Jump Into Tech es una agencia de emprendimiento. Su core business es el diseño y la programación y hacen proyectos de todo tipo. Pero su pasión por ayudar al emprendedor, o como dicen ellos “a cualquier que tenga una idea”, les ha hecho fuertes en montar startups de relevancia como Gopick o Micappital.

También hacen proyectos pequeños y mucho ecommerce, pero siempre manteniendo una estrecha cercanía con el cliente y tratando de “humanizar” la tecnología.

Llevan ya más de tres años trabajando y cada año crecen exponencialmente. Fueron elegidos por el BBVA Open Space donde residieron mas de dos años junto a otras compañías de gran relevancia y a día de hoy tienen sede en Madrid, Valencia y Tomelloso (Ciudad Real), donde están la gran mayoría de los trabajadores.

Startup funding news 💸

• Madrid-based Clarity, which aims at contributing to a more socially efficient capital allocation by providing decision makers with the most reliable and comprehensive tools, announced a $15m round led by Deutsche Börse. Spanish funds Kibo, Mundi and Seaya also participated in the deal
• Madrid-based mobility startup Bipi raised €10.5m. The round was led by Adevinta Ventures (Schibsted) and also included the participation of Toyota AI Ventures, among other investors
• Barcelona-based travel startup Exoticca raised €5m, extending Series B to €16 million total. The extension was led by Milano Investment Partners with the participation of K Fund, Bonsai, Pase Capital, Kibo and Sabadell
• Madrid and Mexico-based fleet management company Pulpomatic raised €1.8m from CDTI
• Valencia-based energy company Gana Energia raised €950k from Bewater Funds
• Barcelona-based GitDuck, a video chat tool built for developers, announced a round of funding led by General Catalyst with Notation Capital, Gradient Ventures (Google’s AI fund), Work Life, Y Combinator also participating in the deal. GitDuck's co-founders, Dragos Fotescu and Thiago Monteiro, were also interviewed last week in an episode of the popular podcast Software Engineering Daily
• Madrid-based car leasing company Vamos raised an undisclosed amount from marketplace specialist fund FJ Labs
• Other rounds of funding: Valy, Journify, Parallel, Dotricks

M&A activity 🎊

• Bloomberg reported that Apple has recently acquired Barcelona-based AI startup Vilynx. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Bloombert reports that the deal was worth $50m. Vilynx developed technology that uses AI to analyze a video’s visual, audio and text content to understand what the video shows. It used that technology to create tags for the video, making it searchable. Vilynx had raised more than $10m in funding according to Crunchbase, from funds such as Kibo Ventures, Caixa Capital Risc and others. Apple plans to keep Vilynx team and office in Barcelona, which is very good news for the ecosystem as a whole
• It's great news that a company like Apple acquired a Spanish startup, like the other giants have done in the past (Google, Amazon, Facebook). La Informacion looked at M&A deals involving Spanish startups and US tech giants in this analysis
• US gaming company Scopely announced the acquisition of Sevilla-based gaming studio Genera Games. I believe that Genera is a quite unknown company for most in Spain, but since 2003 it has been producing games for brands such as Disney, Marvel or Universal. The company had 150 employees. Scopely already had a big presence in Spain, with more than 400 employees in Barcelona. In an interview, Scopely says it plans to invest in Spain
• Private equity firm Providence acquired a majority stake in Barcelona-based legaltech startup Signaturit. There are some details (but not the price) about the acquisition here
• Service Point announced a couple of weeks ago the acquisition of Scytl. La Informacion talked to Service Point's CEO, Laurent Salmon, about the company's plans for the former startup. What they plan to do with the brand, the employees, the technology, etc
• Accenture announced the acquisition of Spanish cloud consulting specialist Enimbos. Enimbos posted revenues of €4.8m in 2019 and had more than 60 employees
• Consulting firm Dominion acquired Spanish services marketplace Famaex
• Ecommerce company Hawkers acquired Loopas, a Madrid-based subscription product of contact lenses

Investor & accelerator news 🚀

• Nauta Capital led a $5m Series A round in Finnish startup AppFollow
• According to El Referente, Spanish VC firms have raised more than €1b in 2020 alone
• We (K Fund) have opened an office in Barcelona

Startup news 💡

• Sponsored
  Startups such as Miccapital and Gopick have relied on Jump Into Tech to build their products and services. If you're looking for a product and entrepreneurship agency that can help bring your ideas to life, check them out.
• Capterra published a list of 10 Spanish startups to follow in 2021
• Facebook unveiled last week its own cloud gaming service. The launch follows the acquisition of Spanish cloud gaming startup Playgiga, which powers Facebook's new offering
• TravelPerk launched a standalone API product aimed at helping the wider travel industry provide up-to-date information on travel restrictions and risks related to the COVID-19 pandemic
• El Mundo wrote about certain businesses and sectors that have seen tailwinds from covid-19. The article features startups such as Citibox, Wetaca and Nannyfy
• El Mundo also wrote a profile of mortgage provider and broker Finteca. The article explains that Finteca has experienced significant growth in the B2B segment, selling its CRM (Inmovilla) software to other agencies
• In August, Crypto startup 2gether suffered an attack and bitcoins worth €1.2m were stolen. Now the company is launching a crowdfunding campaign to get that amount
• Fashion and lifestyle brand Minimalism launched a nice new sustainability initiative: Zero Textile Waste, a new service to collect and recycle used clothing
• Startup profiles: Zensei, Peoople

Big company news 🏦

• According to a study by Semrush, Amazon and El Corte Ingles were the two Spanish ecommerce sites that saw its traffic increase the most during the pandemic
• Bizum has added two million users in just two months, bringing the total to 12 million. The company also says that in less than a year more than 4,200 merchants have added Bizum as a payment option on their websites
• Orange and Telefonica posted Q3 results, and they were not good. Telefonica mostly due to troubles in Argentina and Orange due to pressure from low-cost alternatives
• Supermarket chain Dia plans to introduce same-hour delivery options powered by Glovo and Mox

Tech and policy 💂🏼‍♂️

• The Spanish government shared the first draft of the law that it's preparing to regulate the activity of last mile delivery riders, mostly those working for platforms such as Glovo and Deliveroo. The draft includes salary bonuses when the riders use their own equipment (mobile phones, bicycles) as well as a 48-hour notice period to let riders know about their working schedules. Here's also an article in El Confidencial about how Glovo, Deliveroo and others are trying to adapt to this new scenario

Interesting reads 🤓

• David Bonilla published a super interesting Bonilista about his experience building companies and now investing in theCosmethics
• Alberto Romero (formerly of 7r ventures) wrote a blog post about the design steps that could be taken by the Spanish public sector to be more modern and digital
• Simon Muñoz (Voicemod) published 'the average user doesn't exist' and how that impacts product design
• Manuel González (IVBS) wrote a post with tips on how to put together a good fundraising pitch deck

Podcasts 🎧

• K Fund interviewed Flo Broderick, VP of Marketing at CARTO
• Base España published an episode about the differences between investing in Spain and Latam
• MasQueStartups interviewed Javier Estevez of Frankie
• Itnig interviewed Pablo Viguera and Oriol Tintore, co-founders of Belvo
• MarsBased interviewed the co-founders of P2P video streaming technology company Teltoo
• Hablando con Lideres, Novicap's podcast, interviewed former politician Josep Pique
• ScaleUp Valley interviewed Jordi Altimira of Lanzame Capital