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Startup funding news 💸

• Rounds of more than €10M
• Madrid and NYC-based revenue-based financing company Capchase announced $400M in debt financing from i80 Group. The company also announced the launch of Capchase Analytics, a dashboard that lets companies monitor important business metrics like MRR, Churn, and Burn all in one place. More info here and here. From August 2020, when it began lending, to the end of 2021, Capchase lent more than $2B to software startups. Capchase also announced its integration with Stripe, thus making Capchase’s services available on the Stripe App Marketplace
• Brazil-based and Spanish-founded lending startup Creditas raised $200M. The company also announced the acquisition of the Brazilian banking license of Andorra's Andbank and will begin accepting deposits. Creditas was founded by Spaniard Sergio Furio and has an office in Valencia with around 40 to 50 employees
• Barcelona-based Impress scored over €123M for its tech-driven orthodontic solution
• Ukrainian startup Preply raised $50M for tutoring marketplace. The company is not Spanish, but it does have offices in Barcelona and more than 400 employees in the country, including part of its c-level (co-founder, CPO, etc)
• Barcelona-based oncology company Pangaea raised €12M
• Rounds between €1M and €5M
• Barcelona-based Zinklar raised €5.5M for its martech platform empowering brands with better insights. The funding was raised by Caixa Capital Risc
• Barcelona-based marketplace for elderly care Cuideo raised €5M
• Barcelona-based water treatment monitoring startup Createch360º raised €3.6M from Inveready, Agbar and CDTI
• Madrid-based edtech Twenix raised €3.5M, led by Brighteye
• Barcelona-based SaaS company Stockagile raised €2.5M, led by Nauta Capital. More info here
• Madrid-based expense management company Fuell raised €1.5M from Y Combinator and Fin Capital. Fuell is a K Fund portfolio company
• Rounds of less than €1M
• Logistiko, Vivanta,
• Startups looking for funding: Brava Fabrics

M&A activity 🎊

• French PE firm Ardian could soon make an offer to acquire a majority stake in cloud computing company Gigas. The offer could be 50% higher than the current price per share of Gigas on the BME (€9.50)
• Ecommerce furniture company Hannun recently went public on the BME Growth. The company had previously raised funding via equity crowdfunding platform Crowdcube, and it now seems like those investors are trapped and can't sell their shares in the company due to legal reasons
• Banc Sabadell to provide consulting firm Izertis with €8M in debt in order to complete M&A transactions
• Sngular acquired Portuguese company Atlera, which specializes in the Atlassian ecosystem (Jira, Trello, etc)

Investor & accelerator news 🚀

• FOND-ICO to invest €100M in Cathay Innovation Fund III. This is the third investment out of FOND-ICO's Next Tech initiative, which focuses on growth and late stage funds. Previous investments were K Fund's Leadwind and Seaya's Andromeda. Cathay Innovation has been active in the Spanish ecosystem for quite a while, with direct investments in Glovo and Wallbox, as well as a close relationship with Seaya
• Samaipata has put together a network of operating partners and other services for its portfolio companies, called The Hive. The idea behind the platform is to help companies with experts on specific areas
• Mundi Ventures participated in the €540M round of German insurtech startup Wefox. Mundi was already an investor in the company
• Lanzadera and Atresmedia signed an agreement to promote the launch and investment of startups in the field of audiovisual and entertainment

Startup news 💡

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• Fundacion Bankinter published its Q2 report on the Spanish startup fundraising markets. According to the firm, funding to Spanish startups dropped by 30% in Q2 2022, compared to the same year-ago period. I think it's too early to draw strong conclusions from these metrics, but it's inevitable that the market cools down a bit, as it's happening in most markets across the world. More on the report here
• Update on the progress of the Spanish Startup Law, which if all goes according to plan should be implemented before the end of the year
• Travel company Atrapalo posted €140M in sales last year. In 2020, the company saw a significant decrease in revenues (down to €80M) as a consequence of the pandemic
• With its product to help websites improve monetisation, Marfeel at some point reached €25M in sales and positive EBITDA. However, the pandemic had a negative impact on the company business and it had to pivot. Here's an interesting article on Marfeel's progress, which includes a new focus on SaaS products and the goal of returning to growth with one third of its employees
• Spanish crypto exchange Bit2Me plans to add 250 employees during the next 12 months, doubling its headcount. The company also plans to make three acquisitions in the short term, including purchasing a 90% stake in a Latam exchange and buying a fintech company and a software developer, both based in Spain. Bit2Me also reached an agreement with now closed crypto platform 2gether to save the deposits of the now defunct startup (see last week's Dealflow newsletter for more details)
• Tencent Cloud collaborates with Valencia-based company Voicemod to launch real-time voice-changing chat solution, enabling an immersive virtual gaming experience
• Glovo leadership did not take antitrust seriously, according to leaked CEO messages and former employees. Former employees of the company speak out about a culture of dismissing concerns around antitrust laws
• Salary advancement company Payflow to double down on its Latam expansion strategy and to launch other complementary products, such as Learnflow (educational content), Saveflow (automatic saving) and others
• Typeform launched 'Zoom to Summary converter', a preview of Typeform's new conversational product Relayed.ai.
• Shopify named Gonzalo Torres Porta as its new country manager in Spain
• EU-Startups published a list of 10 super fast-growing Barcelona-based startups to watch in 2022
• Startup profiles and interviews:
• Odilo and its CEO, Rodrigo Rodriguez

Big company news 🏦

• Inditex invested in US company Circ, the first startup investment the fashion giant has ever made. Circ is a company that helps industries meet consumer expectations for sustainability without compromises in quality, price, or convenience. Marta Ortega, president of Inditex, said in a statement that they plan to make more investments, especially in the area of sustainability. Inditex participated in the company's $30M Series B round. More info on Circ here
• More and more people are using Bizum to pay for stuff at stores and retailers. In the first six months of 2022, there were 6.1M commerce transactions, more than 4X the amount than in the previous period
• Amazon said that it won't open four of the distribution centres it planned to open in Spain, as a result of the company adjusting to the current market and the supply-demand imbalance
• BBVA unveiled Spark, a new division that will cater to startups with various products and services, including venture debt. Spark is currently available in Spanish and Mexico

Interesting reads 🤓

• Ignacio Arriaga, co-founder of Acumbamail, published "Do you really need a sales team to sell software?"
• Voicemod published a post to explain how they developed the next version of Voicemod’s desktop application (V3). They explained why they switched architectures, and what this means for third-party developers

Podcasts 🎧

• Itnig interviewed Salvador Esteve, co-founder of BigBuy
• Product Hackers interviewed David Morales, head of marketplace at PC Componentes