Join us at AWS Experience Iberia on September 28th for the AWS Startup Academy Hackathon in Spanish: "Cómo implementar mi MVP en AWS."

Learn to develop a full-stack application in the cloud using AWS Amplify from scratch. The morning session includes a theoretical introduction to AWS Amplify, followed by hands-on experimentation with its key components. In the afternoon, collaborate in teams to design your next MVP's architecture. After the event, our AWS Startups specialists will provide support to launch the best projects.

Whether you're refining your pitch deck or taking your first steps in MVP development, AWS Startup Academy has you covered!

Event Details: Date: September 28th Location: AWS Experience Iberia, Torre Foster, Madrid

Book your spot here!

Startup funding news 💸

• Barcelona-based fintech company Payflow raised €20m in debt from BBVA. Payflow sells a service to offer salary advancement options to employees. The company claims to have between €2.5m and €3.5m in ARR
• Madrid-based HR startup Kenjo raised €8.8m, led by Hi Inov
• A Coruña-based Codee raised €5m, led by Swanlaab. Codee offers an automated code inspection solution for performance
• Barcelona and Ireland-based energy company Openvolt raised €1.5m in pre-seed funding, led by Cavalry Ventures. Openvolt unlocks access to smart meter data in Europe through a developer friendly API
• Valencia-based jewelry company Singularu raised €1.3m from Faraday Venture Partners
• Barcelona-based energy company Solfy raised €1m. More info here
• Other rounds of funding: Nanobots Therapeutics

M&A activity 🎊

• Visma acquired Spanish startup Quaderno, a SaaS tax management platform for global ecommerce. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Quaderno grew fully bootstrapped. Massive congrats to Carlos CEO and the rest of the team! This is the fourth acquisition of a Spanish startup by Visma in the past couple of years (Holded, Declarando, Woffu and now Quaderno)
• Immfly, a tech company that powers the enternteinment services of many airlines, announced the acquisition of Swiss company Gate Group, for around €40m
• Minsait (Indra) acquired telecommunications company Nae for €30m
• Swedish company Bluewater Group acquired Tappwater, a startup that provides affordable solutions for clean and sustainable water directly from the tap at home

Investor & accelerator news 🚀

• Santander and Inveready announced the launch of a €100m venture debt fund. Investments will range between €500k and €5m
• Caixa Capital Risc led a €27m round in Belgian biotech company AbolerIS Pharma
• Profile of my colleague Miguel Arias, now GP at Kfund and previously director of global entrepreneurship at Wayra

Startup news 💡

• Wallapop's 2022 financials .,millones%2C%20un%2039%20%25%20m%C3%A1s.) : sales of €71m (+39% YoY), loss of €50m. Wallapop Envios, its delivery service, accounted for the majority of sales (€50m), and ads for €13m
• Fintech and energy company Alter5 received €68m to develop three photovoltaic power stations
• According to La Informacion, Pau Ramón, CTO of Factorial, is leaving the company for personal reasons, after more than 7 years at the helm. Moltes gràcies per tot, Pau! Jordi Romero, also co-founder, published a tweet about it too. Factorial is a Kfund portfolio co.
• Manfred published the 2023 edition of its amazing Tech Career Report. The report analyzes what professionals expect and what companies need, what are the most-used technologies, the salaries offered, the most common ways of working, the wage gap and a lot more
• Tinybird announced the launch of Versions, a safer, more collaborative way to work with Tinybird Data Projects that allows developers to iterate real-time data pipelines with Git
• Profile of Javier Lopez, co-founder of Erasmusu (sold to Spotahome), active business angel and now deeply immersed in the world of generative AI. In the profile, Javi talks about his professional career, his interest in generative AI, his relationship with Emilio Nicolas (co-founder of Erasmusu) and a lot more
• Profile of Ucademy, a Madrid-based e-learning platform that does €2m in annual sales and that is now expanding to Latam
• Interview with Pedro Castillo, co-founder of Signalit, a real-time orchestration edge computing platform. Pedro was also co-founder of unicorn Devo
• Two new projects were announced last week:
• Sergio Gonzalez, co-founder of Signaturit and Cornerjob, launched Remuner, a variable compensation platform for sales teams
• Pikingli, an edtech platform to launch English, launched by the people behind the popular media content platform Maria Speaks English
• Startup profiles:
• Sharpei: Launch your rental business in minutes

Big company news 🏦

• Rakuten decreased by €165m the valuation of its streaming division, which was developed following the acquisition of Barcelona-based startup WuakiTV. Since the acquisition, Rakuten has invested more than €200m in the division
• Interview with Daniel Cuthbert, Global Head of Cybersecurity Research at Santander
• Google Spain is turning 20 and Expansion interviewed its country manager, Fuencisla Clemares
• Stellantis could open Spain's largest gigafactory for EVs in Zaragoza

Interesting reads 🤓

• Bartek Kunowski, CPO of Glovo, wrote "Glovo Secrets to Success"
• Adrian Mato, Staff Manager and Product Design at Github, wrote "Bigger isn't better: the companies scale dilemma"
• Felix Lopez, VP of Engineering at Tinybird, published "Writing a tech proposal"
• Xavi Amatriain, VP of Engineering - Product AI Strategy at Linkedin, published "Mitigating LLM Hallucinations: a multifaceted approach", a comprehensive overview of how to tackle hallucinations of LLMs. From measuring and detecting, to prompt engineering, to many other aspects that play a role
• Simon Muñoz, platform PM at Voicemod, published "Los riesgos ocultos del Fast Shipping"

Podcasts 🎧

• Itnig interviewed Stanley Fourteau of Ukio
• Historias de Crecimiento interviewed Fernando Martinez of Zoomagri
• Product Hackers interviewed Alfonso Sainz de Baranda, Chief Growth Officer at Bit2Me