From Flywire to Cabify, Spain’s top startups build on AWS.

Whether you're looking for help solving a technical challenge, hiring the right engineers, or finalizing a fundraising round, we’re here to help you succeed.

Some of the startups working with AWS in Spain have shared their stories with us: Scalefast, the multinational startup dedicated to e-commerce, shares how they managed to migrate to AWS with zero down-time and how its scalability helps them serve their customers both in low season and through order peaks.

You can hear as well from Spotahome and Wegow to get more insights on how they leverage AWS technology.

Startup funding news 💸

• According to 2Playbook, Barcelona-based fitness startup Volava wants to raise around €10m towards the end of this year. The article also says that Volava expects to reach €6m in sales this year, 3X year-on-year
• Bit2Me plans to launch its own crypto for fundraising purposes
• Business Insider talked to Cobee's co-founder Borja Aranguren about the company's plans after raising a €14m Series A round led by Balderton Capital
• Product School raised $25m in growth equity to scale its product training platform. Product School is based in California, but was co-founded by two Spaniards and also has employees in Spain. Cinco Dias has more details here
• Barcelona-based gaming startup Unusuall raised €3m in seed funding, led by Free Fire publisher Garena
• Galicia-based fintech startup Coinscrap raised €2.2m, led by Helvetia Venture Fund and Faraday Venture Partners
• Other rounds of funding: Biboss, Lovelybikes

M&A activity 🎊

• Mutua Madrileña acquired mobility startups ElParking and Imbric from Portobello
• Portuguese security unicorn Feedfzai acquired Spanish startup Revelock, previously known as Buguroo. Seaya Ventures had previously invested in Revelock
• Cryptocurrency exchange Gemini has boosted its DeFi credentials through the acquisition of Guesser, a real-time predictions market platform. Guesser is co-founded by Spaniards Jose Garay and Carlos Gonzalez

Startup news 💡

• Sponsored
  AWS has many startup programs you can leverage as you build and scale your startup. One of those is Activate Founders. If you’re a self-funded or bootstrapped startup, you can apply and get $1,000 USD in AWS Credits, Developer Support credits, best practice architectural guidance and advice from the AWS team; so you can quickly get started and build your MVP, go to market faster, and lower your costs which is very much needed in those early days.
• La Informacion published a long profile of HR SaaS company Factorial. The article focuses on Factorial's two significant business pivots to date and its evolution until getting to its current status. La Informacion says that Factorial is on its way to reaching €10m in ARR. Factorial is a K Fund portfolio company
• La Informacion also profiled Paack, the last mile delivery and logistics company. Paack is a B2B company that helps retailers and ecommerce brands deliver their goods to consumers in a more efficient way. The company is active in four European countries and in more than 60 cities. In the article, Paack says that they expect to reach €100m in sales this year. Both Amazon and El Corte Ingles are customers of Paack
• According to La Informacion, Delivery Hero now controls two of Glovo's nine board seats. The latest addition to the board on DH's part is its CEO, Niklas Österberg. DH is Glovo's largest shareholder, with a 36% stake in the company
• On August 12th, the Spanish 'Rider Law' went into effect. The law will force last mile delivery businesses to hire riders as employees instead of contractors. Uber Eats announced that it's working with several delivery companies in order to comply with the law. On the other hand, it seems as if Glovo will hire 20% of its riders as employees and the remaining 80% will continue to operate as contractors
• Xataka published a long profile of Spanish podcasting platform iVoox and talked to its co-founder Juan Ignacio Solera. The company says that it generates more than 60m podcast plays per month and has become a strong platform in Spain. The article also talks about what iVoox is doing to test monetisation strategies, with no specific details about revenues
• I'm happy to see that some businesses that were heavily affected by the pandemic are now back on track. Erasmusu announced that in the first seven months of 2021, it has already reached 2019's sales numbers
• Car ecommerce company Clicars said that in the second quarter of 2021 it reached €57m in sales, up 5X compared to the same year ago period.
• Wallbox is in negotiations with Volkswagen and other automotive companies to join the project to create a lithium battery manufacturing plant in Spain
• Wired published a list of what they believe are some of Barcelona's hottest startups. The list features two K Fund portfolio companies, Factorial and Hubtype
• Startup profiles:
• Zazume
• Atani
• Neosentec
• Bildia

Big company news 🏦

• Spanish regulator CNMC is looking into Amazon's contact center business, Amazon Connect. The CNMC believes that the service could be considered a telecomms service and thus it should be regulated under Spain's telecommunications law

Interesting reads 🤓

• This post is not related to a Spanish startup, but I thought I'd share it anyway. It's an article by Mexico-based ecommerce fulfillment startup Cubbo about the Latam opportunity for ecommerce businesses
• elDiario published an interesting article about how inverse logistics works
• Asier Marques of Packlink published "The pursuit of software teams autonomy: how we created an Internal Platform at Packlink"

Podcasts 🎧

• Product Hackers interviewed Miguel Carranza, co-founder and CTO of RevenueCat
• Matthew Holt interviewed Marta Gaia, co-founder of Barcelona-based biotech firm Nina Capital