Dealflow was born with the objective of letting the world know what's going on in the Spanish startup ecosystem. The reason to do the newsletter in English is to be as inclusive as possible, so that this info is also available for foreigners living in Spain and anyone outside of the country interested in the industry.

Today I'd like to introduce you to a newsletter that is the personal project of Carlos Molina. It's Dealflow's best buddy: you will a daily email that makes reading the business news around tech actually enjoyable. Stay informed and entertained, for free.

You no longer have to dig through various English media news sites to know what’s happening. Carlos has created MultiVersial so that you are informed, understand the strategy of the big technology companies and know why things happen.

It is having spectacular results in a year and a half (+7k users with more than 42% open rate), look at the opinions of its readers on product hunt.

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Startup funding news 💸

• According to data from Fundacion Bankinter, Spanish startups raised a combined €4.3b in 2021 across 409 deals. 26% of all funding raised came from Spanish startups that have moved their headquarters to the US (Capchase, Devo and Travelperk, among others)
• Madrid-based live events platform Fever raised $227m led by Goldman Sachs. With the round, Fever also reached unicorn status with a valuation north of $1b
• Barcelona-based B2B logistics startup Paack raised a $225m Series D led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2. Local funds and also existing investors Kibo Ventures and Big Sur also participated in the round. Paack said that it's currently profitable in Spain and that it delivers several million orders per month (from 150 international clients), processing 10k parcels per hour, per site
• Madrid-based staffing agency Jobandtalent has received more than €200m in debt funding over the years from Blackrock
• Madrid-based creative community and edtech company Domestika raised $110m in funding on a $1.3b valuation, led by Zeev Ventures. Impressive numbers by the under-the-radar company: 8m members, 2k courses created by 1.3k professionals, and it’s adding on average 110 new courses every month
• Madrid and US-based Skydweller raised $40m from various investors, including Palantir. The company, which develops autonomous airplanes, has 100 employees in Spain. The company also announced a partnership with Telefonica to explore the development of connectivity solutions to accelerate the expansion of cellular coverage
• Barcelona-based data center cooling company Submer raised €30m, led by Planet First Partners
• Valencia-based climate technology company ClimaTrade raised €7m, led by Conexo
• Barcelona-based biotech company Vytrus Biotech raised €2.4m
• Barcelona-based foodtech company Cloudtown raised €2m
• Asturias-based energy startup Plexigrid raised €2m
• Spanish founders abroad:
• Barcelona-based Bold raised €2.3m in seed funding. Bold aims to accelerate high-performance battery tech development
• Creditas is a Brazilian fintech startup co-founded and led by Spanish CEO Sergio Furio. Last week it raised $260m at a $4.6b valuation. The company has a software development office in Valencia and also announced that it plans to launch in Spain in the near future. More info here
• Inventa is also based in Brazil and co-founded by two Spaniards. The company raised $20m in Series A funding from a16z and Monashees. The company offers a digital marketplace for SMEs to discover and purchase new inventory. More info on the company here
• Other rounds of funding:
• Libera Bio: biotech, €289k

M&A activity 🎊

• La Informacion did an analysis of potential mergers in the Spanish telco space, which for years has tended towards fewer competitors and more market share in the hands of a few large players. More info on the topic here
• Impress, developer of orthodontic technology that offers invisible aligners, entered the Ukrainian market with the acquisition of local competitor Orthos
• Izertis acquired consulting firm Duonet

Investor & accelerator news 🚀

• Kibo Ventures raised a combined $175m between their flagship Fund III and an opportunity fund. Kibo typically invests between €1m to €5m in 20 to 25 startups per fund. The fund, which has in the past backed unicorns such as Flywire, Jobandtalent or Devo, also published a interesting post with additional data on the current fund and details of past performance of its previous vehicles
• Seaya participated in the $45m Series A round of French startup Resilience
• Lanzadera and Merlin Properties to launch an initiative focused on the retail sector

Startup news 💡

• Techcrunch published a long interview with Francisco Polo, the high commissioner for Spain Entrepreneurial Nation, to talk about the Startup Law. It's worth a read in order to understand the different measures that the government wants to put in place when the law is passed before the end of this year
• Digital marketing startup Beabloo to go into administration. Beabloo was the first Spanish startup backed by Softbank
• More trouble for Cabify, as not only Auro but also car fleets plan to abandon the platform and to start working for other competitors such as Uber, Bolt and others. Apparently, the company believes that these car fleets are breaking their contracts and coud litigate
• On Cabify, I did not know that the company publishes quite a bit of info on salary ranges, career path and how their promotions system works. Quite cool to see this info being public
• Proptech startup Housfy expects to close 2021 with €15m in sales, up from €6.2m in the previous year. Housfy is an iBuyer in the real estate sector, which means that it buys and sells properties. I'm not sure if these sales numbers refer to total transaction volume or the actual revenues that the company generates by charging a fee per deal completed
• SaaS procurement startup Fullstep said that it reached €10m in revenues in 2021 and that it expects to launch in Colombia in the very near term
• La Gran Familia Mediterranea, a ghost kichen startup co-founded by Michelin star chef Dani Garcia, launched a new set of products co-branded by some of Spain's most popular youtubers, including Rubius, Vegetta777 and Willyrex. LGFM is a K Fund portfolio company
• Bnext plans to raise €10m in equity and an additional €20m through the selling of its own token. The neobank continues to be mostly focused on the Latam market as its main area of international expansion
• Cinco Dias profiled Brickken, a company that provides software for tokenization of real estate and assets. The company was recently selected by the Bank of Spain to participate in its fintech sandbox
• Foodtech startup Heura, developers of veggie protein food, closed 2021 with more than €17m in sales
• El Español profiled Bioga, Galicia's association of biotech companies. Biotech has become one of the main tech sectors in Galicia and one of the most relevant in Spain
• Revolut to launch consumer lending in Spain
• Startup profiles:
• Aflorithmic: audio-as-a-service
• Idoven: health

Big company news 🏦

• Square, the fintech and payments company co-founded by Jack Dorsey, is now live in Spain. The company provides payment solutions to SMEs, competing with traditional banks
• Google to open a sales office in Barcelona
• Spin, the e-scooter startup acquired by Ford, to cease operations in Spain and lay off its 20 employees in the country
• Banco Santander to launch its own buy-now-pay-later, Zinia
• SAP Spain has a new CEO, Felix Monedero

Interesting reads 🤓

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• El Español published an overview of the Spanish energy market and how 2022 could become an inflection point for the country's photovoltaics industry
• Business Insider talked to more than 60 investors and entrepreneurs about school subjects that they wish they had received to help them with their professional careers
• Eduardo Muñoz, principal PM at Voicemod, published "things you're usually not told about the product management role" and also "diagnosing the dropoff in a metric within our product"
• Mauricio Prieto, co-founder of eDreams, has an interesting newsletter on blockchain technology. In one of the latest editions, he published an overview of VC funding going into the category
• UpBizor has put together a bunch of resources on SaaS companies, from which metrics to track to fundraising help
• Alberto Arenaza, co-founder of edtech platform Transcend Network, published a post on the future of education

Podcasts 🎧

• K Fund did a special on the role of CTO with Javier Santana (Tinybird), Pau Ramon (Factorial) and Miguel Carranza (RevenueCat)
• Ancla interviewed Alejandro Artacho of Spotahome to talk about mental health
• Markting4ecommerce interviewed David Morales, head of marketplace at PC Componentes
• Novicap interviewed Laura Urquizu of RedPoints