Telefónica launches Wayra X, the global and digital hub of Wayra designed to invest in startups with massive products.

Almost 10 years ago (X) Telefónica decided to create Wayra and open the corporation’s doors to entrepreneurs. The goal was to work with the best global talent and bring their innovations to the group’s more than 350m customers around the world. Today, the world is more connected than ever following the biggest digitalization drive in history and Wayra now has 7 physical hubs in Europe and Latam. Could there be a better time to take the next step and roll out Wayra beyond its borders?

Often, a startup’s success and growth depend on its ability to find a brilliant solution to a problem, to resolve the X. Most of the companies that are successful in the market achieved that success with their ability to solve problems (the X) in a creative, agile, ingenious, Speedy manner. That is what Wayra is looking for with Wayra X.

What kind of investments does Wayra X plan to make?

- Investments of up to €250k in 100% digital startups aimed at mass markets (B2C) - Looking for disruptive startups with a focus on 5G, e-health, e-learning and smart home, among others. - Wayra offers 100% remote scale-up services, fast track to real clients via preinstallations on Movistar customer’s devices - Wayra aims to be a strategic partner for companies and provide them with Access to Telefónica customers. They won't be lead investors.

If you're a startup interested in partnering with Wayra X, go here to find more info.

Startup funding news 💸

• Sponsored
  Telefonica's Wayra X aims to invest up to €250k in 100% digital startups aimed at mass markets (B2C), looking for disruptive ideas with a focus on 5G, e-helath, e-learning, smart home and other areas. If you're interested in working together with Wayra, take a look at their website.
• Barcelona-based B2B last-mile delivery company Paack raised $53m. The round was led by Bregal Milestone and previous investors and Spanish funds Kibo, Bonsai and Big Sur Ventures participated in the round
• Madrid-based security startup Smart Protection raised €10m, led by Knight Capital and Swanlaab Venture. Telefónica Tech Ventures, JME, Big Sur and Bankinter also participated in the round
• Navarra-based online identity company Veridas raised €4m, led by BBVA
• Basque quantum compting startup Multiverse raised €1.5m
• Valencia-based B2B short term rental startup Homyspace raised €1.2m, led by Big Sur Ventures. The company claims to have managed 400k stays in 2020
• Barcelona-based Assembler School raised €1m from Cabiedes & Partners and Lanai
• Other rounds of funding: Prestalo, Clever Solar Devices, Encantado de Comerte

M&A activity 🎊

• Lleidanet went public on a US stock exchange (OTCQX) a few weeks ago. Following the transaction, Banco Santander decided to sell its 7% stake in the company, with profits of +800%
• Santander was also in the news last week, since it announced the acquisition of Wirecard's B2B payments assets for up to €100m
• Accenture acquired Spanish connectivity and 5G consultancy firm Arca for an undisclosed amount. Arca posted revenues of €30m in 2019 and EBITDA of €4m

Investor & accelerator news 🚀

• JME announced the hiring of Ivan Landabaso, who joins following a long tenure at Facebook. Startups' Oasis interviewed Lourdes Alvarez de Toledo of JME, to talk about how the firm differentiates itself from other funds in the current environment, their areas of focus and other topics
• Barcelona's local government announced plans to invest up to €10m in 6 VC funds based in the city
• Lanzadera and Facebook signed a partnership to bring startups participating in its various accelerator programs closer to the social media giant
• Lanai Partners wrote a post explaining why they decided to invest in gaming startup Tacter. We're also happy co-investors at K Fund 😊
• Techcrunch talked to Carlos Gonzalez-Cadenas about his move from an operating role to partner at Index Ventures
• Archipelago Next, a Canarias-based investment firm, announced Archipelago Ventures, a program to incubate and launch startups from the islands

Startup news 💡

• Sponsored
  If you're a startup or company looking for office space in Barcelona, you ought to check out Pere IV 86. Right in the middle of the @22 district, it's the ideal building to create your company’s new home to attract the best team and conquer your big hairy audacious goals.
• Just Eat has decided to hire all of its delivery riders as employees, differentiating itself from competitors such as Glovo and Deliveroo
• Devo, the cloud-native data analytics and security company based in Madrid and Boston, announced the appointment of former CrowdStrike and Aqua Security executive Upesh Patel as senior vice president of corporate development
• Business Insider published a profile of Jacinto Fleta, co-founder and former CMO of ecommerce company Flamingueo. During the lockdown, Jacinto launched a side project called Check my Presets, a marketplace to buy and sell Instagram filters. He's been writing about the experience on his Twitter account and how it's grown from €150 in July to €1.3k in October
• François Derbaix, co-CEO of Indexa Capital, announced in a tweet that the startup currently has 28k clients (+124% YoY growth) and €600m assets under management (+109% YoY)
• Nasdaq's website profiled insurtech startup Bdeo (K Fund portfolio company) in an article about how covid-19 is driving the digital transformation of the insurance claims Industry
• Bewater Funds published a list of what they consider to be startups that have grown efficiently or with little (or no) money from investors
• British neobank Revolut has a new country manager in Spain, Ignasi Giralt, formerly of Airbnb and Badi. The company said that it has more than 600k users in Spain and that it expects to offer Spanish IBANs to users in the short term
• US e-scooter company Bird said that it plans to expand to 10 additional Spanish cities in 2021. The company currently operates in Madrid, Barcelona, Zaragoza, Málaga and Alcalá de Henares
• US gaming company Bumble employs first CTO and opens ‘tech hub’ in Barcelona
• Startup profiles: Adopta Un Abuelo, Apeteat, Deplace, Booboo

Big company news 🏦

• Amazon opened its Sevilla solar farm, its first large-scale renewable energy project in Spain. Once complete, the solar farm will provide 149 MW of new renewable capacity to power Amazon's AWS centre in Aragon and other company projects
• Amazon and worker unions continue to negotiate working conditions ahead of the holiday season, the most busy for ecommerce
• Expansion interviewed Mosiri Cabezas, head of business development at Ikea, about the challenges the Swedish company has faced to launch its ecommerce service in Spain
• UK competition regulator CMA will have the final say in the pending merger between Telefonica's O2 division and Liberty
• Prosegur to launch a crypto custody service called Prosegur Crypto

Interesting reads 🤓

• Eduardo Manchon (CEO of Mailtrack) published an oped in El Confidencial titled 'Is Silicon Valley communist? Marxism in capitalism's paradise'
• Drew Patterson, co-founder of Madrid-based startup Transparent, published an analysis of the short term rental market coinciding with Airbnb's upcoming IPO
• B2B Marketers interviewed Pablo Nebreda (head of marketing at Biome Makers) to talk about B2B marketing and lead gen
• Manuel Ruiz of Nubica wrote an article in El Referente about how startups can take advantage of public sources of funding such as ENISA

Podcasts 🎧

• K Fund interviewed Valeria Castro of Platonic Games
• Novicap interviewed Enrique Tellado, managing director of EVO Banco
• MarsBased interviewed Marc Oliveras, CTO of Tiendeo
• MasQueStartups interviewed Oscar Giraldo, co-founder of Playvox