This is a side project of mine. I spend the vast majority of my time investing in early stage startups as part of K Fund. We make investments of €100K to €10M. If you want to chat, drop me an email at jaime@kfund.vc

Aurora, la aceleradora de Soltec que lucha contra el cambio climático

Aurora, la aceleradora de Soltec que busca impulsar proyectos innovadores que luchen contra el cambio climático a través de las energías renovables, promete revolucionar el panorama emprendedor. La aceleradora busca startups con soluciones tecnológicas validadas o en fase pre-comercial, spin-offs universitarias que busquen un socio industrial, e incluso scale-ups con nuevas soluciones que deseen validar en un entorno real.

Aurora busca proyectos en campos como el hidrógeno verde, el almacenamiento energético, las redes inteligentes o nuevos materiales estructurales de plantas de energía y su reciclaje. Ofrece asesoramiento técnico, entornos para pruebas, acceso al mercado nacional e internacional y financiación a todos aquellos proyectos con potencial para impulsar la transición energética, especialmente en el ámbito de la energía solar.

Soltec pretende ayudar a estas nuevas empresas a través de la financiación de proyectos que mejoren el campo de las energías limpias y el sector fotovoltaico en particular.

Las startups tendrán acceso a infraestructura para la realización de pruebas piloto, asesoramiento en materia de industrialización de procesos, validación comercial de soluciones innovadoras y acompañamiento en la entrada a nuevos mercados y recursos financieros. El objetivo de Aurora es conseguir una relación simbiótica entre las startups y Soltec. Consulta más información aquí.

Startup funding news 💸

• Barcelona-based fintech Novicap raised €200M for its credit platform as it hits a major €1B transaction volume milestone. The capital was provided by Fasanara Capital
• Sevilla-based restaurant management software company Covermanager raised €17M from GP Bullhound. More info here
• Barcelona-based proptech Housfy raised €15M for its iBuyer activity. The financing was provided by Incus Capital
• Barcelona-based telco company Parlem raised €11M from Inveready
• Madrid-based AI company Dive raised €3M, led by ISPD
• Barcelona-based Pulmobiotics, a platform technology to treat a broad range of lung diseases, raised €1.9M
• Barcelona-based proptech Woodea raised €1.4M in pre-seed funding from various business angels
• Donostia-based biotech startup ViveBiotech raised €1.1M from Inveready, Easo Ventures and CDTI Innvierte
• Donostia-based last mile logistics startup Normo raised €1M, led by Easo
• Madrid-based mobility company Eccocar raised funding from Amadeus and Ninepointfive
• Other rounds of funding: Plant on Demand, Intelia, Aliqindoi, Birdiefy,

M&A activity 🎊

• EQT, Apax and Oakley Capital, owners of idealista, to distribute a €100M dividend
• Car leasing marketplace Renting Finders announced the acquisition of car subscription company Swipcar, which was acquired by British company Cazoo in 2021. Cazoo has since decided to exit the Spanish market
• Tikehau Capital acquired Isotrol, an engineering firm for supervision and control systems
• The Spanish government to expand two more years the 'anti M&A' clause it launched during the covid crisis to protect companies in critical sectors from being acquired by foreigners. As we've said in the past, this has had ramifications in the startup world, as some M&A deals and even large funding rounds have had to receive a sort of green light from the public sector
• Masmovil to restructure its holding in order to be able to sell its Portuguese business

Investor & accelerator news 🚀

• Sponsored
• Aurora, Soltec's accelerator for projects that aim to fight against climate change, is looking for startups to join its most recent program. More info here
• Bewater Funds launched its second fund, with a target size of €40M. The fund will continue to focus on companies that are cash flow positive (or close to becoming so), that have a tech component, that based in Spain and Portugal and that are open to do secondaries, which is Bewater's preferred way to invest
• GoHub Ventures has invested €18M between 2019 and 2022 in deeptech companies
• Seaya's Latam arm, Seaya Cathay Latam, co-led a $6M seed round in Mexico-based SaaS company Kuona
• Marta-Gaia, co-founder of Nina Capital, published an analysis on the state of gender diversity in the limited partner ecosystem (for those that don't know, limited partners or LPs are investors in a fund)
• Lean Finance interviewed Jordi-Ferran Penina, (venture debt at Inveready) and Isaac Gomez

