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Startup funding news 💸

• Barcelona-based identity platform ID Finance raised €30m, led by Kingsway Capital. The round was done via a convertible note with a €235m cap
• Barcelona-based Qida, a health care platform for seniors, raised €18m, led by Kibo Ventures
• Madrid-based fintech Taxdown raised €5.8m from existing investors, including Base10, JME and others
• Pamplona-based biotech Ojer Pharma raised €2.3m from Inverady, Dozen and other investors
• Barcelona-based IoT startup Worldsensing raised funding from Bentley Systems. As a result of the transaction, Bentley has become the majority owner of the company
• Real estate company Tecnitasa acquired a 20% stake in RE rating startup Veltis
• Other rounds of funding: Wealth Reader, Padmi, KeyTrends,

M&A activity 🎊

• PE equity firm PSG acquired Barcelona-based open banking infrastructure company Unnax for around €40m
• Atresmedia acquired Waynabox, a startup that offered surprise trips for €150 all around Europe
• Carlos Arboleya published an analysis of Spanish exits and M&A transactions to date: what kind of startups sold, amounts, sectors and other data

Investor & accelerator news 🚀

• Atresmedia, one of the largest shareholders in Fever, sold $13m worth of shares in the company's last funding round in a secondary transaction. Atresmedia still holds a 9% stake in the company
• Deeptech fund Bullnet announced a first closing of its fourth fund of €40m. Bullnet's goal is to raise a total of €80m
• eSports team Giants to launch an innovation hub in Malaga and a €50m fund to invest in blockchain, web3 and gaming startups. More info here
• Barcelona-based venture builder Mutter Ventures floated on the Euronext Access Paris with a market cap of €23m

Startup news 💡

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• Profile of Heura, the alternative protein company out of Barcelona that's been in the press quite a bit in the past few months. The profile paints the picture of a company that's not close to being profitable, has gone through a lot of leadership changes and who imports the alternative chicken it sells from a Dutch provider. I've never met the company or its founders, so I don't really have an opinion on this one
• Alejandro Artacho, co-founder and CEO of Spotahome, said in an interview that the company expects to reach profitability soon. After a difficult few pandemic years (Artacho spoke quite openly about it here, on our Kfund podKast), the company expects to do €300m in gross sales this year, of which around 10% is net sales, and surpass for the first time 2019's revenue numbers. They've also done this with a much leaner team of 200, vs. 400 before covid-19
• Malaga Hub's newsletter published an overview of Malaga's AI ecosystem. A who's who of interesting companies and people to follow in the region
• Indexa Capital launched the so-called first pension plan for freelancers in Spain that can be bought fully online
• Glovo's RIF (ERE in Spain) will finally impact 140 employees in its headquarters in Barcelona, less than the number initially expected. Those impacted work mostly in commercial support, recruiting and data. Another labour inspection, this one in Andalucia, that concludes that Glovo should employ 3,000 of its riders in the region
• Cabify won a €1m contract with RTVE (the Spanish national TV service) and, according to this article, employees of RTVE are not happy with the service being provided
• llollo, an on-demand parking startup launched a few years ago, is in the process of liquidation
• Autonomous delivery company Goggo Network and British self-driving software startup Oxbotica are teaming up to test middle-mile deliveries for retailers and other customers including Carrefour and Dia
• Startup profiles:
• Nanobots Therapeutics: biotech
• Quantic Brains: gen AI

Big company news 🏦

• Since Scytl is no longer a contender, Indra will win all of the public tenders to manage vote counting in Spain's upcoming elections in the next year and a half, worth as much as €50m
• IBM and the Basque government to install a quantum computing in San Sebastian in 2025, following an investment of €90m

Interesting reads 🤓

• For those interested in how funding rounds work, and more specifically how convertible notes work from an accounting perspective, these two threads by Jesus Martinez and David Miranda are interesting
• According to a study from Finnovating, Spain ranks third in Europe (excluding UK) in terms of the potential and strength of its fintech ecosystem. The study says that in Spain there are more than 600 fintech startups

Podcasts 🎧

• SeedRocket interviewed Javi Santana, co-founder of Tinybird
• Product Hackers interviewed Jose del Barrio, co-founder of VC firm Samaipata
• Novicap interviewed Iñigo Aguirre, commercial director of Payhawk in Spain
• Historias de Crecimiento interviewed Toni Perez, co-founder of Bloobirds