MONEI is the advanced e-commerce payments platform preferred by businesses in Spain and Andorra. And now it’s expanding into physical retail with its newest product, MONEI QR.

MONEI QR lets businesses in Spain accept contactless payments in-store through a QR code. Supported payment methods include Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Bizum.

Businesses can avoid expensive and complicated POS terminals by using QR codes to let customers pay through their smartphones. All they have to do is scan the code, choose their preferred payment method, and with the tap of a button the transaction finishes.

Once you’ve created an account with MONEI you can start printing QR codes or order the MONEI QR welcome pack. They’re maintenance-free, don’t need battery power, and are easy to replace. Plus, businesses will increase customer satisfaction by accepting in-store mobile payments, while removing the hassle of managing a fleet of dataphones.

📲 Learn more about MONEI QR now

Startup funding news 💸

• Madrid-based edtech startup Lingokids raised $40m. The name of the lead investor was not officially disclosed, although according to La Informacion, it was Chinese giant Tencent. In an April interview with Tech.eu, Lingokids CEO Cristobal Viedma said that the company had tripled revenues in recent times, reaching $30m in sales, and 25m users
• Madrid-based insurtech company Insurama raised €5m, led by Inveready
• Madrid-based solar energy company Perfecta Energia raised €3.5m, led by Creas
• Madrid-based Energy Solar Tech raised €2m
• Madrid-based Smileat, producers of food for kids, raised €1.8m, led by Creas
• Madrid-based fintech Fuell raised €1m from us at K Fund, The Venture City, FJ Labs and Wayra. Co-founder Dani Seijo published a Twitter thread about how to communicate funding rounds
• Madrid-based VR/AR startup Jump Into Reality raised €1m
• Valencia-based startup Internxt raised $1m to be ‘the Coinbase of decentralized storage’, led by Angels Capital
• Barcelona-based salary advancement startup Payflow raised €1m in debt
• Other rounds of funding: SmartMonkey, Copernic, Vegaffinity

M&A activity 🎊

• Holded, the Barcelona-based startup that has developed a popular ERP for SMBs and freelancers, got acquired by Norwegian tech company Visma. According to La Informacion, the deal was valued at €120m with additional earn outs for the shareholders and the company was currently doing €4m in ARR, which means that Visma paid a significant multiple to acquire the company. Holded had previously raised more than $26m in funding, from the likes of SeedRocket 4Founders, Nauta Capital, Lakestar and Elaia Partners. If you're interested in the history of the company, I interviewed Holded co-founder Bernat Ripoll two months ago. Congrats all around!
• I imagine that more and more articles will come out in the next few weeks and months about Wallbox, the Barcelona-based company that will soon float on the NY stock exchange following its $1.5b SPAC. Here's a profile that El Pais published last week on the company's two founders, Enric Asunción and Eduard Castañeda
• Spanish competition regulator CNMC gave the green light to the acquisition of Euskaltel by MasMovil. The Spanish government also needs to approve the deal, as well as the CNMV

Investor & accelerator news 🚀

• El Pais interviewed Aquilino Peña, co-founder of Kibo Ventures and currently also president of ASCRI. The interview focuses on the evolution of the VC asset class in Spain and what's missing to catch up with the rest of Europe
• El Referente interviewed Gonzalo Tradacete, to talk about Faraday Europa I, Faraday's new fund that aims to invest not only in Spanish startups, but also in European ones
• Adara Ventures participated in the £20m in Series A round raised by London-based AR/VR company XYZ Reality
• Inveready participated in Berlin-based coliving startup Habyt's €20m round

Startup news 💡

• Sponsored
• MONEI is expanding into physical retail with its newest product, MONEI QR. Businesses can avoid expensive and complicated POS terminals by using QR codes to let customers pay through their smartphones. 📲 Learn more about MONEI QR now
• El Economista interviewed David Alonso, Dija's country manager in Spain. Dija is one of several companies promising to deliver groceries to your door in 10 minutes. In the interview, David says that the London company is currently active in Madrid but that they expect to be in 5 additional cities in 6 months. Also related to this sector, Berlin-based Gorillas announced plans to launch in Spain very soon. If I'm not mistaken, this means that there are currently four active companies in the q-commerce space right now: Glovo, Barcelona-based Blok, Dija and Gorillas
• Related to these companies, Percival Manglano wrote an analysis of the approval of the Spanish 'Rider Law': what has been really approved and what the consequences could be for the various parties involved
• Business Insider interviewed Ontruck's CEO Iñigo Juantegui. The interview mostly focuses on mental health and periods of stressed Iñigo has suffered at Ontruck -often associated with fundraising processes- and how he overcame them
• Smart Travel interviewed Laura Martinez Celada, co-founder and VP of client success of The Hotels Network (THN). In the article Laura says that THN currently has more than 10,000 clients. The majority of the interview focuses on women entrepreneurship and barriers that women continue to face nowadays in the tech sector
• Second hand bicycle marketplace startup Tuvalum said that it expects to launch in Germany and Italy in the second half of 2021. The company also said that it plans to reach €10m in sales in 2021 and that the business is growing at a nicely 30% month-on-month rate in France
• Enric Gabarro, co-founder of social shopping app Picker, s on LinkedIn that the company finished 2020 with €2.5m in GMV (+500% YoY), and that in just 6 months in 2021, they have already surpassed that figure and currently stand at €3m
• El Confidencial interviewed Alejandro Fresneda, co-founder of Yaba, to talk about their view on the Amazon aggregator business and their plans to compete in (the competitive) market
• Ironhack announced a partnership with the Alfonso X university in Madrid to integrate various of its bootcamps in the curriculum of engineer students
• French startup Qonto, developers of a banking and expense management solution for SMBs, has opened an office in Barcelona where it soon plans to have 30 employees
• Hardware repairment shop TechBuddy signed a partnership with Glovo to integrate its services in the latter's app
• Startup profiles:
• Classlife: edtech SaaS
• Saalg Geomechanics: SaaS for the construction sector

Big company news 🏦

• Telefonica to test a 4-day work week for 6 months. Employees who sign up for the test will have their salaries adjusted
• Restalia, the holding company owner of 100 Montaditos, La Sureña and other food brands, is apparently testing food drone delivery in Zaragoza

Interesting reads 🤓

• Javi Lopez, co-founder of Erasmusu, wrote a Twitter thread with tips on how to sell your startup, including his personal experience in the process of selling Erasmusu to Spotahome
• Gabriel Fraga, Typeform's senior online community strategist, shared all of the twists and turns of creating an online community from scratch in 'It takes a village to raise a community'
• Alvar Montes, head of engineering at Ontruck, published 'Defining the Value Proposition on a co-creative dynamic with sales & product'
• El Confidencial wrote an overview of the food delivery market and its economics: 'A decade in the red: why is food delivery a money losing machine?'
• One more article about Malaga's up and coming tech ecosystem, this time from a different perspective. Business Insider wrote about the challenges it faces and the real estate bubble it might help create
• El Pais wrote an article under the title 'Madrid Valley: a tech capital without a beach?' that focuses on the potential migration of tech workers to other coastal Spanish cities

Podcasts 🎧

• K Fund interviewed Guli Moreno and Miguel Fernandez, co-founders of Capchase