Startup news 💡

• As it turns seven, Indexa Capital published a post with some of its largest milestones to date. The company manages around €1.4B and has 58k customers. It expects to close 2022 with €3.7M in sales (+37% YoY) and net profit of €750k
• Wallapop's sales numbers have grown by 65% YoY. Despite this, its loss has remained flat YoY, at €33M
• Voicemod presented one of the world's first generative AI text-to-song tool. This new addition to the Voicemod ecosystem allows users to create their own songs leveraging Voicemod’s unique AI Singer Voices and share them on social media and communications platforms
• Australian proptech Prophero, which has developed an online property investment platform powered by AI, has been active in Spain for about 8 months. In that time, the company claims to have processed 100 transactions for a total value of €10M and an average yield of 7.3%
• Manfred launched a section to Compare Recruitment Processes, a tool where you can compare recruitment processes from top companies, in order to analyse selection phases, time frames, and requirements to make informed decisions about job applications
• Pet health company Barkibu to manage the insurance policies of German competitor TIERdirekt. TIERdirekt will cease to provide services to these pet health insurance policies, and Barkibu will be the company that manages their claims and collects the installments of the insurance policies. The Galician pet health company recently launched in Germany
• Italian car insurance company Prima to launch in Spain, where it plans to invest as much as €50M. The company has raised more than €100M to date
• In Spain, more than 5M people live alone. Emprendedores published an overview of the sector and how this trend has allowed certain type of products and services to grow, including those of startups such as Wetaca (foodtech), co-livings, health solutions, etc
• Luda, a provider of online pharmacy services, signed an agreement with Uber Eats to allow for better and faster delivery of medicine in Spain
• An EU judge said that existing limits in Spain on the number of VTC licenses vs. traditional taxis (1:30) are wrong. This could affect regulation from the EU on the matter and there could be a scenario in which those restrictions would have to be lifted. VTC licenses are the way Cabify, Uber, Bolt and others operate
• Revenue-based financing provider Capchase says that it has increased revenues by 250% in 2022
• Startup profiles:
• Clikalia: proptech
• Bemycar: sales and marketing solution for the car industry

Big company news 🏦

• Banco Santander led a $10M round in Chilean fintech startup Destacame
• Inditex announced its Q3 financial results (August to October). Record in overall sales and profit. In terms of online sales it didn't provide a lot of details, besides stating that it grew by 12% YoY and that the goal is for ecommerce to represent 30% of all sales in 2024
• Europe's Central Bank fined Abanca with €3.1M for not disclosing fast enough a cyberattack

Interesting reads 🤓

• Jean-Christophe Taunay-Bucalo, Chief Revenue Officer at Travelperk, wrote about what he believes are the "10 key principles for a great commission plan"
• Kari Ostevik, lead PM at Boopos, wrote "Org design for product leaders"
• Samuel Gil, partner at JME, published "Juegos de rol, desarrollo personal y estrategia competitiva"
• Iñaki Arriaga, co-founder of Acumbamail, published a guide to create a good pricing page

Podcasts 🎧

• K Fund interviewed Gonzalo Parejo, former co-founder of Ontruck and now CEO at Brazilian fintech Kamino
• Novicap interviewed Juan Carlos Tous, CEO of video on demand platform Filmin
• Hablando con Lideres interviewed Emilio Frojan, co-founder of transportation company Velca
• Itnig interviewed the founders of Nude Project
• Product Hackers interviewed Goiko Llobet, co-founder of travel and edtech company GrowPro