8wires.io is a studio with +6 years of experience specialized in data engineering for you to build, optimize and scale your business project, without bottlenecks and with the right information. We help you in data architectures for reporting, automation and advanced analytics.

We have realized that, fundamentally, there are two types of companies: those that trust their data and those that do NOT.

If you are in the first group, the good stuff begins. Do we need to optimize cloud costs or load times? incorporate more data? technical debt? implement an algorithm?

If your company belongs to the second group, let's change that. It is likely that you need a small reform (or an integral one), and we can help you, both in technology and in business.

At 8wires.io we work every day, side by side, with people who live your same challenges. We would love to meet you, either to share or to build.

Startup funding news 💸

• Madrid-based local events discovery app Fever raised $70m at a $1.8b valuation. The company had raised $227m in January 2022. The company has apparently been completed by existing investors
• Madrid-based Twinco Capital raised $12m ($9m in equity and $3m in debt), led by Quona Capital. The company offers working capital and supply chain financing
• Barcelona-based fintech startup Kintai raised €2.5m, led by ICF
• Madrid-based Argilla, an open source platform for data-centric NLP, raised €1.5m co-led by Caixa Capital Risc and Zetta Venture Partners
• Barcelona-based reverse logistics company Dawa raised €1.2m, led by Breega and 4Founders Capital
• Madrid-based eyewear brand Miller&Marc raised €1m
• Other rounds of funding: niid, Citec, Domma, Emocional, Zeemcoin, DynamEat, Jointy,

M&A activity 🎊

• According to the Observatorio de Fundacion Bankinter, in 2022 there were 78 M&A transactions in Spain (up from 68 the year before), for a combined €1.2b. €800m of those are attributed to Glovo and Delivery Hero
• YADO, a Spanish startup to rent offices by the hour, got acquired by Dubai-based Hotdesk

Investor & accelerator news 🚀

• Wayra invested in 40 startups in 2022, for a combined €5.7m. 18 of those companies were based in Spain. Also on Wayra, here's a recent interview with Luisa Rubio Arribas, Head of Wayra X, on the ongoing corporate investment scenario in 2023
• Delfin Rueda has been appointed general partner and CFO of early and growth stage VC Mundi Ventures
• At K Fund we announced that Juanjo Mostazo, co-founder of Homa Games and several other companies, has joined us as venture partner and will be our main point of contact with Malaga's startup ecosystem, where he's now based
• Javier de Toro, investment manager at Angels Capital, published "How to reach out to investors: build your own network and generate allies"

Startup news 💡

• Sponsored
• 8wires.io is a studio with +6 years of experience specialized in data engineering for you to build, optimize and scale your business project, without bottlenecks and with the right information. Get in touch with them here.
• David Miranda, lawyer and partner at Osborne Clarke, published a very interesting Twitter thread on the changes implemented in the new Spanish Startup Law in relation to stock option plans. The summary could be "is not as good as it looks, although better in some ways to the previous system"
• Holaluz 's sales decreased by 26% YoY in the fourth quarter of 2022, to €168m. The company said that the lower sales are caused by the decrease in energy prices and the fact that the company shut down its gas business
• Glovo was fined close to €57m for breaking local labor laws by falsely classifying 7,800+ of its riders in Madrid as self-employed. Glovo will appeal the proposal. Glovo has received more than €200m in fines over the years. More info on the history of fines received by the company here, as well as the impact this might have on Delivery Hero
• Bicycle marketplace Santafixie recently surpassed €3m in annual sales, with more 80% coming from outside Spain. Txampa Alberca talks about the company's evolution here
• Gotta love Minimalism 's transparency. The fashion and lifestyle brand published a post with sales and other interesting business info. The summary is that the company did not grow sales in 2022 compared to the previous year, but it did improve in other metrics and remains a profitable company
• Indexa Capital published a breakdown of its more than 60,000 customers. Unsurprisingly, Madrid leads with more than 20% of all customers
• Chronoexpert, a luxury watch marketplace based in Bilbao, has gone into administration. Chronoexpert is a K Fund portfolio company
• El Español published a long profile of bound4blue and its co-founder Cristina Aleixendri. bound4blue is an engineering company with the mission to deliver automated wind-assisted propulsion systems
• The City of Madrid has renewed the operating licenses for scooter-sharing services in the city. The city council has chosen three operators for the next three years — Dott, Lime and Tier
• Alberto Bonhomme, co-founder of Instamaki, sold to Glovo, launched a new project in the foodtech space: Berto's Milanesa, a offline + online business
• Startup profiles:
• Deale: M&A marketplace
• Woodea: sustainable proptech

Big company news 🏦

• What Bizum has achieved in just a few years is truly remarkable. The company said that in 2022 its users did 762m transactions, the same as in the previous 5 years of the service combined, for a total of €40.7b. Also, more than 40,000 online businesses now accept Bizum, and users did 15m online purchases with Bizum for a combined €870m. More info here
• Twitter to fire 24 of its 29 employees in Spain
• Telefonica to increase employee salaries by up to 7.8%

Interesting reads 🤓

• Freepik hosted a series of talks about generative AI last week. All of the sessions are available here, featuring Javier Lopez, Andres Torrubia and Ivan de Prado
• Javier Escribano, co-founder of Ontruck and former CPO, wrote "Product should be involved in the creation of a startup's business plan"
• Iñaki Arriaga, co-founder of Acumbamail, wrote "Tips when building the first version of a SaaS company"
• Jorge Diez, data scientist at Coverwallet, wrote "What does a Data Scientist do and how to become one"
• Upbizor published an ebook on how to effectively put together and manage a board meeting

Podcasts 🎧

• K Fund interviewed Mariano Amartino, Americas Managing Director at Microsoft
• Historias de Crecimiento interviewed Federico Sainz de Robles, of Sepiia
• SeedRocket interviewed Guillem Ros, co-founder and CEO de HevyApp
• Novicap interviewed Pep Gomez, of Reby and Fever