Paack is a pioneering eCommerce parcel delivery solution, currently delivering several million orders per month from more than 150 international customers, including 17 of the 20 largest e-commerce retailers in Spain. Paack currently operates in Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, and the UK and offers coverage in more than 100 European cities.

The company develops its own technology to maximize the delivery experience. Thanks to its technological platform based in Google Cloud, its innovative processes, and its focus on operational experience, Paack offers a flexible scheduled delivery service that adapts to the client and contributes to reducing the company's carbon footprint.

Nicolás Francia (CTO) says: 'At Paack, we build the most advanced tech-delivery platform to ensure the best-in-class sustainable delivery experience. Google Cloud provides best quality hyperscale service that fits perfectly our customer requirements. Google Cloud and Google Maps give us the option to explore different ways to solve the most challenging problems of Last Mile Delivery with Artificial Intelligence".

Startup funding news 💸

• Madrid-based fintech company Myinvestor raised €15m from existing shareholders. In 2022 it reached 150k clients and €2.3b in transactions
• Barcelona-based Build38 raised €13m, backed by Tikehau Capital and Caixa Capital Risc
• San Sebastian-based cybersecurity company Opscura raised €8.7m, led by Anzu Partners. Opscura protects and connects the deep layers of industrial networks
• Barcelona-based Bloobirds raised €3m, led by us at K Fund. Bloobirds offers an all-in-one outbound management sales platform
• Madrid-based Geodesic raised €3m. The company provides technology for water disinfection and conservation
• Barcelona-based adtech company Mobile Media Content raised €2.5m
• Madrid-based B2B payments startup Snab raised €1.1m from Y Combinator, 4Founders Capital and other investors
• Other rounds of funding: Stemdo, Webel, Growth Road, Cultural Fit, TeamEQ

M&A activity 🎊

• Madrid-based wedding marketplace Zankyou was acquired by The Knot Worldwide group, a global authority in the wedding planning industry. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Zankyou was founded in 2008 and serves 50m visitors annually across more than 20 countries
• Iñaki Arriaga, co-founder of Acumbamail, published a post with lessons learned after being involved in three M&A processes. As we mentioned last week, the group that owned Acumbamail got recently acquired by more than €70m
• Telefonica won't finally acquire Zaragoza-based AR/VR startup Imascono

Investor & accelerator news 🚀

• Novobrief published a lengthy profile of BBVA Spark, a new initiative launched by the bank that consists of a comprehensive financial services proposal for innovative companies in their various stages of growth, including venture debt, loans and other products
• Expansion published a profile of investment firm Axon Partners Group
• Samuel Gil was named CEO of JME. El Español wrote a profile of him here, where he talks about his trajectory, including quotes from his colleagues and other people
• Suma Capital, a Spanish firm with more than €800m in AUM, to open an office in Paris and also expects to complete this year its Repsol-backed €150m climate tech fund
• Interview with Javier Jimenez, managing director of Lanzadera, to talk about the past and future of the startup accelerator. The firm started this year its international expansion by investing in Portuguese projects
• Interview with Joshua Novick, co-founder of M&A boutique firm Bondo Advisors, to chat about the current M&A environment

Startup news 💡

• Jobandtalent announced sales of €1.9b in 2022 (+90% YoY) and €19.5m of positive EBITDA. The company has helped match more than 340k workers and 2,500 companies. Impressive! More info here
• Cloud hosting company Gigas estimates sales of €61m and €16m of EBITDA in 2022
• Softonic did €26.6m in sales in 2022, up +34% YoY
• Cosmetics ecommerce and retail company Freshly Cosmetics did €45m in sales last year, with no growth compared to the previous year. The company plans to open 12 new retail stores in 2023
• Profile of Freepik, the Malaga-based bootstrapped company that did more than €60m in sales in 2021. Financials for 2022 haven't been released yet. The article focuses on the history of the company and its future, with special attention paid to its international expansion strategy and generative AI efforts
• Glovo posted a €304m EBITDA loss in 2022, Delivery Hero announced last week
• Spain's Supreme Court is looking into the last mile delivery business of companies such as Cabify that use VTC licenses and drivers, to deem if it's legal or not
• According to Spanish parental control software maker Qustodio, TikTok is crushing YouTube in annual study of kids’ and teens’ app usage. Full report here
• Xeoris is a new startup that offers an insurance cybersecurity product for SMBs. Quite on point given the increase in attacks affecting all types of companies and the need for cybersecurity protection

Big company news 🏦

• Mercadona did €325m in online sales last year, or 1.7% of Mercadona's overall sales. The company expects ecommerce to represent 5% of its total turnover
• Amazon to shut down its distribution centre in Martorelles, affecting around 800 employees. Unions consider the offer by Amazon to relocate and lay off those workers not sufficient
• Despite iPhones sales decreasing worldwide, sales of the Apple phone reached new records in Spain in Q4 2022
• Chema Alonso has been promoted to lead a new initiative that Telefonica plans to announce in coming months. Not a lot of details have been provided

Interesting reads 🤓

• Miguel Carranza, CTO and co-founder of RevenueCat, published a post with a summary of what year 5 as CTO of the company has been like. Worth a read!
• Tomas Moreno published an overview of the latest trends and news to come out of CES in Las Vegas

Podcasts 🎧

• Itnig interviewed Juana Roig, who leads Mercadona Tech
• K Fund and Victoriano Izquierdo (Graphext) interviewed London-based investor David Peterson, of Angular Ventures
• MarsBased published several interviews in the past few weeks: one with Bernat Farrero (Factorial, itnig) and myself (here ), another one with Xavier Capellades, CEO at Nomo (here ), and one more with Iñaki Arriaga, co-founder of Acumbamail (here )
• Novicap interviewed Cris Carrascosa, of crypto legal firm ATH21
• Historias de Crecimiento interviewed Daniel Peris, of The Open Projects