Node or Ionic, Digital55 can help you build great software solutions by using agile methodologies and prototyping techniques to achieve quick results and maintain permanent customer contact. Learn more about what they have to offer here.
• Spain's Supreme Court ruled that riders of platforms such as Glovo or Deliveroo should be considered as employees by their respective companies, instead of as contractors. This sets a big precedent that could heavily affect last mile delivery companies operating in Spain. According to La Informacion, it could push rider-related expenses up by 50%. If these companies already had a tough time reaching profitability, now it'll become even harder. Carlos Blanco, former investor in Glovo, wrote an op-ed about the ruling, which he considers unfair
• Last week Glovo announced that it was selling its Latam business to Delivery Hero. La Informacion dug deeper into Glovo's financials in Latam, which showed a €76 million loss last year (+100% year-on-year) as competition from Rappi increased in the region. CEO Oscar Pierre also wrote an article about the decision to leave the continent
• Here's a profile of Gregorio Lopez Martos, CEO of Mox, a last mile delivery company that has more than 1,000 riders as employees. The company says that it expects to reach €12 million in sales. In the article he says that they had an acquisition offer from Just Eat or the opportunity to sign a €10 million contract with Just Eat, opting for the latter
• Xataka published a long profile of Enric Asuncion and Wallbox, the Barcelona-based company that develops products and solutions to charge electric vehicles. Enric is a former employee of Tesla and has built the company to more than 200 employees
• Eduardo Salguero, software engineer at Cabify, wrote the 2020 edition of Cabify's engineering stack. He looks at the infrastructure where Cabify runs, how they use it and monitor it at runtime, how they approach backend, frontend, mobile and their big data infrastructure
• Toni Moreno, MD of Ad4Ventures Spain (Media for equity Venture Capital Fund of Mediaset), wrote about the "new ecommerce normality" and how various Spanish startups (Colvin, Deporvillage and others) have been affected by the pandemic
• Telemedicine startup Ever Health said that its activity has increased significantly in the past few months, and it currently serves more than 80,000 online consultations per year and 235,000 users
• Spanish dark kitchen startup Booh! announced last week a partnership with pizza chain Papa John's to run virtual kitchens for the well-known brand
• Shopify has integrated Bizum as a payments option, in collaboration with Spanish payments startup Monei
• Eloi Gomez, CEO of Jeff, explained in an article why they decided to participate in Lanzadera's program, which up until now was a bit unusual for a company of their size. In the article Eloi also talks about the impact of covid-19 and how the company is getting back to normal, both in terms of sales activity as well as employees affected by ERTE
• Location intelligence company Geoblink announced an agreement with Experian to integrate their data into the startup's various products and services

Big company news 🏦

• Sponsored
  The AWS Startup Architecture Challenge was launched in Iberia (Spain and Portugal) in 2020 for the first time ever. The competition evaluates startups based on their architectures and innovative solutions and was opened to AWS Startup customers. 8 finalists were selected: Plant on Demand (ES), Smart IoT Labs (ES), Ravenpack (ES), Bia Power (ES), Monei (ES), Pentasoft (ES), Codacy (PT), Mapit IoT (PT). They will be pitching to a panel of ecosystem and technology experts on September 29th. Sign up for the broadcast here !
• Telefonica's stock drops below €3, the lowest price since 2002
• Spaniard executive Chano Fernandez named co-CEO of Silicon Valley HR giant Workday
• Spanish fashion brand El Ganso said in an article that online sales have more than tripled as a consequence of the pandemic, currently representing more than 20% of all sales

Interesting reads 🤓

• Samuel Gil (JME) wrote about 'products that get you hooked'
• Simon Muñoz, Platform Product Manager at Voicemod, wrote 'how to fail at using OKRs'
• Jordi Altimira of Lanzame wrote about corporate investments as a fundraising alternative for startups

Podcasts 🎧

• MasQueStartups interviewed the founders of Streamloots to talk about content monetisation
• Itnig interviewed Manuel Fernandez of Freepik
• K Fund interviewed Carlos Serrano and Victor Rahona about Marina de Empresas and the Valencia startup ecosystem
• El Referente interviewed Eneko Knorr to talk about fundraising
• SeedRocket interviewed François Derbaix about how to become a business angel
• SaaS Product Chat interviewed Jorge Villalobos, software engineer at Microsoft
• En.digital published an episode about Product Hackers